(Radio Iowa) — Three flood-prone sections of Interstate 29 in southwest Iowa were raised last year and while they’re still not flood-proof, the Iowa Department of Transportation says they are ready to weather future flooding. The D-O-T’s Austin Yates says I-29 and nearby I-680 are typically impacted the same way during a flood.  “Right now, with all this work done, I-29 and I-680 will be able to remain open together at the same time,” Yates says. “We’re not going to have to close one before the other.”

The three sections were raised different heights, ranging from two inches to 14 inches to more than two feet. Yates says the new asphalt is a big clue something has changed, but drivers may not notice the road is higher. He says it’s kind of like target practice. “If you’re aiming at a target that’s 50 feet away and you raise that target up a foot,” he says, “your eye isn’t going to need to move to see that.”

The three sections include northbound I-29 from Honey Creek to Loveland, a stretch of southbound I-29 north of Crescent, and a stretch near Blackbird Marsh. Yates said flooding would’ve still closed those parts of I-29 in March, but not in September or June, if the changes had already been in place.

(Reporting by Katie Peikes, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) — The February 3rd Iowa Caucuses are just a month away and it’s clear many Iowans are still contemplating their Caucus Night choice. Brenda Bachman of Marengo gives voice to what’s on the minds of many Iowa Democrats. “The number one goal is to get Trump out,” Bachman said. She and her husband, Marvin Bachman, are undecided voters. “I’m promising all the pollers that I’ll make a decision in January,” Bachmann said. Dave Waters of Boone has met all the candidates and says he’d be comfortable supporting any of them. “I’m not nervous one bit because there are so many good ones,” Waters says. is brother, Brent Waters of Perry, has sort of settled on a candidate. “But it could change ’cause I change my mind every day,” Waters says. “They’re all good.” Ray Harden of Perry hasn’t made a final choice yet either. “It’s going to have to be soon, isn’t it? The Caucuses are creeping up on us,” Hardin said.

The Caucuses are 31 days away. Over the holiday, Rachel Boon of Grimes started trying to see the candidates, in person, but she’s been reading a lot about the candidates online. “Higher education’s a really important to me, so I’m interested in student debt, college affordability,” she says, “also looking at income inequality.” Cedar County Democratic Party chairman Larry Hodgden of Tipton endorsed Kamala Harris in October, but she’s no longer in the race. He says there’s a lot riding on this decision. “No matter what our big ideas are, no matter what our goals are, we don’t get any of that done without winning the next election,” Hodgden says.

He says it’s important for Iowa Democrats to choose someone who can win the White House and lead a General Election ticket that helps Democrats win enough races to take majority control of the U.S. senate. Fourteen candidates remain in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Julian Castro ended his campaign yesterday (Thursday). Marianne Williamson didn’t drop out, but she laid off all her staff on December 31st.

(Radio Iowa) — An eastern Iowa cybersecurity expert says the lessons learned from the Y-2-K preparations 20 years ago are still being used today. There was a fear that a glitch in computers would cause worldwide problems when the clocks on the computers hit midnight on January 1st of 2000. Aaron Warner, the C-E-O of ProCircular in Coralville tells K-C-R-G T-V the Y-2-K concern involved the switch to 2000. “ People were nervous that computer systems were just going to fail because they wouldn’t know what time it was, and all of computing is based on time,” Warner says.

Warner was working as the chief information officer for another Coralville company as the countdown to 2000 was on. He says companies around the world spent years and millions of dollars testing equipment and preparing for Y-2-K, efforts that ramped up in the final months before the turn of the millennium. He says his company had a pretty good idea that everything would continue running — but they were not 100 percent sure.  “There was real risk, for sure, but it was a little bit over-hyped, and sometimes you can only see that in retrospect,” Warner says.

Nothing serious happened, and after that night, Y-2-K became a bit of a joke. But he tells K-C-R-G T-V people in the technology realm still use many of the lessons they learned from Y2K today, like the importance of preparation“It’s always better to be a little bit let down than to be surprised and caught unprepared,” according to Warner said.

He says the preparation for that night also highlighted that you need to do risk analysis and look at what the likelihood versus the impact would be in any situation, whether it’s something like Y-2-K or cybersecurity. Warner says he and other members of his team stayed late on New Year’s Eve that year, “waiting for the world to end. And it did not end, as it turned out.” But that didn’t diminish their relief when everything except the year stayed the same. “At about 12:15, though, I’m not going to lie, there may have been some champagne involved,” Warner says.

He says it was the first time where people really started thinking about what life would be like without computers.

(Radio Iowa) — Four of the 14 Democrats in the race for their party’s 2020 presidential nomination campaigned in Iowa Thursday. Amy Klobuchar told a crowd in Sioux City her fundraising picked up after the December debate. “We’re seeing a total surge that’s allowed us to double our staff in the state of Iowa and double our field offices,” Klobuchar says. “…We’re adding people in South Carolina and Nevada as well as New Hampshire.”

Tom Steyer has embarked on a bus tour of the state and one of his stops Thursday was at a grocery store in Manning that will close soon. Bernie Sanders, also traveling by campaign bus, held a forum on the Meskwaki Settlement. “Native American people have educated our country and once again we’re going to need your leadership to show this country and maybe the world about how we go forward respecting the environment,” Sanders said, “…that we can’t destroy nature and expect to live good lives.”

Sanders won the precinct on the settlement near Tama during the 2016 Caucuses. Joe Biden spoke to a crowd in Anamosa, suggesting Trump is like a shell game swindler at a traveling carnival. “Next time they come through town, you go, ‘Whoa…I’m not sure I want to play that game,'” Biden said. “Well, Donald Trump has shown his hand.” A woman in the crowd later told Biden she decided to attend the event at the National Motorcycle Museum because her son had died in a motorcycle accident four years ago and yesterday (Thursday) was his birthday. “And I thought I’m going to get to spend a little time with somebody who understands this heartache,” she said.

A C-B-S reporter posted the video online, showing Biden gave her a hug and asked how she was doing. Biden’s son, Beau, died of brain cancer in 2015 and Biden recently noted the 2020 Iowa Caucuses will be held on what would have been Beau Biden’s 51st birthday. Biden’s first wife and a daughter were killed in a 1972 car crash and he often encounters people on the campaign trail who tell him of their own bouts with grief.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports deputies arrested 48-year old Kerri Lynn Pace, of Villisca, Thursday night. Pace was taken into custody at around 10:20-p.m. on an active warrant for Violation of Parole. She was transported to Montgomery County Corrections and held on a $20,000 cash bond.

BROWNVILLE, Neb. (AP) — Federal inspectors plan to review how well a Nebraska nuclear power plant handled a water service safety problem blamed on a silt buildup from the Missouri River. The river overwhelmed levees along its length last spring.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a news release Thursday that the Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville was operating Dec. 6 when employees detected that water wasn’t flowing through a pipe connected to one of two safety generators. The other generator was available.

Nebraska Public Power District soon determined that silt had built up and blocked the pipe outfall. The district had the silt removed within a week.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:40 a.m. CST

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The father of a 14-year-old boy shot to death early New Year’s Day in Des Moines is asking the public to come forward with information on the shooting. The Rev. Ron Woods tells the Des Moines Register that his son, 14-year-old Josiah Woods, was standing in a house’s enclosed porch when he was hit by gunfire from a drive-by shooting. The elder Woods says his son was not the target, “but he was the victim.” Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek says the shooting was deliberate and intentional, but that police don’t yet know who the intended target was.

UNDATED (AP) — Joe Biden is getting a high-profile endorsement for his presidential bid as congresswoman Abby Finkenauer becomes the first member of Iowa’s congressional delegation to take sides in the Democratic nominating contest. In an interview with The Associated Press ahead of her announcement Thursday, the congresswoman cites Biden’s experience and says he’s the candidate who can unite Democrats, independents and some Republicans. Finkenauer hosted nine presidential contenders at a November forum in her congressional district, demonstrating her potential influence. Polls suggest Biden is in a jumble of top contenders in Iowa along with Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Best-selling author and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson has laid off her entire 2020 campaign staff but is pushing ahead with her Democratic presidential bid. Williamson’s New Hampshire state director and senior campaign adviser Paul Hodes confirmed Thursday that he had been laid off and “that the others in the national campaign have been laid off.” A former campaign aide told The Associated Press that Williamson laid off her entire campaign staff on Dec. 31 because of financial concerns. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because staff were told not to speak publicly about the layoffs.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Police in Council Bluffs in western Iowa say the traffic stop of a rental truck has lead to the seizure of 1,500 pounds of marijuana worth about $4.5 million on the street. Police say in a news release that the traffic stop occurred Wednesday afternoon on Interstate 80 in Council Bluffs, when the truck was stopped on suspicion of speeding. Police say a drug dog was deployed and indicated the presence of drugs in the truck and a search turned up 61 cardboard boxes packed with marijuana. The 35-year-old truck driver from Los Angeles was arrested on various drug charges.

IOWA CITY – Officials with the Iowa Department of Corrections, today (Thursday), said an inmate serving time for the Union County crime of Murder in the 1st Degree, died Wednesday afternoon from natural causes. 72-year old Rick Fay Bird was pronounced deceased at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Bird had been serving a life sentence for the Feb. 19, 1997 death of 47-year old Linda Trenkle.

Trenkle was beaten to death with a hammer, in Creston. Bird, who was 49-year old at the time, was living with Trenkle. Two weeks earlier she had gone to his home accompanied by law enforcement to retrieve her possessions. On the day she died, she returned without law enforcement to get more of her property.  Bird’s incarceration for the crime began on October 24, 1997.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Officials say an officer found a loaded gun in the waistband of a man being booked into the Polk County Jail. The Polk County Sheriff’s Office says in a news release that the incident began late Wednesday night as 25-year-old John Steven Hansen was being booked into the jail on a harassment charge. Officials say that when Hansen was brought to the jail by Des Moines police, he was immediately searched by a Polk County detention officer before his handcuffs were removed. Officials say that within seconds, the handgun and 17 rounds in the gun’s magazine were found in Hansen’s waistband.

A traffic stop at around 1:05-p.m. Wednesday in Council Bluffs resulted in the discovery of numerous boxes containing about 1,500-pounds of suspected marijuana worth an estimated $4.5-million. Council Bluffs Police initiated the traffic stop on Interstate 80 eastbound at he 7.5-mile marker. A 2016 Penske box truck was stopped for speeding. The driver, 35-year old Dmitry Brisov, of Los Angeles, CA., was issued a citation. A Council Bluffs Police Service Dog was deployed and  alerted to the  presence of narcotics in the vehicle.

A subsequent search of the vehicle uncovered 61 cardboard boxes containing the suspected marijuana. Borisov was subsequently booked into the Pottawattamie County Jail  on charges that include: Possession with Intent to Deliver‐ Marijuana Over 100Kg/Under 1000kg; Prohibited Acts; A drug Tax Stamp Violation, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

Dmitry Borisov

61-boxes of suspected marijuana worth about $4.5-million. (Council Bluffs PD photos)