(Radio Iowa) – A man has been taken into custody after a standoff with the Fort Dodge Police over the weekend. The man identified by police as Christopher Smith, faces multiple charges from the incident. There were warrants for Smith’s arrest issued prior to this incident. He barricaded himself in a bedroom of a residence.

Officers eventually deployed a chemical into the room, forcing Smith out. After he jumped out of a bedroom window officers were able to take him into custody.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

UNDATED (AP) — Iowa election officials will begin mailing out absentee ballots Monday (today), and it’s the first day voters can go to their county auditor’s offices or a satellite locations to vote early in person. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate says as of Friday that 632,549 voters have requested an absentee ballot. Democrats requested more than 335,000 ballots, Republicans requested nearly 187,000 and no-party voters asked for about 108,000 ballots. County officials are saying the pace is far ahead of previous elections. In Polk County, for example, Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald said he received 111,462 ballot requests as of Oct. 1, compared with 45,191 requests at the same time in 2016. Election Day is Nov. 3.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa continues to have one of the nation’s highest rates of coronavirus infections, and the state reported 684 new cases and four new deaths on Sunday. The state said Sunday that as of 10 a.m. there had been 92,545 cases of COVID-19 and 1,381 deaths related to the virus in Iowa since the pandemic began. Data from Johns Hopkins University shows that the seven-day rolling average of the positivity rate in Iowa has risen over the past two weeks from 15.34% on Sept. 19 to 18.17% on Saturday. That was the fifth-highest positivity rate in the nation on Saturday.

IRETON, Iowa (AP) — A body was found inside a burned vehicle in a northwest Iowa cornfield. The Sioux County Sheriff’s office said the burning vehicle was reported around 9 p.m. Friday in a cornfield about 1.5 miles north of the northwest Iowa town of Ireton. The 2007 Jeep Commander was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived. The sheriff’s office said the body was found inside the Jeep after the fire was extinguished. An autopsy will be performed on the body. Authorities didn’t immediately release the name of the victim.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Gov. Kim Reynolds is allowing bars in Iowa’s two largest college towns to reopen next week after a five-week closure helped stop coronavirus outbreaks among young adults. Reynolds signed an order allowing bars to reopen Monday in Johnson and Story counties as long as they follow social-distancing rules. Breweries, wineries and distilleries are allowed to reopen almost immediately, on Friday at 5 p.m. The venues are often packed with University of Iowa and Iowa State University students. The order says all customers must consume their food and drinks while seated at a bar, booth or table, and must be at least 6 feet apart.

The Cass County Board of Supervisors, Tuesday morning, will continue an ongoing discussion with regard to the Iowa DOT’s proposed closing of 570th Street at the Interstate 80 underpass. The Board has held two previous discussions on the matter. The DOT proposes making I-80 six-lanes, which would require the elimination of some underpasses across the state for the purpose of widening the road.

During last week’s meeting, Cass County Supervisor Steve Green said he has visited with several people currently using the underpass for farming operations and other travel. All persons affected by the DOT plan would like to see the underpass remain open, according to Green, but if that’s not possible, would request compensation for the resulting increased business operating expenses.

Green said at the last meeting, he wanted more research into arrangements that were made (back in the 1950’s, when the Interstate was first proposed and planned for), when the current right-of-way was transferred to the State, and he wanted to arrange a meeting with DOT officials either in-person, or electronically.

In other business, the Cass County Supervisors will act on a Resolution assigning a county-held tax sale certificate to the City of Atlantic, and to enter into an agreement to abate the taxes, if Atlantic acquires ownership of the parcel at 101 Cedar Street.  The meeting begins at 9-a.m., both in-person at the Cass County Courthouse, and electronically (Meeting ID: 138 870 131  Password: 012064).

Deputies in Fremont County, Saturday, arrested a Sidney man, 43-year old Dave Allen Keeton, on charges that include Attempted Murder and Willful Injury with a Weapon.He was being held in the Fremont County Jail on a $25,000 cash bond.

His arrest came a little after 6-p.m., and was the result of a call about a woman being assaulted with a hammer, at a residence in the 100 Block of Main Street in Sidney.

When Deputies arrived on the scene, they found the victim, bleeding from the head. She said that she had been strangled and hit with the hammer. Keeton was taken into custody without incident. The woman was transported to the hospital for treatment of  non life-threatening injuries.

A woman from Sidney (Iowa) was arrested Saturday in Hamburg on drug and other charges, following an investigation into an accident that took place in the 2100 block of Main Street, in Sidney. The Fremont County Sheriff’s Department reports 42-year old Jennifer Susan Akers faces charges that include OWI, Drugged Driving, Possession of a Controlled Substance and cited for Speeding.

Jennifer Susan Akers

She was being held in the Fremont County Jail, on a $4,000 bond.

Authorities say Deputies were advised as they were heading to the scene, Saturday, that the vehicle had been pulled from the ditch by another vehicle and was heading south on US Highway 275. A deputy observed the vehicle north of Hamburg traveling at 76 MPH and stopped it in Hamburg.

IRETON, Iowa (AP) — A body was found inside a burned vehicle in a northwest Iowa cornfield. The Sioux County Sheriff’s office said the burning vehicle was reported around 9 p.m. Friday in a cornfield about 1.5 miles north of the northwest Iowa town of Ireton. The 2007 Jeep Commander was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived.

The sheriff’s office said the body was found inside the Jeep after the fire was extinguished. An autopsy will be performed on the body. Authorities didn’t immediately release the name of the victim.

(A-P) – Iowa election officials will begin mailing out absentee ballots Monday, and it’s the first day voters can go to their county auditor’s offices or a satellite locations to vote early in person. Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate says as of Friday that 632,549 voters have requested an absentee ballot. Democrats requested more than 335,000 ballots, Republicans requested nearly 187,000 and no-party voters asked for about 108,000 ballots.

County officials are saying the pace is far ahead of previous elections. In Polk County, for example, Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald said he received 111,462 ballot requests as of Oct. 1, compared with 45,191 requests at the same time in 2016. Election Day is Nov. 3.

Montgomery County Sheriff’s Deputies, Saturday, arrested two people on assault charges. 25-year old Jaymie Ilene Rowe and 38-year old Barbara Lea Johnson, both of Shenandoah, were arrested for an assault that occurred near the intersection of 200th Street and Fernwood Avenue. The women were transported to the Montgomery County Jail and charged with Serious Assault. Their bonds were set at $1,000 each.

(Radio Iowa) – Republican Senator Joni Ernst and Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield sparred Saturday in a televised debate in W-H-O T-V studios, each accusing the other of being dishonest. The debate was taped 24 hours after President Trump entered the hospital and it began with an announcement that both candidates had recently tested negative for Covid. The first words from Greenfield were: “Thank goodness.”

“It is a solemn time right now with our president in the hospital, with a number of senators, with Americans sick with this virus,” she said. Ernst says congress must provide another round of loans to small businesses and economic assistance to the child care industry as well as more money for testing. “We’ve been successful with the packages that we’ve moved before and we continue to work on the next relief package,” Ernst said.

Greenfield twice criticized Ernst for saying in September that she’s skeptical of Covid tests because she’d heard conversations about health care providers being reimbursed at a higher rate for Covid patient care. “She did push a conspiracy theory that suggested our doctors and our nurses are liars and cheats and that’s just appropriate and wrong,” Greenfield said. “Senator Ernst, if you don’t believe in our doctors and nurses, why should they believe in you?”

Ernst said she was sorry if her words “may have offended” health care workers. “It was the culmination of a number of conversations we have had, whether we were getting false positives, false negatives. It’s a matter of reporting,” Ernst said. “…Certainly, we want to make sure that testing is accurate. We want to make sure it’s being reported accurately.” At the end of the debate, Ernst asked Greenfield — who works in real estate — to apologize for moving businesses out of a central Iowa strip mall to make way for an Aldi grocery store.

“You booted the mom-and-pop shops out of a development area to make way for a foreign corporation,” Ernst said. Greenfield says it was an economic development project. “We gave every single tenant more notice than was required and we helped many of them move on to a new location,” Greenfield says. Iowa’s senate race is among the most competitive in the country.

A recent Des Moines Register “Iowa Poll” found Greenfield with a narrow lead over Ernst. Last (Saturday) night’s debate was also broadcast on K-C-A-U in Sioux City and W-H-B-F in the Quad Cities.