ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) — A trial is underway in eastern Missouri for a couple accused of keeping their autistic son in a makeshift cage.

Jury selection began Tuesday in St. Charles County felony child-endangerment trial of 45-year-old Terry Smith and his 44-year-old wife, Victoria Smith.

Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges filed two years ago.

A prosecutor has said an anonymous call tipped authorities in December 2010, when the boy was 6.

When police, paramedics and a case worker responded, the boy’s grandmother was watching him and five siblings. Authorities say she led them to the basement, where the autistic child was in a 3-foot-by-6-foot crib covered with a plywood top and held together with bungee cords and zip ties.

Investigators said he was naked and sitting in feces and urine.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri senators have given initial approval to a less expensive proposal to fix issues with the state’s flawed student transfer law.

The Senate in a voice vote adopted a new plan Monday. Legislative researchers now will estimate the proposal’s price tag before it’s up for a second Senate vote.

Current Missouri law requires failing school districts to pay tuition for students to attend better-performing schools nearby. That’s created financial hardship for some districts.

If this year’s measure passes, students first would transfer to better-performing buildings in their districts. The goal is to keep tuition within students’ home districts.

An earlier Senate proposal stalled because of a nearly $200 million price tag.

The measure adopted Monday would cost roughly $25 million, although amendments added that day could rack up the expenses.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Supporters say a measure to allow more access to an easy-to-use treatment for heroin and other opioid drug overdoses would save lives.

The Missouri House gave initial approval Monday to a bill that would allow pharmacists and pharmacy assistants to prescribe a drug that’s been effective in treating potentially fatal overdoses to anyone.

State law already allows emergency personnel and first responders to carry and administer the nasal spray, marketed as Narcan.

Republican Rep. Steve Lynch, of Waynesville, says parents and friends of addicts want broader access to the lifesaving drug.

He says in states where broader access has been approved and police carry the antidote, deaths from overdoses have dropped dramatically.

The measure faces another vote in the House before moving to the Senate.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Chappa the beaver has returned home to the Kansas Wildlife Exhibit in Wichita after he had been missing for nearly a week.

Director Jim Mason of the Great Plains Nature Center tells the Kansas City Star that Chappa had been found digging along his pen at Central Riverside Park, trying to get back inside on Sunday morning.

Mason says the beaver, described as shy and sensitive, may have become startled and wanted to return home after a loud thunderstorm.

Chappa was taken in by the exhibit after being found injured and orphaned three years ago in one of the muddy pools of Chisholm Creek Park.

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas State University laboratory says it is seeing an increase in rabies cases so far this year.

The university’s Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory says it had verified 28 positive cases of rabies from January through March, compared with only 10 cases during the same period last year.

Rolan Davis, a diagnostician at the lab, says all but five of the 28 cases were found in skunks. Three others were found in cats, one in a bovine and one in a fox.

Davis says pet owners should be aware of the increase but it is not a cause for alarm because rabies is always around. Lab officials say the best protection is to vaccinate animals against rabies.

LENEXA, Kan. (AP) — A former Hostess Brands bakery in Lenexa will reopen this summer, providing about 100 jobs.

Flower Foods, which acquired part of the former plant in 2013, announced it will begin producing its Nature’s Own, Wonder and Home Pride breads at the plant. The company says it spent more than $10 million to upgrade the plant.

The Kansas City Star reports bread baked in Lenexa is expected to be sold in Kansas, Missouri and eastern Oklahoma.

The plant closed when the former Hostess Brands suspended all operations during a negotiation impasse with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.

Flowers Foods, based in Georgia, bought the former Hostess bread brands and has gradually reopened plants. It currently has 46 bakeries.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A 21-year-old transgender man is suing a loan company over sex discrimination after he says he was forced to leave his job once company officials found out he was born a woman but dressed and acted like man.

Tristan Broussard filed suit on Monday against First Tower Loan LLC., a financial loan company based in Flowood, Mississippi, with offices in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri and Illinois.

Broussard charges he was forced to leave his job at its Lake Charles offices in March 2013 after a company executive found out he was listed on his driver’s license as being female. He charges that the executive demanded he dress and act like a woman, something he refused to do.

Tower Loan’s lawyer declined to comment.

Broussard is seeking damages against the company.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Advocates for a black death row inmate in Missouri say he was unfairly sentenced when African-Americans were excluded from the jury at his St. Louis County trial.

Andre Cole is scheduled to die Tuesday for killing a man in 1998 in a fit of anger over child support payments.

On Monday, members of a coalition that includes Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union called on Gov. Jay Nixon to halt the execution. They also want him to appoint a board to examine concerns that there is racial bias in Missouri’s jury selection process.

A Nixon spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

An all-white jury convicted Cole after prosecutors removed three black potential jurors from the pool of candidates.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Increasing costs for drugs in Missouri’s Medicaid program are likely to continue to increase, driven by pricey specialty drugs and the rising cost of generic medications.

From fiscal year 2010 to 2014, drug costs for Missouri’s Medicaid program rose 33 percent to $1.16 billion while the number of claims fell slightly by less than one-tenth of one percent, according to data provided to The Associated Press.

The Missouri House gave initial approval Thursday to a supplemental budget for this year with costs partly driven by the high cost of providing a new Hepatitis C medication.

But the state’s top Medicaid official Joe Parks says the unpredictability of future specialty drugs and other costs will continue to make budgeting for pharmacy costs difficult.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the April 15 tax deadline nears, people who got help paying for health insurance under President Barack Obama’s law are seeing the direct effect on their refunds — hundreds of dollars, for better or worse.

The law offers tax credits so people without job-based health insurance can buy private coverage. These subsidies are tied to income, so consumers have to estimate accurately what they’ll make for the coming year.

And that’s been a challenge for lots of people.

Earlier in the filing season, the tax preparation company H&R Block reported that 52 percent of its customers who got health insurance subsidies owed money back. Repayments averaged $530.

On the other hand, about one-third of customers with subsidies overestimated their incomes. Their refunds went up by $365 on average.