(AP) — The U.S. government no longer owns part of General Motors.
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew says the government sold its remaining shares in the automaker on Tuesday.
The government lost $10.5 billion on its bailout of GM. But Lew says the rescue was necessary to save 1 million jobs and stop the American auto industry from collapsing.
The government got 912 million GM shares, or 60.8 percent of the company, in exchange for a $49.5 billion bailout during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. It recovered $39 billion of the money.
(AP) – A 34-year-old southwest Missouri woman has been sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty in the methadone overdose death of her 22-month-old son.
Elizabeth Farnam, of Granby, pleaded guilty in September to second-degree involuntary manslaughter in the June 2012 death of Logan Crow.
A toxicology report showed the toddler died from an overdose of methadone, which is prescribed mainly to treat heroin addiction. Investigators said Farnam had obtained the drug illegally.
Farnam told police at the time that she dropped a methadone pill while Logan was sitting on her lap during a church meeting. The toddler began sweating profusely on the drive home and was put down for an afternoon nap, but wasn’t checked until the next morning.
2 p.m. (AP) – Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says the budget he proposes next month will include a bond issuance to rebuild the Fulton State Hospital.
The hospital admitted its first patients in 1851. Patients now include those committed by the courts for evaluation and treatment. It also is the statewide treatment facility for people who have been found not guilty or unable to stand trial because of mental disease.
Nixon said Monday a new facility will mean better care for patients and safer working conditions for employees. Officials estimate a new facility will cost $211 million.
Missouri’s budget taking effect in July includes $13 million to design the new hospital. Nixon initially froze all the money but released $2 million in September. He announced Monday he was releasing the remaining $11 million.
(AP) – Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon is preparing to outline a plan for constructing a new mental health hospital in Fulton.
Nixon scheduled an announcement for Monday afternoon during a visit to the Fulton State Hospital.
The central Missouri hospital first opened in 1851 and now has more than three dozen buildings on its property, some of which are particularly old and outdated.
State officials have said it could cost more than $200 million to replace the old facilities with a new, high-security hospital that is better suited for patients and employees.
Missouri’s budget that took effect in July includes $13 million to design the new hospital. Nixon initially froze all of that money but released $2 million in September.
(AP) — The federal government has proposed $133,000 in fines for Rail Car Services because of repeat health and safety violations at a facility in Kansas City, Kan.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Monday in a release that Rail Car Services was cited for 11 violations at its rail car refurbishing facility in Kansas City, Kan. OSHA says the violations stem from inspections that began after a complaint about fall protection and work done in confined spaces.
OSHA inspectors found eight repeat violations in a recent inspection. OSHA says Rail Car Services also failed to train workers on chemicals used in their work area and didn’t provide annual respirator training.
Rail Car Services has about two weeks to comply, request a conference with OSHA or contest the citations.
(AP) — The federal government will move 900 employees to downtown Kansas City.
The General Services Administration announced Monday that its employees will move from the Bannister Federal Complex in south Kansas City to an office building near Union Station.
The Kansas City Star reports (http://bit.ly/1bRZkoA ) the move to Two Pershing Square will include a 20-year lease valued at nearly $50 million, with the government receiving an $8.6 million discount.
GSA official Kory Hochler says the agency has the right after seven years to reduce the amount of space it occupies or completely leave the building.
The agency is expected to take occupancy in December 2014, and the relocation is expected to take three to five months.
(AP) – After going nearly three years without an execution, Missouri is preparing for its second in three weeks.
Allen Nicklasson is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for killing Richard Drummond, a businessman who stopped to help when he saw a car stranded along Interstate 70 in 1994. Nicklasson and two others forced Drummond to drive to a secluded area, where Nicklasson killed him.
One of the other men, Dennis Skillicorn, was put to death in 2009. The third, Tim DeGraffenreid, was spared the death penalty.
Missouri executed racist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin on Nov. 20, the state’s first-ever execution using a single drug, pentobarbital.
Nicklasson’s attorney, Jennifer Herndon, has asked the Missouri Supreme Court to intervene and says she will also seek clemency from Gov. Jay Nixon.
On Monday, the state high court ordered that Herbert Smulls be executed Jan. 29. Smulls was convicted of the 1991 murder of Chesterfield jeweler Stephen Honickman.
Smulls was originally sentenced to death by a St. Louis County jury in 1992. His attorney filed several appeals but the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal in April 2009.
(AP) — The Springfield school district is discussing how to make high school, particularly the senior year, more challenging for its students.
The goal is to improve the students’ chances of succeeding in college or in careers.
Associate Superintendent Justin Herrell is leading the effort. He says too many Springfield graduates have to take remedial education classes when they enter college.
The Springfield News-Leader reports (http://sgfnow.co/J79bLc ) the district discovered the percentage of students from its five high schools who required remediation in math ranged from 15.5 percent at one school to 36.8 percent at another. The number needing remediation classes in English ranged from 8.1 percent to 22.1 percent.
Herrell says the district believes having high school students engaged all four years, especially the senior year, would improve student achievement.
The National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson
Nearly 150 individuals, ranging from federal and state elected officials to representatives from organizations representing agriculture, oil, renewable fuel, and the environment, and private citizens participated in EPA’s only public hearing on its recent proposal to cut the 2014 renewable fuel mandate held in Arlington, Va., on December 5. The proposal is open for public comment until January 28, 2014 .
U.S. Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) was on hand for the hearing and said market distorting effects of the RFS on the economy began being felt almost immediately after the RFS was expanded in 2007. Goodlatte has introduced both the Renewable Fuel Standard Elimination Act and the Renewable Fuel Standard Reform Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. “The RFS is clearly unworkable. Under the RFS, the federal government is essentially telling a private industry that they must buy one product, ignoring other groups who also depend on that product and creating an artificial supply-and-demand. I urge the EPA to use your authority to provide the maximum relief possible.”
Iowa Governor Terry Branstad defended the RFS and said reducing it would have an “unbelievable negative ripple effect through rural America.” Branstad blamed EPA of caving to “big oil, who has always resisted renewable fuels.”
Steve Foglesong, past NCBA president and Illinois cattle feeder and corn grower, said the proposal is a great step in the right direction. He said at one time, there was a need for the government policies to help the ethanol industry, but said today’s industry is “mature and sophisticated” and should be able to compete in the marketplace without government support.
“I am a corn farmer, I just choose to feed it to cattle, it’s value added. It’s not that different from the ethanol industry who takes corn to feed it into their plants and produce ethanol, dried distillers grains (DDGs), and carbon dioxide instead of beef. The process is identical, all but the RFS mandate, which gives the ethanol industry an advantage in purchasing corn,” said Foglesong.
The National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson said NFU members are “incensed” with EPA’s proposal. “At a time when the price of corn is below the breakeven point for farmers, EPA’s proposal slashes the corn ethanol requirement to a level below current production. This will have a devastating impact on farmers and the rural economy.”
EPA hopes to finalize the rule by spring 2014.—-Mary Soukup,Drovers Cattle Network
(AP) — The Missouri Supreme Court has set an execution date for a man convicted of killing a jewelry store owner more than two decades ago.
On Monday, the state high court ordered that Herbert Smulls be executed Jan. 29. Smulls was convicted of the 1991 murder of Chesterfield jeweler Stephen Honickman.
Smulls was originally sentenced to death by a St. Louis County jury in 1992. His attorney filed several appeals but the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal in April 2009.
The state Supreme Court set the most recent execution date days before Missouri was scheduled to carry out another execution at 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday. The execution of Joseph Franklin in November was Missouri’s first in nearly three years.
(AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating what caused a GoJet Airlines plane to slide off a taxiway at Lambert St. Louis International Airport.
GoJet says none of the plane’s 60 passengers or four crew members was injured during the accident shortly before 7 p.m. Sunday involving the flight from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
GoJet says the Bombardier CRJ700 plane was safely off the runway and on the taxiway approaching a Lambert terminal when the plane’s nose gear became stuck in mud.
Buses were used to transport the plane’s passengers to the terminal.
(AP) — The U.S. government no longer owns part of General Motors.
