(Red Oak, Iowa) – Two women from Villisca were arrested last Saturday night, on Theft charges. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports 23-year-old Hannah Marie Leigh and 19-year-old Hallie Nevaeh Straw, were each charged with Theft in the 5th Degree. The women were transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $300 bond, each.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa legislature has voted to create a program  that would offer state tax credits and sales tax rebates for businesses that are making a more than one BILLION dollar capital investment in Iowa. Senator Dan Dawson of Council Bluffs says it’s called the “Major Economic Growth Attractions” or “MEGA” program.  “These projects are rare,” Dawson said. “They don’t come around very often,” Dawson says.

Dawson says the local community has to approve the development. “It must be on over 250 acres,” Dawson says. “It must be primarily engaged in the advanced manufacturing, biosciences and research businesses only.” Senator William Dotzler  of Waterloo says these kind of incentives are necessary.  “We’re in competition with other states,” Dotzler said. “…Other states are putting in to these project even greater than what we are.”

The bill also provides some state funding to help 88 Iowa counties that are outside of urban areas improve tracts of land so it’s immediately ready for business development. Representative Brian Lohse of Bondurant says the upgrades required for certified sites can be out of reach for smaller communities.  “It is a very extensive and very expensive thing to do,” Lohse says, “and it’s incredibly productive.”

The far larger MEGA program won approval in the Iowa Senate a year ago, but stalled in the House over concerns about a foreign company owning farmland. The bill’s final version says a foreign business that gets incentives from this MEGA program cannot be located in the six countries considered to be adversaries of the United States.

(Thayer, Iowa) – One person was injured during a rollover accident Monday afternoon, in Union County. According to the Union County Sheriff’s Office, 43-year-old Daniel Gary Goodemote, of Thayer, was driving a 2006 Ford Explorer SUV eastbound on 197th Street, when he lost control of the vehicle, which rolled into the ditch and came to rest on the driver’s side. The accident happened at around4:30-p.m.

Authorities say an investigation revealed several open and unopened alcoholic beverage containers were in the vehicle, along with a black package labeled “marijuana gummies.” Goodmote – who was wearing his seat belt – suffered suspected minor/non-incapacitating injuries, and was transported by EMS ambulance to the hospital in Creston, where an OWI investigation took place with law enforcement.

Goodemote consented to Standard Field Sobriety Tests and a Preliminary Breath Test, that registered over .08%.  A urine sample was also obtained, which will be analyzed at the DCI Crime Lab. As of the latest report, no charges had been filed.

The SUV was a total loss, with damage estimated at $7,000.