Officials with the Creston Police Department said today (Friday), that a man residing in the 300 block of N. Division Street in Creston, reported late Thursday morning, that someone had broken out the back window of his vehicle. The incident happened while the vehicle was parked in a parking lot overnight Wednesday into Thursday morning. The damage was estimated at $300.

(7-a.m. News)

PLYMOUTH, Iowa (AP) — Authorities have released the name of a man killed in northern Iowa after a train struck a chemical sprayer being towed by the tractor he was driving. The accident occurred around 8 a.m. Tuesday at a spot northeast of Plymouth, in Worth County. The Iowa State Patrol says 59-year-old Brian Nack didn’t stop the tractor at a rail crossing that’s marked by a crossing sign and a stop sign. The train hit the sprayer and dragged it and the tractor several yards. Nack died after being ejected. The patrol says he lived in Grafton.

Davenport police say child abuse caused the death of a five-year-old boy. A family member says JaShawn Bussell had numerous injuries and died Tuesday after being taken off of life support in Iowa City. She says the boy was beaten to death. Police are looking for 26-year-old Tre Henderson, the live-in boyfriend of JaShawn’s mother. A police affidavit says the little boy was not taken in for medical attention for four days in spite of signs that something was wrong.

(Radio Iowa)

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Cedar Rapids police say a man died after a car rolled over him. Officers and medics were sent to the accident site around 6 p.m. Thursday. They found the man trapped under the car in a driveway. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police say there was no one in the car when it rolled. The man’s name and other details haven’t been released.

In these pictures, students in the after school STEM class discuss and begin work on a container that will hopefully allow their single potato chip to be mailed and arrive in one piece. (Ric Hanson/photos) [Click on each image to enlarge]

MS Science Teacher Kara Martin (right) explains the rules to students before they begin working on their shipping containers.

Advanced students with the Atlantic Middle School are involved in an after school STEM Excellence and Leadership Program. Stem stands for Science Technology Engineering and Math. The program, which is fairly new to Iowa, offers science tutoring to support 6^th through 8^th grade, gifted science and math students, in some of the state’s smallest communities. The program is funded through a two-million dollar National Science Foundation grant, and is administered by the University of Iowa College of Education’s Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development. About a dozen or so students are involved in the Atlantic Middle School Program. School Principal Josh Rasmussen said the after school program expands on an industrial technology program the school had going prior to the grant.

He says the program offers valuable lessons in critical thinking.

Kara Martin is the Middle School Science Teacher who has assigned the STEM students a project that challenges their organizational, cooperative and creative capabilities.

Students have an hour to design and test a package to safely ship a single potato chip through the USPS to another school. Upon receipt, the chip will be evaluated and scored. The goal is to engineer a package to have the smallest mass and volume, while at the same time protecting the chip. The package can be no larger than 3×5″, and there must be no writing on the package, such as fragile, or handle with care. A perfect chips scores 100 points, slightly damaged 50 pts, split chip 10 pts, major damage 5 points, dust 1 pt. Overall scores = Intactness score/(mass in kg x volume in cc).,

Andrea Reilly is the Middle School Talented and Gifted Program Coordinator. She says the grant provided by the UI Belkin Center allowed some of the eighth-grade students the opportunity to take field trips to witness real world applications of STEM. 

One of the students tasked with shipping the single potato chip in hopes it will come back in one piece, is 6^th grader Mary McCurdy, the daughter of John and Ann McCurdy, of Atlantic, who says she is really enjoying the experience.

Mary talked about what she hopes to learn from the experiment, outside the engineering principals.

Mary McCurdy talks w/reporters about the STEM experiment & experience. MS Science Teacher Kara Martin is in the background.

In addition to Atlantic, the STEM Excellence and Leadership Program, involves students with the: Adel DeSoto Minburn Middle School; Cardinal Middle School; Davis County Middle School; Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont Junior/Senior High School; Ford Dodge Middle School; Graettinger-Terril Middle School; Mount Pleasant Community Middle School; Spencer Middle School, and the Starmont Middle School.

A school bus driver from Red Oak was cited Thursday, after the Red Oak School District bus he was driving, sideswiped a parked car near the Red Oak Middle School. Red Oak Police says 77-year old Roger Lynn Waggener was driving a 2015 Bluebird school bus westbound at 4th and Hammond Streets at around 3:25-p.m., when the bus sideswiped a legally parked 2005 Chevy Classic passenger car. The car was occupied by 83-year old Marilyn Gentry, who was waiting for her grandchild to be dropped-off at the Red Oak Middle School.

No students were injured on-board the bus, nor was either driver. The car sustained about $6,000 damage, while damage to the bus was estimated at $2,000. Waggener was cited for Failure to Maintain Control.

Police in Red Oak, Thursday evening, arrested a man on assault, and other charges. 24-year old Jesse Dean Uhlmann, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 7:40-p.m., for Domestic Abuse Assault, Obstruction of Emergency Communications, and Contempt of Court, for violating a No Contact/Protective Order. Uhlmann was also charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance/Marijuana. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on two separate bonds: a $300 cash bond for the warrant; and a $1,000 bond for the Possession charge.