Sheriff’s deputies in Montgomery County, Monday night, arrested a 17-year old male on a felony charge of Burglary in the 2nd Degree. The teen, who was not identified, was taken into custody at around 8:07-p.m., following an incident in the 200 block of E. 6th Street, in Villisca. He was transported to the Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) in Council Bluffs, for placement.

Five of the seven Democrats running for governor appeared at a fundraiser in Mason City last (Monday) night, expressing support for initiatives to address gun violence after Sunday’s mass shooting in Texas. Candidate Fred Hubbell, a retired Des Moines businessman, says refusing to talk about the problem is no longer acceptable.

“Clearly, we’re getting a lot more kind of these incidents and mental health is part of it,” Hubble says. “Access to guns is part of it. Let’s call it the speed with which guns can shoot, you know because they have these AK-47s and these things that you can put on them to make them shoot faster, we need to have a conversation.”

Other candidates say they support rolling back the new state law that has expanded gun rights. Candidate John Norris of Des Moines served as chief of staff to former governor Tom Vilsack.  “No one needs to carry an AK47 into a McDonald’s full of kids and that’s what you can do in Iowa today,” Norris says. “That’s just nonsense. That’s going beyond common sense and reality.”

Norris also opposes the part of the new law that lets people bring a concealed weapon into the statehouse if they have a permit to carry it. “I certainly respect Iowans’ right to own guns and sportsmens’ rights, but we’ve gone too far,” Norris says. “…The promotion of guns in public buildings with children is just outrageous.”

Candidate Nate Boulton, a state senator from Des Moines, says he’s most concerned about the new law’s “Stand Your Ground” provisions that give people legal protection if they use deadly force to protect life and property. “In Iowa we have a very good balance,” Boulton says. “We have high rates of gun ownership and low incidents of gun violence and we’ve seen things that are starting to look like they could lend themselves to disrupting that balance as we expand deadly force to include mistakes and things that could have unintended consequences.”

Candidate Andy McGuire, the former Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman, is also a medical doctor. McGuire says she wishes people would look at mass shootings as a public health issue that must be addressed. “If anything else were killing Americans like this is, we would look into it,” McGuire says. “It’s not that I’m against anybody. I just am against people dying.” Former Des Moines School Board members Jon Neiderbach, the other candidate at last night’s event, says people need to stop shouting at each other after mass shootings and come up with solutions.

The candidates spoke during a fundraiser for State Representative Sharon Steckman of Mason City, who is running for a fifth term in the Iowa House.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:47 a.m. CST

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A judge has sentenced a former treasurer of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska tribal council to five years of probation. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says U.S. District Court Judge Laurie Smith Camp on Monday sentenced 56-year-old Thomas Snowball of Winnebago to the probation as well as community service and $36,500 in restitution. Snowball had pleaded guilty earlier to theft from an Indian gaming establishment, related to unauthorized disbursements from the WinnaVegas casino in Sloan, Iowa.

TOLEDO, Iowa (AP) — A second trial has begun for an Iowa man, nearly three months after a judge overturned his first-degree murder conviction in the 2000 disappearance of a woman whose body has never been found. Attorneys gave opening arguments Monday in the retrial of Tait O. Purk, who was charged in connection with the disappearance of his fiancee Cora Okonski. A jury previously convicted Purk, but a judge found the verdict wasn’t backed by evidence. The case is now before Judge Ian Thornhill.

INDIANOLA, Iowa (AP) — Simpson College in Indianola says it will cover tuition costs of Iowa students whose families have an adjusted gross income of $60,000 or less. To qualify, students must be a 2018 Iowa high school graduate and state resident, submit a federal student aid application and have a 2016 adjusted gross income of $60,000 or less. They also must live on campus and pay room and board fees, which this year totaled $8,370.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s governor has ordered flags at state buildings to be lowered to half-staff to honor the Texas church shooting victims. Authorities say a lone gunman killed 26 people Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Gov. Kim Reynolds’ order is in conjunction with President Donald Trump’s flag order.

Tax payments to the state were up significantly through the end of October, but some of that growth cannot be counted in the current budgeting year. State tax revenue was up 12 percent from July 1st through October 31st. Jeff Robinson, the senior fiscal analyst for the Legislative Services Agency, says “The revenue situation is not near as rosy as there are two significant issues to the growth posted through the end of October.”

Some of the money is being recorded as taxes due BEFORE July 1st. It erased some of the deficit in the last state budgeting year. Second, the Iowa Department of Revenue implemented a tax processing change. A significant amount of taxes came into the state treasury on October 31st rather than sometime in November. Robinson says when adjusting for those two issues, tax payments to the state were up about two-point-three percent for the past four months.

“The combination of individual income tax, sales tax, use tax and corporate income has produced modest growth through October 27th,” Robinson says. In mid-October, a three-member panel reduced its official prediction of state tax collections. If tax revenue does not grow significantly THIS November compared to LAST November, at least 35 million dollars will have to be cut from the current state budget.

(Radio Iowa)