Davenport police say child abuse caused the death of a five-year-old boy. A family member says JaShawn Bussell had numerous injuries and died Tuesday after being taken off of life support in Iowa City. She says the boy was beaten to death. Police are looking for 26-year-old Tre Henderson, the live-in boyfriend of JaShawn’s mother. A police affidavit says the little boy was not taken in for medical attention for four days in spite of signs that something was wrong.

(Radio Iowa)

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Cedar Rapids police say a man died after a car rolled over him. Officers and medics were sent to the accident site around 6 p.m. Thursday. They found the man trapped under the car in a driveway. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police say there was no one in the car when it rolled. The man’s name and other details haven’t been released.

In these pictures, students in the after school STEM class discuss and begin work on a container that will hopefully allow their single potato chip to be mailed and arrive in one piece. (Ric Hanson/photos) [Click on each image to enlarge]

MS Science Teacher Kara Martin (right) explains the rules to students before they begin working on their shipping containers.

Advanced students with the Atlantic Middle School are involved in an after school STEM Excellence and Leadership Program. Stem stands for Science Technology Engineering and Math. The program, which is fairly new to Iowa, offers science tutoring to support 6^th through 8^th grade, gifted science and math students, in some of the state’s smallest communities. The program is funded through a two-million dollar National Science Foundation grant, and is administered by the University of Iowa College of Education’s Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development. About a dozen or so students are involved in the Atlantic Middle School Program. School Principal Josh Rasmussen said the after school program expands on an industrial technology program the school had going prior to the grant.

He says the program offers valuable lessons in critical thinking.

Kara Martin is the Middle School Science Teacher who has assigned the STEM students a project that challenges their organizational, cooperative and creative capabilities.

Students have an hour to design and test a package to safely ship a single potato chip through the USPS to another school. Upon receipt, the chip will be evaluated and scored. The goal is to engineer a package to have the smallest mass and volume, while at the same time protecting the chip. The package can be no larger than 3×5″, and there must be no writing on the package, such as fragile, or handle with care. A perfect chips scores 100 points, slightly damaged 50 pts, split chip 10 pts, major damage 5 points, dust 1 pt. Overall scores = Intactness score/(mass in kg x volume in cc).,

Andrea Reilly is the Middle School Talented and Gifted Program Coordinator. She says the grant provided by the UI Belkin Center allowed some of the eighth-grade students the opportunity to take field trips to witness real world applications of STEM. 

One of the students tasked with shipping the single potato chip in hopes it will come back in one piece, is 6^th grader Mary McCurdy, the daughter of John and Ann McCurdy, of Atlantic, who says she is really enjoying the experience.

Mary talked about what she hopes to learn from the experiment, outside the engineering principals.

Mary McCurdy talks w/reporters about the STEM experiment & experience. MS Science Teacher Kara Martin is in the background.

In addition to Atlantic, the STEM Excellence and Leadership Program, involves students with the: Adel DeSoto Minburn Middle School; Cardinal Middle School; Davis County Middle School; Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont Junior/Senior High School; Ford Dodge Middle School; Graettinger-Terril Middle School; Mount Pleasant Community Middle School; Spencer Middle School, and the Starmont Middle School.

A school bus driver from Red Oak was cited Thursday, after the Red Oak School District bus he was driving, sideswiped a parked car near the Red Oak Middle School. Red Oak Police says 77-year old Roger Lynn Waggener was driving a 2015 Bluebird school bus westbound at 4th and Hammond Streets at around 3:25-p.m., when the bus sideswiped a legally parked 2005 Chevy Classic passenger car. The car was occupied by 83-year old Marilyn Gentry, who was waiting for her grandchild to be dropped-off at the Red Oak Middle School.

No students were injured on-board the bus, nor was either driver. The car sustained about $6,000 damage, while damage to the bus was estimated at $2,000. Waggener was cited for Failure to Maintain Control.

Police in Red Oak, Thursday evening, arrested a man on assault, and other charges. 24-year old Jesse Dean Uhlmann, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 7:40-p.m., for Domestic Abuse Assault, Obstruction of Emergency Communications, and Contempt of Court, for violating a No Contact/Protective Order. Uhlmann was also charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance/Marijuana. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on two separate bonds: a $300 cash bond for the warrant; and a $1,000 bond for the Possession charge.

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

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A top aide to Gov. Kim Reynolds has been hired by Apple months after helping promote a controversial $208 million incentive package for the company’s planned Iowa data center as a good deal for taxpayers. Tim Albrecht resigned as Reynolds’ deputy chief of staff, then began in March as a manager of strategic initiatives for Apple. The governor’s office says Albrecht’s position is “unrelated” to the $1.3 billion complex the company is building outside Des Moines.

SABULA, Iowa (AP) — A bridge connecting Iowa with Illinois will stay closed even longer than earlier estimates. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald reports Sabula Mayor Troy Hansen announced Thursday the bridge just outside the town won’t open until September. Since officials ordered the bridge closed for safety reasons in February, its reopening has been pushed back from May to July and now Sept. 3. The bridge provides access to a larger U.S. Highway 52/Illinois 64 bridge over the Mississippi River to Savanna, Illinois.

CLIVE, Iowa (AP) — A Davenport man has won a $4.38 million lottery jackpot without even paying for a ticket. The Iowa Lottery says Thursday that 52-year-old Chuck Anderson won the jackpot in Saturday’s drawing of the Lotto America game. The lottery has been promoting Lotto America, which began in November, by offering free plays to random players who bought tickets in other games. Anderson qualified for the free ticket by buying a Powerball ticket. Anderson opted to take a lump sum amount of $2.6 million.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A lawyer for the Iowa Public Information Board says agencies can keep secret the personal email addresses used by their board members for official business. In a draft opinion, the board’s legal counsel says private email addresses can be exempt from disclosure under the Iowa Open Records Act. He says the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board likely acted lawfully in redacting the email addresses of board members in records released to Bleeding Heartland, a blog that covers Iowa politics.