NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — An Altoona man is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday for vehicular homicide while driving drunk. Jasper County District Court records say 26-year-old Michael Roney was convicted March 19. He was charged after the Sept. 23, 2017 crash that killed 27-year-old Jeremy O’Connor, who lived in Colfax.

The Newton Daily News reports that surveillance video showed the two drinking at a Colfax bar before they left. The Iowa State Patrol says Roney’s vehicle ran off the pavement on Iowa Highway 117 south of Mingo and then rolled, ejecting O’Connor. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police in Creston report four people were arrested on separate charges Sunday, and one person was arrested Saturday. Also, one theft was reported. Taken into custody Sunday, was:

• 40-year old Brenda Lynn Davis, of Kent, for Driving While Suspended. She was later released on $300 bond.
• 18-year old Amber Mileena Parmenter, of Corning, was arrested Sunday for Driving While Suspended. She was released on $300 bond, also.
• 38-year old Shea Lynn Woollums, of Creston, was arrested at his home for Driving While Suspended. Woolums was then cited and released.
• Lori Ann Clayton, of Creston, was arrested Sunday at the Creston Wal-Mart, for Trespassing. She was cited, and released.

Saturday afternoon, 33-year old Anthony Charles Wasson, of Creston, was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance and Possession of drug paraphernalia. Wasson was being held in the Union County Jail on a $1,300 bond. And, a Creston man reported to Police Friday evening that someone took clothing from the closet at his residence in the 500 block of N. Walnut Street. The loss was estimated at $500.

(7-a.m. News)

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

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A new report says a March survey of business supply managers is signaling solid economic growth over the next three to six months for nine Midwest and Plains states.
The report issued Monday says the Mid-America Business Conditions Index hit its highest level since August, 58.2, compared with 57.9 in February. The January figure was 56.0. Creighton University economist Ernie Goss oversees the survey, and he says even stronger growth was hampered by international trade disputes and the global economic slowdown.

The survey results are compiled into a collection of indexes ranging from zero to 100. Survey organizers say any score above 50 suggests growth. A score below that suggests decline. The survey covers Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

(Radio Iowa) — Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar visited flooded areas of southwest and northwest Iowa this weekend, emphasizing the need to improve flood protection measures and make “climate smart” infrastructure choices. Klobuchar has unveiled a TRILLION dollar plan to improve the nation’s infrastructure. It includes expanding rural broadband service and Klobuchar went to the Farmer Mutual Telephone Company office in Stanton to meet with local officials and business owners. “Kids that grow up in rural Iowa — and southwest Iowa — should be able to live here,” Klobuchar said. “And the only way you can do that these days is if you have the internet.”

Klobuchar made the same point Saturday during an appearance at the “Heartland Forum” in Storm Lake. Klobuchar says there are a host of issues Democrats can and should address that are important to rural America. “There is rural housing. There is rural child caare and there is, of course, this connectivity and broadband, then this issue of monopolies and anti-trust,” Klobuchar said. “When you talk to people who live in the rural areas, they’ll often mention the Farm Bill, but they’ll talk about a whole lot of other things.”

Klobuchar proposes repealing some Trump-era tax cuts to invest in critical infrastructure. She says Americans — no matter where they live — care about upgrades to municipal water supplies and inland waterways as well as mass transit and rural broadband. “I think people want to be able to get out of traffic jams. I think a lot of people would like to work at home more, no matter where they live,” Klobuchar said. “I think that people want to get on subways that aren’t broken down and it’s just a fundamental bread-and-butter issue.”

Three other presidential candidates — Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Maryland Congressman John Delaney and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro — also appeared at the ag-issues forum in Storm Lake Saturday.

(Radio Iowa) — The former Iowa Secretary of Agriculture says he was in disbelief when he surveyed flood damage in southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri. “One of those common questions is: ‘Is it as bad as it looks?’ And I’d say: ‘It’s worse than it looks in pictures.’ Even the pictures I took from an airplane doesn’t look like it feels when you look out the window of an airplane and every place you look is water.”

Bill Northey — now an Undersecretary in the U-S-D-A — spoke with producers at a town hall meeting in Malvern late Friday afternoon. Northey fielded a number of questions from area farmers on how they could recover from the second major flood to hit the region in a decade. While saying the federal government can’t cover all the losses, Northey says there are U-S-D-A programs to soften the blow — like the Emergency Conservation Program. It will pay for three-quarters of the cost of repairing fences and moving sand and silt off fields. “A producer still has to come up with 25 percent of something a month ago they didn’t think they were going to have to do and they probably won’t get all their acres back either. When you move sand around, it certainly doesn’t get as productive as it was before the storm,” Northey said, “so these producers are in a really challenging situation.”

Northey also cites the federal crop insurance program’s coverage of prevented planting acres that could help farmers recoup a portion of lost revenue. “It’s a limited amount of payment compared to what full coverage would be or what a full crop would be definitely,” Northey said. “But it’s something that kind of pays for a little bit of the cost of the land value of that farm.” Northey says all the stored grain in bins that’s been ruined by flooding will have a big impact on the farm economy. In most cases, that grain is uninsured. “We don’t have a program right now that addresses that,” Northey said. “I think that’s one of the things that congress is going to look at.”

The U-S-D-A does have a program that pays farmers for livestock lost during a natural disaster.

(Radio Iowa) — Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the Army Corps of Engineers should give flood control a higher priority in its management plan for the Missouri River. Grassley spoke with a crowd of farmers and others from the agriculture industry at a town hall in Malvern late Friday afternoon. “The environmental issues worry more about animals than you do people. I think people ought to be the prime concern of the federal government,” Grassley said and the crowd applauded.

Grassley says the dams along with Missouri River were funded by a 1944 federal law called the Flood Control Act.  “Now you’ve got 10 other things they take into consideration and flooding — I don’t even know whether it’s the primary one,” Grassley said. “…We spent three years after the 2011 flood (addressing Army Corps-related issues) and it looks like we accomplished nothing.”

Grassley spent Friday touring flood damage in southwest Iowa with USDA Under Secretary Bill Northey and Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig.

Police in Red Oak were on routine patrol at around 7:50-p.m., Sunday, when they arrested a man in the 300 block of 2nd Avenue. 38-year old Luke Daniel Rinehart, of Red Oak, was arrested for Criminal Mischief in the 3rd degree, Breach of Peace, and Interference with Official Acts. Rinehart was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $2,000 bond.

Adams County Sheriff’s Deputies were dispatched at around 7:50-p.m. Sunday, to a reported dispute at a residence in the 400 block of Loomis Avenue. Upon further investigation, deputies arrested Michael Simpson, of Corning, for Domestic Abuse Assault. Simpson was transported to the Adams County Jail.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:40 a.m. CDT

DOUGLAS, Neb. (AP) — An Iowa man has been arrested in California on suspicion of fatally shooting the parents of his former live-in girlfriend at their home in southeast Nebraska. The Nebraska State Patrol says 36-year-old Brindar Jangir was arrested Saturday near San Diego as he tried to re-enter the United States from Mexico.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A Nebraska resident accused of stabbing to death a woman in northwest Iowa has had her trial set for the fall. The trial of Melissa Camargo-Flores, of Dakota City, Nebraska, had been scheduled to begin Feb. 19, but a judge last month granted her attorneys’ request for a delay. The Sioux City Journal reports that on Friday, the judge set the new trial date for Oct. 22. Camargo-Flores has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the April. 8 killing of 24-year-old Kenia Alvarez-Flores.

PEOSTA, Iowa (AP) — State environment officials say a fish kill in northeastern Iowa was caused by farm manure runoff. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says in a news release that it is investigating the Dubuque County fish kill near Peosta. Investigators say more than 200 fish were killed by the runoff, which they traced to Lawler Dairy farm in Peosta. The agency says the farm applied liquid manure to a nearby field, and melting snow and rain caused it to run off into an unnamed creek.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Officials in the Omaha area are reevaluating the city’s flood-control measures, shortly after heavy rains caused dozens of counties and cities in the state to declare a state of emergency. An official with the Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District tells the Omaha World-Herald that a flash flood event caused by heavy rain in the Papillion Creek Basin is Omaha’s biggest flooding vulnerability. The NRD will finish updating its watershed management plan this spring.