(AP) – Fire officials say a woman died in a house fire in southwest Missouri.

Billings fire chief Henry Boss says the woman’s body was found Tuesday in the rubble of the home east of Billings.

He says the house was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived at the scene early Tuesday on West Highway 60. The highway was closed for a short time to accommodate fire trucks.

One person escaped the fire. The victim’s name has not been released.

Boss said his crews battled sub-freezing temperatures and had difficulty because the home is surrounded by a junk yard.

The Missouri State Fire Marshal’s office is investigating the cause of the fire.

 (AP) – A New Jersey-based pharmaceutical firm says it plans to add 230 employees in Kansas City in the next five years.

Catalent Pharma Solutions currently employs about 50 people. The company’s human relations director said Monday the company has received a state job-training grant that will help it expand.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and Kansas City Mayor Sly James are scheduled to discuss the expansion Tuesday afternoon the company’s plant.

Catalent is involved in the life sciences industry.

 (AP) – An Oklahoma man pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and burglary in the July 2012 shooting death of a Joplin man.

Eighteen-year-old Elijah Taylor, of Tulsa, Okla., entered the plea Monday in the death of Jacob Wages. Taylor is the third of five suspects in the case to reach plea deals.

The Joplin Globe reports Taylor’s plea agreement will cap his possible prison time at no more than 15 years.

The 23-year-old Wages was shot at his home in what investigators say was a mistaken belief that he had drugs and money.

Daniel Hartman, of Tulsa, the presumed shooter, was found guilty of second-degree murder, armed criminal action and burglary two weeks ago. He will be sentenced March 31.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health experts are taking a second look this week at the heart safety of pain medications used by millions of Americans to treat arthritis and other everyday aches and pains.

The Food and Drug Administration has started a two day meeting to examine the latest research on anti-inflammatory medicines called NSAIDS, which serve as the backbone of U.S. pain treatment.

The key question is whether naproxen — the key ingredient in Bayer’s Aleve and many other generic pain pills — carries a lower risk of heart attack and stroke than rival medications like ibuprofen, sold as Advil by Pfizer, among others.

Debate about whether one drug is safer than the others has waged for more than a decade without a clear answer.

 

 

(AP) – Chelsea Clinton is speaking this month at an event celebrating a new hall of fame that will recognize women from the Kansas City metropolitan area.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City says the former first daughter is scheduled to talk to a sold-out crowd Feb. 24 at the school’s Swinney Recreation Center.

The Starr Women’s Hall of Fame is the work of 24 women’s organization from the area. It bears the name of Martha Jane Phillips Starr, a Kansas City philanthropist who died in 2011. She was one of the first women to become a member of the UMKC Board of Trustees.

The first class won’t be inducted until the fall, but details about the application process, criteria and deadlines will be announced at this month’s launch event.

(AP) – A Missouri House committee has endorsed a measure, known as “right to work,” that would bar labor contracts from requiring that all employees pay union fees.

The House Workforce Development and Workforce Safety Committee also voted on Monday to advance legislation that would change how unions can collect fees. It would require unions to get annual written authorization to collect fees that are automatically deducted from a worker’s paycheck.

If they clear the Legislature, both measures would go on a statewide ballot. The Republican sponsors say sending the bills to voters would get around a likely veto by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon.

“Right to work” is a top priority of Republican House Speaker Tim Jones, of Eureka.

 (AP) – A Missouri House committee has advanced legislation seeking to end to a tax-break battle for businesses with Kansas.

The bill endorsed Monday by a special House business committee would affect four counties on each side of the Missouri-Kansas line in the Kansas City area.

Missouri would stop offering tax breaks tailored for businesses to move from those four Kansas counties into one of the four Missouri counties – but only if Kansas enacts a similar moratorium through legislation or an executive order.

The proposal comes after the states have waived hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenues competing with each other for businesses in the Kansas City area.

The counties at issue are Jackson, Clay, Platte and Cass in Missouri, and Wyandotte, Johnson, Douglas and Miami in Kansas.

As thousands of Missourians continue to see a dramatic spike in their propane prices, U.S. Senators Roy Blunt (Mo.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.) joined a bipartisan group of colleagues to demand President Obama facilitate regulatory relief to increase propane supply in areas with critical shortages—which would lower costs, as well as provide federal assistance to states and communities affected by the high prices.

“Homes, businesses, and farms desperately need propane, and the shortage threatens the safety of families and the financial stability of farms and businesses,” the Senators wrote in their letter. “Thankfully, propane suppliers are already responding to market forces and taking extraordinary steps to increase supplies in hard-hit areas. Until propane stocks recover, the government should continue to provide and/or expand short term regulatory relief to incentivize these activities.”

According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. propane stocks have fallen far below the 5-year seasonal average. The most recent EIA report indicates that propane stocks are 24 million barrels lower than a year ago, a drop of 43.8 percent. As a result, in many areas propane prices have doubled, or even tripled, since October. More than twenty states have issued disaster declarations related to the shortage.