The Missouri Senate has given first-round approval to a measure that would require public employee unions to seek annual consent to automatically deduct dues from members’ paychecks.

The Senate voted in the early hours of Tuesday morning after seven hours of debate.

Sponsoring Republican Sen. Dan Brown, of Rolla, says his bill protects workers and allows them to choose how their fees are spent.

It originally would have prohibited paycheck deductions for all public employees, but a compromise was struck to allow annual consent for paycheck deductions.

It also requires public employee unions to seek annual consent from members to use their dues on political contributions.

Unions representing first responders would be exempt from the measure. The measure needs one more vote before moving to the House.

The Missouri House has advanced legislation allowing health care workers to refuse to participate in procedures that violate their religious, moral or ethical principles.

The measure would bar discrimination against doctors, nurses, researchers and other medical personnel for opting out of certain procedures or research. It would apply to abortion, sterilization that is not medically necessary, embryonic stem-cell research, assisted reproduction and contraception.

Workers seeking to invoke the so-called conscience protection would have to provide reasonable notice.

Institutions such as hospitals, clinics and medical or nursing schools also could refuse to perform procedures that violate the institution’s conscience.

The House gave the measure first-round approval Monday on a 118-42 vote. It needs another vote before moving to the Senate.

House members approved similar legislation last year.

A southwest Missouri man is going to prison for slightly more than eight years for robbing a half-dozen banks in three states, including Iowa and Oregon.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says 49-year-old Kenneth Dewain Parker, of Rockaway Beach, must also pay about $22,000 in restitution under the sentence he received Monday.

Parker pleaded guilty to the holdups last year. The out-of-state cases had been transferred to Missouri.

Parker’s robberies began July 30, 2010, in Eugene, Ore., and ended about six weeks later with a holdup at a bank in Sedalia, Mo.

In between, he robbed banks in Salem and Portland, Ore.; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Columbia, Mo.

The amount stolen in Iowa was not disclosed. Prosecutors said the other holdups netted amounts ranging from about $2,200 to $9,100.

A southeast Missouri teenager is facing multiple counts of statutory rape and child molestation for allegedly having sex with six eighth-grade girls in two counties.

Court filings suggest 18-year-old Austin Luye of Perryville typically approached girls on Facebook, then met them in public and lured them to a secluded place for sex.

Luye is charged in Perry and St. Francois counties. Police say the crimes happened over a four-month period ending in January. Authorities say most of the victims were age 13.

Luye is jailed at the St. Francois County Jail in Farmington on $110,000 cash-only bond. His attorney, Jason Tilley, declined comment.

A U.S. Senate committee led by Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill is looking into grants made by the federal Department of Energy.

McCaskill says she has concerns about the agency’s ability to oversee grants after recent reports that a grant intended for the manufacture of electric car batteries was used by a Michigan company to pay idle workers.

McCaskill heads a Senate subcommittee on financial oversight and contracting.

She has asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu for information on the department’s attempts to improve its oversight of grant funding. McCaskill also has asked the comptroller general to examine the department’s rules on grants and cooperative agreements.

Wichita police say a 4-year-old boy was critically injured when he was accidentally shot in the head with an air rifle at his home.

Police Sgt. Bart Brunscheen says the boy was hospitalized Sunday evening after being shot with a .177-caliber air rifle.

He said the pellet penetrated the boy’s skull.

Brunscheen said a male in the home apparently was cleaning the rifle when it fired.

Travelers will be able to fly Southwest Airlines out of Branson beginning this Saturday.

Southwest plans to offer one daily flight each to Chicago, Dallas and Houston, with a flight every Saturday to Orlando. Airport officials say Southwest will add a second daily flight to Chicago beginning June 1.

The flights begin a year after Southwest bought AirTran Airways, which had been serving the airport.

A Florida man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for a sweepstakes scam that cost an eastern Missouri couple more than $250,000.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster announced Thursday that Patrick Percival Wilson pleaded guilty to two felony counts of exploitation of the elderly, one count of stealing by deceit and one count of unlawful merchandising practices. The attorney general’s office was appointed special prosecutor in the case.

Koster says an elderly couple from Perryville was scammed into believing they won a sweepstakes of $85 million. Wilson and his colleagues convinced the couple to send money to pay taxes and fees for their winnings.

Wilson told authorities that he received at least $67,000 of the money. The rest was sent to Jamaica.

The Missouri House has passed a term limits bill that would let lawmakers serve longer in the House or Senate but not spend more total time in the Legislature

Currently, lawmakers generally are limited to eight years in the House and eight years in the Senate. A proposed constitutional amendment would let officials serve 16 years in the Legislature.

The time could be spent entirely in one chamber or split between the two.

House members passed the measure 121-31 on Thursday, sending it to the Senate. The proposal would appear on the ballot if it passes the Legislature.

Backers of the proposal say the change would allow the Legislature to operate better. The advocacy group U.S. Term Limits says the proposal is an effort to “cling to office.”

A Jackson County jury decided that the Kansas City Chiefs did not discriminate against an older maintenance manager when he was fired in 2010.

The jury reached the verdict Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by 61-year-old Steve Cox, who claimed he was fired so the team could hire a younger replacement.

The Chiefs contended during the trial that Cox was fired for giving an employee a raise in defiance of his supervisor’s wishes.

Two additional age-discrimination lawsuits against the Chiefs are awaiting trials. The former employees also claim they were wrongly fired.