EARLVILLE, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say the husband of a woman killed in what was initially believed to be a fatal fall at a northeastern Iowa farm has been charged with her murder.

The Delaware County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Thursday that 42-year-old Todd Michael Mullis had been arrested on a warrant charging him with first-degree murder in the Nov. 10 death of 39-year-old Amy Lynn Mullis.

The department says an autopsy showed that Amy Mullis died after receiving injuries that included multiple stab wounds to her back with a corn rake. Mullis was arrested without incident on Thursday and remains jailed without bail.

(Radio Iowa) — U-S Senator Joni Ernst doesn’t put much faith in gun control legislation which passed the U-S House on Wednesday ever seeing the light of day in the Senate. The bill would require background checks for virtually all sales of firearms nationwide. Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak, questions the intent of the legislation, which was pushed through the Democratic-majority House.

“I don’t know that that one will be coming up,” Ernst says. “We should go back and, of course, scrutinize the text of the language and what we are trying to accomplish.” Under current law, background checks only have to be done by licensed gun dealers, not those who are unlicensed.

The House bill would require background checks by both. Ernst served in the Iowa Army National Guard for 22 years and is the first female combat veteran elected to the U-S Senate. Ernst remains skeptical of the first gun control legislation to pass the House in more than two decades. “We certainly want to make sure that we are protecting our Second Amendment rights,” Ernst says. “I’ll be honest, it’s a House bill right now. I have not had the time to go back and read the text.”

Iowa Congressman Steve King, a Republican, voted against what he called “a resolution that seeks to place unconstitutional restrictions on the God-given, 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms enshrined for all Americans in our Constitution.”

King urged President Trump to veto the bill, should it reach his desk. Iowa Congresswoman Abby Finkenauer, a Democrat, voted for the Background Checks Act of 2019. In a statement, Finkenauer said: “It’s long past time Congress came together to pass a bipartisan bill addressing gun violence.”

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley criticized the Pentagon last year for spending ten-thousand dollars on a toilet seat. Now, Iowa’s other U-S senator is sponsoring legislation she says targets scores of other incidents of excessively wasteful spending. Senator Joni Ernst is blasting California’s “bullet train” project, which Ernst says is 13 years behind schedule and 44-billion dollars over its original price tag.

“Hard-working Iowans should not be footing the bill for this out-of-control spending,” Ernst says. “That’s why I’ve introduced the Billion-Dollar Boondoggle Act which would require an annual report to taxpayers listing every government-funded project that is one-billion dollars or more over budget, or five years or more behind schedule.” Ernst calls the bullet train project “infamous,” and says her legislation is vital to ending such cases where federal funds are being wasted on a massive scale.

“My bill will bring about needed accountability and transparency,” Ernst says. “It will allow us to identify train wrecks, like the disastrous California rail project, before they become bottomless pits of taxpayer dollars.” Planners say the high-speed train project will eventually carry passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in about two-and-a-half hours. The original cost was estimated at 35-billion dollars. The latest projections by the High-Speed Rail Authority show it in excess of 77-billion.

(Radio Iowa) — Iowa legislators may get involved in a dispute over how long an Iowa high school student may be suspended from extracurricular activities for academic reasons. Senator Jake Chapman of Adel says one central Iowa student was barred from athletics for 30 days, then had to sit out of drama for the NEXT 30 days.

“Really, the student was double penalized,” Chapman says. Chapman says a suspension because a student is failing in the classroom should last 30 days — for all activities. “It’s not just one case. There’s been several cases of this occurring,” Chapman says. “Obviously we want our students to excel in academics, but we also want them to excel in extracurricular activities and because there’s no clarity, they’re getting double-penalized.”

Chapman says the bill directs the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union and the Iowa High School Association, which oversees boys sports, to develop a policy that does NOT impose “multiple periods of ineligibility.”

“We’ve met with the different stakeholder groups and they thought this language was appropriate to sit down together and come up with that policy,” Chapman says. The School Administrators of Iowa is the only group registered as opposed to the bill. A spokesman for the group says local school boards and administrators should make the call on what suspension policies should be in their districts.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The state of Iowa accelerated an unprecedented $4.15 million settlement with two sexual harassment victims after a lawyer for one of them threatened a lawsuit just days before the election that would dig into Gov. Kim Reynolds’ longtime association with the agency director who harassed them, according to emails obtained by The Associated Press.

Attorney Paige Fiedler backed off her plan to file the lawsuit after a state lawyer told her that he “just got authority this morning” from the governor’s administration to settle the case, the emails show. The exchange came shortly before the Nov. 6 midterm election, which featured a close race between the Republican governor and a Democratic challenger.

Reynolds won the election. Within weeks, her administration backed the $4.15 million payout to two subordinates of former Iowa Finance Authority Director Dave Jamison, a Reynolds ally who had sexually harassed the women for years. The deals included $785,569 in legal fees for Fiedler’s firm — nearly 40 times as much as the other woman’s attorney received.

The payouts were formally approved by a state board this month before any lawsuits were filed — a break from normal practice — and came from a fund used to support affordable housing developments. State Auditor Rob Sand has criticized the deals, saying taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for Jamison’s misconduct.

In an Oct. 1 letter, Fiedler demanded the state pay $2.6 million to settle with her client, Beth Ann Mahaffey, who left her job at the finance authority after complaining about Jamison. Fiedler told Solicitor General Jeff Thompson that the offer was good until Nov. 4 — two days before the election in which voters would decide a tight race between Reynolds and Democrat Fred Hubbell.

Fiedler told AP that she picked that deadline because she worried Hubbell would be less likely to settle if he won since the scandal happened on Reynolds’ watch. Her client actually had until Dec. 4 to sue under a legal deadline for her claims.

The office of Attorney General Tom Miller denied any political motive in the settlements, saying it recommended them after an independent investigation detailed Jamison’s harassment. Governor’s office spokesman Pat Garrett called the settlements “in the best interest of the state of Iowa, of taxpayers, and more importantly the victims.”

Fiedler warned in the letter that without a settlement, she would conduct “extensive discovery” into Reynolds’ friendship with Jamison dating to when they were county officials in the 1990s. Reynolds called Jamison a family friend whom she knew as a heavy-drinking partier with an odd sense of humor but has denied knowledge of his misconduct. The discovery process includes depositions in which witnesses are questioned under oath and demands for documents.

Fiedler wrote that Reynolds’ claim that she was never saw Jamison act inappropriately “strains credulity.” She warned that if Reynolds had any knowledge of Jamison’s behavior, the state would be liable because it failed to take steps to prevent his harassment. Reynolds fired Jamison last March after the women complained to the governor’s office. An investigation found that Jamison grabbed groped one employee in public, played a pornographic video on his phone in front of her, and constantly made sexual remarks.

The investigation found that employees may not have complained earlier because Jamison bragged about his ties to the governor. Fiedler emailed Thompson Nov. 1, saying she planned to file Mahaffey’s lawsuit the next day because she hadn’t heard from him about the settlement demand. The two later negotiated a $2.35 million settlement on Nov. 23. The state reached a similar agreement with authority employee Ashley Jared for $1.8 million.

Jared’s deal included $20,000 for her attorney, Melissa Schilling, about 2.5 percent of what Fiedler received. The divergent legal fees reflect the different agreements the women had with their attorneys.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – A Page County woman was sentenced Wednesday in Council Bluffs, to serve 66-months (5-1/2 years) in prison plus three-years of Supervised release, for drug-related offenses. The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa reports 28-year old Devon Miller, had been charged with possession with intent to distribute a controlled substances namely, Oxycodone, Adderall, and Hydrocodone, while in possession of a firearm.

On July 14, 2017, a Mills County Sheriff’s Deputy conducted a traffic stop on a car driven by Miller. Miller did not have a driver’s license and provided a false name. Subsequent to her arrest, a search of the car located over 100 different pills, all of which were controlled substances. Located with the pills was a loaded .45 caliber handgun.

An Investigation by the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement found Miller was selling the pills in Southwest Iowa. The case was investigated by the Mills County Sheriff’s Office, Taylor County Sheriff’s Office and Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – United States Attorney Marc Krickbaum has announced 35-year old Timothy Dean Curphey, from Clarinda, was sentenced Wednesday to 204 months (17 years) in prison, for Conspiracy to Distribute Methamphetamine. His sentence, which was handed-down in U-S District Court in Council Bluffs, also includes seven-years of supervised release following his imprisonment.

In April 2016, a concerned citizen presented a suspicious package to the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office. Law enforcement examined the package, and discovered it had been sent from Mexico and contained methamphetamine disguised as candy. The investigation led to Curphey and others that had distributed over fifty pounds of methamphetamine in Southwest Iowa.

Curphey briefly escaped from the Page County Jail in the spring of 2016. He jumped the fence in an exercise yard and was captured about a block-and-a-half away.

The case against him was investigated by Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement, Page County Sheriff’s Office, Adams County Sheriff’s Office and Taylor County Sheriff’s Office. It was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts woman will spend 21 months in prison for cheating a dozen elderly people — including a man from Iowa — out of more than $300,000 in a lottery scam. Federal prosecutors say 26-year-old Ashley Barrett, of Hyannis, was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to mail fraud. Authorities say Barrett and several others scammed elderly people between 2012 and 2016 by telling the victims they won cash and vehicles from the lottery and needed to pay taxes and fees to receive their winnings.

Authorities say the victims included a 93-year-old widow from Florida who suffered from dementia and a 73-year-old Vietnam veteran and cancer survivor from Iowa. One 87-year-old victim sent Barrett $149,000 in wire transfers and checks. Barrett has been ordered to repay $325,148.