Police in Council Bluffs report officers were dispatched a little after 10-a.m. today (Thursday), to the old, vacant No Frills Supermarket store at 1817 West Broadway, for a death investigation. While the store’s shelving and coolers were being removed by a contract firm, a body was found. The body appears to have been there an extended period of time.

The Pottawattamie County Medical Examiner’s Office responded, and is conducting an investigation along with the Council Bluffs Police Department. The Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office has ordered an autopsy and the body will be transported their facility in Ankeny.

Officials with Southwest Valley Schools in Corning put out a statement Thursday on social media, with regard to students soliciting money for organizations. The statement said “If you are approached by a student claiming to represent a school organization soliciting money please remember the following:

1) Make sure the student soliciting funds has paperwork related to the fundraiser, especially if you give cash as payment so it can be tracked.

2) NEVER make out a personal check to a student. ALWAYS make out the check to the school or school organization.”

If you are suspicious, contact (S.W. Valley) immediately. Administrators have paperwork on file for all approved fundraisers and can check into the situation for you.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Sen. Joni Ernst says in an interview that she was raped by a boyfriend while she was a student at Iowa State University but didn’t report the assault. In an interview with Bloomberg posted online Wednesday night, Ernst disclosed the attack. She also clarified her discussions with President Donald Trump about becoming his running mate. Ernst, a first-term Republican from Iowa, this week has spoken about her troubled marriage and other aspects of her life after media disclosures based on court documents from her recently settled divorce from Gail Ernst, 65. They were married 26 years and have one adult daughter. Ernst, 48, told Bloomberg she decided to disclose the rape after the court filings were publicized, including her allegations that her husband assaulted her.

Ernst said she was in a relationship with a man who was “physically and sexually abusive.” She said he raped her at his home and threatened to kill himself if she ended the relationship. She called a campus sexual assault counseling center hotline and ended the relationship but didn’t report the attack to police. During her 2014 Senate campaign, Ernst noted she volunteered at the counseling center but didn’t acknowledge the assault. “I was embarrassed,” she said. “I didn’t know how to explain it. I was so humiliated. And I’m a private person, when it comes to those things.”

Ernst declined to name the man who attacked her, noting she’d described the assault to her former husband but not divulged the man’s identity. In court affidavits filed during the divorce hearings , Ernst stated that Trump interviewed her in 2016 to be his vice president. Ernst wrote, “I turned Candidate Trump down, knowing it wasn’t the right thing for me or my family.” In the Bloomberg interview, Ernst clarified that Trump didn’t offer her the job and that after thinking about it, she phoned then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort to withdraw from consideration. Trump eventually chose Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who is now vice president.

OSCEOLA, Iowa (AP) — A former southern Iowa county attorney accused of driving while intoxicated is scheduled to begin trial April 8. Clarke County court records say 42-year-old Michelle Rivera pleaded not guilty Wednesday to the charge and a related crime. She’d been arrested last month in Osceola. Rivera lost her re-election bid in November after she was arrested in October on suspicion of being drunk on the job in a Clarke County courtroom. A sheriff’s deputy said in a criminal complaint that he noticed Rivera “slurring her words and stumbling on her feet” in the Osceola courtroom. He arrested her after she refused to take a breath test. She was charged with public intoxication. Rivera eventually pleaded guilty and was fined $65.

(Radio Iowa) — The annual University of Okoboji Winter Games kick off today (Thursday), bringing a huge winter boost to the Iowa Great Lakes area. Tourism generated about 286-million dollars for the region in 2017. Blain Andera, C-E-O of the Iowa Great Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce, says the summer season is the main tourism driver, but the winter games run a close second. “On a typical year, the winter games will draw between 20- and 30,000 people to the area toward the end of January, where we don’t usually have a lot going on,” Andera says. “We’re thought of a summer tourist destination, and there’s a lot more to do here than just the summertime.”

Andera says the games draw people from all over the country and they’ve grown a lot since first being held in 1981. “It started with some folks who had cabin fever, wanted to get outside, started a broomball tournament,” Andera says. “Now, we’re up to four days of fun events with everything from broomball, to flag football, to softball, to polar plunge.”

Events also include scavenger hunts, ice fishing and a kite festival, which is something new this year. Kiting professionals will fly 16 kites through the air, measuring from 20 to 100-feet long. The games run through Sunday.

(Radio Iowa) — The question in Marshalltown the past 24 hours is — “Where is Corey Brown? The Marshalltown teen left his home late Tuesday night, apparently after an argument with his parents and hasn’t been seen since. Marshalltown Police Chief Mike Tupper says the search is continuing, adding every piece of information that can be shared with the police is important. “What we’re asking from the public is to help spread the info we pushed out on social media far and wide. If anyone out there in the community has any thoughts or ideas on where this young man could be, please call us so we can follow up on the information,” Tupper says.

Corey Brown

The 13-year old Brown is described as five feet tall, brown hair, weighing 98 pounds. Home security video showed he was wearing a red shirt, black pants, gray tennis shows with a lime green Nike logo, a black and lime green coat and a Seattle Seahawks stocking cap when he left home Tuesday night. Tupper says a search yesterday of the area on the south end of Marshalltown didn’t turn up anything and there is no evidence to show he has been out in the winter weather since leaving home “We’re hopeful that he is with somebody he knows and maybe he’s just apprehensive about coming home right now. If he’s listening, we want him to know that everybody’s worried about him and it’s okay to come home and everybody just wants to help him,” according to Tupper.

Many folks on social media have asked why an Amber Alert has not been issued. Chief Tupper says this situation does not meet the guidelines for an Amber Alert. There is no vehicle to search for, no license plate number, nor is there any evidence that a crime has been committed or that Corey Brown is in imminent physical danger.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Officials in eastern Iowa have decided to spend more than $10,000 on new public benches that don’t have center armrests after an extended debate about whether benches installed earlier were hostile to homeless people. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that the Iowa City Council has decided to replace 14 benches in a downtown pedestrian mall with seating that doesn’t include center armrests.

Nichole Novak is an organizer with Iowa City Catholic Worker House, a shelter that led the effort to change the benches. She says the idea is to make “a public space that is welcoming to all.” Cady Gerlach is the director of strategic operations and resource management of Shelter House. She says the money for the benches could’ve been better spent in other ways to help the homeless.

The Iowa Department of Transportation’s 511ia.org reports some crashes on area roads are slowing traffic.

• I-80 eastbound, just east of the Highway 148 interchange at Anita, is blocked in the left lane due to a crash.
• A semi tractor-trailer is jackknifed on Interstate 80 near the Walnut exit due to the icy road conditions. And a westbound pickup spun out and ended up in the ditch in this same location.
• I-80 in Council Bluffs, the southbound I-29 ramp is partially blocked due to a crash. Open as of 8:52-a.m.

Many area roads are partially covered with snow, due to blowing snow. Tow bans are in effect for Mills and Montgomery Counties.

BETTENDORF, Iowa (AP) — A Bettendorf counselor has pleaded guilty again to kissing and touching a client against the woman’s wishes. The Quad-City Times reports that 46-year-old Aracely Schutters filed a written plea Wednesday. The charge: misdemeanor sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist. Schutters’ sentencing is scheduled for March 7. Schutters initially pleaded guilty in February, but a judge later allowed her to take back the plea after learning Schutters was not informed of some of the plea’s ramifications, including being required to register as a sex offender.

An arrest affidavit says the incident happened Dec. 4, 2017, when Schutters invited the client to her home to talk about the client’s problems. The client reported getting into Schutters’ hot tub, where the counselor reportedly kissed and touched the client. The client then got out of the hot tub and left Schutters’ home.

More State and area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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