In an update to our earlier reports, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office today (Monday), released the names of the drivers who were injured during a crash Sunday afternoon, in Marne. Authorities say 78-year old Keith Reagels, of Marne, and 40-year old Alan Vanaernam, of Atlantic, were injured when a 2014 Town and Country Van driven by Reagels, failed to yield while attempting to turn left onto Marne Road from Washington Street, and was struck by a westbound 2014 semi, driven by Vanaernam.

Photos courtesy Cass County Emergency Management Director Mike Kennon.

After the semi struck the van on the driver’s side, the van spun into the southwest ditch. The accident happened at around 2:35-p.m. Walnut Rescue and Medivac Ambulance transported the drivers to the Cass County Memorial Hospital. Both vehicles were said to be a total loss.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has refused to block the execution of four federal prison inmates who are scheduled to be put to death in July and August – including an Iowa drug-dealer convicted of killing five people. Among them, was two children. The executions would mark the first use of the death penalty on the federal level since 2003. The justices rejected an appeal from four inmates who were convicted of killing children, including Dustin Honken.

Honken was a northern Iowa drug dealer facing federal charges for manufacturing and distributing methamphetamine in 1993 when he shot and killed five people. Gregory Nicholson had planned to testify against Honken in his trial. Nicholson, his girlfriend Lori Duncan, and her two children Amber and Kandi were shot to death execution-style in July of 1993. Honken was convicted of the murders in 2004 and given the death penalty. He appealed but a district judge upheld the ruling in 2013. All of his appeals have been exhausted.

The court’s action leaves no obstacles standing in the way of the executions, the first of which is scheduled for July 13. The inmates are separately asking a federal judge in Washington to impose a new delay on their executions over other legal issues that have yet to be resolved.

OGALLALA, Neb. (AP) — A Kansas man has been sentenced to four years of probation in a Nebraska crash that killed four motorcyclists from Iowa. The Kearney Hub reports 24-year old Jeser Cisneros-Hernandez, of Liberal, Kansas, also was ordered Friday to serve 400 hours of community service. He pleaded no contest in February to reckless and willful vehicular homicide. Prosecutors dropped three more counts and two other charges in return for his pleas. Prosecutors say on July 1st, 2017, his vehicle crossed the center line on U.S. Highway 26 near Ogallala, south of Lake McConaughy, and hit two motorcycles carrying two people each.

The Iowa motorcyclists were identified as 54-year-old Sheila Matheny and 61-year-old James Matheny, from Bedford, along with 58-year-old Michal Weese and 59-year-old Jerolyn Weese, both of whom lived in Council Bluffs.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A man drowned after going for a swim while fishing at a Linn County quarry. Linn County sheriff’s deputies were called about 9:30 a.m. Sunday to the Martin Marietta quarry, southeast of Cedar Rapids. Friends and relatives of a man told deputies he was fishing but opted to swim a short distance. He went under the water and didn’t surface. Teams from Cedar Rapids and Mount Vernon used boats to search and found the man’s body shortly after 11 a.m.

The man’s name was being withheld until relatives can be notified.