(Radio Iowa) — Due to the pandemic, state officials are discouraging schools from holding traditional high school graduation ceremonies in the month of May. Five options were being considered for the Atlantic School District. Officials in the East Sac County Community School District have tentatively scheduled a graduation ceremony for the Class of 2020 on the last Sunday in July. High School Principal Kevin Litterer says it’s the farthest date on the calendar that avoids annual events in the area, like county fairs.

“Plus, the time you hit August, kids are thinking more about college,” Litterer says. “If you have any student going into play college sports, college activities — they’re getting started right away that first week of August, so that’s really how we came up with July 26th.” Litterer says there may be restrictions on how many people may attend, to ensure social distancing. The football stadium is one option.

“You only get to graduate from high school one time and so we want to try to do what we can to make it a special moment,” he says. “We don’t want it to be the time they lost everything…How do we make is something they can remember?” Algona Schools Superintendent Joe Carter says prom for juniors and seniors in his district has been rescheduled for June 20th and graduation has been postponed until June 28th.

“We don’t know exactly what this will look like in June,” he says “but those are the dates we’ve set at this time.” Some schools are scheduling parades, with graduates safely separated in their vehicles. Others are planning virtual ceremonies. Red Oak’s school board has set May 17th as the date for graduation in their district. Superintendent Tom Messinger says he and the high school principal have been directed to set up the most traditional ceremony that’s possible under state guidelines for social distancing.

“So we do not know exactly what it’s going to look like yet because between now and May 17th,” Messinger says. “Some of those guidelines and recommendations may change as we move forward in the current situation.” Governor Reynolds has discouraged public gatherings of more than 10 people.

A head-on crash between a car and a semi in northern Iowa’s Clay County, Tuesday afternoon, claimed the life of a woman from Milford. The Iowa State Patrol reports a 2012 Toyota Camry driven by 40-year old Lori Nicole Scott, of Milford, was traveling west on Highway 18 near 100th Avenue at around 1-p.m., when it crossed the center line and entered the eastbound lane, where the car collided head-on with a semi driven by 36-year old Eric Steven Meighan, of Ruthven.

Scott died at the scene. No other injuries were reported. The accident remains under investigation. Several agencies assisted the Patrol at the crash scene, including the Spencer Fire Dept., Everly Fire and Rescue, Spencer Ambulance and an Iowa DOT Maintenance crew.

The Iowa State Patrol reports two children, ages 8 and 5, died in a single-vehicle crash late Tuesday morning just outside of Jamaica, in Dallas County. Four other people, including an 11-year old, suffered serious injuries. Only two of the victims were wearing their seat belts. No names had been released as of early this (Wednesday) morning.

Authorities say the accident happened as a 2014 Toyota Sienna driven by a 16-year old was traveling north on Beaumont Place at around 11:27-a.m., and was transitioning over a bridge, when the minivan suddenly veered left.

The vehicle moved left off the road before moving back to the right and leaving the road. It impacted the south side of a field drive, traveled over the drive, and came to rest upon the field drive, facing east. The accident remains under investigation.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:20 a.m. CDT

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — University of Iowa experts advised Gov. Kim Reynolds last week not to relax social distancing rules, warning that the state could suffer a “catastrophic loss of life” even with them and see a second wave of infections. In a research paper made public Tuesday, the professors from the UI College of Public Health said they saw “considerable uncertainty” in how many deaths Iowa could get, ranging deaths from 150 to thousands even with strict social distancing rules. Days after receiving that warning, the Republican governor signed orders to partially reopen 77 of the state’s 99 largest counties and allow church services and farmers markets to resume statewide.

ARNOLD, Mo. (AP) — Some communities in the U.S. heartland are taking a more natural approach to preventing the kinds of floods that have devastated the region in recent years. For more than a century, flood control has relied mostly on man-made structures such as levees and walls to keep rivers in place. As climate change brings more extreme weather, the new idea is to let rivers behave more naturally. It means keeping some waterfront areas vacant or using them as parkland so no great harm is done when the rivers overflow. In rural areas, officials are considering moving levees farther back to give rivers more room to roam.

UNDATED (AP) — Some communities in the U.S. heartland are taking a more natural approach to preventing the kinds of floods that have devastated the region in recent years. For more than a century, flood control has relied mostly on man-made structures such as levees and walls to keep rivers in place. As climate change brings more extreme weather, the new idea is to let rivers behave more naturally. It means keeping some waterfront areas vacant or using them as parkland so no great harm is done when the rivers overflow. In rural areas, officials are considering moving levees farther back to give rivers more room to roam.

ROCKWELL CITY, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa sheriff has resigned after being charged with assaulting his wife and officers who arrested him. Calhoun County Sheriff Scott Anderson resigned Monday, just hours before scheduled a court hearing to hear evidence to remove him. Court documents detail the testimonies of other deputies and coworkers who say Anderson was often drunk, failed to show up at crime scenes while on duty and, according to one deputy, reported for work only four days during May last year. Mason City Police Chief Gerald Frick said in an affidavit that he doesn’t think Anderson “should have access to weapons.”

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — University of Iowa experts advised Gov. Kim Reynolds last week not to relax social distancing rules, warning that the state could suffer a “catastrophic loss of life” even with them and see a second wave of infections. In a research paper made public Tuesday, the professors from the UI College of Public Health said they saw “considerable uncertainty” in how many deaths Iowa could get, ranging deaths from 150 to thousands even with strict social distancing rules.

Days after receiving that warning, the Republican governor signed orders to partially reopen 77 of the state’s 99 largest counties and allow church services and farmers markets to resume statewide.

JAMAICA, Iowa (KCCI-TV) — Authorities say two people are dead and five others are hurt after a young driver crashed a minivan at an Iowa field entrance. Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Alex Dinkla said the crash happened around 11:35 a.m. Tuesday after the driver lost control of the Toyota Sienna in the community of Jamaica.

KCCI reports that the injuries range from serious to life-threatening and that names will be withheld until all family is notified. The driver was described as a minor. The crash is under investigation.

Des Moines, Iowa – Officials with the Iowa Department of Public Safety said Tuesday (Today), that at around 1:07-a.m. on April 22nd, the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call in reference to an individual who was fishing and discovered a body along the Missouri River near the Remington Landing boat ramp west of Mondamin. The Harrison County Sheriff’s Office recovered a male subject from the river, and the body was transported to the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office in Ankeny.

On Friday April 24th, an autopsy was conducted by the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office.  Through dental records and tattoo markings, the male subject was positively identified as 57-year-old Jeffrey Lynn Wallis of Mondamin.  Wallis’ family had filed a missing person’s report with the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office on April 18th

The investigation is being conducted by the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office, and is assisted by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and the Burt County Sheriff’s Office of Nebraska. Final autopsy results are pending due to toxicology exams.

(Radio Iowa) — Investigators are still trying to figure out who’s responsible for the death of a former University of Northern Iowa softball player one year after she was shot while driving on a Waterloo highway. Police say 25-year-old Micalla Rettinger of Cedar Falls was returning home from work on April 28, 2019, around 2:30 A-M, when a bullet shattered the driver’s side window of her jeep as it crossed the U-S Highway 218 bridge over the Cedar River near George Wyth State Park. The bullet struck Rettinger in the neck, killing her.

Micalla Rettinger

Major Joe Leibold of the Waterloo police department says a 58-thousand-dollar reward is still available for information that brings closure to the unsolved case. “It’s still very much an active investigation,” Leibold says. “We continue to work with our local, state and federal partners investigating this matter. We’re using every resource at our disposal.” Investigators say the same bullet that struck Rettinger also hit her boyfriend, who was a passenger in the front seat.

Adam Kimball was treated at a hospital and released. A second passenger and a dog — both in the back seat — weren’t injured. Anyone with information about the case should call Waterloo Police at 319-291-4340, Extension 7, or Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers at 1-855-300-TIPS (8477).

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Iowa is experiencing a surge of coronavirus outbreaks at long-term care facilities, including at one of the nation’s largest nursing homes for military veterans.The Iowa Department of Public Health confirmed that an outbreak at the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown has spread in recent days to include the infections of 20 staff and residents.

Six other outbreaks at long-term care facilities across the state were confirmed, bringing the total to 23 since the beginning of the pandemic. Health officials reported Tuesday that another 508 people in Iowa had tested positive for COVID-19 and nine more had died. Another 304 were hospitalized, one-third of them in intensive care.

POSTVILLE, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa state audit has revealed improper spending of thousands of dollars of Postville Volunteer Fire Department funds. State Auditor Rob Sand said Tuesday that the special investigation found nearly $28,000 in improper disbursements and another $5,700 in unsupported disbursements from 2015 through 2018.

Sand says the special investigation was requested by city officials concerned about finances at the department. Among the finding were more than $11,000 in public funds spent at a local grocery store and nearly $4,000 spent on cable TV. The reports says some $16,000 more was wrongly or questionably spent at various vendors.