DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — House and Senate committees have passed an election bill that would significantly limit voting by mail and early voting, threaten criminal charges against county auditors who depart from state election guidance and remove voters from the active voter rolls if they miss one general election. The quick action Thursday with only Republican votes makes the similar House and Senate versions of the bill eligible for floor debate as early as next week.

The House is planning a public hearing on the measure at 5 p.m. Monday. A Senate Democrat called it disgusting and an attack on democracy. Republicans deny it suppresses votes and say it improves election security and integrity even though no problems have been raised in Iowa in recent elections.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Gov. Kim Reynolds is considering a bill that would provide a $36.5 million increase to public schools in Iowa but will result in higher property taxes in 137 school districts where parents kept about 7,000 young children home due to the coronavirus pandemic. Since the funding formula is a per-pupil allowance and based on current enrollment, when the at-home students return in the fall state money won’t be there to cover them boosting local taxes for those districts.

House and Senate Republicans agreed to increase base state aid by 2.4% in a bill sent to Reynolds on Wednesday. That increases state K-12 spending to $3.41 billion, up from $3.38 billion in the current year.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A 47-year-old Sioux City man has pleaded not guilty to shooting arrows at police officers during a standoff. Mitchell Smith entered his written plea Wednesday. He is charged with attempted murder, intimidation with a dangerous weapon and two counts of assault on a peace officer. Officers were called to a home Dec. 1 on reports that Smith was threatening a neighbor’s wife.

Police say when the officers were preparing to leave, Smith fired an arrow over one of the officer’s heads. When the officers got into their car, Smith allegedly fired another arrow. During a standoff, Smith reportedly fired two more arrows before officers were able to subdue him.

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — A 39-year-old Waterloo man accepted a plea deal during his trial in a man’s overdose death. Marcus Anthony Sallay on Thursday admitted to selling drugs to 49-year-old Adam Sharkey in February 2017. Sharkey died the next day. Testimony began Wednesday in Sallay’s trial. He pleaded guilty to four counts of delivery of heroin and fentanyl.

In exchange, the state dropped a manslaughter charge and agreed Sallay’s sentences would run concurrently. Sallay also admitted to selling a fentynal and heroin mixture to a confidential informant several times following Sharkey’s death.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Police in Des Moines have identified a man whose body was been found inside a portable toilet outside the city’s Forest Avenue Library earlier this month. The Des Moines Register reports that police confirmed Thursday that the body was that of 59-year-old Luis Alonso Mendoza Sandoval. Police say Sandoval was homeless and that autopsy results determining the cause of his death are still pending.

Police have said Sandoval’s body was discovered in the early-morning hours of Feb. 8 by a city snowplow driver who spotted a man’s legs sticking out of the portable toilet. Temperatures at the time hovered around 2 below zero, and the wind chill was double digits below zero.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Des Moines police officer has been placed on leave after being charged with a misdemeanor in which he’s accused of trying to interfere in a criminal investigation involving one of his friends. The Des Moines Police Department said in a news release Thursday that Officer Rodney Alan Briggs was arrested Wednesday by police in nearby Altoona and charged with non-felonious misconduct in office.

The release says Briggs exceeded his authority as a police officer by trying to persuade Southeast Polk School District employees to give him video evidence related to an ongoing Altoona police investigation involving a friend of Briggs’. Police did not name the friend or detail the investigation involving the friend.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa grocery stores could opt out of accepting empty containers covered by the state’s nickel deposit law under legislation that has cleared a Senate subcommittee. Senator Ken Rozenboom, a Republican from Oskaloosa, says his bill is an attempt to tweak, but not end the state’s popular “Bottle Bill.”

Rozenboom predicts his bill would lead to more business for redemption centers, but Troy Willard, owner of the Can Shed in Cedar Rapids, says without an increase in the fee for handling empty cans and bottles, it’s not a profitable business model for rural parts of the state.

Jess Mazour, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club, says the bill would make it less convenient for consumers to get their deposit fees back.

As the bill is currently written, a retailer may refuse to accept cans and bottles if there’s a redemption center within 20 miles of the store. Mary Tarnoff of Fairfield, legislative action chair for the Sierra Club of Southeast Iowa, says it’s not reasonable to expect someone to drive 20 miles to recycle.

Rozenboom says his attempt to modernize the Bottle Bill, like countless others, may be doomed if competing interest groups aren’t willing to compromise.

Beer and liquor distributors keep all the deposit fees that are not redeemed today and Rosenboom says it’s grown “into a very large sum of money.” His bill would have that money turned over the state.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A new monthly survey of bankers suggests the economy is slowly improving in rural parts of 10 Plains and Western states, but employment remains below the level it was at before the coronavirus pandemic began last year. The overall index for the region increased to 53.8 in February from January’s 52. Any score above 50 suggests a growing economy. Creighton University economist Ernie Goss said the number of jobs in the region is down roughly 146,000, or 3.3%, from the level it was at before the pandemic began.

Bankers from Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming were surveyed.