**UPDATE (Council Bluffs, Iowa) – A man and a woman from Chicago, IL, arrested Tuesday afternoon in Council Bluffs face multiple charges associated with the theft of mail from numerous states/communities, and drug charges. The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office reports 37-year-old John Doe and 29-year-old Savannah Shavon Shandor were arrested at around 1:40-p.m., after several agencies were involved in a mail theft case that began on Simms Avenue in Council Bluffs, and eventually turned into a vehicle pursuit.

Both suspects face charges that include: Possession of Drug Paraphernalia; Possession of Marijuana/1st offense; Possession of Burglary tools; Providing False Identification information, and Theft in the 5th Degree. Bond for John Doe was set at $3,900. Shandor faces an additional felony charge of Eluding. Her bond was set at $9,600. Authorities recovered paraphernalia that included a grinder, glass pipes, unknown medical pills, and loose marijuana, along with prybars and brass knuckles.

Mail stolen from the following areas was also recovered: Council Bluffs; the Chicago area; the Las Vegas area; Elm Creek and Hershey, NE., and Hudson, CO. In addition, authorities found: checkbooks and checks; multiple receipts; an Office Depot Starter pack; multiple note books with handwritten notes; multiple ID’s, license plates, credit cards and gift cards; 4 cell phones; a Bluetook earpiece, and a USB drive.

**Authorities initially referred to the male subject as “John Doe,” because they could not confirm his identity due to the numerous ID’s they found. Late this afternoon, Postal Inspectors did confirm his true identity, but they have not released that information. Both suspects were transferred to Omaha.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, IA — This (Wednesday) evening, May 4th, at 7pm, local residents and community leaders will gather at the Council Bluffs Public Library to discuss how Pottawattamie County should spend our next disbursement of American Rescue Plan COVID Recovery funds. Pottawattamie County is set to receive an additional $9 million in federal recovery funding from the American Rescue Plan Act. County residents are calling on the Board of Supervisors to survey the county to identify the most immediate needs of our community and to join in listening session Town Halls hosted by United Today, Stronger Tomorrow & Coalition members.

You’re invited to join members of your community in discussing the most responsive and responsible way to spend an additional $9 million in federal Covid recovery funding coming to Pottawattamie County, in May. The County Board of Supervisors – who tasked with spending these funds – have been invited to attend, as well as other local elected officials.

The goal is a friendly dialogue, and civil conversation. Refreshments will be provided.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Firefighters and other emergency personnel were dispatched at around 4:50-a.m. today (Wednesday), to a residential fire at 106 Cedar Street. Atlantic Fire Chief Tom Cappel says flames were showing when the first crews arrived on the scene.

Cappel said apparently, no one was in the residence.

Chief Cappel said an investigation into the cause of the blaze is underway, and will take some time. No injuries were reported. The house was considered a total loss. Atlantic Police, Cass County Sheriff’s Deputies and Cass County Emergency Management assisted at the scene.

(Radio Iowa) – Planners in Pella are anxiously awaiting the Thursday opening of this year’s Tulip Festival. Pella Historical Village spokesperson, Valerie Van Kooten, says they are prepping for lots of visitors during the three-day run. “We are expecting probably some of our largest crowds ever. If advanced ticket sales are any indication — the buses that are coming in — I think people are ready to get out,” she says. It will be the first time things are like they were before the pandemic. “We had, what we kind of called a tulip time light last year, where we didn’t have parades. We needed to control crowds in one area, so we had a lot of the events but we didn’t have parades to encourage people not to gather in one area,” Van Kooten explains. “So this year we’re back totally to where we were three years ago in 2019.

The cold weather has slowed the tulip growth a bit — but she says that is a good thing. “They’re just coming into their peak and I think they’ll be at their peak probably this weekend and into next week. So, it’s a rare year when they haven’t yet hit their peak by tulip time but this might be the year where they’re going to be good for another week or two,” she says. Different varieties of tulips are planted to try and ensure there’s always the color for the festival. “We plant early varieties, middle varieties and late varieties and the early varieties are coming up to be finished. The middle varieties are just blooming on full bloom and the late varieties are coming up and starting to show color,” according to Van Kooten. “So there’s always something blooming at Tulip Time, but they can’t all bloom at the same time because of the way they’re planted for early, middle or late.”

She says they learned from the changes they made in the scaled-back celebration. “It’s funny because as we meet and plan and everything, we all kind of have to think twice about how we did things, you know, three years ago and we learned a lot during the pandemic of things that work and things that don’t and some of the things we put in place during the pandemic will stay. So it wasn’t all bad. We learned a lot about our festival and about our visitors,” Van Kooten says.

You can find a full schedule of events at the website: pellahistorical.org.