SPRINGFIELD (AP) – A western Missouri couple has been ordered to repay nearly $97,000 they stole in Social Security benefits.

Fifty-three-year-old Reta Jo Carpenter of Nevada, Missouri, was sentenced Monday to one year and three months in federal prison. Fifty-two-year-old Oren Carpenter was ordered to spend five years on probation.

Authorities said the Carpenters pleaded guilty to falsely telling the Social Security Administration that her husband no longer was living with her. Oren Carpenter’s annual income consequently no longer was considered in determining Reta Carpenter’s eligibility for supplemental security income she received.

SALINA – Law enforcement authorities are investigating a possible on-line scam.

Saline County Sheriff Glen Kochanowski said a 16-year-old northwest Saline County girl attempted to purchase a car through the online web site Craigslist.

Last week, she exchanged e-mail with the seller of a 2003 Honda Accord.

The owner of the car reportedly had died in an accident and the car was in a shipping container.

The girl sent a Money Gram to Springfield, Missouri to purchase the car.

She contacted the Sheriff’s Office Sunday to report she was scammed.  A phone number the girl was given was out of California.The total loss is $1,530.

She had worked and saved money for over two years to buy a car according to the sheriff.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri appeals court judge will be taking over the municipal court system in Ferguson following a highly critical report by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Missouri Supreme Court said Monday that it’s assigning appeals Judge Roy Richter to hear all of Ferguson’s pending and future municipal court cases.

The Supreme Court says Richter also will have the authority to make “needed reforms” to court policies to ensure defendants’ rights are respected and to “restore the integrity of the system.”

Richter will take charge of the court on March 16.

The change comes after the Justice Department released a report last week prompted by the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown. The report cited cases of racial profiling by police and criticized a profit-driven city court system.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says it will keep a bold-letter warning on Pfizer’s anti-smoking drug Chantix about suicidal behavior and other psychiatric problems.

Pfizer Inc. asked the agency last year to drop the so-called black box warning, pointing to its own analyses that found no difference in psychiatric problems between people taking Chantix and other stop-smoking treatments.

But the FDA said in an online posting Monday that Pfizer’s data did not examine all types of psychiatric problems and had limitations preventing regulators “from drawing reliable conclusions.”

The agency’s decision follows the recommendation of a panel of outside experts, who voted last October to keep the warning on the drug. New York-based Pfizer is expected to complete a larger study of Chantix’s psychiatric side effects in late 2015.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Republican lawmaker says Missouri should lead the way in eliminating the annual ritual of switching clocks an hour forward and then back again.

Rep. Mike Kelley of Lamar is sponsoring a constitutional amendment that would ask voters whether Missouri should use daylight savings time all the time.

Under his measure, Missouri residents would switch to daylight savings time in March 2017 and never turn their clocks back again.

During a committee hearing Monday, some House members questioned how putting Missouri on a different schedule from neighboring states would affect businesses. One lawmaker suggested that Missouri should wait for other states to act so businesses are not placed at a disadvantage.

But Kelley said Missouri businesses already operate globally and other countries do not follow daylight savings time.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A suburban Kansas City hotel owner will go to prison for employing undocumented workers at two Clarion hotels.

Munir Ahmad Chaudary (Mu-neer Ahmad Shod-ree) was sentenced Monday to 27 months in prison in a case that highlights a shift by the federal government in its handling of immigration-related cases. His wife was sentenced last month to 21 months in prison.

The government is also seeking forfeiture of their hotels in Overland Park, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri.

U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom says he hopes Kansas business owners are listening. He says violating federal law is “not a good business strategy.”

Prosecutors say that the couple replaced lawfully employed workers with immigrants not authorized to work in the United States to cut their labor costs and gain an unfair competitive advantage.

MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press

Federal investigators say a law allowing rural hospitals to bill rehabilitation services for seniors at higher rates than nursing homes and other facilities has led to billions of dollars in extra Medicare spending.

The report out Monday from the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services focused on the remote hospitals’ care for so-called “swing-bed” patients. These patients remain hospitalized after they normally would be released to a skilled-nursing facility. Such care cost the government an additional $4.1 billion over six years.

National Rural Health Association CEO Alan Morgan doesn’t dispute Medicare could save money by modifying the system. But Morgan says dozens of rural hospitals have closed in the past five years and nearly 300 others are on the brink. The policies in place, he says, are keeping those closures from accelerating further.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Two men have been charged with killing a Missouri man last week in Kansas City, Kansas.

Wyandotte County prosecutors said Monday that 20-year-old Lakorri Martaneel Terry and 22-year-old Demarkus M. Campbell-Donnell are charged with second-degree murder in the death of 32-year-old Anthony M. Bush Jr.

Police said Bush was found shot to death Wednesday in the passenger seat of a stopped vehicle. Police said the driver was also in the car but wasn’t injured.

Both suspects are jailed in Wyandotte County on $250,000 bond. A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said he didn’t know whether the men had attorneys.

ST. JOSEPH (AP) – Missouri’s population prisoners age 50 and older has steadily increased over the last decade.

The St. Joseph-News Press reports the population of inmates over 50 has grown from 10.1 percent in 2004 to 17.5 percent in 2013, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.

George Lombardi, director of the department, says that prisoners, regardless of age, have a high risk of health issues due to their lifestyle choices, so adequate care must be provided.

Missouri periodically takes bids from private firms to provide health care, and the state currently has a contract that requires the department to pay $12.58 per day per prisoner. The department expects to pay about $146 million this year in expenses.

The rise of the aging population has also led to the introduction of pre-hospice programs, where fellow inmates are selected and trained to assist their ill cellmates.

MILLERSBURG, Mo. (AP) — Authorities are investigating a deadly house fire in central Missouri.
KMIZ-TV reports that the fire was reported just before 3:30 a.m. Sunday near Millersburg. A victim was found dead inside the home after crews extinguished the blaze.

The Callaway County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday afternoon that a preliminary identification has been made, but the victim’s name will not be released pending an autopsy and positive identification.

The Missouri State Fire Marshal’s Office is helping with the investigation.