A Council Bluffs woman was arrested this (Friday) morning on felony Neglect of a Dependent Person and Child Endangerment Charges. The charges against 37-year old Teresa Chapin stem from an incident which took place on August 17^th which resulted in the death of a 5-month old child.

The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office says Chapin was the operator of Teresa’s Tiny Tots Day Care center at 133 Rosebud Lane in Council Bluffs. During the afternoon of August 17^th, deputies and emergency personnel were called to the home for a child that was not breathing. The infant, Lane Thomas, was brought to Jennie Edmundson Hospital in Council Bluffs, where he was pronounced dead a little over an hour later.

An investigation revealed the boy was put in an adult bed for a nap, at around 2:30-p.m., after he had been fed his formula. Chapin’s daughter checked on the child less than an hour later, but did not verify that he was breathing. When the daughter went to wake the boy from his nap at 4-p.m, he was laying face down, cold to the touch, and unresponsive. Teresa Chapin then initiated CPR and called 9-1-1.

An autopsy at the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Ankeny was unable to determine the cause of death, which was deemed a Sudden, Unexplained Infant Death. Evidence at the home of Teresa Chapin indicated she displayed a level of negligence that contributed to the death of the child. Officials say she is a licensed day care provider in the State of Iowa, and has experience and education about child development needs. They say she should have been aware of the hazards of excessive bedding for an infant Lane Thomas’ age.

No injuries were reported after a van came into contact with two, low hanging power lines Thursday afternoon, in Adams County. Sheriff’s officials say 40-year old Thomas A. McCarthy, of Omaha, was traveling south on Birch Street in Corning, when the 2010 Chevy E-15 van he was driving struck the power lines, which were hanging across the road due to a fallen tree.

Minor damage was reported to the van as a result of the accident, which happened at around 3:25-p.m., Thursday.

Iowa Department of Transportation officials said on Tuesday that the formerly-flooded Interstate-29 would reopen “later this week.” It’s now Friday and the agency has not yet released a timetable for the reopening. DOT engineer Bob Younie says they will open I-29 in southwest Iowa “soon,” even if only two lanes are driveable. “We will accept less than the four lanes that are there right now just to get folks moving and we’re willing to do that other work under traffic,” Younie says.

That 34-mile stretch of Interstate is the last remaining segment to reopen after a summer-long shutdown due to the record flooding of the Missouri River. Younie says I-29 may be reopening, but other segments of road linking Iowa and Nebraska will remain closed. “Iowa (Highway) 2, right underneath I-29, was pretty significantly damaged on the north side, the pavement was undermined,” he says. “We also have a section of roadway west of I-29, closer to the river, that had some damage also and it’s going to have to be reconstructed.”

Younie says he’s hoping to see Highway 2 repaired and open before Thanksgiving, linking up Iowa cities in the area like Hamburg and Sidney to Nebraska City, Nebraska.

(Radio Iowa)

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad’s office has announced his Special Assistant for Education, Linda Fandel, and Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass, will hold two town hall meetings this month on the governor and lieutenant governor’s blueprint for education transformation, “Unshakable Vision.” Additional town hall meetings are planned as well, with the dates and locations to be announced later.

The first meeting takes place in Council Bluufs, in the Woodrow Wilson Middle School Auditorium, beginning 3:30-p.m., on Saturday, October 21st.  The second meeting will be in Iowa City, on October 16th. Both events are open to the public. For more information, visit www.governor.iowa.gov.

Iowans are being asked to wear orange one day next week as a way to show support for an effort to stop bullying in schools. Julie Hertzog, director of the Minneapolis-based National Bullying Prevention Center, says Wednesday is what’s being called Unity Day and students in dozens of schools across Iowa are signing on. “It’s a day to unite against bullying,” Hertzog says. “It has a simple call to action of, ‘Make It Orange and Make It End.’ Students around the country and around the world are going to be wearing orange in support of the issue. They can also just write the word ‘unity’ on their hand or on their arm or their notebook.”

She says it’s startling how many young people are impacted by this problem. “One-hundred-sixty-thousand students each day stay home from school for fear of being bullied because they don’t want to go to school, they don’t want to face the situation,” Hertzog says. “When they do that, they’re missing out on the opportunity to learn.” Several high-profile cases involving student suicides in recent years displayed how bullying can take an extreme mental toll on the victim.

“We also hear about students who are exhibiting behavior like cutting, self-injury, of students who become anorexic or bulimic,” Hertzog says. “It’s all done as a result to just being in a lot of pain about being bullied.” One survey found that more than one-million children nationwide were cyber-bullied last year on Facebook alone, an example of how online bullying has grown. Hertzog says cyber-bullying is the modern version of writing on the bathroom wall.

“When we were growing up, bullying was limited to the school or maybe your neighborhood,” she says. “Now, with technology, kids have instant access to spread gossip and rumors and slander and send mean texts. On social media, they can reach an audience in an instant of hundreds, even thousands.” Learn more about the anti-bullying effort at: http://www.pacer.org/bullying/nbpm/ 

(Radio Iowa)