Authorities say a man’s body found Wednesday in a burned vehicle in Missouri with an infant is the father wanted in connection with an Iowa AMBER Alert. The man has been identified as 33-year-old Elvis Habibovic. Police in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale had been looking nine-month old Logan Habibovic. An Amber Alert was issued for him early Wednesday morning with the belief that he’d been abducted by his father, Elvis. The alert matched the description of a burned vehicle found Tuesday evening in a conservation area in Harrison County, Missouri.

They are still waiting on D-N-A testing to identify the burned remains of the infant in the car. “We’ve been able to identify Elvis through dental records,” said Josh Eckerson, Harrison County Sheriff. “The child’s D-N-A has been sent to Jefferson City to the Highway Patrol Lab along with D-N-A from the mother to get a positive I-D on the child.” Eckerson said the official cause of death is still undetermined. “We speculate he piped in the fumes from the tailpipe into the car,” Eckerson said. “The actual cause of the fire is still undetermined.”

(Radio Iowa)

Police in Council Bluffs are asking for the public’s help in locating two men who allegedly used an SUV to tear electrical wiring from a transformer located near a restaurant. Authorities say the incident happened today (Friday) at around 6:40-a.m.

Officers were dispatched to Ruby Tuesday, at 3150 24th Avenue. A witness saw two men pulling electrical wiring from a transformer box located on the south side of the business. The men were using a black SUV to pull the wires from the box. The two suspects saw the witness observe them, and sped out of the parking lot, traveling southbound on Bass Pro Drive, dragging the wiring behind.

At the intersection of Bass Pro Drive and 24th Avenue, the wires became entangled with a stop sign post, pulling the sign out of the ground. The suspect vehicle stopped in the 2500 Block of Mid America Drive and placed two sections of the wiring into their vehicle. Video from a traffic camera, then shows the suspect vehicle turning southbound onto So. 24th Street and then getting onto I-80 westbound from 24th Street.

The suspect vehicle is a black Lincoln Navigator with Nebraska license plates on it. The suspects were described as white males, with one of them being tall and thin and the other short and stocky. Both men were wearing hard hats at the time of the theft.

The cost to replace the copper wiring is expected to be in excess of $10,000. Anyone with information about the suspect’s vehicle or the suspects, is urged to contact the Council Bluffs Police Department at 328-STOP. You can remain anonymous and your tip could be eligible for a cash reward.

Below are two still shots of the suspect vehicle  as it was traveling eastbound on Mid America Drive.

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled the front porch of a private residence is not a public place. The ruling comes in the case of a Patience Paye of Waterloo who was charged in 2013 with public intoxication after coming out onto her front porch to talk with police about a fight she had with her boyfriend. Paye appealed the conviction, saying her front steps were not a public place.

The Supreme Court had ruled 12 years ago that the front steps and common hallway of an apartment house are public places because access is required by everyone. In this ruling the justices say while people can use Paye’s front stairs to approach her home for limited purposes — like selling a product or to borrow a cup of sugar — allowing them to do so is not a general invitation to the public to use the steps.

The ruling also says if the front stairs of a single-family residence are always a public place, “it would be a crime to sit there calmly on a breezy summer day and sip a mojito, celebrate a professional achievement with a mixed drink of choice, or even baste meat on the grill with a bourbon-infused barbeque sauce.” The court reversed Paye’s public intoxication conviction.

(Radio Iowa)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Republican leaders in Iowa have agreed to end the state’s straw poll because of waning interest from presidential hopefuls and questions about its relevancy. Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kauffman says state party officials voted during a Friday morning conference call to end the straw poll, which began in 1979 and has been held every summer before a contested presidential caucus.

For years, the poll has been considered an early but unreliable test of campaigns’ strength. Critics say it has become a costly sideshow, and many candidates fear the humiliation of a poor showing. Some 2016 GOP hopefuls recently said they would skip the event altogether.

Volunteers from Iowa and Nebraska will spend tomorrow (Saturday) morning picking up trash along the Missouri River south of Omaha. Individuals, families and groups are invited to take part and Missouri River Relief director Jeff Barrow is hoping that upwards of 250 people show up.  “You get several hundred people out on the river, everyone’s working but nobody has to work very hard, everyone’s putting in their two bits,” Barrow says. “Everyone can contribute, but at the end of the day, we’ll have seven to ten tons of trash and the feeling of satisfaction is just incredible.”

Barrow says once every two years they organize a big clean up of the river’s banks.  “With all the flood debris, I expect we’ll get about ten tons of trash,” Barrow says. “There’s lots of old docks that got ripped out in the floods, big chunks of styrofoam, plastic 55-gallon barrels that people use for docks. When we were scouting, I actually found a complete boat trailer including wheels and tires.”

While the most common items found will be plastic pop bottles — by the thousands — there may be some heavy lifting involved. “Oh, it’s incredible what we find in the river,” Barrow says. “The range and the variety is unbelievable. We find everything from toilets to full-on boats, houseboats, lots of appliances, refrigerators float really well with their insulation. We’ll probably find a hundred tires.”

Volunteers should meet at the Lake Manawa State Park boat ramps by 8:30 Saturday morning. The clean-up is from 9 until noon. Volunteers are asked to dress appropriately and bring sunscreen and bug spray. Those wanting to pre-register can log on to riverrelief.org.

(Radio Iowa)