COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — The general manager of the Mid-America Center in western Iowa’s Council Bluffs says the arena’s financial outlook is improving. Mark Vacanti with Caesars Entertainment tells the Council Bluffs Nonpareil that the city-owned arena and convention facility finished fiscal year 2013 with a $729,000 loss. Vacanti says that was below the average annual loss from the previous 10 years. But he notes that from October through December, the facility — which sit just across the Missouri River from Omaha, Neb. — showed a $52,000 profit.

A portion of the $729,000 loss, provided by Caesars’ accounting staff, was a company investment of $67,000 for replacing equipment and utilities. So far this fiscal year, Vacanti says, the Mid-America Center is showing a profit of $19,000.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A federal judge has ordered separate trials for three Iowans charged with robbing drug dealers. One of the defendants, 22-year-old Jamal Dean, is currently serving a 25-year sentence for attempted murder in the shooting last year of a Sioux City police officer.

The Sioux City Journal reports that a judge on Friday granted the separate trials requests of Omaha, Neb., attorneys for Dean, 24-year-old Levon Dean Jr., and 33-year-old Sarah Berg. The three were to have been tried together on May 12.

All three are charged with the April 15, 2013, robbery of a drug dealer at a Sioux City motel room. The Dean brothers are also charged with a similar assault and robbery of a second drug dealer a little more than a week later.