COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for stealing copper wire in western Iowa that was soon tracked to his Nebraska home. The Daily Nonpareil reports that 39-year-old Brian Cave was sentenced Thursday in Council Bluffs after he pleaded guilty to theft. The judge says the sentence will run the same time as a theft sentence Cave is serving in Nebraska.

Court records say some wire was stolen in May from a Union Pacific yard in south Council Bluffs. Police put a GPS tracking unit inside another spool of the wire at the yard. It was soon stolen as well. Authorities say the GPS attached to the spool showed its new location as Cave’s home in Omaha.

A reminder, fireworks may be used in Atlantic to celebrate the coming of the New Year, but there are restrictions on when they may be used. City Code says fireworks are permissible “New Year’s Eve starting at 6 p.m. and ending on New Year’s Day at 12:15 a.m.” Also, “No fireworks of any type shall be discharged within 300 ft. of any Public school building, assisted living facility, or hospital.”

Penalties for violating the Ordinance is as follows:

A. “Any person who violates the provisions of the fireworks discharging ordinance or without reckless intent causes injury, property damage or a fire shall be guilty of a scheduled municipal infraction punishable by a $250 fine in addition to established court costs.

B. Persons who violates the discharging fireworks ordinance after having been found guilty of a previous municipal infraction involving fireworks shall be cited for a municipal infraction with a fine of $600 plus associated court costs.”

For other cities in the area, contact your local City Hall or look online for their posted ordinances, as available.

Red Oak Police arrested a woman Sunday night, for Operating a vehicle While Intoxicated (OWI) – drug related. 26-year old Joslin Nicole Davies, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 9:35-p.m. following a traffic stop at the intersection of 3rd and Oak Streets, in Red Oak. Davies was brought to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $1,000 bond. Sheriff’s Deputies from Cass and Montgomery Counties assisted Red Oak Police during the incident.

MAYSVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin says more manufacturing jobs are coming to his State. Bevin said in a statement that Pella, Iowa-based Precision Pulley and Idler plans to locate a $10.8 million manufacturing and distributing operation in an existing 105,000-square-foot building in Maysville and will hire 134 full-time employees over the next 10 years. The company supplies idlers, pulleys, bearings and other products.

PPI President and CEO Roger Brown said the Maysville facility allows additional capacity to meet the company’s growing demands. The company operates 12 facilities in the U.S. and also has locations in Canada and Chile. Bevin says the jobs will benefit the economy in northeastern Kentucky.

(Radio Iowa) — The 2020 Iowa Caucuses are 399 days away, but the leaders of Iowa’s two major political parties say it’s already “Caucus season” in Iowa. The next Iowa Caucuses are scheduled for February 3rd, 2020, but a couple of dozen potential Democratic presidential candidates and two declared candidates have made their way through Iowa already. On the Republican side, Donald Trump has held three campaign-style rallies here since he was elected president in 2016.

The priority for the party leaders who are hosting the 2020 Caucuses? Make sure the voting goes smoothly on both sides. “This is the one, strong bipartisan part of the job that, quite frankly, I rather enjoy,” says Iowa G-O-P chairman Jeff Kaufmann. He was the party’s chairman during the 2016 Iowa Caucuses. That’s when Microsoft developed the reporting system for Caucus results from both parties. Troy Price has been the Iowa Democratic Party’s chairman since July of 2017 and he was just reelected to another two-year term in the job.

“Whatever system we end up using, we always do a lot of testing around it and we always have back-ups in case it doesn’t work,” Price says. The Iowa Caucuses are party events, so the two parties have to raise money privately for all the expenses. Iowa Democrats will have NEW expenses this time around, as NATIONAL party leaders have imposed new requirements, like allowing absentee participation.

“As well as some of the other mandates, too, in terms of like making sure we can re-canvas, recreate what happened on Caucus Night, so we know there is going to be additional expense,” Price says. “We just don’t know the final tally of that, but we are planning it’s going to cost more than what it has in the past and we are prepared to raise the resources to make sure we run a caucus that’s going to be accessible to everyone.”

In 2019, Iowa Democrats will host their presidential candidates at two annual party fundraisers — one in the summer and one in the fall. Kaufmann says the Iowa G-O-P’s leadership hasn’t yet decided when Republican party fundraisers will be held in 2019.   “I will tell you that I’m not going to provide a platform by which people, on our dime, can beat up on our Republican president,” Kaufmann says.

He says “legitimate” Republican challengers to Trump may emerge in 2019 and Kaufmann says they’ll be welcome at G-O-P events if they avoid “mud-slinging” and focus on their policy differences with the president.

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

BROWNVILLE, Neb. (AP) — Utility crews extinguished a fire at a nuclear power plant in southeast Nebraska over the weekend. The Nebraska Public Power District says the fire was discovered in the basement of the facility around 9 a.m. Saturday while crews were investigating a hazardous gas. It was extinguished before 10 a.m. The utility says the fire never threatened public safety.

CORALVILLE, Iowa (AP) — A major financial rating agency has lowered its bond ratings for an Iowa town because of how it is financing a $70 million arena project. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that S&P Global Ratings pointed to Coralville’s bank loans with variable interest rates to pay for the planned 5,700 seat arena set to open in 2020. City leaders say they remain confident the project does not threaten the city’s finances.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa woman whose son died from a drug overdose has had a chance to hear his heart beat again in the chest of an Ohio man who received it as an organ donation. The Quad City Times reports that Lisa Bragg met Friday in Davenport with 45-year-old Kenneth Vogelsong, of Sherwood, Ohio. Bragg’s 27-year-old son, Markus Abbott, died in January, and his heart was transplanted in Vogelsong.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — In 2008, Barack Obama won the hearts of Iowa Democrats. Today, his supporters are looking more pragmatically for someone who can simply seize the presidency from Donald Trump in 2020. Niki Neems, a Democratic activist in Iowa city, says that ideally she would want to fall in love with the new candidate the same way as she did with Obama. But she adds that the candidate’s ultimate success at defeating Trump is more important. Neems says, “So, for me, it’s OK to just fall in like.”