DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The Powerball jackpot is creeping higher again. No one has won the full jackpot since March 2 and the multi-state lottery estimates Wednesday night’s drawing will be worth $348 million. While it’s not chump change, it’s a far cry from the $1.6 billion Powerball prize shared by three winning lottery ticketholders in January, the largest ever jackpot draw in the world.

Powerball says the odds of winning the top prize are one in more than 292 million. Powerball tickets are sold in 44 states, as well as the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

The area’s top news at 7:06-a.m., w/KJAN News Director Ric Hanson

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COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) – Council Bluffs voters have approved a bond referendum for a new, $20 million police headquarters. Nearly 63 percent of the votes counted Tuesday approved the referendum for a bond issue. The unofficial turnout was nearly 3,900 voters, or about 11.6 percent.

Several city sites are under consideration for the new building. The current 19,000-square-foot headquarters was built in 1977. Police Chief Tim Carmody has said the department needs at least 58,000 square feet for current and future needs.

Cass County Democratic Party Chair Sherry Toelle reports five delegates and one alternate were seated at the Third District Democratic Convention, which started Saturday, April 30th, and ran thru early Sunday morning.

Cass County delegates attending the convention included Gerard O’Rourke, Don Sonntag, Mike Young, Cheryl Wessels, and Toelle; Melissa Warren, as an alternate, was seated as a delegate during the convention, after Sonntag had to leave.

Photo: Front: from left to right: Wessels, Toelle, and Warren. Rear: Young and O’Rourke. (Photo courtesy Sherry Toelle)

The five delegates will be attending the state convention to be held in Des Moines on June 18th.

Officials with the Council Bluffs Police Department report their “Operation Medicine Cabinet” drug drop-off program was a huge success over the weekend. Lt. Dan Flores says on Saturday, April 30th, between 10:00 am. and 2:00 pm. Council Bluffs Police Department Officers, volunteers/partners, and City of Council Bluffs Recycling Center personnel, participated in the Drug Enforcement Agency’s sponsored National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.

The event was located at the Walgreens at 535 East Broadway. Flores says despite a steady, light rain with colder temperatures, people in 239 vehicles drove through the designated drop off lane to surrender 561 pounds of prescription drugs. That weight is the highest total of prescription drugs in any of the previous 11 events since 2010. From 2010 through 2016, the prescription drug take-back events  in Council Bluffs have taken in over 3,900 pounds of prescription drugs with over 2,200 persons dropping off drugs anonymously, with no questions asked.

Lt. Flores says the Council Bluffs Police Department thanks its volunteers and partners who helped to make the event so successful. The Department would also like to extend its appreciation to the community for its willingness to take the time and effort to drop off their expired or unused prescription drugs. Flores says together, “We have helped to make Council Bluffs a safer community!”

(Updated 7:39-a.m.)

Police in Red Oak say a local teen was arrested early this (Wednesday) morning, on an assault charge. 17-year old Lyndon Daniel Bright, of Red Oak,  was taken into custody at around 12:22-a.m. in the 200 block of N. 8th Street and brought to the Montgomery County Jail. He was later released to his parents.

And, late Tuesday evening, Red Oak Police arrested 43-year old Lester Michael Ballard, of Red Oak, on a valid Pottawattamie County warrant for Driving While Barred. Ballard was brought to the Montgomery County Jail where he was being held on a $5,000 cash bond, pending extradition to Pott. County.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is reporting that a 25-year-old fish has been found living in West Okoboji Lake. Jonathan Meerbeek, a DNR fisheries research biologist, says the male musky was marked with a freeze brand and stocked in the Iowa Great Lakes in 1993. It was caught during the gill netting season last week.

“I think 21 was the oldest fish we captured in the past,” Meerbeek said. “So, this one beats it by a few years. This is probably one of the oldest fish of known age that has been recaptured, in terms of muskies, so it’s a pretty unique fish.” The last time this particular fish was caught by the DNR was in 2006. According to Meerbeek, after age four, muskies have an annual mortality rate of around 25-percent.

“That’s not from angling mortality, per se…fish die, everything dies at some point. Muskies get old or they get sick. This one just happened to avoid all of those potential harms over time and made it to a fairly substantial age, considering most fish,” Meerbeek said. The 25-year-old musky was documented and released back into the lake. The 17.5 pound fish was 41.6 inches in length.

(Radio Iowa)

A rural church in northwest Iowa’s Plymouth County has been buzzing with activity after a large bee hive was discovered inside the sanctuary. James Strickland, a beekeeper and pastor of the Nazarene Church in Le Mars, offered to help the nearby Addaville Methodist Church to remove the hive. “We did a little poking around and we discovered the bee hive was in the choir loft between two floor joists,” Pastor Strickland says. “We didn’t know at that point exactly how large it was but when we opened it up to remove the hive, it measured about eight-and-a-half feet in length, 17 inches wide and 11 inches deep.”

Strickland and two other beekeepers removed the active hive, which took the better part of a day to extract the bees, the hive, the comb and honey. “That hive had been there for several years,” he says. “We pulled six five-gallon buckets full of honeycomb off of that hive which is unheard of for this time of year. The bees should have eaten through most of their honey having gone through the winter and not being able to bring in any food of their own.”

Strickland and the other beekeepers were wearing full protective gear as they removed the floorboards in the choir loft. “We discovered this massive hive, teaming with bees, absolutely full,” he says. “It’s hard to estimate bees because they won’t stand still. We estimate somewhere around 50,000 bees.” There are discussions about marketing the honey from the church hive as “Holy Honey.”

(Radio Iowa)

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

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The author of a book about his father and other men who raised a U.S. flag at Iwo Jima during World War II says he no longer believes his father was in an iconic photograph of the event. “Flags of Our Fathers” author James Bradley says questions raised by two historians prompted him to recall comments his father made about the event. Bradley now believes his father participated in an earlier flag-raising.

CORALVILLE, Iowa (AP) — A 40-year-old man convicted of first-degree burglary has escaped from a Coralville work release facility. Officials with the Iowa Department of Corrections say Curtis Jones didn’t return from his job as expected on Monday and was listed as an escaped inmate. His 40-year sentence began in June 2005.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A former spokesman for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has been named senior adviser to the Republican Party of Iowa to help GOP candidates including U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley win in November. Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann says he’s hired Tim Albrecht to help Republican campaigns succeed.

DENVER, Iowa (AP) — Police say one person has died in a northeast Iowa construction site accident. The Denver Police Department says construction workers were digging along the foundation wall of a building in Denver when a portion of the wall tipped over on Monday and trapped 56-year-old Henry Gray, of Clarksville. Firefighters and the owner of Snelling Construction freed Henry from under the wall, but he died at the scene.