SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A Sioux City man has been charged with first-degree murder in a New Year’s shooting that left one person dead and three other people injured. Christopher Morales was charged Wednesday in the death of 18-year-old Mia Kritis. Prosecutors say Morales forced a person to go into the home where a New Year’s party was being held.

He and others than allegedly fired at least 27 shots shots into the house, killing Kritis and wounding three juveniles. Morales also was charged with going armed with intent and three counts of reckless use of a firearm. He is being held on $1 million bond.

Iowa (R) Senator Joni Ernst’s office reports a key measure Senator Ernst has been pushing for to improve operations along the Missouri River and mitigate flood risk in Southwest Iowa, was just signed into law as part of Congress’ major bipartisan relief package at the end of the year. The Senator helped advance a major water infrastructure bill in the Senate last May, called the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2020. The bill was included in the most recent relief package that passed the Senate at the end of December and is now law.

The measure directs the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a comprehensive study of the Upper Missouri River Basin, and to expand the scope of an existing Lower Missouri Basin study, including completing additional studies on flood risk reduction solutions in the Lower Basin. This will help to make sure the Corps is better focusing its resources in Southwest Iowa to protect against flooding.

It will also allow towns that created temporary flood control structures to make them permanent – like the town of Hamburg did during the 2019 floods. It gives the Army Corps the authority to review whether temporary flood control structures it has constructed should be made permanent, and allows the local cost-share for making them permanent to be waived for communities that are small, financially disadvantaged, or at risk of recurring flooding.

Following passage of the bill, Ernst said  “As someone who grew up on a small farm in Southwest Iowa, I know firsthand the challenges of protecting our communities along the Missouri River from flooding and the importance of supporting commerce on our waterways. This measure, which is now law, will go a long way in helping strengthen our water infrastructure, especially our flood control systems, including for our small and rural communities. As Iowans continue to recover from the 2018 and 2019 flooding, this new law will make sure the Army Corps is spending your tax dollars wisely and taking the right steps to protect our state from future floods.”

DES MOINES, Iowa — The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa reports that on Friday, January 8, 2021, Richard D. Westphal was appointed as Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa following the resignation of Marc Krickbaum.  Westphal will serve as Acting United States Attorney until November 16, 2021, or
until the new presidential administration selects a nominee, if prior to November 16.

Attorney Westphal was born and raised in Davenport, Iowa. He graduated from the University of Iowa in 1986 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and in 1990 received a law degree from the University of Iowa, College of Law. Mr. Westphal was admitted into the State of Iowa bar in June of 1990. He began private practice from 1990-1993 at Reynolds and Kenline in Dubuque, Iowa. From 1993-1996, Mr. Westphal served as an assistant county attorney in Johnson County and Muscatine County.

Westphal has extensive federal prosecution experience. In April 1996, he was designated as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in both the Northern and Southern Districts of Iowa specializing in methamphetamine prosecutions. From June 1997 to the present, Mr. Westphal has been an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of Iowa. While at the U.S. Attorney’s Office he has been Branch Chief of the Davenport Branch Office (2013), Criminal Chief (June 2018), and First Assistant United States Attorney (January 2021).

AMES, Iowa – Jan. 13, 2021 – Today (On Wednesday), the Iowa Transportation Commission approved $930,087 in total funding for four statewide Iowa’s Transportation Alternatives Program projects. This program supports projects such as trails, Safe Routes to School, National Scenic Byways, and the preservation or rehabilitation of historic transportation facilities. Among the projects is:

• The NE 2nd Street Safe Routes to School Sidewalk Project (Stuart) –  $81,000
• The 3rd Avenue Middle/High School Rec Central Trail Link (Audubon) – $ 42,000

The majority of Iowa’s Transportation Alternatives Program funding is distributed to Iowa’s metropolitan planning organizations and regional planning affiliations for the selection of local projects. The Commission awards Transportation Alternatives Program projects annually that are statewide in nature. Funding is available to cities, counties, school districts, or other eligible organizations through an annual application-based program.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s state auditor says Des Moines Public Schools made more than $200,000 in improper payments to a district maintenance and projects specialist and a maintenance contractor. The audit report released Wednesday says school funds were used to reimburse contractor Ja-Ra Enterprises for costs of various school repair and construction projects from 2013 to February 2020.

But auditors determined that many of the purchases included items that were not necessary or reasonable for the projects and personal in nature — including purchases of clothes, snack foods, electronic items, ammunition and cigarettes that went to district project facilitator specialist William Joseph Hinrichs and Ja-Ra contractor Kevin Kurth. Neither Hinrichs nor Kurth could be reached for comment Wednesday.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen says the state’s court system has been upended by the pandemic. “It’s been turned on its head for almost a year,” Christensen said. “We can’t just shut our doors and say: ‘See you when things get better.’ It’s not like people have a choice to come do business with us. We tend to do something called subpoena and summons.” Christensen, a native of Harlan, says the system is functioning, though, because the courts embraced paperless technology years ago.  “Like most everyone else in 2020, we went virtual,” Christensen said. “Thank goodness our branch had the foresight 15 years ago to plan and implement an electronic filing system which allows us to be paperless and thank goodness for you, our legislature, for making sure that we had adequate funding and maintaining that adequate funding to keep our technological infrastructure.”

Supreme Court Chief Justice -Susan Christensen.

Christensen delivered the annual “Condition of the Judiciary” address to legislators this (Wednesday) morning. Her fellow justices elected Christensen to serve as chief justice last spring and this was her first major public address. She briefed legislators on the plan to have all court employees be trained to recognize implicit biases against people based on race, gender and what she referred to as “other identified protected classes.” “As public servants, our task is as simple as it is solemn: to provide justice without fear, favor or affection,” Christensen said. “…Over the past six years, the judicial branch has dedicated itself to implementing initiatives that are designed to identify and eliminate discriminatory behaviors, behaviors that may compound the disparities present in our system of justice as a whole.”

Christensen told legislators her current priority is steering the court system through the final months of the pandemic, then she spent the remaining 15 minutes of her speech focused on child welfare cases in the courts. Christensen talked extensively about a western Iowa man who has been drug-free for more than a thousand days and regained custody of his child. The man and his family were in the Capitol for Christensen’s speech and Christensen led legislators in an extended standing ovation. “It’s stories like Shawn’s that continue to give me hope for the work of our judicial branch,” Christensen said. “By adapting to the unprecedented circumstances that we faced this year, we have proven hope cannot be cancelled. Hope cannot be kept at six feet distance. We will continue to provide Iowans with the access to justice they need to turn their hopes into reality.”

Christensen presented a report to lawmakers today (Wednesday), showing 72 percent of the children involved in family treatment court cases returned to the home of a parent or caregiver within a year of the adult entering that court program.