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  UNION, Mo. (AP) - An eastern Missouri man is dead after being struck by a pickup truck while standing on a rural highway.

   The Missouri State Highway Patrol says 55-year-old Kenton Veninga of Union was standing in a driving lane of Highway YY in Franklin County Wednesday night when he was struck by a Mazda pickup. It wasn't clear why Veninga was on the roadway.

   The patrol says Veninga was knocked into a ditch and pronounced dead at the scene. The 20-year-old driver of the pickup was not hurt.

UNION, Mo. (AP) - A space heater is believed to be the cause of a fire that killed a 24-year-old eastern Missouri woman and her two young children.

The fire Friday night killed Samantha Cooksey of Union and her children, 6-year-old Allison Cooksey and 1-year-old Logan Berger. Cooksey's boyfriend, who was the father of Logan, lived in the home but was at work at the time of the fire.

Union Police Chief Normal Brune told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/11Djb5X ) that the fire apparently began in the mobile home's living room, where a space heater was located.

The home was engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived. The bodies were found after the fire was out.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

UNION, Mo. (AP) — A woman and her two children have died in a mobile home fire in the eastern Missouri town of Union.

Union police said the home was fully engulfed in flames when firefighters responded Friday night.

After extinguishing the blaze, firefighters found the bodies of the 24-year-old woman and her two children, ages 1 and 6. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that their names weren't immediately released.

The woman's 26-year-old husband wasn't home at the time of the fire. The cause of the blaze remains under investigation.