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COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - The state's largest bricks-and-mortar college is making it easier for students to earn degrees without leaving home.

The University of Missouri's flagship campus in Columbia on Friday announced a $2.5 million expansion of its online degree programs. The new initiatives include an online master's degree in public health, a bachelor's degree in educational studies and an online master's in public affairs.

Provost Brian Foster says the school is modifying its online admissions requirements to no longer require degree-seeking students to first obtain 60 hours of transfer credits or an associate's degree.

The move comes shortly after Gov. Jay Nixon unveiled plans to team up with the nonprofit Western Governors University to broaden Missouri residents' access to online higher education.

ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) - The eastern Missouri burglar busted by the peculiar hitch in his get-along has been sentenced to probation.

Wentzville police arrested 21-year-old David Moore in November for smashing through a glass door at Nu Way Concrete Forms and taking nearly $1,500 in cash.

Surveillance video showed the burglar pointing his toes outward as he walked. Surveillance tape shot four days earlier during business hours showed a man with the same walk. Employees had been suspicious of that man because he wore a heavy coat and gloves on a warm day. They wrote down his license plate number.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Moore pleaded guilty to burglary and theft Monday. In addition to probation he must serve 60 days of shock time and pay back the stolen money.

BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - A Roman Catholic priest whose decades-old molestation of a former altar boy led to a $6.3 million payout in an Illinois lawsuit has been kicked out of the priesthood by Pope Benedict XVI.

Diocese of Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton announced the move involving 78-year-old Raymond Kownacki in a statement published in a recent edition of the diocesan newspaper, The Messenger. Braxton says the papal decree calls the defrocking "for the good of the church."

Kownacki is living in a St. Louis-area nursing home and has refused media requests for interviews. He has not been charged criminally.

Kownacki's misdeeds resulted in a $5 million jury award against the diocese to James Wisniewski in 2008. That payout grew to $6.3 million to reflect interest that accrued while the diocese appealed.