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Iowa early News Headlines: Sat., 7/8/17

News

July 8th, 2017 by Ric Hanson

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 4:15 a.m. CDT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa woman charged with voting twice for Donald Trump last fall has pleaded guilty to election misconduct. Court records show that in exchange Terri Lynn Rote’s guilty plea, prosecutors dropped a perjury charge. A judge accepted the plea on June 27 and set sentencing for Aug. 15. Rote told police that she believed Trump’s claims that the election was rigged and thought that her first ballot would be changed to a vote for Hillary Clinton.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An Omaha man has been arrested on suspicion of making threats against Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa. Federal court records show 64-year-old Robert William Simet was arrested Friday by FBI agents in Omaha and charged with threatening a U.S. official. An arrest affidavit says employees of a Pacific Junction, Iowa, motorcycle shop told an FBI agent that Simet had been there Wednesday and made threats against Ernst, including that he could kill her.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Willie Stevenson Glanton, Iowa’s first black female legislator and the first woman to lead the state’s Federal Bar Association chapter, has died at age 95. The Des Moines Register reports the former prosecutor served on numerous boards, commissions and councils during a life dedicated to law, human services and civil rights. She served in the Iowa House from 1965 to 1967 as a Democrat. She died Thursday while in hospice care in Des Moines.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A federal judge is striking down a Utah law banning secret filming at farm and livestock facilities as an unconstitutional violation of free speech rights. U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby wrote in the ruling handed down Friday that the law appears tailored toward preventing animal-rights activists from exposing abuses at agricultural facilities. It was passed amid a wave of similar measures around the country, including one in Idaho that was struck down in a decision that’s being appealed.