Sheriff’s Deputies in Page County, Thursday, arrested 36-year old David Llewellyn Warkentien II, of Clarinda. He was taken into custody on a Page County Bench warrant for 2 counts of Control Substance Violations, for failing to appear at a plea and sentencing hearing. Warkentien was unable to post the $5,000 bond, and was being held in the Page County Jail pending future court proceedings.

NEVADA, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say one person has died in an industrial accident at a biofuels plant in central Iowa. Television station KCCI reports that the Nevada Public Safety Department confirmed the death occurred Thursday afternoon at Verbio North America’s Biorefinery in Nevada, which is about 40 miles north of Des Moines.

Officials say the person died at the scene but did not give details of the nature of the accident. The victim’s name has not been released pending notification of family members. An investigation into the fatal accident is ongoing.

WEBSTER CITY, Iowa (AP) — Officials have identified two people found dead inside a central Iowa apartment as a woman and an infant. The Des Moines Register reports that Webster City police have identified the victims as 28-year-old Mariangelys Ortiz and 3-month-old and Abimelec Ortiz Figueroa. The bodies of both were found inside the Webster city apartment Sunday morning.

The cause of deaths has not been released. Police Chief Shiloh Mork said on Sunday that there was nothing about the deaths that suggested the public was in any danger.

A defense expert says a confession by the suspect in the death of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts is not reliable because he was sleep deprived and susceptible to coercion. Brian Leslie, a consultant with expertise in interrogation techniques, reviewed video of an 11-hour interrogation of Cristhian Bahena Rivera in August 2018.

He noted that Rivera denied involvement in the disappearance and death of Tibbetts until near the end, around 4 a.m., after he had been falling in and out of sleep. He says he would “not take a lot of what was said as credible.” Leslie testified on the second day of a hearing on Rivera’s motion to suppress statements made during that interrogation.  Judge Joel Yates said Thursday he would take the matter under advisement and rule as quickly as possible.

Relatives of the man suspected of killing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts say they rushed to a sheriff’s office after learning he was being questioned and waited for hours without getting to speak with him. Alejandra Cervantes Valle testified Thursday that she asked a police officer whether the family needed to call a lawyer for her nephew, Cristhian Bahena Rivera, during the August 2018 interrogation.

Valle says the officer told her that was unnecessary because they would be done in 15 minutes. The family left two hours later without any update. Police say Rivera later led officers to a cornfield where they say he hid Tibbetts’s body beneath a pile of leaves.

Judge Joel Yates ruled Thursday that he will not allow lawyers for Cristhian Bahena Rivera to submit a written affidavit from their client unless he agrees to submit to cross-examination by prosecutors.
Lawyers for Rivera, who is charged with murder, say they won’t allow him to testify. Yates rejected the affidavit. Rivera says in the affidavit that he was unaware of certain rights and scared to invoke others.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Eight months after flooding began along the lower Missouri River, the amount of water being released from dams upriver will start to be reduced later this month.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the amount of water being released from the Gavins Point dam on the Nebraska-South Dakota border will start to gradually be reduced on Nov. 23 as part of its plan to cut releases for winter.

The amount of water being released into the river has been at 80,000 cubic feet per second — more than twice what is typical — for months. By mid-December, that will be reduced to 22,000 cubic feet per second.

The river has remained high ever since the spring flooding because the amount of rain and melting snow flowing into the river was near record levels this year.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — State natural resources officials say Iowa will report 622 river, lake and wetland segments with impairments to the Environmental Protection Agency as part of its 2018 summary of water quality. That’s a 2% increase over the 608 reported in the 2016 report.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says Thursday the 622 water body segments on this year’s list had 831 impairments. An impairment means a segment of a water body doesn’t meet established quality standards.

The most common river impairments in Iowa include bacteria presence and fish kills, for which the most common cause is animal waste. Iowa has more pigs and egg-laying chickens than any other state, and it constantly struggles to balance water quality and agricultural interests.

The most severe problem for lakes is algae growth. That’s often the result of nutrients such as phosphorous from farm fertilizer washing from fields into the water. Environmental activists Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement say it’s evidence the state is failing when it comes to improving water quality.

Montgomery County conducted its second post-election audit Thursday, under a new law designed to monitor and protect election processes. According to Auditor Stephanie Burke, the audit was successful.

Iowa law allows the Secretary of State choose, at random, one precinct in each Iowa county to be audited. County auditors must then supervise a hand count of the ballots from that precinct and compare the results to the voting machine count from election night.

In Montgomery County, the Secretary of State chose Precinct 7, which votes at the Villisca Community Building. 161 ballots were cast on election night and the results matched to the hand count done on Thursday. Burke said “The hand count shows that our machines are accurately counting ballots. All voters deserve to have confidence that their vote has been counted properly.”

Two precinct election officials, representing the two major political parties, conducted the count under the supervision of Elections Clerk, Beth Peterson, and Auditor Stephanie Burke. As required in the law, the Auditor’s Office notified the county chairs of both of the two major political parties. The process was witnessed by a representative of the Montgomery County Democrats.

Questions about the post-election audit and other election matters may be directed to the Montgomery County Auditor’s office at 712-623-5127.

Officials with the Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency said today (Thursday), clean-up crews continue to work at the site of Wednesday morning’s train derailment near the Boxelder Avenue bridge. Boxelder Ave is still closed and should be reopened early Friday morning. While the rail should be fixed and open for traffic yet tonight or early tomorrow, cleanup crews will still be at the site over the next several days or weeks to cleanup the remaining damaged cars and coal. Officials said approximately 20-to 30-coal BNSF cars derailed at around 4-a.m., Wednesday. No injuries were reported.

(Photos from the Montgomery County EMA Facebook page)

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Officials say a gay pastor in Iowa City will request a leave of absence as part of a settlement of complaints that her sexual orientation violates United Methodist Church law. The Rev. Anna Blaedel had been director of the Wesley Center at the University of Iowa but stepped down in May because of a church complaint filed in 2018. She’s been the subject of three complaints since she publicly disclosed in 2016 that she was gay.

Blaedel has since been working 10-15 hours a week leading the center’s Table Tuesday program, in which college students gather to discuss spirituality and social justice. The Rev. Tyler Schwaller has been representing Blaedel, and he told The Gazette that Blaedel will retain her pastoral credentials. Blaedel has declined to comment. Delegates at a United Methodist Church conference in St. Louis voted in February to strengthen a ban on LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage.

Sheriff’s officials in Mills County report four recent arrests. On Wednesday, 25-year old Amber Nicole Ross, of Council Bluffs, was arrested at the Pottawattamie County Jail, on a warrant for Violation for Probation. Her bond was set at $20,000. 45-year old Stacey Lynn Barrett, of Glenwood, was arrested for Driving While Barred, Wednesday (bond set at $2,000), and 58-year old Darrell Adam Klahn, of Omaha, was arrested for OWI/1st offense, and Driving Under Suspension. His bond was set at $1,300.

On Tuesday, 36-year old William Joseph Bullock, of Omaha, was arrested in Mills County, for Eluding, Driving While Revoked, and preventing apprehension. His bond was set at $8,000.