CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A nurse accused of fraudulently obtaining painkillers from her patients in eastern Iowa has taken a plea deal. The Telegraph Herald reports that 31-year-old Katie Boll, of Manchester, pleaded guilty last month. She pleaded guilty to tampering with a consumer product resulting in injury and acquiring the painkiller oxycodone by deception. Federal prosecutors dropped 12 other counts in exchange for her pleas.

Authorities say Boll was a nurse for the Good Neighbor Society in Manchester when she schemed to acquire hydrocodone, morphine and other painkillers from at least 14 patients in her care. Prosecutors say she used mouthwash to dilute liquid morphine, resulting in injury to a patient.

Two Creston men were arrested on Burglary charges in Creston, Wednesday. The Creston Police Dept. reports 21-year old Kendrick Davis was arrested at around 6:30-a.m. at Elm/Montgomery Streets, on two-counts of Burglary in the 3rd Degree. He was being held in the Union County Jail on a $4,000 bond. And, at around 12:30-p.m. 38-year old Brian Berkey was arrested at 1002 N Pine, on charges of Burglary 2nd Degree, Unlawful Possession of Prescription Drugs, and Failure to Affix Drug Tax Stamp. He was being held in the Union County Jail on a $16,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) — A World War Two-era military plane that crashed in Connecticut Wednesday, killing seven people and injuring seven others, was on display in northeast Iowa this summer. The B-17 Flying Fortress came to the Waterloo Regional Airport in late July as part of the Wings of Freedom Tour, a mobile educational exhibit that’s been touring the nation since 1989. Connecticut authorities say 13 people were on board the historic four-engine, propeller-driven plane when it slammed into a maintenance building and burst into flames at a Hartford-area airport.

FILE – In this April 2, 2002, file photo, the Nine-O-Nine, a Collings Foundation B-17 Flying Fortress, flies over Thomasville, Ala., during its journey from Decatur, Ala., to Mobile, Ala. A B-17 vintage World War II-era bomber plane crashed Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019, just outside New England’s second-busiest airport, and a fire-and-rescue operation was underway, official said. Airport officials said the plane was associated with the Collings Foundation, an educational group that brought its “Wings of Freedom” vintage aircraft display to Bradley International Airport this week. (John David Mercer/Press-Register via AP, File)

According to multiple reports, the vintage plane struggled to get airborne while taking off and went down as pilots were circling back for an emergency landing. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Two incidents of bricks or stucco falling off of buildings in downtown Atlantic, prompted the city Administrator to bring the issue of safety to the City Council, Wednesday evening. During a recent incident, a businesswoman was struck by stucco debris from a building. Last December, a large portion of a brick wall on the northeast part of a building in the 500 block of Chestnut Street, collapsed onto the sidewalk below, resulting in a brief evacuation of residents as a safety precaution, but there were no injuries.

City Administrator John Lund requested a meeting of the Community Protection Committee to discuss the issues and determine who is responsible for the safety of taller buildings in the downtown area. Lund said he spoke with SWIPCO Executive John McCurdy and Code Enforcement Officer Kris Erickson. Both agreed the issue is something the CPC should discuss. Councilman Gerald Brink asked Lund, “So what’s the public think…how should city government be involved in that?” Lund said “That’s a question for you to ask, to be honest.”

He said if the people blame the property owner and not the city, then we probably shouldn’t be involved. But usually when bad things happen, he says, people turn to government and ask “Why didn’t you prevent this from happening.” Lund said “Ideally, we just have a couple of problems that would be cheap fixes. We work with the cooperative property owner and we don’t really need to get more involved in that, but we really don’t know…we need someone to look at these buildings [that may have] serious structural problems that cost a lot of money.” Then it would be up to the Council to determine where to draw the line on the City’s involvement.”

Councilperson Kathy Somers said the outside of the City’s Minimum Maintenance Code (MMC), she doesn’t know what the City’s role would be.

Code Enforcement Officer Kris Erickson said she and Lund have spoken with SWIPCO’s John McCurdy and gotten his opinion on the matter,

She said because of the MMC, currently the City’s only way to deal with the potentially dangerous facades, is to do issue a municipal infraction and take them to court.

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a man has been arrested in the slaying of a pastor at a church in Fort Dodge. Police say the Rev. Allen Henderson was found by officers sent around 5:45 p.m. Wednesday to St. Paul Lutheran Church. Henderson was pronounced dead later at a Fort Dodge hospital. Police have arrested 36-year-old Joshua Pendleton and charged him with robbery and first-degree murder. He remained in Webster County Jail on Thursday.

The 64-year-old Henderson was senior pastor at the church and had been chaplain for several area first responder agencies.

A traffic stop at around 1:47-a.m. today (Thursday), in Adams County, resulted in the arrest of a man from Wisconsin. The Adams County Sheriff’s Office reports 21-year old Trenton Clark, of Hillsboro, WI., was stopped for having unlit taillights. After further investigation, Clark was arrested for felony OWI/3rd offense, and Driving While Revoked. Clark was additionally cited for Expired license, Operating without insurance, and defective tires. He was transported to the Adams County Jail, where his bond was set at slightly more than $6,924.

(Radio Iowa) — This past Tuesday marked the one-year countdown to the federal regulation that requires you to have your driver’s license certified as a “REAl I-D” to be able to use it as identification for flying. Iowa D-O-T Director Mark Lowe says the requirement came out of rules developed at the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
“What they did for states was establish common standards that apply to all states to help protect against identify theft and fraud,” Lowe says. “And those standards really went to the things like the systems, materials and machines we use to make sure the licenses and I-D’s are secure. The physical cards themselves are secure and resistant to alteration and counterfeiting. That we have secure and accurate processes for identifying people who apply for licenses and I-Ds.”

SAMPLE of a “Real ID” w/the required gold star

You can tell if your driver’s license is a REAL I-D by looking into the right corner and seeing if it has a gold star there. “If you don’t have a REAL I-D marked license or I-D on or after October one 2020 — you have to show a federally accepted form of I-D like a passport or military I-D card,” according to Lowe. He says there won’t be any exceptions once the deadline is here.  “You will be denied access and won’t be allowed to fly if you don’t either have a REAL I-D marked license or I-D or another accepted form of federal identification,” Lowe says.

You will need bring documents to the driver’s license office that prove your identity to get your license approved for REAL I-D. “You can always get one whenever you renew your license. If you do it when you renew, there is no additional cost to do so,” Lowe explains. “One thing we like to point out is if you are due to renew before October one 2020, you don’t need to rush in, you can just come in at that time and bring the necessary documents. But if you are not due to renew you can also come in at any time and get what we call a duplicate license that is marked for REAL I-D.”

Lowe says with eight-year licenses many people may not be due to come to renew licenses before the deadline next year and should find time to get a REAL I-D. If you already have the gold star on your license then you are set.  “If you look at your license and it’s got that gold star marking on it — then you don’t have to do that again. Once we put your through that process and you’ve got that, you will continue to maintain that as you renew and replace your license over time,” he says.

Lowe says around 36 percent of Iowans with licenses already have gotten the REAL I-D upgrade. He isn’t sure where we stand in comparison to other states for getting people switched to the REAL I-D. He says there has been a lot of range of when states got started with the REAL I-D and Iowa was one of the early ones in 2013. Lowe says Oregon won’t get started until next July. You will also need a real I-D to get into federal buildings after the October 2020 deadline.

You can see the list of documents you need to bring with you for a real I-D on the D-O-T’s website.

(Radio Iowa) — The State of Iowa is getting a 10-MILLION dollar federal grant to develop new strategies for improving maternal health. Dr. Stephen Hunter, a University of Iowa professor of obstetrics and gynecology, says 39 pregnant Iowa women died in the past three years.

“I think we need to worry about it,” Hunter says. “We’re talking about mothers and babies in our state. We don’t want to lose them through pregnancy. That’s a terrible tragedy for a family to go through and I think the general population needs to become more aware of the issue.”

Iowa’s maternal mortality rate has nearly doubled in the past three years. The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized nation. “And our rate is going up, whereas most other nations are still lower than us,” Hunter says, “and still dropping.”

Hunter suggests a variety of factors are contributing to the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. and in Iowa. Eighteen of the Iowa women who died in the past three years during a pregnancy died from factors “associated” but not directly related with the pregnancy, according to Hunter. “Things like suicide, mental health issues, drug overdoses, unrestrained motor vehicle accidents, homicides — all of those things are more common with pregnant women,” Hunter says, “so we need to deal with those.”

The number of obstetricians in Iowa, per capita, is lower than any other state.  “Thirty-four rural hospitals have quit doing labor and delivery since the year 2000 in our state,” Hunter says. “We lost eight just in 2018, so access to care is starting to be a real concern.”

Hunter will lead the team working on the five-year project and they plan to establish new training programs for doctors, nurses and midwives who agree to serve pregnant patients in rural areas.