Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:40 a.m. CDT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Many farmers are critical of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the damage done to commodity prices and markets, but say they are appreciative that he has offered to provide cash to help make up their losses. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced Tuesday a $12 billion plan to borrow money from the U.S. Treasury to pay producers of commodities including soybeans, corn and wheat to compensate for losses due to trade disputes.

BROOKLYN, Iowa (AP) — State and federal agents are investigating the disappearance of a 20-year-old University of Iowa student who has been missing for nearly a week in eastern Iowa. KCRG TV reports that Mollie Tibbetts was staying at her boyfriend’s home in Brooklyn last week. A neighbor reported seeing Tibbetts jogging Wednesday evening. She was reported missing Thursday. Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation spokesman Mitch Mortvedt says the FBI is using computer forensics to pinpoint her location.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donald Kaul, a longtime columnist for the Des Moines Register and a Pulitzer Prize finalist twice over, has died. He was 83. His son, Chris Kaul, tells the Register that his father died Sunday at his home in Washington, D.C., following a long battle with prostate cancer that spread to his skeleton. At his height, Kaul’s “Over the Coffee” column was syndicated in 150 newspapers.

PLEASANT HILL, Iowa (AP) — Iowa natural resources officials are investigating a fungicide spill and subsequent fish kill in a central Iowa creek. The state Department of Natural Resources says an estimated 180 gallons of fungicide spilled Monday when a 250-gallon container fell from a Landus Cooperative truck Monday afternoon at the intersection of state Highways 163 and 316. Some of it reached Camp Creek, where department staff found dead minnows and chubs downstream of the spill site.

The Shelby County Emergency Management Agency, Tuesday, said 2100th Street over Snake Creek, in the 1200 block of 2100th Street, is closed for the next six weeks or so, weather permitting, due to a bridge replacement project. The bridge is located between Greeley Township Sections 19 and 30, between Linden Road and Maple Road.

Emergency responders and residents in the area should plan to take alternate routes. If you have any questions, call the Shelby County Engineer’s Office at 712-755-5954.

Map of the affected area

In early 2018, Healthy Cass County received one of six community grant awards from the University of Iowa’s College of Public Health. Healthy Cass County used these funds to develop an initiative titled “Walk Cass County.” The project is to encourage walking as a way to connect families and friends while gaining countless health benefits.

The grant helped Healthy Cass County develop, print and distribute walking maps with routes of varying lengths in each of the eight Cass County towns. Hotch Studios, located in Atlantic, designed a new Healthy Cass County logo and all eight maps for the group.

You can get any of the eight maps by:

• Stopping by Cass County Public Health during business hours
• Locating maps throughout each community
• Visiting Healthy Cass County’s webpage to print the map of your choice http://www.atlanticiowa.com/relocate/health-wellness-2/healthy-cass-county/
• Downloading the ‘Map My Walk’ app and searching for the Healthy Cass County routes in any Cass County town.

Beth Olsen, Director of Public Health for Cass County and Healthy Cass County Coordinator, says “We have been making great strides here is Cass to improve our county health rankings and statistics. Walking is easy and best of all FREE. We hope these maps would engage community members and families by encouraging active lifestyles and togetherness by the simple act of walking.”

Like and follow the Healthy Cass County Facebook Page for more information on local health and wellness events or resources. If you would like to be part of Healthy Cass County, the group currently meets the second Monday of the month at noon. They invite Healthy Cass County partners around the table to discuss health and wellbeing initiates countywide. Call 712-243-7552, for monthly meeting locations. All are welcome to attend!

BROOKLYN, Iowa (AP) — State and federal agents are investigating the disappearance of a 20-year-old University of Iowa student who has been missing for nearly a week in eastern Iowa. KCRG TV reports that Mollie Tibbetts was staying at her boyfriend’s home in Brooklyn last week, watching his dogs while he was out of town for work. A neighbor reported seeing Tibbetts jogging Wednesday evening. She was reported missing Thursday.

Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations spokesman Mitch Mortvedt said Tuesday that FBI and state investigators are concentrating on areas around Brooklyn where Tibbetts has been in the past. He says volunteer searches have been called off. Mortvedt says the FBI also is using computer forensics, including Tibbetts’ online history and cellphone app usage, to help pinpoint where she might be.

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — A 53-year-old man has been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of a woman at her home in Dubuque. Police say Garry James has been in custody since Saturday on unrelated charges from a bar disturbance. The murder charge was filed Monday. Online court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for him.

Friends told police they found the body of 53-year-old Michelle Kinney early Monday morning. Officers say she’d suffered puncture wounds. Police say evidence collected from James’ clothing “corroborated evidence” found in Kinney’s apartment.

MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) — A former school district official in northern Iowa has filed a lawsuit alleging gender and wage discrimination. The Globe Gazette reports that Mason City Schools’ former human resources director Jodie Anderson filed the suit Friday. The lawsuit names Superintendent Dave Versteeg, School Board Vice President Jodi Draper, HR Director Tom Drzycimski and the district. The lawsuit says Anderson found that “men were being paid more than women for the same categories of work” when she examined salary structures in 2015. The lawsuit says Drzycimski was hired for about $23,000 more than Anderson made, despite the equal work of the role.

Anderson worked for the district from 2015-2017. She says she resigned in part after feeling she had been discriminated against. Draper declined to comment to the newspaper.

Deputies in Page County responded at around 7-a.m. today (Tuesday), to a call of an intruder at 3095 Ivy Avenue, about one-mile north of Blanchard. When Deputies arrived, the homeowner explained that they woke up and found 34-year old Brandon Michael Risner, of Bedford, asleep in their entry way. The residents did not know Risner. When they tried to wake him, Risner responded that he had permission to be there. Deputies spoke with Risner, who did not know the homeowners or where he was.

Brandon Risner

Risner was found to have a warrant from Minnesota for 3 felony counts of Damage to property in the 1st degree and 3 counts of tampering with a motor vehicle. There is no bond on the warrant. He was transported to the Page County Jail where he is being held without bond, pending extradition to Minnesota.

BUFFALO CENTER, Iowa (AP) — The state has proposed fining a northern Iowa nursing home nearly $30,000, in part over the treatment of an 87-year-old woman officials said was in pain and may not have had water several days before her death. The Iowa Inspections and Appeals Department hasn’t imposed the fine yet against Timely Mission Nursing Home in Buffalo Center, so the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could take over the case. The Des Moines Register reports that no state or federal fine has yet been imposed.

A spokesman for the Iowa department, David Werning, said Tuesday the proposed fines covered the woman’s case and two others: the lack of proper assessment and care of another patient who died at the home the same day and the lack of proper assessment and care of a woman who was diagnosed at a local hospital with infectious colitis, a painful inflammation of the colon. Trinity Mission is run by a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation headed by President Lorie Bierle and Vice President Larry Weaver. Staffers told inspectors that the 87-year-old woman, Virginia Olthoff, was often in pain in the days before her death. Before she went to a hospital Feb. 27, the state citation said, Olthoff was crying, moaning, screaming and bleating “like a sheep” but was given only a nonprescription pain reliever.

Timely Mission staffers noticed Olthoff’s eyes were sunken and dark and told inspectors they couldn’t get a blood pressure reading or feel her pulse. Nearly three hours later Olthoff taken by ambulance to the hospital. Inspectors said a registered nurse at the home explained the delay by saying she didn’t think Olthoff was “that bad yet” and said the staff “had other things to do besides sit there and watch the clock go by.” A hospital emergency room doctor later told inspectors that laboratory tests indicated Olthoff probably hadn’t consumed any fluids for four to five days and might have had very limited fluids for weeks. Olthoff was comatose when she arrived, the doctor said, but was awake and alert after receiving a more than 2 pints (1 liter) of water.
She died after being returned to the home that same day, the report said.

In an update to our earlier reports, a man who was seriously injured during a motorcycle accident Saturday afternoon in Ringgold County, has died. The Iowa State Patrol confirms 54-year-old Dewayne A. Clark, of Mt. Ayr, died from his injuries after being flown to a hospital in Des Moines.

Clark, who was not wearing a helmet, was riding a 2003 Harley Davidson motorcycle on Highway 169 in Mt. Ayr at around 1-p.m., Saturday, when he passed a golf cart on the left, as the cart was turning left onto E. Monroe Street, in Mt. Ayr.

The two occupants of the golf cart were not injured in the collision.

(Radio Iowa) – After years of trying to fix critical problems in many of the nation’s Veterans Affairs hospitals, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says confirming Robert Wilkie on Monday as the new V-A Secretary is a big plus. Grassley, a Republican, says Wilkie has proven himself as being a supporter of whistleblowers and he doesn’t retaliate against those who speak out when there’s trouble. “Respect for whistleblowers, because we wouldn’t have known anything about everything that was happening that was so tragic down in Arizona four or five years ago if whistleblowers hadn’t of come forward.”

A report issued earlier this month found almost 700-thousand veterans were waiting more than 30 days for appointments at V-A facilities, while 76-thousand veterans had waited more than six months. Only the Pentagon is larger than the V-A, so in a bureaucracy of that size, Grassley says it can be a difficult process to identify and remove people who are part of the problem. “When things are wrong, if heads don’t roll, nothing changes,” Grassley says. “It’s going to be easier under existing law for the VA to fire people, so when something’s wrong, you send a real strong signal if you fire people.”
In a news release, Grassley says, “Wilkie has dedicated his life to defending and serving his nation as a member of the armed forces and a distinguished public servant.” The Choice program that was set up in the V-A in 2014 isn’t working the way it should, according to Grassley, and he trusts Wilkie to make the needed corrections. “Getting that straightened out so people can have access to private medical care when the VA can’t deliver it within 30 days for a non-emergency situation ought to be a top priority,” he says.

Wilkie becomes the fourth V-A secretary in five years. The inspector general’s report found more than 23-hundred job openings in V-A clinics nationwide. In recent years, some officials in V-A hospitals were accused of falsifying wait times and at least 40 veterans died while waiting for care. A V-A report released in June found the suicide rate among veterans in 2011 was 16 per day, while now, up to 20 veterans take their own lives each day.