Associated Press

Missouri utility regulators are reviewing the cyber security practices of electric utilities.

The Public Service Commission says it is asking power companies 47 detailed questions about protections to shield the electrical grid against hackers. Regulators say they are not aware of any possible problems.

Requests were sent to Ameren Missouri, Kansas City Power & Light Co., KCP&L-Greater Missouri Operations Co. and The Empire District Electric Co. The commission is seeking responses by the end of August.

Missouri officials say state payrolls declined by 4,000 jobs in June while unemployment simultaneously decreased to 7.1 percent.

Department of Economic Development officials say much of the decline in Missouri non-farm payrolls came in the local government sector, which shed 3,100 jobs in June.

The state unemployment rate has declined or held steady each month since June 2011. The jobless rate last month is the lowest in Missouri since December 2008.

The commission that picks finalists for the Missouri Supreme Court will interview 18 applicants to replace Judge William Ray Price Jr.

The commission said the pool includes three women and one racial minority. The commission selects three finalists, and Gov. Jay Nixon makes the final appointment.

Applicants include at least five who have worked for Nixon or his administration.

Former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is backing Sarah Steelman in Missouri's Republican U.S. Senate primary.

Steelman touted Palin's endorsement as a potential boon in a GOP primary in which all three main candidates have been trying to appeal to conservatives.

Palin's statement praised Steelman as a "commonsense conservative woman" who has stood up to the political establishment "to stop out of control spending and the destructive debt it leaves in its wake."

Officials at the Missouri Lottery have no strategy to generate an additional $35 million that legislative budget writers and Gov. Jay Nixon's administration had hoped would help avoid cuts to government services.

The Missouri attorney general's office has deposited the state government's $38 million share of a national mortgage settlement.

The FBI announced Monday they were offering a $15,000 reward for information leading to charges in a fire at a Joplin mosque.

The fire was reported July 4 at the Islamic Society of Joplin. No injuries were reported, and firefighters extinguished the blaze on the roof of the center before it caused any interior damage. It was the second fire in two years at the center.

Gov. Jay Nixon is traveling the state to survey damage from Missouri's hot, dry summer.

Nixon planned to meet with farmers and local officials Tuesday in Lewis County in northeast Missouri, in Atchison County in northwest Missouri and in Polk County in southwest Missouri. The governor is to be joined by the state's agriculture director.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City has received an $8.3 million, five-year federal grant to study certain aspects of aging.

The grant from the National Institute on Aging will go toward building on new evidence about how bones and muscles communicate and could lead to new ways to treat aging bones and muscles.

The Kansas City Star reports that the research team will be led by Lynda Bonewald, director of the bone biology research program at the UMKC School of Dentistry.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster reports raising more than a half-million dollars during the past quarter for his re-election campaign.

Candidates filed reports with the Missouri Ethics Commission laying out their fundraising activities from April through the end of June.

Koster, a Democrat, reported that his campaign raised $572,000 during the past three months and had nearly $2.4 million in available cash at the start of July.