The area’s latest and/or top news stories at 7:06-a.m. From KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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SOLDIER, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a man shot his wife in western Iowa after mistaking her for an intruder trying to get into their home. Monona County Sheriff Jeffrey Pratt says in a news release that 48-year-old Jackie Krier had been outside the family home about 3 miles west of Soldier when she was shot Tuesday evening by 49-year-old Brian Krier.

Jackier Krier was taken to an Onawa hospital and then transferred to a hospital in Sioux City. The shooting is being investigated.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A man who had said he was only defending himself when he beat another man at a central Iowa bar has been given 50 years in prison. Polk County District Court records say 49-year-old Rodney Henricksen was sentenced last week for killing Joshua Sadlon. Sadlon, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, died a day after the incident at the Escape Lounge in Urbandale in January 2018. A jury found Henricksen guilty of second-degree murder.

Henricksen had said he’d tried to de-escalate threats made by the drunken Sadlon and said Iowa’s “stand your ground” law protected him from prosecution. The law says a person doesn’t have to retreat before using deadly force if he or she reasonably thinks his or her life is being threatened.

The jury rejected his claim of self-defense. Prosecutors called it a bar beating, not a bar fight.

(Radio Iowa) — A monthly report from the Iowa Association of Realtors finds almost 32-hundred homes were sold in Iowa last month, down about 200 homes from April of last year. Association president John Goede, of Spencer, says there are several reasons for the drop. “One of them, a big one is the flooding here,” Goede says. “For the last two months, we’ve had many home sales cancelled because there’s no home anymore or it’s not in a condition to be transferred and that’s made a big difference.”

There were more homes on the market statewide during April, almost 63-hundred compared to 54-hundred a year ago. The average price statewide was almost 194-thousand dollars, up from 187-thousand last year, while the median price also rose from 157-thousand to 164-thousand. Goede says, “Average sales price has increased about 3% as has the median sales price, up about 3% also, and that’s been fairly steady for the last four years.”

Houses sold a little faster in Iowa during April, spending an average of 73 days on the market versus 79 a year ago, which he says has a lot to do with the change in seasons.  “As the weather warms up, people are more anxious and more amenable to looking at properties and making offers,” Goede says. “There’s usually about a month-and-a-half difference between making an offer and actually having a closing.”

Goede says he’s booked to show homes all four days of Memorial Day weekend as interest is picking up. May and June will be strong for sales, he predicts, adding, central Iowa is best for new construction. “We are having more new properties, new builds being built, at a great rate and most of that is happening along I-35,” Goede says. “You can’t build homes fast enough in Ankeny and the Des Moines suburbs.”

While the sale of single-family homes fell 8.5 percent statewide last month, the sale of townhomes and condos rose 8.1 percent.

(Radio Iowa) — State officials got a grant in 2016 to update floodplain maps for 47 Iowa counties and they’re about halfway through the project. Residents will be able to see the proposed updates to maps for LINN COUNTY tonight (Thursday) at an open house at the City Services Center in Cedar Rapids. Jason Conn of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says state and federal officials who’re familiar with the maps will answer questions from property owners.

“There are a number of different website where people can view the preliminary flood maps for Linn County,” Conn says, “but coming to the meeting will allow them to ask questions in terms of whether or not flood insurance would be required, the type of flood plain regulations that may be enacted if there’s any new proposed development.”

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources manages the floodplain mapping program. Studies from the University of Iowa’s Flood Center along with data collected from research aircraft flying over the state are being used to update the maps. The maps — which identify the so-called 100-year flood plain — help determine the rates for flood insurance.

“So if a risk has increased on properties and those properties have a loan from a federally-regulated lending institution and those structures are located in that high-risk flood plain, then flood insurance is going to be required as a condition of that loan, through their lender,” Conn says.

Insurance is available in all communities that participate in the national flood insurance program. The maps help determine flood insurance premiums. “They are used by insurance agents to write and rate flood insurance policies,” Conn says.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s CURRENT floodplain maps for Linn County were drafted in 2010. The NEW “preliminary” maps won’t replace those for 18 to 20 months. The public has a chance to comment on them for the next several months and suggest any corrections.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:35 a.m. CDT

OTTUMWA, Iowa (AP) — Iowa prison officials say an inmate from Wapello County serving time for sexual abuse has died of natural causes. The Iowa Department of Corrections said in a news release that 74-year-old Albert Lemoine Collins died Wednesday at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. He was hospitalized for what the department described as a chronic illness.

FOREST CITY, Iowa (AP) — A former NFL defensive lineman who is now a county supervisor in Iowa faces misdemeanor charges after police say he showed up drunk and armed with a pistol at a daytime board meeting. The Mason City Globe-Gazette reports that police were called to the Winnebago County Courthouse after Tuesday’s meeting. Police say an officer determined Mike Stensrud was drunk and had a pistol in his pocket.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — An armed robbery suspect shot this month by Iowa City police had been released from jail days earlier, despite probation violations that could have kept him locked up. An Associated Press review has found that within hours of bonding out of jail on charges of assaulting a police officer, authorities say Michael Cintron Caceres robbed an Iowa City gas station at knifepoint early May 7. They say he burglarized other businesses two days later before he was shot after fleeing from officers.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has vetoed a measure that Republican lawmakers pushed through in the final days of the legislative session to stop the state’s Democratic attorney general from filing or joining lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s policies. The measure Reynolds vetoed Wednesday was targeted at stopping Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller from joining multi-state lawsuits filed against the federal government. Republicans argued Miller had sued Trump too much.

The Atlantic School District’s Board of Education, Wednesday evening, awarded a contract for the construction of the Washington Elementary parking lot project. The parking lot will include 95-marked stalls and room for seven additional unmarked spaces.

Snyder and Associates Engineer Dave Sturm said bids for the project were opened at 2-p.m. Wednesday. There were five contractors bidding for the project which was estimated by Snyders to cost a little more than $444,000. The Board had earlier decided they would accept the lowest bid. The low bid of $418,731.70 was received by Precision Concrete Services of Atlantic.

Other bids came from: Carley Construction ($444, 280.10); United Construction Services of Atlantic ($462,625.25); Henningsen Construction, Inc., of Atlantic ($466,039.88), and Absolute Concrete from Slater, IA ($499,346.30).

Sturm said two of the sub-contractors for PCS are Berg Electric, for the lighting, and Stamp Construction, for the demolition work and grading. Both companies are based in Atlantic, so Sturm said “We have a local contract here all around.” The project includes a seven-inch thick, Portland Cement Concrete pavement. The deadline for “substantial” project completion is August 16th. That means it must be open for use by that date. Failure to meet the deadline will mean $2,500 per day fine in liquidated damages for the contractor.

In other business, the Atlantic School Board approved additional contract recommendations following those we’ve previously announced. The latest includes: Jenny Madsen – Extended School Year; Julie Phippen – Summer Vocational Rehab, and Mallory Kirchhoff – Summer School Paraeducator.

And, the Board approved an increase of 2% for FY 2019-20 principals’ salaries, which includes FICA and IPERS.

Police in Red Oak report the arrest at around 4:30-p.m. Wednesday, of 57-year old Jason Troy Waters. The Red Oak man was arrested in the 1600 block of N. Broadway, on a charge of Harassment in the 3rd Degree. He was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $300 cash bond.

The National Weather Service said Wednesday afternoon, another tornado was determined to have occurred southeast of Anita, Wednesday morning, prior to the fatal twister that occurred south/southeast of Adair. The Anita tornado actually occurred around 25 minutes before the Adair tornado and demolished an old barn, tossing debris about one third of a mile downstream. The remainder of the path was across rural cropland with a total path length of just over one mile.

The Anita tornado which started at around 1:04-a.m., 2.6-miles south/southeast of Anita, was rated an EF-1, with estimated peak winds of 90-to 100 MPH. It’s 50-yard wide path was 1.1-miles long, and ended at around 1:06-a.m. 1.6-miles southeast of Anita. (For more info.: https://www.weather.gov/dmx/20190522_Tornadoes)

(All photos by NWS Damage Survey Team)

Anita – Debris Downwind

Barn near Anita

(Radio Iowa) — Two men who say they were abused by priests joined the Iowa Senate’s Democratic leader today (Wednesday) in calling on Iowa lawmakers to do more for victims of child sex abuse. Senator Janet Petersen, a Democrat from Des Moines, says the state’s attorney general should investigate the Catholic Church. Petersen also says Iowa’s criminal and civil laws for child sex abuse cases are the most restrictive in the nation.

“Our laws do not protect our communities from sexual predators and I think we cannot continue to ignore this,” Petersen said. “There is case after case across this country.” The period for filing CRIMINAL charges is too short, according to Petersen. Child sex abuse victims in Iowa have until they’re 33 years old to file a CIVIL lawsuit. Sixty-seven-year-old John Chambers of Des Moines says studies show 52 is the average age when a victim reveals they were abused as a child.

“Adults that bottled this up and held it in for so many years,” Chambers says. “And there are a lot of us.” Tim Lennon, who grew up in Sioux City, says he was 43 years old when he first remembered being molested by the priest in his childhood church. “Those memories are the fire, the anger that I feel for what happened to me,” Lennon says. “…What happened to me should not happen to another child.”

Lennon, who now lives in Arizona, is a national leader in the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. He plans to hold a news conference outside the Sioux City Diocese office tomorrow (Thursday) morning. Lennon says the Catholic Church should release the names of bishops, nuns and others involved in the church who are accused of sex abuse.