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Iowa early News Headlines: Friday, Dec. 21st 2018

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December 21st, 2018 by Ric Hanson

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:450 a.m. CST

(COUNCIL BLUFFS) – Police in Council Bluffs, Thursday night, arrested a man wanted in connection with an alleged attempted abduction late Sunday morning. At around 7:20-p.m. Thursday, officers were dispatched to the Pottawattamie County Jail on a report of a male wanting to turn himself in on a warrant. Officers arrived and located 37-year old Terrance L. Prine, Jr., who was arrested without incident and booked into the jail on the Kidnapping 3rd charge.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Before they arrested a farmhand in the death of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts, investigators scrutinized four other potential suspects during their five-week search. Newly unsealed search warrant documents show that those who drew police interest included a neighbor seen washing his SUV hours after Tibbetts vanished, a Nebraska man who ditched his vehicle in Iowa days later and an acquaintance who had recently erased his cellphone data. All have been ruled out as suspects.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Sen. Nate Boulton survived an ethics complaint Thursday that alleged he inappropriately touched a woman at a bar a year before he was elected. The Iowa Senate Committee on Ethics concluded its jurisdiction is limited to legislators’ actions while in office. Boulton plans to remain in the Senate although Democratic leader Janet Petersen has called on him to resign.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa judge is considering whether to order election officials to count 29 mailed absentee ballots that could change the outcome of an Iowa House race or dismiss a lawsuit challenging their validity. Judge Scott Beattie heard arguments Thursday in a case that could flip the winner of the race, in which incumbent Republican Michael Bergan leads Democrat Kayla Koether by nine votes in the northeast Iowa district..

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A $5 million bond has been set for a man charged with murder in the 1979 killing of a Cedar Rapids high school student. A judge set the bond for 64-year-old Jerry Lynn Burns on Thursday during his initial appearance in Linn County District Court in Cedar Rapids. Police arrested Burns, of Manchester, on Wednesday, charging him with first-degree murder 39 years after the killing of 18-year-old Michelle Martinko. Her body was found the next day inside her family’s car parked at a shopping mall.