COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — A Council Bluffs couple with a limousine business says they want to offer services every year to homeless people in the area. The Council Bluffs Nonpareil reports Jim Kelley and his wife, Christine, offered party buses to nearly 70 homeless people this month as part of a holiday present. Many of the participants were children. Other local businesses provided dinner and dessert before the buses and a limousine took the participants to a train museum. Guests were then taken on a city tour to view holiday lights.

The couple says it was their first time organizing the service, and they plan to make it an annual event.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

The Cass County Sheriff’s Office reports the arrest last week of 22-year old James Michael Howard. The Atlantic man was arrested Dec. 21st  on a charge of Domestic Abuse Assault (Simple Misdemeanor) and on an outstanding warrant for Violation of Probation. Howard was taken to the Cass County Jail where he was being held on $5000 bond.

The Cass County Sheriff’s Office says an additional charge of Animal Abuse has been filed against a Marne man who shot a woman’s dog Monday morning. As we reported Monday afternoon, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office received a report of a dog having been shot in Marne. A deputy responded to the Atlantic Animal Health Center, where the owner of the dog, 23-year old Stacy Ernat from Denver, CO, reported her chocolate Labrador “Wrigley,” was playing with a relative’s dog in the church lot adjacent to the residence of Charles Collins Cutler, the individual who shot the dog with a shotgun, from a distance of 30-to 40-feet.

Ernat brought her dog to the Atlantic Animal Health Center where it died. Ernat and another friend told the deputy they witnessed Cutler shoot the dog. Upon investigation, a Sheriff’s Deputy cited Cutler for Animal Abuse (Aggravated Misdemeanor) and Reckless Use of a Firearm (Simple Misdemeanor). Cutler was given a court date of January 17th, 2013.