BLUE GRASS, Iowa (AP) — Police say all four people killed by an early Christmas morning house fire in eastern Iowa belonged to one family. The blaze erupted a little after 12:30 a.m. Monday in Blue Grass. Police say one of the four people inside the home managed to escape but died later at a hospital. The three others perished inside the ranch-style house.

Blue Grass police Sgt. Garrett Jahns said Tuesday that he couldn’t release any of the victims’ names or ages yet but that the four were related. State Fire Marshal Division spokesman Ron Humphrey says the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Blue Grass is a community of about 1,500 residents 150 miles east of Des Moines.

Programs offered by the University of Iowa to draw more young people into so-called STEM fields appear to be working. During 2017, more than 37-thousand students took part in at least one of the U-I Healthcare programs tied to science, technology, engineering and math. That’s a 64-percent increase from a year ago. Emily Strattan, the U-I’s STEM education coordinator, says 77-percent more young women took part, thanks to a program aimed at middle school-aged girls. “Women tend to be underrepresented in STEM,” Strattan says. “They’re about 29 percent in the STEM workforce, so that has been a big target of ours, to engage young females in STEM.”

Over the next 12 months, she says the programs will reach out to draw the interest of even more students. Strattan says, “We’re trying to target students of diverse ethnic backgrounds, targeting students from rural areas who maybe don’t have the access or funding to be able to attend a STEM program here on campus.”

The program called “Girls Go STEM” focuses on girls in 6th through 8th grades.

(Radio Iowa, w/Thanks to Rob Dillard, Iowa Public Radio)

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

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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.