IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – A man has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman he met at an Iowa City bar. Johnson County District Court records say 35-year-old Andrew Wilson pleaded guilty Friday to kidnapping, sexual abuse and other crimes. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 24. Wilson offered to drive the woman home Sept. 29, 2018, when the bar closed. A criminal complaint says he instead drove them to a secluded spot south of Iowa City and sexually assaulted her. The Gazette reported that the woman regained consciousness in a cornfield. She ran to a house, where a resident called 911 for her.

Police in Shenandoah say an investigation into a stolen vehicle report Wednesday morning, resulted in the arrest of a man on theft, drug and other charges. Officers were called to the 400 block of West Lowell around 11:50 a.m. To take a complaint about the stolen vehicle, which was located about 30-minutes later in the 300 block of South Elm Street.

After a traffic stop was conducted on the vehicle, Police arrested Matthew Magers, of Shenandoah, for Second-Degree Theft, Possession of a Controlled Substance, and driving while revoked. Magers was being held in the Page County Jail on $11,000 bond. Page County Sheriff’s Deputies assisted Shenandoah Police in handling the incident.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Police say a shooting in a Des Moines neighborhood has left two people dead and two injured. Des Moines police responded just before 4 p.m. Wednesday to a reported shooting at a home in the Merle Hay neighborhood and found two people dead with gunshot injuries. A third person at the home had a gunshot wound to a leg and was taken to a hospital. Police found evidence that indicated another person may have left the house. About a half hour later officers found someone nearby with a gunshot wound to a leg. That person also was taken to a hospital. Police didn’t immediately release the names of those involved.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – New rules in this year’s Iowa caucuses could give presidential candidates an unprecedented opportunity to spin the results. In previous years, the Iowa Democratic Party reported just one number: the number of state delegates won by each candidate. For the first time, the party will this year report two other numbers — who had the most votes at the beginning and at the end of the night. Party officials say the new process will enhance transparency. But there is a growing sense it could also breed confusion by giving several candidates the chance to say they won the caucuses.

(Radio Iowa) — Three traffic-related bills have already emerged in the 2020 Iowa legislature. A bill to make seat belt use mandatory for back-seat passengers has cleared a subcommittee in the Iowa Senate. Senator Zach Whiting of Spirit Lake says federal statistics show nearly half of the people killed in motor vehicle crashes last year were not wearing a seat belt. “That’s a lot of unnecessary death,” Whiting says, “and whether you want to call it liberty or you want to call it laziness, just buckle your seatbelt and be safe out there.”

Representative Megan Jones of Sioux Rapids has introduced similar legislation in the HOUSE that would require back-seat passengers to buckle up. “I think this is a helpful reminder because sometimes you’re just kind of squished in the back, you can’t quite reach it or something and you say: ‘Oh, well it’s not law so I don’t need to wear it,'” Jones says. “Well, let’s find that seat belt. Let’s dig it out. Let’s click it and move on.”

A constituent who works on medical flights told Jones he is concerned about the injuries he’s seeing in traffic accidents. “If we have those people secured and tucked into their belts, then we have a less likelihood they’re going to fly into someone else who may be properly belted in, but still faces injuries because of that flying person in the back seat,” Jones says.

Another transportation-related bill would let authorities ticket drivers who drive too slowly in the left-hand passing lane. A third bill would direct the D-O-T to put “rumble strips” on all paved county roads that intersect with state and federal highways. The requirement would apply to county blacktops where the speed limit is 55.

Representative Dean Fisher of Montour, the bill’s lead sponsor, says the bill was inspired, in part, by a December 1st accident in Benton County that killed a 26-year-old Des Moines woman. “Missed a stop sign on Highway 30. She hit a semi. A very tragic loss. There weren’t any rumble strips at the intersection,” Fisher says. “Perhaps rumble strips would have saved her and so many others.”

Two other lawmakers are co-sponsoring the bill after fatal wrecks in their districts involving vehicles on a county blacktop that did not stop and were hit while crossing onto a highway.  “Having that rumble strip, which is a completely different sensory perception than the visual of a stop sign I think would help tremendously,” Fisher says.

Rumble strips are indentations carved into a roadway and vehicles rumble when passed over the area. Fisher says he doesn’t like mandates, but rumble strips on paved county roads alert distracted or drowsy drivers a stop sign is ahead.