The Adams County Sheriff’s Office reports an arrest on Friday evening. At 4:50 p.m. Deputies arrested 36-year-old Robert James Welch of Paullina, IA for Driving While Barred. Welch was originally stopped for speeding and was found to have a barred Iowa driver’s license. Welch was taken to the Adams County Jail and held on $1,000 cash bond.

(Radio Iowa) – A new state law that took effect this week ensures Iowa kids have a right to sell lemonade, cookies and other types of food and non-alcoholic drinks. Senator Roby Smith of Davenport says a number of states have enacted similar laws. “In 2011, Coralville Police shut down a lemonade stand operated by a four-year-old because they did not have a permit,” Smith says. Child-run lemonade stands were technically illegal in Iowa before this Wednesday, when the governor signed the new law.

Senator Zach Wahls notes a few cities around the country have cracked down on Girl Scouts selling cookies and the new law makes it clear kids don’t have to get government permits if they want to sell baked goods or beverages. “As an Eagle Scout myself who spent many, many years selling popcorn definitely without a permit…I look forward to protecting future generations of scouts — boy scouts and girl scouts — from needless liability,” Wahls said.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Iowa is at least the 15th state to waive the government permitting process so kids under the age of 18 may sell food door to door or set up a lemonade stand.

CHICAGO (AP) — A Nigerian national has appeared in court in Chicago on charges that he orchestrated an international cyber fraud scheme that defrauded U.S. businesses in six states out of tens of millions of dollars. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago said Friday that 29-year-old Olalekan Jacob Ponle, originally of Lagos, Nigeria, was arrested last month in the United Arab Emirates, where he was living.

He was expelled from the country and into FBI custody, and arrived in Chicago Thursday. He’s charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud against companies based in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New York and California.

The Red Oak Police Department reports the arrest on Friday of 60-year-old Michael Francis Anderson of Red Oak for Domestic Abuse Assault, 1st Offense. Anderson was arrested in the 1600 block of East Summit Street in Red Oak at 12:04 p.m. Friday. Anderson was taken to the Montgomery County Jail and held on no bond.

KNOXVILLE, Iowa (AP) — Police say an Iowa man who successfully sued one of his sons for the shooting death of his wife has been assaulted by his other son. The Des Moines Register reports that 55-year-old Billy Dean Carter was arrested Wednesday and charged with assaulting his father, 74-year-old Bill Carter. Police say the younger Carter knocked his father to the ground and kicked him twice on a road near the elder father’s home following an argument. In 2017, a jury ordered another of Bill Carter’s sons, Jason Carter, to pay $10 million to the estate of of his mother, 68-year-old Shirley, who died in 2015 from two gunshot wounds fired by a rifle. Jason Carter was later acquitted of murder in the case.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Gov. Pete Ricketts says Nebraska officials are watching for new outbreaks of the coronavirus that have been seen in other states and will keep all options open to try to protect public health. Ricketts made the comments as the state continued to see new, confirmed cases and deaths. Nebraska reported 142 new cases of the virus and six new deaths. That brings the total number of known Nebraska cases to 19,452 since the pandemic began, according to the tracker. Of that number, 282 people have died and 14,022 have recovered. Public and private health officials have tested 184,354 residents in Nebraska so far.

(Radio Iowa) — A new report ranks Iowa as one of the best states for children. The fourth-annual study released by the non-profit group Save the Children ranks Iowa fifth in the nation for child well-being. The report found Iowa’s rankings for child food insecurity and high school dropout rates improved from 2018, while rankings for infant mortality, teen births, suicides and homicides stayed the same. Mark Shriver, a senior vice president at Save the Children, says top-ranked states like Iowa invested in high quality early childhood education.

Shriver says, “Children are faring better in states that spend more on their needs and have elected officials who serve in Congress and state houses prioritize child-focused legislation.” The report found just nine percent of Iowa’s kids didn’t graduate on time. This improves the state’s rank from 2018 and makes Iowa first in the nation for high school graduation rates. Nikki Gillette, a researcher with Save the Children, says this year’s report broke down data at the county level for the first time. “We know or rather we suspected that state level data hide huge inequities,” Gillette says. “That’s why this year we did a county ranking.”

The report found Dallas, Warren, Grundy and Bremer counties were among the top 50 in the country for children. It ranked Lee County as the worst in the state.

(By Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) — An Iowa State sociologist says many rural communities that have not yet seen coronavirus outbreaks could be very susceptible to one. I-S-U professor David Peters modified an existing public health tool to see how susceptible different size communities are to COVID-19. He plans to survey 65 small towns to determine what’s worked best so far in preventing outbreaks. “Cases will happen, what you’re really trying to do is prevent these very sudden large outbreaks like we’ve seen in meatpacking plants in Iowa,” Peters says.

He says these communities are more susceptible to an outbreak when they have many people living and working in group housing, lots of residents with pre-existing medical conditions, and certain types of employers, like meat plants. Peters says planning ahead for either sheltering in place or dispersing residents in vulnerable situations may go a long way. ” In the process of surveying, we’re going to ask governments and public health agencies and other large institutions to identify strategies that they undertook in those communities to see whether they’ve been effective at holding down the rates of infection and minimizing the impact of the pandemic,” according to Peters.

Peters says the virus will come to even remote communities. But he’s hoping his work will generate some “best practices” that can be replicated to reduce the severity of any future outbreaks. The National Science Foundation has awarded him 200-thousand dollars for the project.

(By Amy Mayer, Iowa Public Radio)