A Shelby County man is set to appear in court next month on charges he photographed a naked female in her bathroom. 27-year old Daniel David Pauley, of Defiance, was charged with invasion of privacy, after he allegedly took the picture through a screen window on the back of a home, while the woman was nude in her bathroom. A complaint filed against Pauley says the victim did not give him consent to photograph her, and the bathroom was not viewable from any public right of ways. The offense allegedly took place on August 14^th. Pauley has entered a written plea of not guilty to the charge.

A pre-trial hearing in the case was scheduled for November 28^th, with trial set for December 20^th. If convicted on the serious misdemeanor charge, he faces up to a year in jail with an additional fine totaling $1,500.

Pauley faces an additional trial on February 14^th, 2012, on a 3^rd Degree Harassment charge and for Violation of a No Contact or Protective Order, associated with the August 14^th incident. He’s plead not guilty to both charges.

Iowa businesses located along the Missouri River are struggling to recover from this summer’s flood. A survey from the Safeguard Iowa Partnership (SIP) shows respondents noted impacts to their workforce, supplies, customers, transportation and in some cases were forced to relocate. SIP executive director Jami Haberl says 140 business owners completed the survey.  “Over 70-percent of them were small businesses with less than 50 employees,” Haberl said. The survey results were included in Governor Branstad’s recent appeal to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide financial assistance to Iowans. The businesses were not asked to provide a dollar figure on their damages, but most reported they spent a lot of money to prevent or mitigate flood damage. Haberl says over 70 percent of respondents did not have flood insurance and 80 percent did not have business interruption insurance

She said it’s important for business owners to work with their insurance agents to understand their coverage plans. Many of the businesses were not flooded, but lost business because residents were forced to leave the area. Branstad’s request to FEMA for individual disaster assistance noted the Missouri River flooding destroyed 189 homes in Iowa, while 161 sustained major damage.

(Radio Iowa)

The anti-corporation “occupy” movement that’s caused a stir in Des Moines and Iowa City in recent days is heading west to Omaha-Council Bluffs. Dustin, who only gives his first name, says he’s part of a group that’s planning to march from Omaha’s City-County Building to the Federal Reserve Bank on Saturday.  Dustin says, “We’re not protesting, we’re demonstrating, showing our solidarity with the sentiment of the feeling of what people in New York are doing.” The Occupy Wall Street movement started in New York City on September 17th when protesters took to the streets to protest financial industry practices, economic inequality and taxation. A Tea Party rally is also planned for Saturday in Omaha and Dustin says it’s just a coincidence.

“We have a lot in common with the Tea Party,” he says. “The only difference is that mainstream Democrats have not yet accomplished the co-opting of this movement while mainstream Republicans that joined the Tea Party have been co-opted.” Julie Fredrickson is a member of the Tea Party and says, essentially, they will be demonstrating against the demonstrators in Omaha on Saturday.  “We don’t plan to block the streets,” Fredrickson says. “We’ll see what the other group does. We’re only responsible for ourselves and we plan to be peaceable.” She says she doesn’t put much stock into the “Occupy” group’s efforts.

Fredrickson says, “If these people really took a look at what’s going on within their group of zombies, they would be marching, like Herman Cain says, on the White House.” About 30 members of the Occupy Des Moines group were arrested on Sunday night after they refused to leave the capitol grounds at the required time of 11 P-M.

(Radio Iowa)

The Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT), Wednesday, opened bids on three emergency, Missouri River flood-related highway repair projects that totaled $5,221,938.75. The contracts included:

• The grading and replacing paved sections of Iowa 2, from the Missouri River east to east of Interstate 29 in Fremont County. The low bidder was C.J. Moyna & Sons Inc. of Elkader, Iowa, with a bid amount of $4,078,756.57; the Iowa DOT received two bids for the project.
• Repairs to the Iowa 333 bridge approach and roadway from I-29 east one mile, located near Hamburg in Fremont County. The low bidder was M.E. Collins Contracting Co. Inc. of Wahoo, Neb., with a bid amount of $249,940.50. The Iowa DOT received five bids for the project.
• TrapBag removal and repairs to the foreslopes of U.S. 30 in Harrison County, west of Missouri Valley. The low bidder was Peterson Contractors Inc., of Reinbeck, Iowa, with a bid amount of $893,241.68. The Iowa DOT received six bids for the project

Official say the goal for the projects is to expedite repairs and get the roadways safely reopened to traffic as quickly as possible.

Cass County Auditor Dale Sunderman, on behalf of the Cass County Board of Supervisors, announced Wednesday, that the Cass County website is now available in 64 languages.  The Cass County website can be accessed at http://www.casscountyiowa.us .

Using the new Google Translate Technology, implemented by Inukshuk Technologies, (Cass County’s web consultant), the county website can now be instantly translated into 64 languages.  This new technology can translate words, sentences and web pages instantly.  This service will help Cass County government personnel assist residents regardless of their primary language.

How does it work?  According to Max Elg of Inukshuk Technologies, “When Google Translate generates a translation, it looks for patterns in hundreds of millions of documents to help decide on the best translation for the viewer.  By detecting patterns in documents that have already been translated by human translators, Google Translate can make intelligent guesses as to what an appropriate translation should be.  This process of seeking patterns in large amounts of text is called “statistical machine translation”.  Since the translations are generated by machines, not all translation will be perfect.  The more human‐translated documents that Google Translate can analyze in a specific language, the better the translation quality will be.  This is why translation accuracy will sometimes vary across languages.”

“Cost to Cass County was minimal since the Translation service is now FREE from Google and implementation on the website took approximately 10 minutes,” said Elg.  “This is a win/win situation for everyone and shows Cass County’s ongoing commitment to open and accessible government!”

(Press Release/Cass Co. Auditor)