CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A former janitor has been sentenced to two years for taking pictures of women in an eastern Iowa college locker room. Linn County court records say 46-year-old Jeffrey Pospisil was sentenced Friday on two counts of invasion of privacy. He’d pleaded guilty in September. The investigation began when students at Cornell College in Mount Vernon reported seeing a cellphone held in an open doorway leading to the locker room. A coach found Pospisil in the area. He was an employee with a business that provides custodial service for the college.

He told police he had been texting on the phone. But a search of the phone revealed more than 100 images taken in the locker room as students were fully or partially nude.
Pospisil was fired from his job.

WASHINGTON (AP) — If the FBI discovers that foreign hackers have infiltrated the networks of your county election office, you may not find out about it until after voting is over. And your governor and other state officials may be kept in the dark, too. There’s no federal law compelling state and local governments to share information when an electoral system is hacked. And a federal policy keeps details secret by shielding the identity of all cyber victims regardless of whether election systems are involved.

Election officials are in a difficult spot: If someone else’s voting system is targeted, they want to know exactly what happened so they can protect their own system. Yet when their own systems are targeted, they may be cautious about disclosing details. They must balance the need for openness with worries over undermining any criminal investigation. And they want to avoid chaos or confusion, the kind of disruption that hackers want.

The secrecy surrounding foreign hacks is not a hypothetical issue. The public still doesn’t know which Florida counties were breached by Russian agents in the 2016 election. Rick Scott, Florida’s governor in 2016 and now a U.S. senator, was not told at the time and didn’t learn most of the details until this year. And the threat to electoral systems is real. Federal officials believe Russian agents in 2016 searched for vulnerabilities within election systems in all 50 states. And the nation’s intelligence chiefs warn that Russia and other nations remain interested in interfering in U.S. elections.

Meanwhile, experts worry the White House hasn’t highlighted the threat as President Donald Trump argues it’s OK for foreign countries to provide damaging information on his political rivals, a matter now the subject of an impeachment inquiry led by House Democrats. In general, it’s up to electoral agencies to disclose when they’ve been hacked. That, plus the federal policy protecting the identity of cyber victims, could mean that state election officials might not be told immediately if one of their local election offices experiences a breach. In addition, the whole situation could be considered classified as part of a federal investigation.

At least two states — Colorado and Iowa — have implemented policies to compel local officials to notify the state about suspected breaches involving election systems. Due to the criminal nature of cyber breaches, law enforcement officials may seek to withhold releasing certain information long after the incident. In June, a majority of Americans expressed at least some concern that voting systems are vulnerable to hackers, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Yet election officials want to ensure they have a good understanding of what happened before going public so they don’t contribute to the confusion that the hackers may be trying to achieve.

Cyber intrusions are inherently complicated, taking time to understand and contain. There is also a concern of inadvertently releasing information that could invite further compromises or undermine an investigation. Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections, said it would be hard to imagine that any election office would seek to keep something like that quiet today. “In 2016, it was a story and then it was dealt with and then it kind of went away for a year,” Dietrich said. “That is not going to happen this time. It will be a national and a worldwide story. We all know this. We all know we are going to be under the microscope.”

A University of Iowa professor who’s done extensive research on farmer suicide is applauding proposed new legislation in Congress to address the worsening issue. Corinne Peek-Asa, a U-I professor of occupational and environmental health, says she and her team studied a wealth of federal data and found suicide rates were 45-percent higher for people in rural areas, and farmers stood out as having even higher rates compared to the general population. “We looked at specifically Midwestern states and we found that between 1992 and 2010, some 230 farmers died from suicide,” Peek-Asa says. “When we look overall at the workforce and at work-related suicides, we see that’s three times the national average.”

Unlike someone who works in a bank, Peek-Asa says a farmer’s work is much more closely tied to their lives, making it harder to put stress away or to keep one’s work and personal lives separate. Peek-Asa says, “When we look at those circumstances in Iowa farmers, we do see that things like financial stress, personal isolation, symptoms of feeling anxious and depressed are things that we see in the review of cases of farmer suicides.”

One of the biggest challenges in suicide prevention, she says, is the stigma of talking about the topic, worries about seeking mental health care in general, and the availablity of such care in rural areas. “One of the pieces the legislation has written into it is a public campaign to talk about this issue, to bring it more into the light and to try to reduce the barriers to recognizing that it is okay, that there are stresses associated with farming,” Peek-Asa says. “I think that’s a very important component of the bill.”

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is one of the two primary co-sponsors of the bill, called of the Seeding Rural Resilience Act. A news release from Grassley’s office says the legislation aims to curb the rising rate of farmer suicides through a stress management training program.

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-tester-address-farmer-suicide

Emergency responders from Griswold and Lewis were called to the scene of a 4-wheel UTV accident northeast of Griswold this (Sunday) afternoon. Initial reports indicated an adult male was trapped under the machine in Turkey Creek, just east of 58488 Midway Road. The man was conscious and breathing, with a possible broken leg. The accident was reported at around 2:20-p.m.

In addition to the Griswold Fire and Rescue and Lewis 1st Responders, Medivac, Atlantic Fire and Rescue, and Cass County Sheriff’s Deputies were sent to the scene soon after the call went out. Atlantic Fire & Rescue was asked to respond with their ATV, as the terrain where the accident took place was difficult to navigate.

According to reports, rescue crews walked nearly a mile along uneven terrain to the scene. When they arrived, they learned the victim had been ejected from the machine and was able to crawl out of the water onto the creek bank. A coordinated effort between the Griswold and Atlantic Fire and Rescue Departments took place in order to bring the man to an ambulance. Medivac transported the victim to the hospital. His name was not immediately released.

MONONA COUNTY, Iowa — The Iowa DNR reports that on Sunday October 20, at approximately 10:57 AM, Monona County dispatch received a call that Decatur Fire and Rescue was en-route to Tieville Bend Wildlife Management Area for a call of two hunters whose boat was sinking.  A father and teenage son were duck hunting on an oxbow lake within the Tieville Bend Wildlife Management Area and were motoring back to the boat ramp when their 14 foot johnboat began taking on water.

DNR Conservation Officer Gary Sisco and an Iowa State Patrol Trooper accompanied Decatur Fire and Rescue and pulled the hunters from their stranded vessel and transported them to shore.  Both individuals refused medical treatment.

Burt County, NE Fire and Rescue, Decatur, NE Fire and Rescue, Iowa State Patrol, and the Monona County Sheriff”s Office, along with DNR Conservation Officers Gary Sisco and Aaron Johnson were assisted with the rescue.

HARRISON COUNTY, Iowa – The Iowa Department of Natural Resources said Sunday, that at around 9:13-a.m. Saturday, divers with the Midwest Regional Dive Team recovered the body of a Nebraska kayaker and hunter that was missing since Friday evening. The body has been identified as 33-year old Cody Bengford, of Bellevue, Nebraska.  The body has since been transported to the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner in Ankeny for an autopsy.

Investigators believe Bengford left the boat ramp at the Nobles Lake Wildlife Management Area on Friday afternoon to head out for a bow hunt in the Desoto National Wildlife Refuge.  Bengford was reported missing that evening after he didn’t return. Two DNR Conservation Officers responded and began search and rescue efforts. Bengford’s overturned kayak was recovered a short time later along the north shoreline of the lake, however his body was not found. Search and rescue operations were suspended at 1:46am and resumed around 7:00am Saturday morning.

DNR Conservation Officers were assisted by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Council Bluffs Fire Department, Harrison and Shelby County sheriff’s offices, Harrison and Shelby County Emergency Management, Missouri Valley Fire and Rescue, Modale Fire Department, Midwest Regional Dive Team, and the Iowa State Patrol.

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — Iowa investigators are working to determine who fatally shot a woman while she was driving in April. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports no arrests have been made yet in the April 28 death of Micalla Rettinger. She was a former softball player at the University of Northern Iowa who was driving home from work at a bar with two passengers when the shooting happened.

Rettinger died and one passenger was hurt in the shooting that happened in a remote area between Waterloo and Cedar Falls on Highway 218. Police Maj. Joe Leibold says the bullet and other evidence was recently sent to a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms lab for additional testing.

Rettinger was from Lenexa, Kansas. She had been living in Waterloo since graduating in 2016 from college.

Emergency responders from Griswold and Lewis were called to the scene of a 4-wheel ATV accident northeast of Griswold this (Sunday) afternoon. An adult male was trapped under the machine in Turkey Creek, just east of 58488 Midway Road. The man was conscious and breathing, with a possible broken leg. The accident was reported at around 2:25-p.m.

Griswold Fire and Rescue, Lewis 1st Responders, Medivac, Atlantic Fire and Rescue, and Cass County Sheriff’s Deputies were enroute to the scene soon after the call went out. Atlantic Fire & Rescue was asked to respond with their ATV, as the terrain where the accident took place was difficult to navigate.

No other details are currently available.

Members of the Exira-EHK School Board are set to meet 6-p.m. Monday, in the Conference Room at the Elk Horn Building. On their agenda is a Spartan Media Presentation, followed later on by discussion and/or action with regard to:

• The Certified Enrollment numbers.
• Approval of: the Certified Annual Report (CAR Report); Special Education Report; and the Transportation Report.
• Approval of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Audubon County Sheriff and Exira-EHK.
• Approval of an Early Retirement Plan for the 2019-2020 School Year.
• Approval the second reading of Board Policies.
• and discussion/action with regard to Personnel Hires, Transfers, Resignations, etc.

The City of Atlantic’s Parks and Recreation Board will meet 5:15-p.m. Monday in the City Council’s Chambers, at City Hall. On their agenda is discussion and/or action with regard to:

1. The Schildberg Campground
2. Schildberg Bathhouse (Snyder & Associates, related)
3. A Schildberg Development Project Update
4. Bull Creek Property Line Assessment
5. Bull Creek/Schildberg/Sunnyside erosion
6. Mollett Park – Community Gardens.
7. The hiring of a Parks Foreman
8. Flood repair update.

In his report to the Board, Parks & Rec Director Bryant Rasmussen will talk about efforts to mow while many parks are still saturated, the AMU Well Fields – with regard to seed collecting, and Parks Are Locally Special, or, “PALS.”