Officials with the Creston Police Department are reporting seven recent arrests.  At around12:15-a.m. Monday, 19-year old Natalie Eslinger, of Clarinda, was arrested in Creston for Interference with Official Acts. She was brought to the Ringgold County Jail and later released on $300 bond. At 4-a.m. Christmas Day, 32-year old Joseph Olson, of Creston, was arrested for Public Intoxication. He was later released on a Promise to Appear in court.

On Dec. 22nd, 21-year old Garrett Stalcup, of Creston, was arrested at around 1:30-a.m. for OWI/1st offense. He was later released on a $1,000 bond. At around 10:17-p.m. on the 22nd, 19-year old Isaiah Foster, of Creston, was arrested on a Union County warrant for Violation of Probation on an original, Possession of a Controlled Substance, charge. Foster was later released from the jail on a $1,000 bond.

And, there were three arrests in Creston on Dec. 21st. At around 10-p.m., 53-year old Scott Gilbert, of Hawthorne, CA, was arrested for Disorderly Conduct. He was later released on a $300 bond. 46-year old Joy Mozena, of Creston, was arrested on a Union County warrant for Violation of Probation on an original, Driving While Barred, charge. Also arrested on the 21st, was 31-year old Cortni White, of Creston. She was arrested on a warrant for Violation of Probation on the original charge of Theft in the 4th Degree. She remained held in the Ringgold County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

The area’s latest and/or top news stories at 7:06-a.m., w/KJAN News Director Ric Hanson

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COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — A former softball coach has been found guilty of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl in Council Bluffs. The Daily Nonpareil reports that John Osborn was convicted Friday of four counts of sexual abuse. Court records say his sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 1. It was the 50-year-old Osborn’s second trial on the charges. He’d been convicted in spring 2015, but the judge ordered a new trial when new evidence surfaced before Osborn could be sentenced. The second trial was delayed by appeals.

Council Bluffs police say Osborn and the girl engaged in sex acts when the girl stayed at Osborn’s house for a sleepover with his daughter.

A dance team from northwest Iowa is preparing for a trip to Tampa, Florida to perform at the Outback Bowl on New Year’s Day. Stephanie Work, director and coach for Sioux City Just for Kix, says the team of 35 kids between 2nd and 12th grade started raising funds for the travel expenses eight months ago. “We did many fundraisers throughout the summer. We did a waffle breakfast and then a soup dinner in the fall. The kids sold frozen foods, cupcakes, and so many other items,” Work said. “We also made t-shirts with sponsors on the back. I think we had over 200 sponsors, so just to have our Siouxland community come together and get these kids to the Outback Bowl – it was just tremendous.”

The Siouxland troupe will join dancers from across the country on the football field to perform routines before the game and at halftime. “Anywhere from 450 to 500 dancers will be on the field,” Work said. “That’s not counting the bands that will be on the field too performing the music we’ll be dancing to. I can’t even tell you how many band members there are, probably around a thousand.” The dancers received the choreography for the performances just after Thanksgiving. Work believes seven or eight of the girls on the Siouxland National Dance Team were part of the team that previously performed at the Outback Bowl three years ago. Those dancers are helping calm the nerves of some of the younger team members. “They are kind of telling everybody what it’s like, that it is a big crowd but also, once you get out there, you’ll do great,” Work said.

Most the dancers from Iowa are planning to arrive in Florida this Thursday (December 28) and return home on January 3. While the highlight of the trip will be the bowl game performance, there will be time for side trips and fun in the sun. “We also get to go on a dinner cruise. They get to go to Disney World or Universal Parks and Busch Gardens. We also go to Clearwater Beach one of the days,” Work said.

The Outback Bowl will pit Michigan against South Carolina. The kickoff is scheduled for 11 a.m. (CST) on January 1. The game will be televised by ESPN2.

(Radio Iowa)

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a Dubuque firefighter was injured while fighting a garage fire. Fire crews had been sent around 6:10 p.m. Monday to the detached garage behind an apartment building. The firefighter was treated at Mercy Medical Center-Dubuque. His or her name hasn’t been released.

The Iowa Department of Transportation is part of an eight-state plan to make it easier for truck drivers to find a place to park along Interstate 80. D-O-T planner, Phil Mescher says the states will share funding that came about after a South Carolina truck driver who parked at an abandoned gas station was robbed and killed.

“This really brought a lot of awareness to the trucking companies and to the government about this issue,” Mescher says. “And so the publicity got the interest of Congress a little bit, so when they passed the transportation bill…they included some provisions in there to help states create either better parking, more parking or some technologies to help truck drivers.”

The states are sharing 25 million dollars to create plans. Mescher says each state is working on a plan that suites their state that will also work with the other states. “In this proposal, what we wanted to do is to use some I-T-S, Intelligent Transportation Sytems technologies to provide truck drivers with information about the availability of truck parking at upcoming rest areas and truck stops,” Mescher explains.

He says you can see trucks parked at rest stops and off ramps along I-80 in Iowa and understand the need for the system. Mescher says one of the issues is truckers have limits on how many hours they can be on the road. “If they are getting down to where they only have an hour or two left, it becomes imperative that they try to find a parking space so that they don’t spend an inordinate amount of time driving around pushing up against that threshold trying to find a parking spot,” Mescher says.

He says it is important to have thing set up so the information from each state is easily accessible. )”I-80 is a huge transcontinental corridor — yet get a lot of trucks that are crossing the nation — and having that similarity is something I think that people like to see,” Mescher says. “All of the states do a great job with their 5-1-1 transportation systems, but they are all different, and you have to go to a different website for each one of them.”

Mescher says Iowa will put information on the available truck parking spots on their 5-1-1 system. He says they will also make it available to app developers for smartphones, and to companies who provide in-cab information systems and truck dispatchers. The plan involves technology to help monitor private and public truck stops. ” We will either have in-pavement sensors in the parking stalls themselves for some sites and other sites…we will count the trucks going in and out, so we will know what the availability is on a regular basis,” Mescher says.

The plan will be worked out and tested in the next year and is expected to be up and running by January of 2019. Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin are all implementing their own truck parking information management system that will eventually interconnect into a regional system.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:30 a.m. CST

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — A Dubuque man has pleaded not guilty to killing a woman who police say he met just hours earlier. The Telegraph Herald reports that 36-year-old Michael Piantieri entered the plea in Dubuque County District Court in Dubuque. His trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 20.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Des Moines police officer has been accused of drunken driving. Authorities say Brett Vanderpool was arrested early Friday in Ankeny after his vehicle was pulled over. He’s been placed on administrative leave. A public phone listing for him couldn’t be found Monday. Court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could comment for Vanderpool.

BLUE GRASS, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a house fire early Christmas morning has claimed four lives in eastern Iowa. The city of Blue Grass Police Department says firetrucks were sent to the home a little after 12:30 a.m. Monday. The department says that of the four people inside when the blaze erupted, one managed to make it outside but died later at a hospital. The three others died inside. Their names haven’t been released. The fire cause is being investigated.

CHICAGO (AP) — The holiday weather in parts of New England is frightful. A blizzard warning was issued for portions of Maine and New Hampshire, with forecasters saying snow of up to 10 inches and wind gusts up to 50 mph could make travel “dangerous to impossible.” States from Montana and the Dakotas to Wisconsin expect wind chill temperatures in places at 40 below zero. Mountain areas in parts of Colorado, Montana and Wyoming have received more than 1 foot of snow since Saturday, bringing cheers from skiers.

(UPDATE: No injuries. Property Damage accident, only) — Anita Rescue, Wiota 1st responders and Medivac Ambulance were dispatched at around 3:17-p.m. today to a rollover accident off Interstate 80 eastbound at 70-mile marker. The driver of the vehicle was a woman from Omaha, Nebraska.

The value of Iowa farmland went up slightly in this year’s Iowa State University Extension survey, but the source of land sales hasn’t changed much. Economist Wendong Zhang conducts the annual survey of sales and who is selling. He says they’ve been asking the question for two years and have found that more than 50 percent of the sales are from estates and 20 percent are retired farmers.

Zhang says the sales data may not tell the whole story about land ownership. Zhang says you often don’t see land going on market as the land in estates often transfers within the family. He is now working on a farm ownership and tenure survey.

That survey is required by the state every five years. He says it will give more ideas about how owners use the land and how they plan to get rid of their land in their estate planning. Zhang says they already know from information that’s available that most land goes to those who want to keep planting crops. “Seventy-two percent of the land is sold to existing farmers — in particular — 72 percent are existing local farmers,” Zhang says.

He says the local farmers are usually pretty close nearby. “Especially when they have a livestock operation as well. They often don’t look beyond 20 to 25 miles,” according to Zhang. He says livestock operators want land that is close by because it gives them somewhere to apply manure from their operations.

Zhang says the farther they have to travel, the more it costs to spread the manure. He says his land ownership survey should be out this spring.

(Radio Iowa)

A state program that was launched this year to help save money for people with disabilities has already taken in many thousands of dollars in contributions. Under the program, parents and grandparents can donate tax-free to a fund until the loved one with the disability reaches age 26. State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald says the fund can then be tapped as the person and his or her caregiver grow older.

“Now, a lot of these folks who are disabled, maybe they’re getting public assistance or whatever, they’re cut off at $2,000,” Fitzgerald says. “You can’t have it or the government will grab it. This allows them to save up to $100,000.”

The program, called IAble, allows an account to be opened for as little as 25-dollars. The program is modeled after College Savings Iowa which allows a tax break for saving for college. The fund, which started in February, has already received 200-thousand dollars in contributions. Fitzgerald briefed Governor Kim Reynolds on the program during a recent budget hearing.

“This is important to a lot of the parents and grandparents,” he says. “As you get later in life, what’s going to happen to little Billy or little Mary, so this is a program to help families deal with that issue.”

Fitzgerald says Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley spearheaded enabling legislation for the program in Congress. Iowa is part of a 16-state coalition managing the contributions.
www.iable.gov

(Radio Iowa, w/Thanks to Joyce Russell, Iowa Public Radio)