(AP) – Missouri’s Medicaid program will receive $26 million through a national settlement with a pharmaceutical company.

The $2.2 billion settlement announced Monday involves Johnson & Johnson, one of its subsidiaries, the federal government and several states.

Authorities say the company had marketed the antipsychotic drugs Risperdal and Invega for unapproved uses in children, seniors and disabled patients.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster says the settlement returns money to the state’s Medicaid program.

The figure includes $1.72 billion in civil settlements with federal and state governments as well as $485 million in criminal fines and forfeited profits.

(AP) – A federal appeals court has temporarily halted plans to resume domestic horse slaughter.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Monday issued a temporary injunction barring the Department of Agriculture from inspecting the plants.

Slaughterhouses in New Mexico and Missouri had hoped to start up as soon as this week after a federal judge in Albuquerque on Friday threw out a lawsuit by The Humane Society of the United States and other animal protection groups. The lawsuit alleged the Agriculture Department failed to conduct proper environmental studies when it issued permits to the slaughterhouses.

The groups filed an immediate appeal and won the emergency injunction.

The order continues the on-again, off-again plans to resume domestic horse slaughter six years after the last big slaughterhouses closed after Congress cut funding for inspectors.

(AP) — A major gay rights bill has cleared its first hurdle in the Senate.

On a vote of 61-30, the Senate voted to move ahead on the legislation that would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The bipartisan vote increases the chances that the Senate will pass the bill by week’s end, but its prospects in the Republican-led House are dimmer.

Speaker John Boehner remains opposed to the bill, arguing that it will lead to frivolous lawsuits and undercut job creation.

A vote would come 17 years after the Senate rejected a similar discrimination measure by one vote.

The Obama administration has said passage of the bill is long overdue.

 (AP) – A disbarred Raytown lawyer has been sentenced to three years in federal prison for fraud and must pay nearly $350,000 in restitution to his victims.

U.S. Attorney Tammy Dickinson says 63-year-old Harley Kent Desselle’s victims include a foundation for Sam and Lindsey Porter and the widow of a man killed in an automobile accident.

Desselle was sentenced Monday after pleading guilty in May to one count of bank fraud and one count of bankruptcy fraud. He admitted stealing $19,500 from the foundation set up for the Porter children, who were killed by their father in 2004 but not found until 2007.

He also admitted stealing $343,000 from the life insurance proceeds of a friend’s widow whose husband was killed in 1996, and $5,749 from a client in a bankruptcy case.

Monday 1p.m.   (AP) — The mother of a 2-year-old found naked and wandering at night in Kansas City, Kan., says she thought the boy was safely asleep at home.

A driver took the toddler to a fire station after spotting him around 1 a.m. Saturday in 40-degree weather a half-mile from his home. He’s now in protective custody.

The mother  she had gone out and left the boy with her older children, ages 9, 14 and 15. She says she returned less than an hour later and assumed the toddler was asleep with his sister.

The mother reported the boy missing nearly 10 hours after he was found. She says she’s “so sorry” she’s not with her son now. Police are studying possible charges.

(AP) — Police in Kansas City, Kan., say a 2-year-old boy has been taken into protective custody after he was found wandering without clothing in a wooded area.

Police said in a release Saturday they were called at about 1 a.m. Saturday about a child needing care. A passerby noticed the child walking in the wooded area with no clothing and took him to a fire station.

Police responded to the station and took the child to the Wyandotte County Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center. Police say they also received a call much later Saturday morning from someone reporting the child missing.

The child remains in protective custody while the incident is investigated. Police say he’s in good condition.

(AP) — A former Springfield city councilman has pleaded guilty to two separate incidents, one involving road rage and the other a confrontation with his wife.

Nicholas Ibarra pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of second-degree assault, tampering with evidence and unlawful use of a weapon.

Prosecutors say that in November 2011, Ibarra dragged two people with his car after a road rage confrontation. Ibarra also was charged with threatening his wife with a handgun on New Year’s Day 2012.

Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson says the pleas were not the result of a plea deal. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 9.

Ibarra’s attorney, Tyson Martin, says he plans to show the judge during sentencing that Ibarra has worked to put his problems behind him.

(AP)  There is nothing preventing a northwest Missouri horse slaughter plant from opening, a lawyer for the facility’s operator said Monday, despite a host of legal challenges and a question about the facility’s wastewater disposal permits.

A federal judge in New Mexico last week cleared the way for equine slaughterhouses to resume operating in the U.S., dismissing a lawsuit by the Humane Society of the United States and other animal protection groups against the federal Department of Agriculture over planned plants in New Mexico and Iowa. The groups, along with the state of New Mexico, quickly filed an appeal on Friday as well as an emergency injunction request.

“It appears to us that the Missouri wastewater permit effectively doesn’t allow Rains to process horses,” said Clayton attorney Stephen Jeffery, who represents a Daviess County resident and two horse rescue groups that challenged the state’s permitting process in a Jefferson City lawsuit.

But Albuquerque attorney Blair Dunn, who represents Rains along with the Valley Meat Co. in Roswell, N.M., said his client was in negotiations with the Missouri DNR and the city of Gallatin, which has provided its own discharge permit that would allow Rains to operate the plant as long as it sends its wastewater to a municipal disposal plant.

“There is nothing prohibiting the plant from beginning operations, nor the government from sending in inspectors,” Dunn said Monday.

Horse slaughterhouses last operated in the U.S. in 2007 before Congress banned the practice by eliminating funding for plant inspections. Federal lawmakers restored those cuts in 2011, but the USDA has been slow in granting permits, citing the need to re-establish an oversight program.

The debate over a return to domestic horse slaughter centers on whether horses are livestock or companion animals and what is the most humane way to deal with the country’s horse overpopulation, particularly in the drought-stricken West. Supporters say it is better to slaughter unwanted horses in regulated domestic plants than to ship them to sometimes inhumane plants in Mexico. The companies want to ship horse meat to countries where it is consumed by humans or used as animal feed.

(AP) — A federal judge in Albuquerque has cleared the way for horse slaughterhouses to begin operating in the U.S. again.

U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo on Friday threw out a lawsuit by The Humane Society of the United States and other animal protection groups. They alleged that the Department of Agriculture failed to conduct proper environmental studies when it issued permits to Valley Meat Co. in Roswell, N.M., and an Iowa company to slaughter horses for human consumption.

The decision ends, for now, a two-year battle by Valley Meat to open the horse slaughterhouse.

The Iowa company converted to cattle because of the court fight. But attorneys say Valley and a third company in Missouri are poised to open as soon as next week.

The companies want to ship horse meat to countries where it is consumed by humans or used as animal feed.

(AP) – Police say an assistant football coach at Missouri Southern State University was fatally shot as another man confronted his estranged wife.

Jeffery L. Bruner, of Joplin, is charged with felony murder and armed criminal action in the shooting death of Missouri Southern offensive line coach Derek Moore. Police said in a news release Monday that the 39-year-old Moore was leaving a Joplin movie theater Friday night when Bruner shot him. Police said that after Moore fell to the ground, Bruner fired more rounds.

Bruner is jailed in Jasper County. It isn’t immediately clear if he has an attorney.

The new details about the case emerged as the university prepared for a memorial service Monday afternoon. The university also is planning a moment of silence for Moore at Saturday’s football game.

(AP)Honda is recalling 344,000 Odyssey minivans of the 2007-2008 model years to fix a problem that can cause the vehicle to brake suddenly.

The Japanese automaker said Friday that a software and parts problem can cause hydraulic pressure to build in the braking system after an engine restart. The buildup can suddenly be released, causing heavy and unexpected braking without the brake lamps coming on. Honda said it is not aware of any crashes or injuries related to the problem.

Honda says it will replace a “yaw sensor” but the part won’t be available until early next year.

In the meantime, it issued instructions online on how to drive to prevent the problem from occurring.

 (AP) — Missouri budget officials say the state’s tax revenues have increased 2.5 percent through the first four months of the current fiscal year.

The state Office of Administration on Monday reported net general revenues through October. The state’s current budget took effect July 1 and runs through next June.

For the current budget year so far, state corporate income and franchise taxes are up more than 26 percent. Individual income taxes are up 3.8 percent and sales taxes have increased 4.4 percent.