JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – The Missouri Farm Bureau has voted to act as an intervener in a case before the state’s utility commission involving the Grain Belt Express electric transmission line.

The St. Joseph News-Press reports the organization opposes granting eminent domain to Clean Line Energy Partners for its project, which would carry electricity generated by windmill turbines through about 200 miles of the state.

The Missouri section is part of a $2.2 billion project to build a 750-mile-long high-voltage overhead transmission line from Kansas, through Missouri and Illinois and to a substation in Indiana.

Clear Line has filed with the Missouri Public Service Commission for utility status and approval of a route for the line.

Opponents say the transmission lines would reduce property values and potentially create a health risk.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – The Missouri Senate has endorsed legislation to renew an expiring prescription drug benefit for over 200,000 low-income and disabled seniors.

The Missouri Rx Program is scheduled to expire in August, but the measure endorsed on Wednesday would extend the benefit until 2017. State officials estimate more than 9 million prescription drug claims will be filed for 230,000 Missourians during the current budget year. Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon has called on lawmakers to renew the program.

The bill would also allow doctors to write epinephrine prescriptions to some locations, including restaurants and amusement parks. Those places could then keep an emergency supply of the drug that treats severe allergic reactions.

It needs one more vote before moving to the House.

KANSAS CITY (AP) – The former business manager at a Kansas City doctor’s office has been sentenced for embezzling $170,000, a crime that forced her employer to declare bankruptcy.

Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday that 57-year-old Eileen Kisner, of Kansas City, was sentenced to two years in federal prison without parole. She also must repay $170,232. Kisner pleaded guilty in November to mail fraud.

She was the business manager at Brookside Family Medicine from 2002 to 2010. Prosecutors say she used her employer’s credit cards for her personal expenses and those of her husband. Shortly before she was fired, Kisner fled to Europe, where she lived for three years before being arrested in Philadelphia in February 2013.

Her boss, Dr. Darren Killen, had to declare bankruptcy and sell his business.

TOPEKA — Gov. Sam Brownback has ordered flags to be flown at half-staff from sun-up to sun-down on Thursday and Friday in honor of Dr. William Corporon, Reat Griffin Underwood and Terri Lamanno.

The three were victims of shootings at the Jewish Community Campus and Village Shalom on April 13. Memorial services for Lamanno, Corporon and Underwood are scheduled on Thursday and Friday.

“On behalf of the citizens of Kansas, Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and I offer our condolences to the families and friends of those whose lives were lost in this senseless act of violence,” Brownback said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with them.”

CARTHAGE (AP) – Investigators allege a former southwest Missouri teacher’s aide who is charged with one count of statutory rape had sexual contact with several students.

Forty-year-old Janice Lorene Rusk, of rural Carthage, was charged Tuesday with second-degree statutory rape and statutory sodomy involving a 16-year-old male student. She was a teacher’s aide for special education students at Jasper High School. The district says she no longer works there.

Court records quote a Jasper County detective writing that he was called by state social services in March about incidents of sexual contact between Rusk and “several juvenile males.”

The Carthage Press reports a phone number listed for Rusk was disconnected Tuesday. Online court records don’t indicate if she has an attorney.

Rusk bonded out of jail Tuesday on $5,000 bond.

JOPLIN (AP) – An Oklahoma man who shot a Joplin man to death during a robbery was sentenced to life in prison.

Eighteen-year-old Daniel Hartman was sentenced Tuesday to two life sentences with the possibility of parole for the July 2012 death of 23-year-old Jacob Wages.

The Joplin Globe reports three co-defendants testified at Hartman’s trial in January that he shot Wages when they broke into Wages’ Joplin home. The group thought Wages had Ecstasy and cash, which they did not find.

Four of five defendants were convicted of murder and related charges and sentenced to 15 years in prison. One case is pending.

Hartman, a member of a Hoover Street Crips gang in Tulsa, Okla., testified during his sentencing that he was innocent and had never been to Wages’ home.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri could award additional tax credits for donations to pregnancy resource centers, food pantries and maternity homes under legislation endorsed by the Missouri Senate.

Under the bill given first-round approval Tuesday, the current annual tax credit cap would increase by $500,000 for all three programs. The pregnancy and maternity center tax credits would be limited to $2.5 million per year and the food pantry program would be capped at $1.75 million annually.

The legislation would also expand an existing tax credit program to apply toward donations for programs that provide food for students during non-school hours. That credit would be capped at $500,000 per year.

The measure needs one more vote before moving to the House.