A central Missouri couple who put their 5-year-old granddaughter in their car trunk has been fined $50 after pleading guilty to amended charges.

Mary and Marc Vaucher of Fulton each pleaded guilty to failure to secure a child less than 40 pounds.

The grandparents told officers they bought some tables at another store and couldn’t fit them in the trunk, and they put the girl in the trunk so they could transport the tables.

The child was unharmed. She was released to another family member.

(AP) — Two deputies from Jefferson County in suburban St. Louis are recovering after being shot in what police describe as an ambush attack.

Sheriff Glenn Boyer says deputies were sent late Thursday to a home in Cedar Hill after a 911 hang-up call, and 40-year-old Shawn Nims ran from the home.

Shortly after 2 a.m. Friday, deputies returned to search for Nims, wanted on a felony warrant. That’s when shots were fired at the deputies, who returned fire. It wasn’t known if Nims was struck, but he ran away.

Twenty-two-year-old deputy Nina Osia was shot in the left leg, and 43-year-old deputy Michael Toombs was struck in the left arm or shoulder. Both were hospitalized briefly, then released.

Boyer says Nims remains on the loose, and is considered armed and dangerous.

Attorney General Chris Koster has announced a multistate action against a marketing business for claims that it deceived consumers into enrolling in discount clubs and memberships that they did not want or in which they did not know they were participating. Under a court settlement, Affinion Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries Trilegiant Corporation and Webloyalty.com, Inc. will pay more than $30 million in penalties and refunds to consumers in Missouri and other states.

According to Koster, Affinion and its subsidiaries work through “marketing partners” to sell enrollments in discount clubs and membership programs offering services such as credit monitoring, roadside assistance, and discounted travel. These “marketing partners” include well-known banks and retailers, and consumers are often duped into believing that their bank or the retailer is offering them a special deal.

In many cases, consumers receive checks that look like official checks written for a small sum. Once a consumer deposits the check, he or she is signed up for a program or membership. Affinion also uses deceptive online advertisements and telemarketing to enroll consumers in its services, often following a consumer’s transaction with a bank or retailer.

After the consumer is enrolled, Affinion charges consumers a monthly fee of $8.00 to $15.99, or an annual fee of $49.99 to $139.00. The program or membership continues until the consumers cancel, but in many cases consumers were unable to cancel or obtain a refund because the company refused or the consumers could not locate contact information for the specific membership program in which they were enrolled.

Koster said some consumers may not even know they were enrolled in the programs because the “marketing partner” had passed their financial information to Affinion for billing without their knowledge.

“Affinion uses deceptive practices to enroll consumers in their programs and then charges outrageous prices for minimal services that consumers did not want in the first place,” Koster said. “Consumers deserve clear information about their purchases, and schemes to register consumers without their knowledge or permission will not be tolerated.”

Today’s agreement requires Affinion to change its business practices. Affinion now must provide clear information to consumers about their memberships and what the consumer is purchasing, send reminders to consumers about their enrollment, and explain the cancellation process.

Koster said the settlement provides at least $19 million for refunds to consumers. Consumers should check the list of “marketing partners” and product names that Affinion used. If consumers find any of these “marketing partners” or product names listed on their current or past credit card statements or bank statements, they should call the Attorney General’s Office at 800-392-8222 or send an email to affinion@ago.mo.gov to begin the claim process. Consumers who have already filed complaints with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office should receive a claim form in the mail.

(AP) — The Agriculture Department says three California poultry processing facilities linked to a salmonella outbreak in raw chicken can stay open, for now.

In a statement Thursday, the USDA said Foster Farms, which owns the facilities, has made, quote, “immediate substantive changes to their slaughter and processing to allow for continued operations.”

The department threatened earlier this week to shut down the plants if Foster Farms did not prove that it had made enough changes. Sampling by the USDA in September showed that raw chicken processed by those facilities included strains of salmonella that were linked to the outbreak that has sickened 278 people in 17 states.

The department said government inspectors will monitor the company’s improvements and sample Foster Farms meat for the next three months.

– See more at: http://www.mofb.org/NewsMedia/News.aspx?articleID=403#sthash.7kikTwaL.dpuf

AP) – Facebook is getting rid of a privacy feature that let users limit who can find them on the social network.

Facebook Inc. said Thursday that it is removing a setting that controls whether users could be found when people type their name into the website’s search bar.

Facebook says only a single-digit percentage of the nearly 1.2 billion people on its network were using the setting.

The change comes as Facebook is building out its search feature, which people often use to find people they know — or want to know — on the site.

Facebook, which is based in Menlo Park, Calif., says users can protect their privacy by limiting the audience for each thing they post about themselves.