DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Republicans say they’ll have the pieces in place on Election Day to again take control of the state Legislature. The long-standing goal, if achieved, would enable the party to alter the state’s legislative priorities next year and move unhindered on a conservative agenda.

Sally Richter, with Richter and Sons towing, said Sunday a truck driver missing since Monday afternoon, has contacted the Denison Police Department and was on his way home. 66-year old James “Jim” Stirek had last been seen Monday afternoon in St. Mary’s, Ohio. His last fuel destination was Newton.

Details surrounding his disappearance were not immediately available.

Police in Red Oak are investigating an attempted armed burglary. According to the Red Oak Police Department, officers responded to a residence where a man reportedly forced his way into a garage at around 9-p.m., Friday. The victims of the crime, Austin Hale and Christian Terry, told police the man demanded their wallets, but they refused to comply. The suspect, who was wearing a blue-colored mask with some red and white embedded in it, a black sweatshirt and blue jeans, then ran away from the scene.

A fishing accident in southern Page County has claimed one life. According to the Page County Sheriff’s Office, a 69-year old man was fishing off a bank near a bridge on 320th Street at around 3-p.m. Saturday near Blanchard, when he fell into the water and was injured. He was pronounced dead later at the Shenandoah Memorial Hospital. His name was being withheld pending notification of family.

The Page County Sheriff’s Office was assisted by the Shenandoah Fire Department, along with crews from the Clarinda Fire and Rescue Department, and Coin Rescue.

(Updated 9:24-a.m. w/1 fatality reported)

One person is dead, and another was seriously injured following a rollover accident this (Sunday) morning off Interstate 80, east of the Marne Exit in Cass County. Atlantic Fire and Rescue, Medivac Ambulance and Marne Fire and Rescue were called to the scene near the 51-mile marker at around 7:15-a.m. Reports from the scene indicated a vehicle was upside down in the ditch with one victim near a fence. LifeNet helicopter landed at around 7:50-a.m. at the Marne Exit. The victim was flown to a hospital in Omaha. The other victim died at the scene. Both were ejected from the vehicle.

The vehicle is in a harvested field just south of the ambulance in this picture (Ric Hanson/photo)

No other details are currently available.

Volunteers are needed in Iowa to test a new drug which researchers say has promising potential in preventing or slowing Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Reisa Sperling, a neurology professor at Harvard University, says the medical trial will run three-and-a-half years. That may seem quite long, but memory changes can progress very slowly, so she says it’s important to study people over time.

Dr. Sperling says, “We’re looking for people aged 65 to 85, but unlike most Alzheimer’s studies, we’re looking for people who don’t yet have symptoms, or at least have very mild concerns about their memory.” University Hospitals in Iowa City is one of 60 sites in the nation where the so-called A-4 study will be done. That A-4 stands for the Anti-Amyloid in Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s study.

“The A4 study is really the first of its kind prevention study where we’re trying to find people who are still normal, who have early brain changes that we think are associated with Alzheimer’s disease but don’t yet have the symptoms,” Sperling says. “Our job is to try to help prevent them from developing the symptoms and progressing with memory decline.”

More than five-million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and by 2050, scientists expect that number to triple to 15-million or more. Volunteers will need to report to the hospital once a month over the course of the study and each visit may last 30 to 60 minutes. Taking part will involve memory tests, brain scans, M-R-Is and the drug will be administered using an I-V.

“This drug has been in about 3,000 people already but it’s primarily been tested before at the stage of dementia where people have already had the Alzheimer’s disease changes in their brain for more than a decade,” Sperling says. “What’s really groundbreaking about the A4 study is now moving it to people who don’t yet have symptoms and hopefully, in time to really save their brains.”

Volunteers will be compensated. She expects ten-thousand patients will be screened at the 60 sites in order to find the 11-hundred-50 who will be chosen for the study. For more details, visit: http://a4study.org

(Radio Iowa)

A recent traffic stop in Cass County along Interstate 80 resulted in nine-pounds of marijuana being seized at the arrest of a man from Colorado. According to the Sheriff’s Office, 25-year old Thomas Alton Dees, of Denver, CO, was arrested for Intent to Deliver Marijuana and Failure to Affix a Drug Tax Stamp, following a traffic stop on eastbound I-80 near the Olive Street Exit. Deputy Tyler Shiels and his K9 partner conducted the traffic stop and were responsible for the arrest and drug seizure.