Police in Council Bluffs have updated their report about a woman missing after a pursuit and crash early this (Friday) morning. Officials say the driver was identified as 22-year old Dakota Girouex, of Red Oak, who remains at large. In their initial report, authorities said that at around 1:15-a.m., a Council Bluffs officer located a vehicle stolen from Council Bluffs, on the lot of Super 8 Motel on South 24th St. When the officer and another officer made contact with the stolen vehicle, the female driver exited the vehicle as commanded. Once out of the vehicle, however, the woman refused to follow officer’s commands. She got back in the vehicle and fled northbound on So. 24th St at a high rate of speed. The officers pursed the stolen vehicle west on 23rd Ave then north on So. 35th St.

As the fleeing vehicle was going through the intersection at 35th Street and Broadway, it was struck broadside by a westbound vehicle on West Broadway. The stolen vehicle continued north on N. 35th St and struck a stop sign at N. 35th St and Ave A where it came to a stop. The driver…later identified as Dakota Girouex…fled the scene on foot and officers were unable to locate her. The woman is about 5-feet 10-inches tall, weights approximately 155 pounds, and was wearing a “Batman” baseball cap, black hoodie, black & white Plaid shorts. The passengers in the stolen vehicle were not injured and refused to cooperate with officers.

The driver and passenger of the other vehicle were not injured. Both vehicles were towed from the scene. Anyone with information on location of Dakota Girouex is asked to call Council Bluffs Police Criminal Investigation Division at 712-328-4728 or Crime Stoppers at 712-328-7867(STOP).

Firefighters from Griswold, this morning, were called to the scene of a semi on fire. A call about the unoccupied vehicle located at 60253 Wichita Road, was dispatched at around 8:20-a.m. The vehicle was located near a farm shed and some other vehicles. Additional details are currently not available.

More State and area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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(Radio Iowa) A group of students was escorted out of the Iowa capitol by state troopers after some transgender students refused to leave a men’s restroom and use gender-neutral restrooms instead. Iowa Safe Schools executive director Nate Monson says the L-G-B-T-Q students were at the capitol to lobby legislators. “Students were using the restrooms that they identify with and under the Iowa Civil Rights Act for the past 13 years, that’s been a protected class,” Monson says. “The state troopers at the capitol told our students that was not the case and they physically escorted about 150 students LGBTQ youth out the door.”

Someone had called capitol police to report an adult and minor females were in a men’s restroom. A video posted online shows a trooper telling the group his concern was about some type of possible sexual activity in the restroom. No one was arrested, but a couple of dozen students wound up waiting on the capitol steps for nearly three hours for a school bus to pick them up. Fifteen-year-old Morgan Gooden of Mitchellville says students in the group aren’t mad, but they are annoyed.  “We all just want this to stop,” Gooden says. “This was supposed to be our day to talk to legislators…and they had to ruin it for us over a bathroom, so we are all just very annoyed that they ruined it for us.”

Monson, who organized the lobby day, is seeking a meeting with the governor and the state public safety commissioner to discuss the incident.

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — A May 4 sentencing has been scheduled for a Dubuque man who neglected to properly care for his girlfriend’s baby. The Telegraph Herald reports that Mark Ward pleaded guilty to neglect of a dependent person. Ward and his girlfriend, Iesha Searcy, were the primary caregivers of Searcy’s then 9-month-old daughter. The girl weighed less than 11 pounds when seen by a dietitian on Aug. 15, 2018. Court documents say the infant was hospitalized two days later, and a doctor found her to be severely malnourished. Searcy has pleaded not guilty. Her trial date is March 31.

An elderly male missing from northeast Iowa’s Black Hawk County, was found early this (Friday) morning, near the scene of an accident in Fremont County. The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office says they received a call a little after 1-a.m. today (Friday), about an (unidentified) 87-year-old male who was reported missing out of Evansdale, Iowa. Deputies were advised the man’s phone was tracked to a rural area northeast of Sidney, or about 300 miles from his home.

Deputies along with an aerial drone, the Fremont County K9 Unit, and LifeNet Medical Helicopter were called to attempt to locate the subject in the area. They found his abandoned vehicle, near the intersection of Foote Street and Maple Street in Sidney, a little before 4-a.m. The vehicle had left the road and hit a fence before becoming disabled. Deputies searched the area and found the man about one block from the crash scene.

He was transported to Grape Community Hospital in Hamburg by Sidney Rescue, for treatment of  minor injuries.

The area’s latest and/or top news stories at 7:05-a.m. From KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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Officials with the National Weather Service in Des Moines said Thursday, that “Due to concerns associated with COVID-19, ALL NWS Des Moines SKYWARN [2020] spotter training sessions have been cancelled for the remainder of the season.  In lieu of on-site training, [The NWS will] host virtual training sessions.  More details on those will be released, soon.

For additional storm spotting information & resources, visit the NWS storm spotting website at:  https://www.weather.gov/dmx/stormspotting

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A former Waterloo resident has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the drug death of a woman. Court records say Eric Griggs entered the pleas Tuesday in Cedar Rapids. The charges: distribution of heroin resulting in death, possession with intent to distribute and use of communications facilities to facilitate a drug felony.

The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports that authorities have said the heroin Griggs distributed resulted in the death of Abigail Wilder, a 19-year-old who lived in Cedar Falls. Her body was found Sept. 1, 2018, at the home where she lived with a friend and the friend’s mother.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Officials in Nebraska say a Cass County, Nebraska man in his 50s has tested positive for the new coronavirus, making him the 11th known case in Nebraska. The man recently flew back to Nebraska from Minnesota on the same connecting flight as the woman who is Nebraska’s first case of COVID-19. Officials say the man’s been self-isolating at his home since last Saturday.

The 36-year-old Omaha woman tested positive March 6. Health officials say she had recently traveled to the United Kingdom with her father and first started showing symptoms of a respiratory illness on Feb. 24. She returned to Nebraska on Feb. 27.