OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — In the wake of disastrous flooding in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa earlier this month, officials have created an on-demand webinar to help people deal with the serious health dangers that remain after major flooding.

The Central States Center of Agricultural Safety and Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health collaborated with the AgriSafe Network to create the webinar.

Major safety concerns include chemicals released from barns, homes and other on-farm sources and businesses; contaminated well water; human and animal communicable diseases; and mold.

More farm and ranch flood-related resources are available on the Central States Center website.

ACKLEY, Iowa (AP) — A central Iowa man accused of abusing and locking his 8-year-old son in a space under the basement stairs will go to trial in September. Television station KCCI reports that Alex Shadlow’s kidnapping trial has been moved to the Dickinson County Courthouse due to pre-trial publicity.

Authorities say the boy was locked up for at least 9 hours a day last summer in a space under the basement stairs at the couple’s Ackley home. Authorities say the couple withheld food from him and made him endure dog bites. He slept on concrete and had no access to a bathroom.

Shadlow’s fiance, 40-year-old Traci Tyler, was tried on similar charges last month. She is still waiting for a verdict.

WILTON, Iowa (AP) — Students and volunteers in a small eastern Iowa city are working together to construct a $90,000 observatory. The Muscatine Journal reports that volunteers in Wilton this week began assembling the observatory’s shell and installing instruments. The project is expected to be completed in May.

Resident Grant Harkness came up with the idea to build the observatory. He says his two young sons have always wanted to learn more about space. The community helped raise the funds for the project after the Wilton Community School District Board approved the plan.

Harkness says the observatory will be available for students from kindergarten through 12th grade. The space will include a command center where students will be able to control the telescope and gather data.

KNOXVILLE, Iowa (AP) — Since the Veterans Affairs moved out of a sprawling campus on the edge of the small Iowa city of Knoxville a decade ago, local leaders have become increasingly anxious about the ghost town that has become a drag on their community.

The VA left behind 39 buildings and Knoxville residents are desperate to work out a plan with state and federal officials for an area that once operated as a separate city. There’s a power plant, fire station, water tower, green houses, laundry and chapel.

Knoxville Mayor Brian Hatch says it once was a beautiful campus but “now the buildings are rotten.” City leaders hope to take control of the site but think up to $10 million could be needed to clear the buildings for future development of housing.

PEOSTA, Iowa (AP) — State environment officials say a fish kill in northeastern Iowa was caused by farm manure runoff. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says in a news release that it is investigating the Dubuque County fish kill near Peosta. Investigators say more than 200 fish were killed by the runoff, which they traced to Lawler Dairy farm in Peosta.

The agency says the farm applied liquid manure to a nearby field, and melting snow and rain caused it to run off into an unnamed creek that leads to the Little Maquoketa River.

Officials say charges are pending against the dairy.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A Nebraska resident accused of stabbing to death a woman in northwest Iowa has had her trial set for the fall. The trial of Melissa Camargo-Flores, of Dakota City, Nebraska, had been scheduled to begin Feb. 19, but a judge last month granted her attorneys’ request for a delay. The Sioux City Journal reports that on Friday, the judge set the new trial date for Oct. 22.

Camargo-Flores has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the April. 8 killing of 24-year-old Kenia Alvarez-Flores in Sioux City. Court documents say Camargo-Flores admitted stabbing Alvarez-Flores. Camargo-Flores told investigators she’d been involved in a relationship with the victim’s boyfriend.

Authorities say the two women were not related.

w/ Chris Parks

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The Red Oak Police Department reports two arrests on Friday night.

At 5:41pm Officers arrested 32-year-old Cody Allen Tunnell of Red Oak in the 200 block of East Grimes Street in Red Oak. He was charged with Simple Assault, a simple misdemeanor. Tunnell was taken to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $300 bond.

At 11:25pm Red Oak Police arrested 48-year-old Charles Edward Heim of Colorado Springs, CO at 106 East Valley Street in Red Oak. Heim was charged with Domestic Assault 1st Offense. He was taken to the Montgomery County Jail and held on no bond.

(Radio Iowa) — The Iowa Utilities Board has extended the annual winter ban on shutting off utilities for those customers enrolled in the energy assistance program from Monday to May 13th due to the flooding in some counties. I-U-B spokesperson, Don Tormey, says the Low Income Home Energy Assistance, or LIHEAP program gives some help in dealing with the bigger bills during the cold winter months. “It is a benefit to them but it only pays for a portion of their service,” Tormey explained.

He says those enrolled should be paying what they can on their bill. “The Iowa Utilities board always encourages those customers and all customers to keep paying toward their energy bill even during the winter months — because even though the program guarantees no disconnection it’s not a free ride,” Tormey says. He says the utility companies are willing to work with you and won’t automatically cut off your service when the moratorium ends. But Tormey says you have to reach out to them.

“Those customers who are protected from utility disconnections — if they are protected under the LIHEAP program for energy assistance — they would need to contact both their local utility company to talk about payment arrangements and contact their local community action agency to seek financial assistance,” Tormey says.

Tormey says they utilities can begin disconnecting service when the moratorium ends if the customer has not made arrangements to pay outstanding balances on their utility bill.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Several Democratic presidential candidates will make their case to Iowa farmers today (Saturday) — part of a broader effort to win over rural voters who have drifted to Republicans in recent years. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota are among the White House hopefuls who will attend the Heartland Forum in Storm Lake. They’re likely to tout proposals they released this week aimed at helping rural communities.

The attention on agricultural communities and issues is the result of a recognition that Democrats need to do more to win over rural voters, especially in places like Iowa. The state has long been a presidential battleground that swung between Democrats and Republicans. But Iowa has trended more solidly Republican over the past two election cycles, a troubling warning sign for Democrats seeking to oust President Donald Trump.

In the early days of the 2020 Democratic primary, many candidates are focusing on building that connection. Warren rolled out an extensive agriculture policy this week that would help family farmers by breaking up big agriculture monopolies. Klobuchar announced a $1 trillion infrastructure policy that she spoke about while surveying flooding damage in Iowa this weekend. And former Rep. John Delaney rolled out his own policy aimed at revitalizing rural America, which includes a focus on farming and rural infrastructure.

Several contenders, including former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, have campaigned in parts of rural Iowa that haven’t seen much Democratic activity in years. Former Rep. John Delaney is the only Democratic candidate so far to visit all 99 of Iowa’s counties.
A key part of what Democrats need to do to win back rural America, according to Iowa state Rep. Mary Gaskill — is to simply show up.

Gaskill is the only Democratic lawmaker in her area, and represents a red county that went for Trump by more than 20 points in 2016 — but one that Barack Obama won by nearly 12 points in 2012. Now, at least two candidates — Sens. Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand — have campaigned there, a development Gaskill welcomes. O’Rourke won’t attend today’s forum. But his first Iowa swing as a presidential candidate included stops in small towns that swung from Democrats to Republicans in 2016.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand recently visited the same swath of eastern Iowa, pitching herself to voters as a candidate who could defeat Trump because she’s won in red areas of New York. She, too, didn’t shy away from embracing progressive policies like gun control, universal health care and the Green New Deal, and she touted her work on the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the policy prohibiting gays from serving openly in the military, everywhere she went.

Neither Gillibrand nor O’Rourke won everyone over. Tom Courtney, the Des Moines County Democratic Party chairman, hosted an event for both candidates and said he wasn’t impressed by their message. The rural forum will offer candidates the opportunity to discuss policies that will have a more direct impact on rural voters and farmers — and explain how some of their more sweeping proposals, like the Green New Deal, would help at the local level.