WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — Police say a man who was among a group of people trying to rob an armored vehicle outside of an Iowa bank was wounded in a shootout with the armored truck guards. The shooting happened Wednesday morning outside a Waterloo U.S. Bank branch in northeastern Iowa. Police and medics who arrived on the scene found a man with gunshot wounds who was taken to a hospital with serious injuries.

His name has not been released. Police say an initial investigation showed that people in a vehicle tried to rob the armored car in the bank’s parking lot when the shootout began. Police later located the vehicle they believed was used in the attempted robbery. No arrests have been reported.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A loaded handgun was spotted at a Sioux City airport security checkpoint Wednesday and confiscated from the Nebraska woman who was carrying it. The Transportation Security Administration says the 9 mm semi-automatic had one of its eight bullets in the chamber. A TSA officer says the X-ray machine showed the gun inside the woman’s carry-on bag. The woman lives in Ponca, Nebraska, and she told Sioux City Police that she didn’t know the gun was in the bag. She says the weapon belonged to her husband and that they had reported the gun as stolen because they lost track of it.

When the CAM School Board met Monday evening, in Anita, they continued discussions with regard to the District Facilities Upgrades. They hired a team of architects, engineers, and construction managers in 2019 to evaluate the condition of existing buildings in Anita and Massena. Superintendent Paul Croghan said the board received a data presentation the Boyd Jones-Alley Poyner Macchietto Architectural team, as a follow-up to the three community meetings held last month.

Croghan says they’re still in the initial stages. District patrons can stay up-to-date on the latest developments by attending future meetings, as scheduled.

(He said if you can’t make a particular meeting, the district will post a recap of it as soon as possible, on its website.)

[Here’s a link to the website and facilities information: https://sites.google.com/view/camcsd/community-meetings?authuser=0 ]

Crogan also wants to assure parents of students in the district, that they are doing everything possible to keep ahead of the possible spread of COVID-19 (The Coronavirus).

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa City hospital CEO says a patient suffering from COVID-19 has been admitted and is in critical condition there. Suresh Gunasekaran is CEO of the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, and he said in an email today (Wednesday), that all proper procedures and precautions were followed during the admission process so staff members were properly protected.

It’s unclear whether the patient is one of the 13 COVID-19 cases already reported for Iowa. The health threat has forced officials to cancel plans for massed gatherings. The Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Society decided Tuesday to call off this year’s event in Cedar Rapids.

(Radio Iowa) — Governor Kim Reynolds is again lobbying President Trump and his Administration on ethanol policy. The E-P-A signals it will appeal a court ruling that sided with the ethanol industry and against some of the E-P-A’s waivers that let small oil refineries skip blending ethanol into gasoline. “We don’t think they should appeal it,” Reynolds says. “We think they should let it stand and that should be something that they implement nationwide.” Reynolds and other ethanol advocates have argued many of the hardship waivers for oil refineries were not warranted and a federal court. “We’re going to continue to reach out to the White House and say: ‘Let it go,'” Reynolds says.

A federal court ruled in January that any oil refinery waivers granted after 2010 should be extensions. The policy would significantly limit the number of waivers the E-P-A could grant. The Trump Administration has until March 24th to make a decision on whether to appeal. Groups representing farmers and the biofuels industry have been voicing their objections to an appeal. Dave Walton raises corn, soybeans and livestock on a farm near Wilton in east central Iowa. “Families in my state are looking at each other across the kitchen table this morning and wondering why the president through this appeal would try to prolong this fight between farmers, the EPA and oil interests,” he says. “It’s kind of baffling to us.”

Walton, who is active in the Soybean Association at the state and national level, says the waivers impact the biodiesel industry, too, and it would be — in his words “a kick in the teeth” — if the Trump Administration sides with the oil industry and appeals the ruling. “This issue could destroy President Trump’s relationship with leaders and voters across the heartland,” Walton says.  National Corn Growers Association president Kevin Ross farms near Minden in southwest Iowa. He says the potential appeal has injected more unneeded uncertainty into the marketplace. “This is a united front from agriculture, our biofuels groups and other supporters of the decision,” he says.

If the court ruling stands, the number of oil industry waivers from biofuel blending requirements would be drastically reduced in the future. The oil industry argues forcing small refineries to blend ethanol into gasoline puts a financial strain on small refineries. Farmers and biofuels groups say the waivers have depressed demand for ethanol and biodiesel.

(Radio Iowa) — State-licensed casinos in Northwood, Sioux City and Altoona were issued fines Tuesday by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission for violations related to customers who had banned themselves from betting. The Diamond Jo Casino in Worth County near Northwood was fined five-thousand dollars after a person who had banned themselves from gambling was sent promotional materials. General Manager Scott Smith says the error happened because the person had two accounts in the system. “We deeply regret that this did happen. We do take it very, very seriously,” Smith says. “And through this we found really a flaw within our system itself. And through property compliance our team there quickly corrected the issue that we had.”

He says they believe they have corrected the problem. “Since that time we’ve upgraded our casino management systems now where that type of thing doesn’t happen anymore where a duplicate account has to be created — which allowed just for human error within this. It’s very unfortunate, we took action right away with that one mailing,” Smith says. The Hard Rock Casino in Sioux City was also fined five-thousand dollars for taking eight days to upload new additions to the self-ban list as the state requires them to be loaded within seven days. Hard Rock general manager Doug Fisher says it was unfortunate that this happened. “This is nothing more than procedures not being followed,” Smith says. “So once we were notified of this we immediately revamped our procedures and to where we are now uploading every two to three days to avoid any type of these infractions moving forward.”

Smith says they hope the changes will keep this from happening again. “We’re quite frankly very embarrassed to be up here. I believe this is the first time that we have had any type of these offenses for our property,” Smith says. The fine was only five thousand dollars because it was the only violation in the last 365 days. Prairie Meadows Casino in Altoona was fined ten-thousand dollars for a set self-ban violations. Part of the fine was for failing to upload new people on the banned list in the required seven-day period. Prairie Meadows director of Security, Jake Hedgecock, says it was an employee error. “The employee in question had been disciplined and retrained accordingly. Also, we incorporated a new policy that each shift manager will do an upload and download each day — so that we will never be in front of you again talking about this violation,” Hedgcock says.

The second Prairie Meadows violation was a little more complicated. A person had signed up for a self-ban back in 2012, and then asked the Racing and Gaming Commission to take him off the banned list under a new rule allows someone to reconsider a self-ban after five years. The Commission did not show the man on the list — and it was determined that Prairie Meadows never loaded the man’s name into the system back in 2012. Hedgcock says it is hard to fully determined what happened as the database had been updated and revised through the years.

“So, when Prairie Meadows went back to review its information — our record show that we did everything correctly — but we truly don’t know because of the database not being around,” according to Hedgecock. “What I can tell you though is that Prairie Meadows is one of the first establishments that implement the self-exclusion platform in 1996, and we have never had a violation of this nature.” Violations of the self-ban rules start at five-thousand dollars and can be as high as 20-thousand dollars depending on the number of violations in a calendar year.

WATERLOO, Iowa (Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier) — Police say one person has been shot outside a Waterloo bank. The Courier reports that the shooting happened Wednesday morning outside a U.S. Bank branch and left one person hospitalized with serious injuries. Police tell the newspaper they are investigating the shooting as a possible robbery. Waterloo police did not immediately return a message left Wednesday seeking more information.

The shooting is reminiscent of a shooting outside a Lu Verne bank in northern Iowa in December that left a bank employee dead. Valentino Williams, of Coralville, was sentenced to life in prison last month in that shooting that killed 43-year-old Jessica Weisharr, of Algona.

(Radio Iowa) Two northeast Iowa communities are playing tug-of-war in the recruitment and retention of police officers. Dyersville recently lured away two police officers from Manchester, including the town’s only trained K-9 officer and his dog. Now, Manchester Police Chief Jim Hauschild says his town’s leaders have upped the ante. “Dyersville offered some fairly large pay increases which forced us to take a look at our package and what we’re doing to retain officers,” Chief Hauschild says. “I met with the personnel committee and they decided that we needed to be competitive and made a few changes in our pay for officers as well as a couple of other benefits.”

Monday night, the Manchester City Council approved a pay hike of $3.75 an hour for police officers. Officer David Trumblee and his K-9, Ace, will return to Manchester next week, after Trumblee resigned in February to move to Dyersville. Hauschild says all of the comments he’s heard or seen on social media indicate Manchester residents are “ecstatic” to see the team return. “They’re an important part of our drug enforcement program and in our community policing program,” Hauschild says. “Ace is a very approachable dog, he loves to be petted, and Dave’s good with people, too. We’re very fortunate to have a team that not only does what they need to do as far as drug enforcement, or tracking people or finding lost articles, whatever we may ask the dog to do, but people like them as well and that’s an important part of it.”

When Trumblee resigned, he agreed to pay the town $10,000 to keep Ace as a family pet. It left Manchester without a police dog for the first time in 20 years.

The Harlan Police Department reports one recent arrest and one citation. On March 3rd, 61-year old Jolene May Olson, of Harlan, was arrested following a traffic stop, on a charge of OWI. And, on March 6th, 30-year old Brooke Rene Scheffler, of Harlan, was cited for Driving While Suspended, following a traffic stop.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Another trial date has been set for a man accused of killing his former girlfriend in a Sioux City hotel room and setting it aflame. Court records say 29-year-old Jordan Henry has pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder and arson. The new starting date for his nonjury trial is April 7. His earlier dates were July 9 and Sept. 17 last year.

Police have said an autopsy showed 40-year-old Elizabeth Bockholt, of Hinton, was strangled. Firefighters found her unresponsive Jan. 24 last year in a Wingate Hotel room, and she was pronounced dead later at a hospital.