COLLEGE SPRINGS, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say two family dogs that fatally mauled a 7-year-old College Springs boy have been euthanized. Malaki Mildward, a first-grader, died shortly after the attack Thursday afternoon. Page County Sheriff Lyle Palmer tells the Omaha World-Herald that the dogs were 6-month-old puppies — a 25-pound female and a 35-pound male. Palmer says the dogs were mixed-breeds with some bulldog heritage and had shown no signs of aggression.

Palmer said the boy’s family also euthanized another family dog — a bulldog mix who was not involved in the attack on the boy. Authorities believe Malaki went outside to play with the puppies, as he often did, when he was mauled. No one witnessed the attack.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Dr. Ben Carson is appealing to Iowa conservatives with messages about securing the country’s borders and cracking down on employers who hire immigrants illegally. The retired neurosurgeon called for a harder tack on immigration, expanded school choice and less government spending in his speech Saturday to an Iowa gathering showcasing potential 2016 White House candidates. Carson spoke extemporaneously as he roamed the stage.

Carson is a former physician at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and author who is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination. He has a following among conservatives for his harsh critiques of President Barack Obama’s health insurance law.

He told the crowd that he’s vehemently against the federal government diving further into health care. “Even if it worked,” he said, he would oppose it.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is holding up his “go big and go bold” attitude as something Republicans need to emulate in Washington. In a speech to Iowa conservatives Saturday, Walker ran through a litany of changes he’s implemented that curtailed union power, relaxed teacher tenure laws, strengthened gun rights and restricted abortions. All resonated with a Freedom Summit crowd sizing up potential 2016 GOP presidential candidates like him.

Walker shared stories of staring down union interests in the face of mass protests, constant jeering and even death threats to him and his family. He fought off a recall attempt and then won re-election last fall. The neighboring state governor drew connections to the leadoff caucus state, noting how he attended elementary school in Iowa until his family moved.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst has followed up a national turn in the spotlight with a speech to home-state conservatives that stressed a need to rein in “executive overreach.” The freshman Republican appeared Saturday at a daylong forum attended by several potential 2016 White House contenders. The Freedom Summit was billed at the start of the Iowa presidential caucus chase.

Ernst has enjoyed celebrity status within GOP circles since winning a long-held Democratic seat in November. Just this week, she delivered the party’s televised response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Ernst revisited themes from that speech, including calls to fight Obama’s executive orders on issues like immigration and pass Keystone XL oil pipeline legislation that the president has vowed to veto.

w/Mark Saylor

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A man who left a liquor store in Red Oak allegedly without paying for merchandise, was arrested on a trio of charges after police stopped a vehicle he was in as it was about to leave the store’s parking lot Friday afternoon. Red Oak Police say 31-year old Zachariah Michael Holland, of Red Oak, allegedly trespassed on property owned by Southwest Iowa Liquor on east Oak Street, in Red Oak.

Officers located Holland in the back seat of  a Chevy Cobalt that was about to leave the property, and found him to have an open container of alcohol. Holland was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and charged with Trespassing, Theft in the 5th Degree, and for having an Open Container of alcohol as a passenger.

Holland was being held in the jail Friday, on $300 bond.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois State Police say they are turning over to a private forensics group the unsolved 1992 slaying of an Iowa-bound college student from New Jersey. WMAQ-TV in Chicago reports the case involving Tammy Zywicki will be reviewed by the Philadelphia-based Vidocq Society. That’s a volunteer group largely of retired forensic and law enforcement professionals.

Tammy Zywicki

Zywicki was 21 and driving to Iowa’s Grinnell College for her senior year in August 1992 when her car broke down along Interstate 80 in north-central Illinois’ LaSalle County. Her stabbed, blanket-wrapped body was found days later and hundreds of miles away along on entrance ramp to Interstate 44 in southwestern Missouri near Joplin.

No one has been charged, and no arrests have been made. Zywicki’s parents now live in Florida.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s top insurance official has asked a court to end a consumer-owned cooperative that was selling health insurance to residents in Iowa and Nebraska. Iowa Insurance Commissioner Nick Gerhart said Friday he would seek liquidation of CoOportunity Health. He expects the process to be complete by late February.

CoOportunity is a federally funded nonprofit aimed at providing more health care options in Iowa and Nebraska. State regulators took over CoOportunity late last year after the organization’s available funds were depleted. Gerhart says he chose liquidation after determining that the cooperative’s medical claims would exceed its cash on hand. He recommends people find other health insurance coverage by March 1.

The Des Moines Register reports CoOportunity insures about 120,000 people in Iowa and Nebraska.

Cass County Treasurer, Tracey J Marshall is issuing a friendly reminder to property owners about the availability of the Iowa Property Credit Claim. Iowa residents are eligible to file a claim for Property Tax Credit if total 2014 household income is less than $22,011 and one of the following applies:

· You are 65 years of age or older as of December 31, 2014
· Or are totally disabled and 18 years of age or older by December 31, 2014.

The deadline to file an application for Reduced Real Estate Tax with your County Treasurer’s Office is  June 1st, 2015. Mobile Home Owners may be eligible to claim a reduced tax rate on Mobile Home Tax, if your 2014 household income was less than $22,011 and you are 23 years of age or older as of December 31st, 2014.

The deadline to file the application for Reduced Mobile Home Rate with your County Treasurer’s Office is June 1st, 2015, in order to receive a reduced rate for both semi-annual tax payments.

Police in Harlan say the driver of a vehicle that struck a legally parked car last weekend, was cited for Leaving the scene of an accident, Failure to Maintain control and Violating a One-way traffic designation. Officials say Scott Debord, of Harlan, was traveling southbound on 6th Street which is a one-way northbound road, when the 2013 Dodge he was driving hit the front of a legally parked 1999 Ford registered to Douglas Kloewer, of Harlan, which was located on the east side of the 1400 block of 6th.

The initial impact caused Kloewer’s vehicle to be pushed into the front of a 1997 Chevy, also owned by Kloewer. After the accident, Debord left the scene. His vehicle was later located at his residence. Damage from the collisions amounted to $11,500.