(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Lottery sales through February are up 16 percent compared to last year and 57 percent above budget projections. Lottery spokesperson, Mary Neubauer says the record sales pace is due to some large lotto jackpots. “Sales in games like Powerball and Mega Millions are almost entirely jackpot driven and so there are huge peaks and valleys in the sales in those games. You never know when the next big one is going to come along,” she says. Neubauer says this is one of the years where things have lined up for the jackpots. “This year we’ve seen a bin buster in terms of both of those games having huge jackpots — not at exactly the same time but really following each other,” Neubauer says.

Sales of scratch ticket sales are another factor in the numbers. Those sales went from a nearly four percent decrease in the last fiscal year to up slightly so far in this fiscal year. Neubauer says high gas prices impact scratch ticket sales. “None of us can control gas prices and inflationary pressures and as I said, I think all of us were feeling that in the last year,” she says. “And so it’s understandable why something like scratch tickets would be impacted. Scratch ticket sales have always been most closely tied to gas prices and I think it’s because notice I said when you’re at the pump and gas prices are high, you just don’t feel like you have those extra dollars to spend.”

Total Iowa Lottery revenue through February are around 36-point-four million dollars. The fiscal year ends on June 30th.

(Harlan, Iowa) [UPDATE12:34-p.m.]- The mother of an Avoca woman missing since Tuesday night, posted on her social media page early this (Thursday) afternoon, Eden Shaeffer was found deceased. Cynthia Shaeffer said “They are doing an autopsy to find out exactly what happened. Right now foul play is not suspected. Please pray for our family we are hurting more than I can describe and please respect our privacy at this time. I am broken, destroyed and crushed by this.”

(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports the arrest Wednesday night of 42-year-old Kenneth Wayne Jenkins, of Malvern. He was taken into custody at around 9:07-p.m., following a traffic stop at 280th Street and Highway 34. Jenkins faces charges that include Possession of a Controlled Substance, from 5-grams to 100-kilograms, and a Drug Tax Stamp Violation. His bond was set at $30,000.

A little after 7-p.m. Wednesday, Mills County Deputies arrested 40-year-old Crystal Marie Paroda, of Plattsmouth, NE, for Simple Assault ($300 bond). And, at around 5-p.m., Wednesday, 53-year-old Wilmer Tucker, of Battle Creek, NE, was arrested at the Mills County Sheriff’s Office on a warrant for Simple Assault (Bond $300).

(Creston, Iowa) – Police in Creston, Wednesday afternoon, arrested three women on Theft in the 5th Degree, charges. 33-year-old Natasha Ann Campbell, of Creston, was arrested at her home. 54-year-old Gena Ann Chumbley, of Creston, was arrested at 302 N. Pine Street. And, 36-year-old Amber Marie Buchanan, of Creston, was arrested at the Union County Law Enforcement Center. All three women each posted a $300 bond and was released.

Separately, 35-year-old Wesley Gene Keeler, of Creston, was arrested following a traffic stop. He was charged with Driving while Suspended and later posted a $300 bond before being released.

(Radio Iowa) – A Central College math professor has updated work that figures the lowest amount of the popular vote a candidate would need to win enough electoral college votes to become president. Professor Russ Goodman says the work was first done in 1961 and then updated in 2012. “So we’ve had a few presidential elections since then, and we’ve had a census since then, also, so the number of representatives per state has changed. And so I really familiarize myself with what their model looked like, and it was just interesting and timely, and I just wanted to push it forward a little bit,” Goodman says. His work shows you could theoretically win the presidency with only 20 to 24 percent of the popular vote depending on the year.

The modern day strategy has been to win the states with the most electoral votes — but Goodman says winning with the fewest number of votes goes completely against that plan.  “Overall, the mathematical model says the exact opposite. What a candidate should do is actually stock up on all of the small states and not get any votes at all from the big states,” he says. Goodman says a candidate would stay away from states like Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that have the most electoral votes. “If you stock up on the states, like Maine and Iowa, you know, all the smaller states, if you accumulate those electoral votes, and you get to 270, and you only earn half of those votes, like you just barely win the majority and each of those states, that’ll actually get you more easily to the minimum percentage of the popular vote. Because remember, those big states have lots of people voting,” Goodman says.

Goodman says the proposal is based solely on the mathematics of winning one particular way and doesn’t figure in politics. “So if a candidate wanted to look at this, and think of it as a particular strategy, I don’t know that our current national politics would work all that well,” Goodman says. “Because a state like Maine is very different from a state like Iowa, politically.” He says it’s fun to figure out the mathematics of the problem — but he says the odds are stacked against it ever happening. “Virtually zero. I mean, in reality, it’s virtually zero,” he says.

Goodman says anyone who’s campaigning, probably is using data to help them make good decisions, and using this strategy is not one they would use to give themselves the best chance to win.