(AP) Just hours away from his scheduled execution, Missouri death row inmate Alan Nicklasson is optimistic that his life will be spared.

Nicklasson is scheduled to die by injection at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for the 1994 murder of Richard Drummond, a businessman killed by Nicklasson and two other men after Drummond stopped to offer assistance when Nicklasson’s car stalled on Interstate 70 in mid-Missouri.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay on Monday, and Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster appealed, seeking a hearing before the full appeals court. By mid-afternoon, no decision on the appeal had been made.

Nicklasson’s attorney, Jennifer Herndon, says the 41-year-old inmate is in good spirits and happy, even as plans for the execution continue.

(AP) — A retired Army general who is now a lobbyist says a strong ethanol industry is critical to national security because it reduces U.S. reliance on foreign oil-producing countries.

Wesley Clark, co-chairman of the national group Growth Energy, spoke Monday at the newly reopened Pratt Energy ethanol plant in southern Kansas. He is scheduled to testify Wednesday in front of the U.S. Senate Clean Air and Nuclear Safety subcommittee.

The Pratt plant opened in 2008 but went into bankruptcy and closed a year later. Pratt Energy bought the plant in 2012 and spent millions of dollars on renovations before opening it in September.

It currently produces 20 truckloads of ethanol and 45 truckloads of dried distillers grains for livestock per day

(AP) – Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster’s office has appealed the stay of execution for convicted killer Allen Nicklasson, calling the federal appeals court ruling “an abuse of discretion.”

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday granted a stay for Nicklasson, scheduled to be put to death at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for killing businessman Richard Drummond nearly two decades ago.

Late Monday, Koster’s office asked for a hearing before the full 8th Circuit. By Tuesday morning, no decision had been made on that appeal.

After going nearly three years without an execution, Missouri had been preparing for its second in three weeks. The state executed racist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin on Nov. 20. It was the first execution in Missouri using a single drug, pentobarbital.

(AP) – A Kansas City lawyer charged in the deaths of her father and his girlfriend wants her trial moved out of Camden County.

Susan Van Note is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the October 2010 deaths of 67-year-old William Van Note and 59-year-old Sharon Dickson at the couple’s home at the Lake of the Ozarks.

The Lake Sun Leader reports during a hearing Monday in Camden County Circuit Court, a request for a new judge was granted but the change of venue motion will not be decided until January 2014.

Dickson died at the scene of the shooting and William Van Note was hospitalized. Prosecutors allege his daughter forged durable power of attorney documents, leading doctors to remove the elder Van Note from life support.

In their latest parody of Katy Perry’s hit song, “Roar,” the Peterson Farm Brothers take farm chores to a new level.

(AP) – A Joplin woman has pleaded guilty for her role in the starvation of a girl who lived with them.

Twenty-eight-year-old Christina Haidle pleaded guilty Monday to felony child abuse in a plea deal that drops two other charges.

Haidle lived with the Beth Williams, the girl’s mother. Williams pleaded guilty to the same charge in November.

Prosecutors say the 3-year-old girl weighed just 12 pounds when her mother took her to a Joplin hospital in July 2012. The girl was unconscious, with a blood sugar level of zero and a pulse so faint that hospital workers had to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

The Joplin Globe reports Haidle will be sentenced Feb. 10. Williams is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 18.

Police are looking for a 1991 Chevy Silverado involved in a four-vehicle crash on Monday in Johnson County.

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol, the driver of the truck was southbound on I35 at  75th Street in Merriam, lost control and spun out to the right.

A 2008 Honda Odyssey driven by 41-year-old Brenda Rae Rutherford of Overland Park hit the truck in the passenger side door.

A 2011 Hyundai driven by 20 year old Briana Andrea Roland of Raytown, Missouri stopped for the Honda and was hit by a 1997 International driven by 41 year old Michael L. Starnes of Overland Park. The Silverado fled the scene.

Roland and passengers in the Honda Brian Wheeler, age 20 of Raytown and Jeremy Diggins, age 22, of Raytown were transported to the hospital.  Diggins was not wearing a seat belt. If you have information on the Silverado, contact police.