CHARLES CITY, Iowa (AP) — A trial has been scheduled for a northern Iowa woman accused of injecting her mother with insulin in an attempt to kill her. Floyd County District Court records say 44-year-old Jennifer Bean entered a written plea of not guilty Monday to a charge of attempted murder. Her trial is set to begin Jan. 8 in Charles City. She’s also pleaded not guilty to obstruction of emergency communications and has been charged with domestic abuse assault.

A court document says Bean injected her mother on Nov. 6 in Charles City. The document says the insulin caused the woman to have low blood sugar that, if not treated, could have resulted in the woman’s death.
The document also says Bean struck and pushed her mother and took away a phone when her mother tried to call 911 for help.

(11/29/18) SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — In a story Nov. 28 about an Iowa man being sentenced to prison in South Dakota after pleading guilty to cyberstalking and other charges, The Associated Press misidentified the man. His name is Daniel Vincent Jr., of Council Bluffs, Iowa, not David Vincent Jr.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A western Iowa man accused of posting nude photos of his ex-girlfriend on Craigslist has been sentenced in South Dakota to nearly six years in a federal prison. Thirty-two-year-old Daniel Vincent Jr., of Council Bluffs, earlier pleaded guilty to cyberstalking and failing to pay child support. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Vincent posted ads on Craigslist that listed the victim’s name, employment address and cell phone number and included claims that she was interested in having sex with men in the Sioux Falls area.

The woman went to Sioux Falls police after men started sending naked photos of themselves and started showing up at her workplace. Prosecutors say that at the time of sentencing last week, Vincent had more than $19,000 in unpaid child support for a child he had with the victim.

A fiery, single-vehicle crash this (Wednesday) morning in eastern Iowa resulted in the death of a man from Wisconsin. The Iowa State Patrol reports a 2011 Nissan Versa driven by 60-year old Rick Inman, of Glendale, WI., exited eastbound Interstate 80 at around 2:47-a.m. at the intersection of U Avenue, and failed to stop at the end of the exit ramp. The vehicle traveled across U Avenue and left the road before entering a ditch. It vaulted over a creek and impacted the ground on the east side of the water before erupting in flames and coming to rest in the ditch. Inman died at the scene.

The Patrol was assisted at the scene by the Iowa County Sheriff’s Office, Williamsburg Police and Williamsburg Fire and Rescue.

(A-P correction 11/29, to original story stating Stoltz had no living relatives)

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Omaha funeral of a Vietnam veteran initially believed to have no known living family members could have been a sparsely-attended affair. But the national attention brought by an Omaha World-Herald funeral notice saw hundreds of people turn up in frigid conditions Tuesday at Omaha National Cemetery to honor Stanley Stoltz. Stoltz died Nov. 18 at the age of 73. The newspaper ran a small notice inviting the public to his funeral, which went viral on social media and was picked up by at least one cable news network.

Stoltz was born May 29, 1945, and raised in Curlew, Iowa, and later lived in Bennington, Nebraska. Former Bennington Mayor Bill Bohn, who was Stoltz’s friend and neighbor, said Stoltz served in the Vietnam War before settling in Bennington. Friends say Stoltz’s first wife died of cancer, and he and his second wife divorced. He had no children and was preceded in death by his parents. The World-Herald reports that a brother, who declined to speak to reporters, attended Tuesday’s funeral.

URBANDALE, Iowa (AP) — A man rescued from the frigid water of a suburban Des Moines pond is grateful. Michael Kennedy’s car ran off an Urbandale street into the pond late Monday morning and became submerged up to the rear window. Urbandale police Sgt. Mark Jorgensen arrived with other first responders and jumped into the water and broke a car window to try to get Kennedy out. Firefighters called to the scene took over and got Kennedy to safety on land.

Kennedy says that once he became alert his rescuers told him he’d had a seizure. He told station KCCI on Tuesday that he was grateful to Jorgensen and others for their efforts and said, “I’m probably more thankful than I’ve ever been.”

(Radio Iowa) — The state ag secretary is asking lawmakers for a quarter of a million dollar budget increase — to boost the “Animal Agriculture Industries Bureau” in the Iowa Department of Agriculture. “To prepare, present, detect and, if needed, to respond in the case of a foreign animal disease.” Ag Secretary Mike Naig says Avian influenza, African swine fever and other foreign animal diseases are a threat to Iowa’s livestock and poultry industries. “Iowa’s a leader in animal production,” Naig says. “We’re number two in total livestock sales — $13.4 billion in the last census — and that number’s only growing.”

Naig has been ag secretary since March and was elected to a full term in this month’s election. His predecessor asked lawmakers for half a million dollars in 2016, shortly after a bird flu outbreak hit Iowa’s poultry industry. Legislators just provided 250-thousand dollars for the effort this year. Three weeks ago, Naig hired a veterinarian to serve as the Iowa Department of Agriculture’s emergency management coordinator. Naig is now asking legislators to provide the rest of the half-a-million dollar budget for the bureau that’s overseeing state preparations for an outbreak of a foreign animal disease.

“Animal disease is an ever-present threat and we’re all on the front line along with the industry and our inspectors and veterinarians,” Naig says. “…The increased funding will help us better support our producers, the industry. We’ll be able to hire or engage the kind of expertise that we need.”

Upgrading the department’s antiquated computer system is key, according to Naig, to ensure alerts can be sent quickly to the right people if there is an outbreak. Naig says if legislators provide the additional money, his agency will host drills for producers in how best to respond if there is an outbreak of foot and mouth or some other disease that can devastate and kill livestock and poultry.

A near t-bone collision in Creston early Tuesday morning, resulted in two people being transported to the Greater Regional Medical Center, to be checked out and treated for possible, minor injuries. Creston Police say a 2008 Buick Enclave SUV driven by 64-year old Deborah Vandevender, of Creston, was traveling east on Lake Street at around 7:54-a.m., and approaching the uncontrolled intersection with Bureau Street, at the same time a 2001 Hyundai XG-300 driven by 17-year old Zane Powell, of Creston, was traveling south on Bureau Street and approaching Lake Street.

The car struck the SUV on the driver’s side tire and door, causing $10,000 damage altogether. Powell, who was not wearing a seat belt, was transported by his parents to the hospital. Vandevender was taken to the facility by ambulance. Police cited Powell for Entering intersections from a different highway.

A man from Nebraska was arrested Tuesday evening, in Red Oak. Authorities say 27-year old Richard Michael Haynes, of Omaha, was taken into custody at around 5:20-p.m. for simple Assault. Haynes was arrested in the 700 block of E. Washington Street and transported to the Montgomery County Jail, where his bond was set at $300.

(Radio Iowa) — Do you get grouchy when you don’t get enough sleep? An Iowa State University study finds losing a few hours of sleep makes you angrier, especially in frustrating situations. I-S-U psychology professor Zlatan Krizan had test subjects maintain or reduce their sleep patterns, then come to the lab to perform mundane tasks while listening to various levels of distracting noises. Those who changed their patterns lost about five hours of sleep over two nights.

“Individuals who followed their regular sleep routine experienced less anger and in general, less distress the second time than the first time,” Krizan says. “It makes sense. We tend to get used to annoying things over time, but those individuals who lost sleep, they did not show anything of the kind. As a matter of fact, they showed an opposite trend.”

The researchers found anger was substantially higher for those who were sleep-restricted. Although the results may seem relatively obvious, the study is one of the first to provide evidence that sleep loss causes anger. Krizan says we should all take note of the results. “If we’re getting in conflicts and we’re aware that we’re sleepy or the other person is sleepy, we should remind ourselves that the anger may not be as bad or due to personal disagreements per se, but may be amplified by these kinds of physiological factors,” Krizan says.

The study concludes that people who are sleep-restricted showed a trend toward increased anger and distress, reversing their ability to adapt to frustrating conditions over time. Krizan says no one has shown this before. “That really points to you being sleepy as a cue to you being prone to anger or potentially getting angered more easily,” Krizan says. “That’s something that we should recognize in ourselves and in others.”

Most adults need seven-to-eight hours of sleep nightly for adequate rest, but Krizan notes, studies find many of us — for whatever reason — often don’t get that much shut-eye. The research is being published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

(Radio Iowa) — The director of the Iowa Department of Transportation says in the past 11 years, the number of “structurally deficient” bridges on state-maintained highways in Iowa has been reduced by 80 percent. “From 2006 to 2017, we’ve driven that number down from 256 to 51.”

And Iowa D-O-T director Mark Lowe expects just 46 state-owned bridges to be classified as “structurally deficient” when the state budgeting year ends on June 30th.  “It just reflects a continued focus on bringing up the condition of the system, so of the 24,000 bridges in our state, 4000 are on our primary system. That means that less than one percent of the bridges on our primary system right now are structurally deficient,” Lowe says.

The Iowa D-O-T’s website has an “Iowa Bridge Condition Index” which indicates whether a state-maintained bridge is in good, fair or poor condition. The D-O-T notes that if a bridge is rated in good condition, that means it is “adequate for today’s traffic and vehicle loads.” Bridges rated in poor condition are “NOT unsafe,” according to the D-O-T, but should be considered for repair, replacement and additional monitoring — or perhaps limits on the weight of vehicles that may travel over the bridge.

The vast majority of Iowa bridges — 24-thousand — are on highways, roads and streets maintained by cities and counties.