Officials with the Atlantic Community School District, Thursday, released a few photos documenting the progress being made on the Atlantic Middle School floor, including: the Gym; 3rd floor hallway; library; STEM room (the photo taken through the window), and the stage. The floors were extensively damaged by water used to fight the July 2021 roof fire at the Middle School.

The photos were taken by Superintendent Steve Barber and made available thanks to ACSD Communications Specialist Mallory Robinson.

(Harlan, Iowa) – The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office today (Thursday) released a list of arrests conducted from Feb. 18th through the 27th. On the 18th, 50-year-old Elizabeth Mae Christensen, of Shelby, was arrested following a Search Warrant executed at a residence in Shelby.  Christensen faces charges that include: Use of Minor in Drug Trade; Conspiracy To Deliver Controlled Substance to a Minor; Possession of Controlled Substance/3rd or Subsequent Offense; two-counts Possession of Controlled Substance – Marijuana/3rd or Subsequent Offense; Gathering where Marijuana is used, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

On Feb. 21st, 32-year-old James Isaiah Donevly McFarland, of Council Bluffs, was arrested following a traffic stop. He was charged with Open Container, Prohibited Acts Penalties, Possession of Controlled Substance, and Providing False Identification Information.

The following day, (Feb. 22nd), 22-year-old Emmanuel Alexis Mejia, of Denison, was arrested on an active Shelby County warrant. Mejia was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with Driving while license was suspended.

There were three arrests in Shelby County on Feb. 27th:

• 31-year-old Dustin Allen Schnepel, of Underwood, was arrested for Domestic Abuse Assault/1st offense. The charge stems from an incident at residence in rural Shelby County.
• 37-year-old Christopher Sloan Gifford, of Harlan, was arrested Feb. 27th following a traffic stop. Gifford was charged with OWI/1st offense.
• and, 39-year-old Norma Dawn Purscell, of Avoca, was arrested in Shelby County for Domestic Abuse Assault/1st offense, following a call for service at a rural Shelby County address.

Note: Criminal charges are merely accusations and defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in a court of law.

Click here to sign in or download the MobilePatrol app: http://bit.ly/1VrMP

COUNCIL BLUFFS, IA – The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa said Thursday (Today), 43-year-old Myron Lee Brandon, of Pacific Junction, was sentenced Wednesday in Council Bluffs federal court, to 405 months in prison for two counts of Kidnapping and two counts of Transportation of a Minor. His term of imprisonment will be followed by 10 years of supervised release. According to court documents, a jury found Brandon guilty of the charges on October 6, 2021.

According to evidence presented at trial, on June 21, 2003, Brandon was in downtown Omaha and offered two girls, one fourteen and one fifteen years old, a ride. Brandon drove them to a remote location near Pacific Junction. Brandon then brandished a knife, tied the two girls with a rope, and sexually assaulted them. Brandon then burned the victims on their breasts with a cigarette. The girls escaped from Brandon when he retrieved a can of gasoline from the bed of the truck. The victims ran to Interstate 29 and were picked up by two individuals who assisted the girls. The initial police investigation did not locate a suspect, but the victims’ sexual assault kits were stored in evidence.

In 2015, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office implemented the Sexual Assault Initiative, a program that submitted unsolved sexual assault kits to a laboratory to identify any DNA evidence. Following DNA testing, Brandon was identified as a suspect in this matter.

United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. This case was investigated by the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Department, Council Bluffs Police Department, and Omaha Police Department, with assistance from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Iowa Attorney General’s Office, and the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Gov. Kim Reynolds today (Thursday) signed HF 2416 into law protecting girls’ sports programs at all school levels, including high school and collegiate levels in Iowa. The bill allows participation in sports based upon the biological sex listed on the athlete’s birth certificate.   “This is a victory for girls’ sports in Iowa. No amount of talent, training or effort can make up for the natural physical advantages males have over females. It’s simply a reality of human biology,” said Gov. Reynolds. “Forcing females to compete against males is the opposite of inclusivity and it’s absolutely unfair.”

This bill requires schools at all levels to designate sporting events as male, female, or co-ed. Only students who are female according to their birth certificate will be eligible to compete in girls sports. No student will be prevented from playing a sport that matches his or her biological sex, or a sport designated as co-ed.

Senate Minority Leader Zach Wahls, a Democrat from Coralville, said the bill violates the Iowa value of inclusion. “Iowa politicians have decided to pour gasoline on the culture war fires and embrace the worst form of identity politics, pitting Iowans against each other,” Wahls said. “…Why does this legislature have to police the lives of some of the most marginalized people in our society?” Senator Pam Jochum, a Democrat from Dubuque, said the bill will isolate trans youth and is discriminatory, just like previous policies that forbid participation based on other characteristics, like race.

Eleven states have passed similar trans athlete bans and lawsuits challenging those bans have been filed in four of them.

(Radio Iowa) – In hopes of luring in more educators, the Sioux City school district will be rewarding new teachers with a five-thousand dollar bonus. Permanent substitute teachers, food service workers and bus drivers will also qualify for a recruitment stipend. School board president Dan Greenwell says they’re focusing on positions where recruitment has been failing. “We need new employees,” Greenwell says, “and doing what we were doing and had been doing probably isn’t going to work in this market, so we have to try something differently.”

School board members say they need to take urgent action on staffing shortages. There are more than 50 unfilled teaching positions within the district. Representatives from the local teachers’ union say they’re happy to see new hires rewarded, but also say the district needs to focus on retention. Brenda Zahner is the union’s director. “You have so many employees who have gone above and beyond in the last couple of years dealing with all these staff shortages,” Zahner says, “and I hope that somehow somewhere you find something to give those people as well.”

New teachers will receive their stipend over the course of two years. They can expect the first installment at the end of September.

(by Kendall Crawford, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – By a nearly unanimous vote, the Iowa House has passed a bill that would put new restrictions on food delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash. If the bill becomes law, the companies would face fines if driver are caught eating some of the food they’re supposed to be delivering. Representative Brian Meyers of Des Moines cites a 2019 study that found one in four delivery drivers sample the food.  “That is a pretty alarming number of people stealing fries,” Meyer said, “so I think that it’s important that we have those provisions in there on the food safety.” Restaurants would be required to put food in tamper resistant containers. Delivery drivers would be prohibited from smoking and they could not have kids or pets in the vehicle when food is being delivered.

The bill also would force delivery companies to have an agreement with a restaurant before they could advertise and deliver the restaurant’s food. Republican Representative Shannon Lundgren of Peosta owns a restaurant. “What really isn’t fair is when a national company privates our menus and places them on their website and acts as though they are us,” Lundgren says. “…In January of this year, my menu was pirated and we had to go through some very interesting steps to try to get removed from that website.” The bill passed the House on a 97 to two vote.

A similar bill is eligible for debate in the Senate…………

(Radio Iowa) – Authorities in northwest Iowa are investigating a possible drowning. An ice fisherman was reported missing at a Cherokee County rural farm pond on Wednesday afternoon. The report of the missing individual was received by the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office at about 1:30 p.m. Approximately 45 minutes later, a body was recovered from the water and pronounced dead at the scene. The identity of the individual will be released at a later time due to pending family notifications.

(Bloomfield, Iowa) – A crash Wednesday evening in southeast Iowa’s Davis County resulted in the death of a man from Montezuma. The Iowa State Patrol reports a 1999 Chevy pickup driven by 79-year-old Michael Floyd Talbert, was pulling a recreational camper and traveling south on U-S Highway 63 near 230^th Street at around 7:22-p.m., when for reasons unknown, the pickup/trailer crossed the center line of the road into the northbound lanes.

The driver of a northbound Volvo semi tractor-trailer, 47-year-old Steve Charles Roloson, of Central City, swerved onto the shoulder to avoid the oncoming pickup/trailer, but the left side of the pickup hit the left side of the semi. The impact caused the camper to be destroyed. Talbert, who was wearing a seat belt, died at the scene.

The pickup came to rest on the southbound shoulder of the road, while the semi crossed over the southbound lanes and came to rest. The driver of the semi was not injured. The accident remains under investigation.

(7-a.m. News, 3/3/22) – The Creston Police Department reports a local man was arrested twice this (Thursday) morning, in a span of about an hour. Authorities say 50-year-old Dennis Barry Green, of Creston, was arrested at around 12:33-a.m. for two counts of Theft in the 5th Degree. He was cited and released on a promise to appear. Then, at around 1:35-a.m., Creston Police arrested Green again. This time, he was taken into custody for OWI/2nd offense. Green was being held in the Union County Jail on a $2,000 cash or surety bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Republicans in the Iowa Senate have sent the governor a bill to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls sports in Iowa’s public and private K-through-12 schools. The ban also applies to women’s sports in all colleges and universities in Iowa, limiting participation to athletes who have female marked on their birth certificates. Senator Jesse Green, a Republican from Boone, says the bill is historic.

“We send a message to the nation that Iowans will not put common sense aside for wokeness,” Green said. “In the midst of an ongoing culture war, Iowans are taking bold steps to preserve the integrity and purity of athletic competition for generations to come.” All 17 “no” votes came from Democrats. Senate Democratic Leader Zach Wahls says the bill violates the Iowa value of inclusion.

“Iowa politicians have decided to pour gasoline on the culture war fires and embrace the worst form of identity politics, pitting Iowans against each other,” Wahls says. “…Why does this legislature have to police the lives of some of the most marginalized people in our society?” Governor Reynolds, who is expected to sign the bill, has said Iowa girls are in danger of losing out on college scholarships or winning championships if they’re competing against transgender athletes who were born male, but identify as female.

Senator Jeff Taylor, a Republicans from Sioux Center, says transgender ideology poses a danger to women. “This bill is not about hatred or discrimination. It is about keeping ourselves in alignment with reality,” Taylor says. “…It simply says, in regard to a non-coed, team context, that girls should be competing against other girls in K-12 athletics and women should be competing against other women in college athletics.”

Senator Pam Jochum, a Democrat from Dubuque, says the bill will isolate trans youth just like previous policies that forbid participation based on other characteristics, like race. “History is stained with these artificial boundaries that we set up,” Jochum said, “and as time goes on and we start to understand more and more of this, we open up our hearts and our minds and we become a more inclusive society.”

Eleven states have passed similar trans athlete bans and lawsuits challenging those bans have been filed in four of them. Senator Claire Celsi, a Democrat from Des Moines, says in 2020 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Civil Rights Act protects transgender Americans from discrimination. “I find this current bill not only legally risky, but petty, partisan, hateful and the reasoning shaky,” Celsi said.

Senator Jim Carlin of Sioux City says he and other Republicans are standing up for girls and women. “We’re just trying to protect time honored boundaries for women and little girls who want the privacy of a restroom and a shower, who want authentic competition in the field of sports,” Carlin said. The bill passed the House on February 21st on a 55 to 39 vote.