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Iowa early News Headlines: Friday, April 3rd 2019

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May 3rd, 2019 by Ric Hanson

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:45 a.m. CDT

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A judge has sentenced an influential youth basketball coach to an effective lifetime prison sentence for secretly collecting sexual images of 440 boys and fondling more than a dozen over a 20-year period. U.S. District Judge C.J. Williams sentenced former Iowa Barnstormers coach Greg Stephen to 180 years in federal prison. Williams called Stephen’s crimes horrendous, saying he abused his position of trust to prey upon boys who saw Stephen as a gateway to college basketball.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Ponca Tribe of Nebraska has secured another win in its fight with Iowa and Nebraska to keep its newly opened casino in western Iowa. The National Indian Gaming Commission ruled in the tribe’s favor Wednesday, saying it has the right to operate the Prairie Flower Casino on land it acquired in Carter Lake, Iowa. Nebraska, Iowa and the neighboring city of Council Bluffs, Iowa, sued to close the casino, saying the tribe had misrepresented its plans for the site.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed into law a bill that makes it a crime to claim pet is a service animal in order to take it into a store or a restaurant. The new law also requires landlords to allow individuals with a disability to have service animals but it also requires the person to provide proof they are disabled and need an animal. Denying a disabled person an animal is a simple misdemeanor but intentionally lying that an animal is a service animal when it isn’t also is a misdemeanor.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Mississippi River at the Quad Cities in Iowa and Illinois has reached a new record high. The National Weather Service website on Thursday afternoon showed the river level at 22.64 feet (6.9 meters), just above the 22.63-foot mark reached on July 9, 1993. Parts of downtown Davenport, Iowa, remain underwater after the river tore through a temporary barrier. Several Mississippi River towns also are seeing floods that are closing in on levels reached in 1993.