OMAHA, NE – The FBI Omaha Field Office is warning the public to be on alert for a phone scam that spoofs, or fraudulently displays, the FBI’s telephone number on the victim’s caller ID. The scammer impersonates a government official and uses intimidation tactics, such as the threat of arrest, to demand payment of money. These claims are false and the calls are NOT from the FBI. The FBI Omaha Field Office has seen its main number, (402) 493-8688, spoofed in this manner recently, as well as the numbers of its Resident Agencies, or satellite offices, throughout Nebraska and Iowa. Citizens nationwide have been targeted.

The FBI defines this type of scam as government impersonation fraud, in which criminals impersonate government officials in an attempt to collect money. In some cases, the intended target may be told there is a federal warrant for their arrest, which would be dismissed by the court in exchange for immediate payment to the caller. Special Agent in Charge Kristi K. Johnson says “The public should be aware that the FBI will not call or email people to demand money or threaten arrest.”

The FBI strongly encourages anyone contacted by a caller who says they are with the FBI or any government agency to verify the information with their local FBI Field Office or the government agency in question. Contact information for all 56 FBI field offices can be found at www.fbi.gov. According to the Internet Crimes Complaint Center (IC3), more than 12,000 people nationwide have reported being victims of government impersonation scams in 2019, with losses totaling over $112,000,000. Anyone who feels they were the victim of this or any other online scam should report the incident immediately using the IC3 website at www.ic3.gov.

(Radio Iowa) – Daylight Saving Time — forever. That’s the idea behind a bill State Representative Mike Sexton of Rockwell City is sponsoring. “People are just tired of changing their clocks and the effect it has on their children, their lives,” Sexton says. “When you visit with people, it really disrupts their life, especially the ‘spring ahead,’ when you lose an hour.”

Humans used to measure time by the position of the sun. In the late 1700s, the British introduced the concept of “Standard Time” — so time would be uniform throughout a region. The concept was adopted in America about a century later. Daylight Saving Time was introduced in the U.S. and many European countries during World War One, to conserve the fuel used to make electricity. The extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day in the springtime and summer helped farmers. “A lot of farms didn’t have electricity and so doing chores and taking care of livestock, the more light you had, the better it was. That’s why you had all these windows in barns,” Sexton says. “Now, our tractors with GPS…I tell folks with one my tractors, I could shut the lights off and it would just go down through the field better than I could steer it.”

Sexton says the majority of people who’ve talked to him about this issue prefer to stay on Daylight Saving Time, to get that extra hour of sunlight in the summer. “That’s what people want,” Sexton says. “They get off work and they have that extra hour to go to ballgames and do stuff during the summer.” Sexton tried, but failed to advance his idea through the 2019 Iowa legislature. He plans to try again this year after the state of Washington was successful in getting a federal waiver and making the move to year-round Daylight Saving Time. A bill that’s been introduced in the Iowa Senate would make Central Standard Time year-round in the State of Iowa.

(Radio Iowa) — Iowa Congressman Steve King says he wants to talk with leaders of the U-S Army Corps of Engineers about their plan for 2020 flood control in the Missouri River basin. King says he wants to know how the Corps will help to prevent a repeat of the flooding that caused parts of Interstate 29 in western Iowa to be flooded three times in 2019. “That’s what I want to sit down with the Corps and have a discussion about,” King says. “Having spent my working life in these kind of projects, although this is a bigger project than King Construction has ever done, I want to look at the whole scope of this, the entire Missouri River watershed.”

Four states along the Missouri River are joining forces to look for ways to avoid the kind of flooding that caused millions of dollars damage last year. Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas are pooling their money to pay for half of a $400,000 study with the Corps of Engineers to measure how much water flows down the Missouri River. King says he’s concerned about the feeder tributaries into the Missouri River, like Perry Creek and other northwest Iowa rivers that ran high or flooded last year. “If it is a series of dams up in each of these watersheds like Perry Creek, if it’s a 20- or 30-year project like often these things turn into,” King says, “we need to see it with a clear eye and start down that path.”

King says he is anxious to hear ideas from the Corps on the flood issue. King says, “What I hear sometimes from the Corps is, ‘We don’t have the money, we don’t have the resources,’ and I say, ‘That’s not what this is about right now. It’s about the biggest idea you can come up with that does the most good and how we might tailor that into something that might solve this.'”

King spoke at a town hall meeting Saturday in Sioux City.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) –  A woman has taken a plea deal on charges stemming from the death of her 5-year-old son in Davenport. Station KWQC reports that Jacqueline Rambert pleaded guilty Friday to two counts of child endangerment. Prosecutors agreed to drop a murder charge. Rambert agreed to testify against her co-defendant and former boyfriend, Tre Henderson, at his trial. Court documents say Henderson assaulted Ja’Shawn Bussell in April 2018, causing head and other injuries that resulted in the boy vomiting several times over a four-day period. Rambert and Henderson are both from Chicago but were living in a Davenport apartment at the time.

More State and area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) – Officials say the leaking inflatable dam on the Cedar River in downtown Waterloo has been fixed. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports that contractors found a slit in the half-inch-thick rubber and repaired it. Associate city engineer Wayne Castle said the final cost of the project will be significantly below the original $388,350 contract approved in November. He figures it will be just under $220,000. The city has inflated the bladder dam since 2009, raising the Cedar River level by about 4 feet to enhance boating. It’s usually inflated in June and deflated in October.

Officials with RAGBRAI (the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa), announced Saturday night, the route for this year’s ride from 20-miles east of the Missouri River to the Mississippi Rivers, will start from Le Mars July 19th, and end in Clinton on the 25th., In between, riders will stop overnight in Storm Lake, Fort Dodge, Iowa Falls, Waterloo, Anamosa and Maquoketa. Clocking in at 420.3 miles with 12,306 feet of climb, the 48th edition of this roving cycling celebration will be the sixth shortest in ride history. But that doesn’t mean it’ll be too easy — with the route coming in as No. 29 for most feet of climb, bicyclists should plan spring training rides with Iowa hills in mind. Le Mars, Maquoketa, Iowa Falls and Waterloo have all served as an overnight stop through the years, they haven’t hosted RAGBRAI in at least a decade.

The full route, including pass-through towns and vehicle directions, is expected to be released in March.  RAGBRAI officials announced also, that this year’s ride would be dedicated to Jim “Greenie” Green, a former ride director who died in June after suffering a stroke two years earlier. RAGBRAI was founded in 1973 by two Des Moines Register columnists, John Karras and Donald Kaul, who died in 2018 during the week RAGBRAI was ambling across the state.

For more information, following the event on social media or the official website.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) –  Police say one person was shot to death and and another wounded in northeast Cedar Rapids. The shooting occurred around 11:45 p.m. Friday. Officers sent to the scene in a parking lot found the two people, and both were taken to a hospital. Police say 18-year-old Andrew Gaston died early Saturday. The 16-year-old with him is expected to survive his wound. No arrests have been reported.

The area’s latest and/or top news stories at 7:05-a.m. From KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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(Radio Iowa) — Staff for three U.S. Senators running for president scrambled to arrange campaign events around the state this weekend during a brief break in the senate’s impeachment trial. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders told a crowd in Sioux City last (Sunday) night he had planned to spend this week campaigning here. “I can’t do that now because I’ve got a constitutional responsibility,” Sanders said, “and unlike the president of the United States, I actually believe in the constitution.” Sanders says he has “zero idea” what the impeachment trial’s schedule may be this week — or how long it may go in February. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren had to cancel an event in Burlington because of the impeachment trial’s Saturday morning session, but added one in Davenport Saturday night.

Warren spent the weekend traveling through eastern Iowa and met with a group of volunteer leaders in Cedar Rapids before flying back to Washington. “I’m there for the trial and I will be there for the trial, but it’s very hard not to be here in Iowa” Warren told Radio Iowa. “I’m very grateful that so many people have volunteered, have engaged, have said: ‘We know you’re in Washington, so we’ll get out there.'” Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar is boarding a 6 a.m. flight to D.C. this (Monday) morning. “It is with some bitter sweet sentiments ’cause I know I’m going back to do good,” Klobuchar said, “but I would love to be here.” Klobuchar says she had intended to make another 99-county tour this month, after completing one at the end of December.

Klobuchar suggests there’s now more pressure on Republican senators to call former National Security director John Bolton as a witness in the impeachment trial. On Sunday night, The New York Times reported Bolton’s book draft alleges President Trump wanted to freeze aid to Ukraine until the country investigated Joe Biden and other Democrats. “With Mr. Bolton saying that exactly what we said happened — happened, for them to deny him testifying would be wrong,” Klobuchar says, “so that’s what I’m going back to work on.” Former Vice President Joe Biden told an audience in Ankeny he expects to be a focus of Trump’s impeachment defense, but Biden suggests it will not be an issue for Iowa Caucus-goers as they make their decision NEXT Monday night.

“I’m not sure it will because so far it hasn’t,” Biden told Radio Iowa this weekend. “I mean, they’ve beaten the living hell out of me and my numbers have gone up, not down.” Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg appeared at a town hall hosted by Fox News last (Sunday) night and the first audience question was whether Trump should be removed from office. “If he’s not, it’s going to send a message that this Senate, or at least Senate Republicans today think that it’s okay to cheat, it’s okay to involve a foreign government or pressure a foreign government to get involved in American elections,” Buttigieg said. Buttigieg said the American people will have the last word, at the ballot box.