A federal appeals court has upheld a Missouri law banning protests within 300 feet of funerals but has struck down a broader law that could have kept protesters even farther away.

The Friday decision by a panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stems from a challenge to a pair of 2006 Missouri laws enacted after protests of military members’ funerals by a Kansas-based church that denounces homosexuality.

The appeals court said a Missouri law barring protests “in front of or about any location at which a funeral is held” violates First Amendment free speech rights because it creates a buffer zone of an undetermined size.

It upheld a separate law setting the 300-foot buffer around funerals but said it cannot apply to funeral processions.

A Missouri Senate Committee has unanimously passed a measure that prevents elections authorities from storing electronic data on votes cast.

Senator Jay Wasson of Nixa, chairman of the Senate Elections Committee, says he supports the law saying only a paper record can be kept for back-up and verification purposes.

The bill is sponsored by Senator Brian Nieves of Washington, Missouri.

It would also require that all electronic voting machines in Missouri be phased out once they fail mechanically. They would then be replaced by paper ballot marking devices.

The bill now goes to the full Senate for debate.

A burglary suspect is in custody in eastern Missouri after police got the help of a big clue: The suspect reportedly left her purse at the crime scene.

Officials say 22-year-old Fallon Gogan and a second suspect, 24-year-old Ricky Ward, are facing felony burglary charges. Both are jailed on $25,000 bond.

The burglary happened Monday afternoon at a home near Union in Franklin County. The sheriff’s office says officers determined that copper wire, copper tubing and electrical wiring were stolen. They say they found Gogan’s purse at the home, leading them to a house in nearby St. Clair, where police say the suspects were hiding in the backyard.

The Missouri House has passed legislation attempting to make criminals out of U.S. authorities who enforce federal firearm laws in Missouri.

Democrats noted Wednesday that the legislation likely violates the U.S. Constitution, which gives supremacy to federal laws over state laws.

But Republicans pressed forward anyway while asserting that President Obama’s gun proposals infringe on the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

The bill makes it a felony punishable by up to four years in prison for federal agents to try to enforce any federal laws or regulations relating to firearms and ammunition owned by Missouri residents.

The House already has passed numerous pro-gun measures this year. The latest legislation was approved 117-43 and now goes to the Senate.

A Missouri Senate committee has endorsed a House bill allowing designated school personnel to carry concealed weapons in school buildings.

The legislation advanced by the committee Wednesday also allows firearms less than 16 inches long to be openly carried by concealed weapons permit holders throughout the state.

The bill has other provisions, including a declaration that federal gun laws are unenforceable in Missouri.

The measure also says anyone who publishes information about gun owners could be charged with a misdemeanor.

But the committee removed a House-passed provision to increase the prison sentences of convicted felons who use a firearm in another crime.

A suburban St. Louis family says a coyote is responsible for the death of their two small dogs.

Debbie Rudawsky of Frontenac says her sons let the dogs out about 10:15 p.m. one night over the weekend. The dogs didn’t come back, so the family drove the neighborhood and saw them fatally wounded in a yard.

An autopsy by a veterinarian determined they had been attacked by a coyote, a determination that was based on the injuries around the neck, typical of a coyote attack.

Frontenac city officials are sending a notice to residents to watch for coyotes.

A St. Louis-area woman says she doesn’t regret attacking a man with a bat because she believed he was selling her son heroin.

Sherrie Gavan was convicted Tuesday of a misdemeanor third-degree assault for striking the 22-year-old man with a bat in December 2011. She faces a fine of $1,000 and a year in jail when she is sentenced June 4.

Joshua Loyd admitted during the trial that he supplied Gavan’s son with heroin.

He also testified that he couldn’t remember if he was on heroin the day Gavan confronted him and he was not hurt in the attack.

Gavan says her son has been off drugs for more than a year and Loyd hasn’t contacted him since their confrontation.

A stretch of the Mississippi River near St. Louis is reopened to shipping after the Coast Guard concluded 11 barges that sank last weekend in the rain-swollen waterway weren’t a hazard to navigation.

The 15-mile stretch was reopened Monday, while investigators continue trying to determine what caused 114 barges to break free Saturday night from where they were docked in St. Louis County.

 

Four of the barges hit the Jefferson Barracks Bridge spanning the river between Missouri and Illinois. Officials determined that the bridge was undamaged.

All of the barges that didn’t sink were corralled.

Coast Guard Lt. Colin Fogarty says the breakaway could have been caused by various factors related to the elevated current of the rain-swollen river.

Fogarty says efforts to salvage the sunken barges will begin soon.

A Kansas woman whose conviction for involuntary manslaughter was overturned pleaded no contest to a lesser charge and was sentenced to time served.

Thirty-one-year-old Monica F. Rivera of Leavenworth spent 28 months in prison while appealing her conviction for involuntary manslaughter and endangering a child in the 2009 death of her 4-year-old son.

The boy died of blunt force trauma while he was being cared for by Rivera’s boyfriend, Jason L. Jones.

Rivera pleaded no contest Friday to aggravated endangering a child and was sentenced to time served.

The Kansas Court of Appeals ordered a new trial after finding errors in jury instructions during Rivera’s 2010 trial.

Jones is serving more than 38 years in prison for second-degree murder in the boy’s death.

Wichita police say rain and speed contributed to an accident that left four emergency responders and a driver with minor injuries.

Police say two firefighters and two paramedics were helping a driver up a hill after a car had gone into a ditch in front of Newman University late Monday.

 

Police Lt. Mike Hennessey says the driver of a second car lost control at the same spot. The car spun around, hit a concrete wall and then hit the emergency crews and the first driver, knocking them all back down the hill.

All five were taken to the hospital, but the injuries were mostly cuts and bruises.

Hennessey says rain, poor visibility and speed were factors in the accidents.