JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Department of Conservation is considering a two-day reduction in the state’s fall deer hunting season in an attempt to increase herd size.
The state agency proposes a nine-day fall firearms season each November starting in 2016. The current fall season lasts 11 days.

The conservation department also wants to reduce the length of the antlerless portion of the fall season from 12 days to three days, commencing in early December.
Other proposed changes include allowing crossbows for the fall archery hunts of deer and turkey.

A series of public meetings on the proposed changes are scheduled beginning later this month and into March in Blue Springs, Kirkwood, Springfield, West Plains ,Cape Girardeau, Kirksville;, Columbia. and St. Joseph.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Senate has given approval to a bill to prevent lawmakers from becoming lobbyists immediately after leaving office.
Senators voted 32-2 Monday in favor of Majority Leader Ron Richard’s ethics bill, which would increase reporting requirements for lobbyist spending and set a two-year cooling-off period before legislators can lobby.
Republican Sen. Rob Schaaf of St. Joseph criticized the bill because it will apply only to lawmakers who begin their terms in January 2017, exempting current lawmakers.
Bolivar Republican Sen. Mike Parson said “it’s nobody business” what he does after he leaves office and voted against the measure.
The bill now heads to the House, where a committee approved ethics legislation Monday that would create a one-year cooling off-period, effective immediately.

DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is pledging $3.2 million to help save the monarch butterfly. The iconic orange-and-black butterflies in recent years have experienced a 90 percent decline in population.

About $2 million will be spent to restore more than 200,000 acres of monarch habitat from California to the Corn Belt, including more than 750 schoolyard habitats and pollinator gardens. The rest will be used to start a conservation fund that will provide grants to farmers and other landowners to conserve habitat.

The monarch lays eggs exclusively on the milkweed plant. Conversion of prairies into cropland and the use of pesticide-resistant crops have greatly reduced milkweed, particularly in the heartland.

The move comes as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers whether the species needs to be classified as threatened.

MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say the number of measles cases in the nation is up to 121 so far this year.

All but 18 of the cases are tied to an outbreak that started at the Disneyland amusement park in California.

Until recently, it was unusual to see more than 100 cases a year in the United States. Measles are most commonly seen in winter and early spring, brought in by foreign visitors or by U.S. residents who pick up the highly contagious virus overseas.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the numbers Monday, adding 19 cases to the 102 reported as of last week.

Measles causes a fever, runny nose, cough and rash all over the body. In rare cases, it can be deadly.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Lawrence man was sentenced to two years in federal prison for embezzling more than a half-million dollars from his company and business partners.

U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom says 55-year-old Mark Elzea was sentenced Monday and ordered to pay $619,000 for embezzling from Pur-O-Zone.

He pleaded guilty in September to one count of interstate transportation of stolen funds.

Elzea was controller and part owner of Pur-O-Zone, a Lawrence janitorial and cleaning equipment business.

Prosecutors say he began embezzling in 2004. The scheme was discovered in May 2014 after a vendor complained about not receiving a check. The partners discovered that Elzea had signed several unauthorized checks made payable to Cardmember Service Chase Bank in Illinois.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – A Kansas City, Kan., woman working as a personal care attendant was sentenced in U.S. District Court last week for health care fraud based on fraudulent bills she submitted to Medicaid according to U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom and Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.

Doris Betts, 55, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., by Judge Eric F. Melgren to 18 months in federal prison, three years supervised release, restitution to the Kansas Medicaid program in the amount of $251,573.32, and a forfeiture judgment in the same amount. Betts was charged in April 2014 with six counts of health care fraud. She pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court and was convicted in November in a joint enforcement effort between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/Office of Inspector General and Kansas Attorney General’s Office.

The investigation revealed that between January 2008 and December 2013, Betts falsely billed for providing in-home services to two or more clients at the same time in different locations, while the client was hospitalized, and while Betts was instead at her own medical appointments. During this period, Betts billed for more than 750 work days that exceeded 24 hours, the highest of which topped out at 39.5 hours. Betts billed for a variety of services, including personal care services, sleep cycle support, day support and residential support. By using multiple billing agencies, Betts was able to bill for services that overlapped.

Nationwide, the personal care attendant program has been the number-one source of fraud complaints to state Medicaid fraud units.

“The personal care attendant program provides important in-home services for Medicaid recipients who need assistance to remain in their homes,” Schmidt said. “When the program is abused and taxpayers are defrauded, vital resources are taken away from vulnerable Kansans who are truly in need. We will continue to work cooperatively with our federal partners to protect this joint federal-state program and remain focused on finding and prosecuting those who defraud taxpayers through false billing.”

“Theft from our nation’s health care system hurts all of us,” U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said. “We are using every tool at our disposal to fight health care fraud.”

The case was investigated by the attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud Division. Assistant Attorney General Stefani Hepford of Schmidt’s office and Assistant U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway prosecuted the case.

JIM SALTER, Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) — An attorney for a Missouri inmate scheduled to die this week is seeking to halt the execution over concerns about the secretive process of obtaining and using lethal injection drugs.

Walter Timothy Storey is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for killing a neighbor in St. Charles in 1990. After a state-record 10 executions in 2014, Storey would be the first person put to death this year in Missouri.

Attorney Jennifer Herndon says Missouri’s secretive process of purchasing lethal injection drugs from an unnamed compounding pharmacy creates the risk that Storey could suffer a painful death.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has already turned down the stay request. Herndon has appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court and plans an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri lawmakers are considering giving charter schools greater access to unused public school buildings as part of efforts to revamp the state student transfer law.

Measures discussed this month would force public schools to lease some vacant buildings to charters for $10 a year.

Lawmakers turned to charter schools after Gov. Jay Nixon last year vetoed a bill to allow transfers to private, nonreligious schools.

Some legislators said expanding charters might require measures to ease their path to buy or lease building space. Charters don’t have bonding authority for building construction.

Charter advocates said traditional public schools are reluctant to lease to charters because of potential competition.

But Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Steve Green said legislation requiring leasing buildings to charters would take away local control and create discord.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A 50-year-old former FBI terrorism supervisor has been named to lead the bureau’s operations in Kansas City.

Erik K. Jackson was announced on Monday as the special agent in charge of the Kansas City field office, which covers the western half of Missouri and all of Kansas.

Most recently he served as acting deputy assistant director and section chief of the FBI’s Cyber Division in Washington, D.C.

Jackson joined the FBI in 1997 and was assigned to the Tampa field office to investigate international terrorism, organized and violent crime, drug and health care fraud cases.

Jackson previously served as assistant special agent in charge of the National Security Branch in the Kansas City field office, which includes the international and domestic terrorism, counterintelligence, cyber and weapons of mass destructions programs.