The area’s latest and/or top news stories at 7:06-a.m. From KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.3MB)

Subscribe: RSS

The Red Oak Police Dept. reports Officers this (Thursday) morning arrested 50-year old James Keith Saufley, Jr., of Villisca. Saufley was taken into custody at around 3:15-a.m. on a valid Page County warrant for Driving While Suspended. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $300 bond.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:35 a.m. CDT

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa judge who nullified 50,000 absentee ballot requests in Iowa’s second-largest county seems poised to void thousands more in a neighboring county at the urging of President Trump’s reelection campaign.Judge Ian Thornhill heard arguments Wednesday in Johnson County, the state’s most Democratic-leaning, in a similar lawsuit brought by Trump’s campaign and Republican Party groups. He said he would issue a ruling soon but raised several points that he did in his Linn County ruling last month that gave Trump a sweeping legal victory.Trump’s campaign argues that county elections commissioners in Johnson, Linn and Woodbury acted improperly when they mailed absentee ballot request forms to voters with their personal information already filled in.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Cedar Falls has approved a mask mandate, joining with other Iowa cities that have taken similar moves as the state continues to see high numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases. Cedar Falls on Tuesday joined Ames, Cedar Rapids, Decorah, Des Moines, Dubuque, Iowa City, Mount Vernon, Muscatine and Waterloo in enacting mask requirements. Enforcement of the rules vary but are primarily focused on education, with police in some communities instructed to hand out masks to those not wearing them. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has declined to approve a statewide mask order because she said it would be impossible to enforce. Reynolds has told local jurisdictions that because she hasn’t issued an order, they don’t have the authority to enforce their mask mandates.

UNDATED (AP) — Wildfires are raging in California and Oregon. The Atlantic has seen a record number of tropical storms for this time of year. Phoenix keeps breaking heat records. Death Valley saw 130-degree heat and Iowa got smacked by a derecho. Climate-connected disasters seem everywhere in the crazy year 2020. But scientists Wednesday say it’ll get worse. They say in 20 years or so we’ll look back at 2020 and marvel about how the disasters weren’t so bad. What’s happening is the basic physics of climate change. Scientists know it will only get crazier because what we’re seeing now is what they foresaw 20 years ago would happen.

PHOENIX (AP) — Officials in college towns all over the U.S. are fretting that off-campus students are being counted in places other than the communities where their schools are located. That is leading to an expected major undercount for the 2020 census in college towns where students can make up as much as three-quarters of the population. The situation could result in severe shortfalls in federal dollars these college towns normally would expect and also a dilution of their political power over the next decade. Off-campus students are said to account for 4 million of the 19 million college students in the U.S.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa judge who nullified 50,000 absentee ballot requests in Iowa’s second-largest county seems poised to void thousands more in a neighboring county at the urging of President Trump’s reelection campaign.Judge Ian Thornhill heard arguments Wednesday in Johnson County, the state’s most Democratic-leaning, in a similar lawsuit brought by Trump’s campaign and Republican Party groups.

He said he would issue a ruling soon but raised several points that he did in his Linn County ruling last month that gave Trump a sweeping legal victory.Trump’s campaign argues that county elections commissioners in Johnson, Linn and Woodbury acted improperly when they mailed absentee ballot request forms to voters with their personal information already filled in.

(Radio Iowa) – The Fort Dodge Community School District was hit by a cyber attack on Wednesday. Officials with the Fort Dodge Community School District issued a statement Wednesday afternoon that said the district was hit by a cyber attack. The attack took down servers for the district and disabled internet and phone services.

The district then made the decision in interest of safety for students and staff members to cancel classes on Thursday. Fort Dodge administrators say they are working with authorities to get the systems back up and running and they hope to have the issues resolved by Friday.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says if a school district moves to virtual instruction because of fears about Covid spreading through crowded classrooms, then it makes sense to cancel sports and other extracurricular activities in the district. Students from Des Moines and Ames Public School Districts marched to the governor’s mansion Monday to protest the suspension of their extracurriculars, including volleyball and football. Reynolds, who says she played every sport imaginable when she was in high school, calls this an unfortunate situation.

The governor says if social distancing is the main concern from educators seeking to teach classes online, then she says they should be worried about the lack of social distancing in sports.

A judge is letting the Des Moines School Board’s lawsuit proceed that challenges the governor’s authority to determine when schools may shift classes online, but the judge has declined to issue a temporary injunction — so the school district is violating the state’s order to have students in the classroom this week. Reynolds is expressing confidence the impasse between her administration and Des Moines Public Schools can be resolved.

Reynolds made her comments Wednesday in Atlantic, where she met with a non-profit group focused on improving Atlantic’s economic prospects.

The Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) and Mills County Public Health have identified six cases of COVID-19 at Glen Haven Village, a long-term care facility in Mills County. That includes four residents, and two staff members. According to IDPH, an outbreak occurs when three or more cases of COVID-19 are identified among residents of a facility.

Officials Wednesday evening said the facility has notified residents and their families, and consistent with IDPH guidelines, the affected residents are in isolation. Glen Haven staff are working closely with IDPH and Mills County Public Health to protect the health of all residents and staff, with additional testing of residents and staff as directed by IDPH.

Mills County Public Health Director Julie Lynes said “Protecting the health and wellbeing of the residents and staff is of the highest priority. We know our older population is at the highest risk for serious COVID-19 illness, so we are monitoring the situation carefully and taking the highest precautions to prevent virus spread.”

As of today (Wednesday), there are 144 total cases of COVID-19 in Mills County. The Mills County Health Department continues to work closely with the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH), and other state and local partners to respond to this ongoing pandemic.

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa woman has been charged in the death of a dog that was locked inside a bathroom with no food or water. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports that 22-year-old Alicia Cai Swanson was arrested Friday and charged of animal neglect causing death. She was released from jail pending trial. The landlord called the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office on Aug. 22 after finding a black and white dog whose remains that had been there for so long that they stuck to the floor. The landlord told deputies he was evicting the former tenant, who hadn’t lived at the rural Waterloo house for three months.

The Cass County Republican Party has announced that there will be a grand opening event for their headquarters, 1-p.m. Sunday, September 13th, at 506 Chestnut Street (The old Bonnesen’s Building), in Atlantic.  Congressman David Young is scheduled to make an appearance.  Beginning Monday, September 14, hours for the headquarters will be every Monday-Wednesday-Friday from 10 a.m.-1 p.m., and 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., and every Saturday from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. through Election Day.

Come and sign-up to assist, or to add your name to the list of persons who the party will distribute signs to, when we they become available.