(Radio Iowa) – Four northeast Iowa men are charged following an undercover sting that targeted online sexual predators. Dubbed Operation Castle, Manchester Police Chief Ben Davis says one of his officers portrayed a 15-year-old boy on a variety of social media platforms, using both public and dark web applications.  “Initially when we started, we used the very popular platforms, but as the operation evolved, we uncovered darker sides of the internet, things that we didn’t even know existed, and we used those as well,” Chief Davis says. “If we learned about a new application or a new website, we would create a profile on those websites to try to maximize the outcome.”

The undercover officer was specially trained during a law enforcement program in September on how to properly carry out the sting, and upon returning to Manchester, already had dozens of potential suspects. Davis says they followed all policies to the letter, being careful not to entrap a suspect. “We can’t click on a profile and send the first message. We can’t suggest sexual activity. We can’t even suggest meetups,” the chief says. “The officer is trained to just go with the flow based on the conversation. This is all just perpetuated on the suspect’s behalf on what they want, and the officer just communicates as much as they can to try to build that rapport and get them to meet.” Davis says the four suspects suggested sexual activity under their own accord, sent unsolicited nude photos, and suggested discreet meetings. The chief says he was stunned by the depth of the problem.

“It was an eye-opening moment when an officer shows me the amount of potential suspects within a very short amount of time,” he says. “We had people reach out from not only the local area, but we had targets that were from Texas, Georgia, actively looking for ways to come up to meet the undercover officer.” Manchester police arrested the four suspects on grooming, enticing and other charges: 56-year-old William Bockenstedt of New Vienna, 38-year-old Craig Conrad of Epworth, 41-year-old Seth Chambers of Dubuque, and 32-year-old Alex LaFrenz of New Hampton. Several other cases are pending.

Chief Davis says it’s important for the community to be informed about the dangers lurking on the internet. His department will host a Cyber Safety Parent Night on December 3rd at 5:30 P-M in the West Delaware High School auditorium.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak arrested a local man on a felony and two Simple Misdemeanor charges, Tuesday night. Authorities report 29-year-old Matthew Henry Paulsen, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 7:30-p.m. in the 1300 block of Highland Avenue. He was charged with felony, Attempted Burglary in the 2nd Degree, Domestic Abuse Assault, and Interference with Official Acts. Matthew Paulsen was being held without bond, in the Montgomery County Jail.

(Omaha & Des Moines) – Thousands of electric power customers were left without power for several hours Tuesday night into early this (Wednesday) morning. Winds gusted to a little more than 45-mph in Atlantic last night. The highest gusts of near or slightly greater than 60-mph were recorded Tuesday night in Denison, Carroll, Ames, Des Moines and Estherville, while Sioux City had a gust to near 70-mph.

As of 3-a.m. the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives’ interactive map showed the outages in Pottawattamie and Shelby County were down to just two customers in the dark. The majority of outages were being reported in southeastern Iowa’s Johnson County, where there were as many as 535 customers without electricity. Other, scattered outages remained in 11 north-central, eastern and southern parts of the State.

As of 3-a.m., MidAmerican Energy reported scattered outages in Mills, Sac and Sioux Counties in western Iowa, with much less fewer than 100 outages being reported in other areas. The greatest concentration of MidAmerican outages were in the Quad Cities. Previously, MidAmerican had reported outages affecting just over 4,300 customers, the majority of which were in Central Iowa.

Alliant Energy reported slightly more than 2,000 customers were without service as of 3-a.m., with most of those in Dubuque County.  Altogether, 3,582 homes and businesses were without power in Iowa, as of 3-a.m., according to the Iowa Power Outage Map.

Meanwhile in Nebraska, the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) power outage map indicated there were 2,281 customers without power as of 9:45 p.m., Wednesday, most are in Douglas and Sarpy counties, but a vast majority of those people and business had their power restored by 3:15-a.m.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig is back in Iowa after a nine-day trade mission to Vietnam and Indonesia. He says there are exciting prospects in Southeast Asia. “Between the Phillippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, you’ve got some of the fastest growing economies in the world,” Naig said, “and lots of opportunity for even a lot more business there.”

A dozen representatives of Iowa commodity groups were part of the delegation and Naig says there’s a significant opportunity to boost pork exports to Vietnam. “Vietnam is very pork friendly. They want a lot of pork in their diet,” Naig said. “In Indonesia — the fourth largest country by population in the world, the largest Muslim population, what you’re talking about there is, yes, some pork will make it in there. It’s a small percent of their population, but really beef is the significant opportunity in Indonesia.”

Vietnam is among the world’s top 10 importers of U-S agricultural goods. Naig led a previous trade mission to Vietnam in 2023 and a large delegation of Vietnamese officials were in Iowa this past June. “The Minister of Agriculture came and signed, in total, $1.4 billion worth of purchase agreements in the U.S.,” Naig said. “$800 million of that was in Iowa, so this was kind of a follow on to that.” Naig says the last Iowa-led trade mission to Indonesia was quite some time ago.

“Indonesia was new and we learned a lot. There are some challenges there. It’s a good soybean market. It’s a strong (dried distillers grain) market, but, you know, there are some barriers to doing business there and we have strong competitors in that market, so it was interesting to learn those things, which is always good,” Naig said. “You’ve got to be on the ground sometimes to figure those things out.”

Brazil, China and Australia are currently Indonesia’s leading suppliers of agricultural goods, with the U.S. accounting for about 10 percent of Indonesia’s ag imports last year.

(Radio Iowa) – State officials have rejected bids from companies applying to provide medical care inside Iowa’s nine prisons and Governor Kim Reynolds says it made sense to check to see if a private company could provide those services more efficiently than state-paid prison staff.

“Making sure that we’re using taxpayer dollars wisely,” Reynolds said. “…We shouldn’t be afraid of doing that and people shouldn’t think that just because we are looking that it means it’s going to stop or we’re going to eliminate it or we’re going to change course. You should constantly be looking at how we can do things better and never be afraid of being better at what we’re doing because these are taxpayer dollars that we’re utilizing and these are really important services that we’re providing.”

About 300 state employees who provide medical care to Iowa prison inmates would have been affected if a private company had been hired to do the work. Dozens of medical staff in Iowa prisons resigned after they were informed this summer that the state might hire a private company to do the work. Iowa Public Radio was first to report last week’s decision against privatizing prison medical care.

(Radio Iowa) – The interim president of Simpson College in Indianola is now its 26th president. Susan Stuebner was named interim leader of Simpson this summer following the sudden death of Simpson President Jay Byers. The chair of Simpson’s Board of Trustees says faculty, staff and student leaders have been enthusiastic and overwhelmingly positive about Stuebner’s leadership.

She holds degrees from Harvard and Dartmouth and previously served as an administrator at two Pennsylvania institutions — Allegheny College and Lycoming College. She was president of Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire for eight years before her arrival at Simpson.

Stuebner is a Minnesota native. Early in her career, Stuebner served as an admissions counselor and head women’s basketball coach at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania. Simpson’s Board of Trustees unanimously named Stuebner Simpson’s president earlier today (Tuesday). Simpson was founded in 1860 as a seminary and is named for a nationally known bishop in the Methodist Church. Simpson’s website indicates about 12-hundred students are enrolled at the school this fall.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says when health care goes up for discussion next month, it’s possible an extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits will be on the table. The just-ended 43-day federal government shutdown was centered around extending the A-C-A subsidies, which Republicans — including Grassley — opposed. Now, reports say President Trump was considering the proposal of a two-year extension, but Grassley’s unconvinced.

“I think that we heard the same rumor you heard yesterday and we’ve heard that it was not a correct rumor,” Grassley says. “So the second week of December, the United States Senate has set that week aside to debate that very issue.” Some Democrats agreed to end the government shutdown in exchange for a promise from Republicans to take up the health care discussion and vote during December. The subsidies are scheduled to run out on New Year’s Eve and could mean millions face significantly higher premiums. Grassley says he’s willing to consider options.

“We Republicans will have alternatives,” Grassley says, “that could include some extension of the subsidy, but only with real reforms to the Obamacare healthcare issue.” Grassley says there’s “great dissatisfaction” with how health insurance premiums have skyrocketed under the A-C-A. “When it was passed, it was supposed to reduce the cost of health care by $2,500,” Grassley says. “We’ve seen it go up $5,000 since then, and so the estimates of 2010 were off by $7,500.”

Reports say President Trump was originally going to roll out a framework on Monday to extend the A-C-A. There is now -no- timeline for that announcement. The tax credits that are set to expire December 31st are helping some 22-million Americans to lower their health care costs through the A-C-A marketplace.

The Iowa State Patrol has released information about a crash in northwest Iowa that took place Nov. 21st, and resulted one person dead, three others injured. The Patrol says a 2015 Dodge RAM pickup driven by 21-year-old Austin Ryan Stokes, of Mallard, was traveling east on Palo Alto County Road B-55, just east of Highway 4 between Emmetsburg and Mallard, when the accident occurred at around 5:24-p.m.

The Patrol says a 2006 Infinity M45 was parked in the traveled portion of the road facing east. A 2008 Chrysler Town and County van was parked on the traveled portion of the road, facing west. The drivers of the car and van were outside the vehicles when the pickup struck the car and pushed it into the the van. Following the collision, the pickup left the road and rolled over.

The female driver of the car, 35-year-old Jamee Lynn Weber, of West Bend, died at the local hospital. A passenger in the car, and the drivers of the pickup and van, were injured in the crash. The other injured parties were identified as 64-year-old Carol Ann Harding, and 35-year-old Tyler Joseph Weber, both of West Bend. Carol Harding was flown to a hospital in Rochester, MN, for treatment of a broken back. Tyler Weber was transported to the hospital by Palo Alto Ambulance. Austin Stokes was transported by private vehicle.

(Radio Iowa) – The governor’s annual turkey pardoning ceremony highlights an industry that employs 38-thousand Iowans and produces about 12 million turkeys annually. Governor Kim Reynolds hosted the event at the governor’s mansion in Des Moines as two turkeys roamed the grounds.

There are over 130 turkey producers in Iowa. Josh and Kelli Berg of Early brought the two birds who’ve been given a Thanksgiving reprieve.

Berg’s operation now produces about a million turkeys every year. Iowa ranks 7th among the states in turkey production.

Reynolds says the industry will have an estimated 10-point-six BILLION dollar economic impact on the state this year.