HORNICK, Iowa (AP) – Authorities say the wife of a 73-year-old man fatally injured in a Woodbury County collision also has died. Iowa State Patrol Lt. Jay Smith says 70-year-old Kay Crowl died Thursday at Mercy Medical Center-Sioux City. The Sioux City Journal reports that she and her husband, Mark Crowl, were driving east near Hornick around 8:15 p.m. Sunday when their vehicle collided with a westbound vehicle driven by 17-year-old Shayna Schelm.

The patrol says Mark Crowl was pronounced dead soon after reaching the hospital. Schelm was treated there for minor injuries. Schelm lives in Hornick, as did the Crowls.

A prison inmate, serving time for the death of a child, is listed as an escapee in eastern Iowa. Thirty-nine-year-old John Mohr failed to return from his job to a work release facility in Davenport, according to the Iowa Department of Corrections. Mohr was sent to work release back in April. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in 1997 for the death of his girlfriend’s 13-month-old son in Clinton. Mohr was 19 at the time. The child was the victim of shaken baby syndrome.

John F. Mohr

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The task force recommending a $10.75 minimum wage in Polk County also is recommending that employers would have to pay only 85 percent of that wage to workers younger than 18. The task force voted for the recommendation Thursday. The plan now goes to the county Board of Supervisors.

The proposal would boost Polk County’s minimum wage to $8.75 in April. It would reach $10.75 by January 2019. Some task force members sought the lower wage for young workers because of limitations placed on the teens’ duties and hours. Polk County Assistant Attorney Roger Kuhle had told task force members the separate youth wage would put the county’s ordinance on “thinner ice” legally, because state law applies the minimum wage for workers 14 and older.

An event designed to combat human trafficking is scheduled for today (Friday) at Des Moines University. The panel discussion aims to educate the public on recognizing and combating the enslavement of people for the purposes of forced labor or sex work. One of the panelists is Cathy O’Keefe, director of the Quad Cities-based Family Resource’s “Braking Traffik” program. She says human trafficking exists in all forms in Iowa.

“It can target adults and children, men and women, people of any race or ethnicity. It targets citizens and noncitizens,” O’Keefe says. “There are no bounds to this crime and there’s no community that’s immune to this crime. Until we really start to understand that, we are going to continue to miss identifications.” Earlier this year an anti-human trafficking office was established within the Iowa Department of Public Safety. O’Keefe hopes it will help curb such the trafficking.

“We have human trafficking through the agricultural industry, through factories, so those could be in rural communities,” O’Keefe says. “We also have to remember that there’s a demand for prostitution, a demand for sex trafficking everywhere, in all of our communities. And because a lot of sex trafficking is advertised online, really it’s everywhere.” O’Keefe says it’s difficult at times to identify trafficking. But when it comes to labor trafficking, immigrants can fall victim when they are underpaid or denied healthcare. The event at DMU is scheduled to start at 1:30 p.m.

(Radio Iowa)

A Native American casino in northwest Iowa is now offering a “non-smoking” gaming room. Travis Morgan is a spokesman for the WinnaVegas Casino in Sloan. “So many people out there love to gamble and hate cigarette smoke,” Morgan says. A state law that went into effect July 1st of 2008 bans smoking in public places, but Iowa’s casino industry got an exemption that has allowed smoking to continue on the gaming floors. Officials with the state-licensed casinos say banning smoking would put them at a competitive disadvantage and they have opposed efforts in the legislature to start enforcing the smoking ban inside the casinos.

The Native American casinos in Tama, Onawa and Sloan are not state licensed. The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska operates the casino in Sloan. “We’ve given WinnaVegas a big room — 70 slot machines — where you can come, gamble and not have to worry about cigarette smoke, cigar smoke, pipe smoke, nothing,” Morgan says. “It’s just an option that you have now at WinnaVegas that we hope is going to bring a core group of people to us because we’re the only ones that have something like this.”

Morgan says many customers consider the smokey casino floors to be a “downside” to their gambling experience. “We’ve just eliminated that problem,” Morgan says. The casino is about 20 miles south of Sioux City. The Omaha Tribe of Nebraska operates the Blackbird Bend Casino in Onawa, Iowa. The Meskwaki Tribe’s casino near Tama opened in 1992.

(Radio Iowa)

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

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Utilities Board has denied landowners’ request to halt construction of an oil pipeline beyond this week. The three-member board voted Thursday afternoon against a lengthy stay of construction of the Dakota Access pipeline on parcels of 14 landowners while a court considers a lawsuit they’ve filed. Chairwoman Geri Huser says the board concluded landowners have little likelihood of success in court case and that Dakota Access would be financially harmed by construction delays.

ELKADER, Iowa (AP) — Volunteers scrambled Thursday to erect sandbag walls around businesses and some homes as the rain-swollen Turkey River threatened to breach protective levees in northeast Iowa. Authorities say the flooding already occurring in Clayton County’s Elkader and elsewhere is expected to worsen as the river is forecast to hit 27 feet Friday morning in Elkader. That’s 15 feet above flood stage and just three-quarters of a foot under the record crest of more than 27.75 inches in 2008.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Five counties ravaged by storms and flooding in northeastern Iowa will get disaster assistance. Gov. Terry Branstad issued a disaster proclamation for Allamakee, Clayton, Fayette, Howard and Winneshiek counties. Under the declaration, the counties can use state resources to recover from the disasters.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Trial has been set for a former Iowa City dog groomer accused of kicking a dog while it was in his care. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that 22-year-old Lucas Van Orden V is set to stand trial on Nov. 1 on an aggravated misdemeanor charge of animal abuse. If convicted, he faces up to two years in prison.