OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A former eastern Nebraska postmaster has been sentenced to probation for embezzling from the Fort Calhoun Post Office. Federal prosecutors say 54-year-old Steven Whitesel, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, was sentenced Friday in Omaha’s federal court to four years’ probation and 160 hours of community service. He also was ordered to pay nearly $70,000 in restitution and a $5,000 fine.

Whitesel was convicted of misappropriation of postal funds. Prosecutors say Whitesel submitted false mileage reimbursement requests to illegally collect nearly $70,000.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Swarms of mayflies have emerged from under water along the Missouri River and are caking windshields on stretches of road between Omaha and Kansas City, forcing drivers to pull over and clean up the mess. Mayflies spend 99% of their lives in water, but they rise when they become winged adults to take part in a mating swarm, the Omaha World-Herald reported . They quickly die after that. But the few days they spend mating are a nuisance.

“They are atrocious. They are horrid,” said Pam Frana, a membership specialist for the Nebraska City Tourism and Commerce Department. “Flooding brought those and stirred them up.” The mayflies are piling on windshields so much that Dominator Fuel in Rock Port, Missouri, sold out of windshield wiper fluid. Other gas stations report they’ve gone through twice the usual amount.

“The windshields are completely covered,” said Chandra McCarty, a cashier at Dominator. Mayflies may be an irritant to humans, but they’re a good source of food for fish and reptiles. The insects are drawn to light and have attracted frogs looking for a late-night feast. At the Rockport gas station, they’ve been seeing 30 to 40 a night. They sit in front of the doors, lured by the bugs. “They try to come up and come in,” McCarty said.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. “It used to be so bad people couldn’t see when they were driving,” said Andrew Wagner, who works in Hamburg, Iowa. “It’s getting a lot better since the flooding is going down.”

Urban entomologist Jody Green, an educator with the Lancaster County Extension Service, said mayfly hatches are actually a yearly event. “As an entomologist, I would relish seeing them, but I am sure it might even gross me out, too, if I couldn’t help but step and squish them,” Green said.

(Radio Iowa) — All three of the state universities are expecting fewer students this fall. During discussion of next year’s budgets for Iowa State, U-N-I and the University of Iowa — I-S-U president Wendy Wintersteen said the enrollment decline is a two-part issue. “I think last year, we were surprised by the large decline in international students, and we’re going to continue to be concerned by that,” Wintersteen says.

She says the decline in other students isn’t as surprising when you look at overall demographic issues. “I learned recently that during the Great Recession, there just weren’t that many babies born,” according to Winterstein. “So, we saw a decline in the birth rate and that’s clearly going to have an impact on higher education all across the nation.”

Fewer students means tuition revenue for each school. Iowa State University says student tuition supports seventy-percent of it’s general budget. At the University of Iowa it’s sixty-four-percent from student tuition. U-N-I reports that student tuition supports only forty-two-percent of the Cedar Falls school’s budget.

The Iowa Department of Revenue has asked a district court to enforce an order to reappraise the value of a county assessor’s home after it dropped shortly after she took office. According to KCCI in Des Moines, the state ordered Guthrie County to hire independent appraisers to investigate after the value of Guthrie County Assessor Nikki Carrick’s home dropped $20 per square foot lower than the value of her neighbors’ homes.

The decrease caught the attention of Iowa Department of Revenue Director Kraig Paulsen. Appraisals by the independent contractors were due July 31. The ordered appraisal was not made in time, so the Department of Revenue made the court request.

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

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Hopes by small aviation museum in southwestern Iowa that a stamp in its possession was rare enough to parlay a potential fortune crashed Friday when experts told them it wasn’t real, and likely not even worth the paper it was glued upon. The Iowa Aviation Museum in Greenfield, Iowa, had what it thought was an “Inverted Jenny” stamp on display for some 20 years. After bringing it to Omaha, they learned it wasn’t authentic.

LYNNVILLE, Iowa (AP) — Authorities in central Iowa have confirmed the death of a 19-year-old man in a grain bin. Television station KCCI reports that Mahaska County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the grain bin in Lynnville before 8 a.m. Friday. Officials say Benjamin Raymond Van Wyk died at the scene after becoming entangled in the grain bin’s auger.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A board has ordered the reinstatement of an Iowa employee who was fired in 2017 after sending sexual text messages, including a photo of a penis, to a saleswoman for a state vendor. The decision puts taxpayers on the hook for nearly two years of back pay and benefits for Nicholas Carnes, a power plant engineer at the Glenwood Resource Center. The Public Employment Relations Board agreed with a judge that Carnes’ misconduct didn’t warrant termination but a 10-day suspension instead.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — A Bettendorf man charged in connection with the overdose death of another man has been given three years of probation. The Quad-City Times reports that Michael Spencer also was granted a deferred judgment. A deferred judgment allows Spencer’s conviction to be removed from court records if he fulfills his probation terms. Prosecutors say 23-year-old Tyler Ekstrand overdosed on heroin that Spencer provided him.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — The South Dakota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union says it’s concerned about a report that the U.S. military is using high-altitude balloons to conduct surveillance tests in six Midwestern states.

The Guardian reports that up to 25 balloons are being launched from South Dakota, and will drift through parts of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri and Illinois. The Guardian examined filings with the Federal Communications Commission, which say the balloons are meant to provide persistent surveillance to locate drug trafficking and homeland security threats.

According to KELO, the ACLU says this kind of constant surveillance violates the privacy of citizens, creating what’s a pervasive checkpoint over cities. The ACLU says the military needs to be clear about information it’s collecting.

A spokesman with the U.S. military didn’t immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press.