SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – A Sioux City woman has been given 30 months in prison for driving the getaway vehicle after a bank robbery. The Sioux City Journal reports that 36-year-old Karen Merrick was sentenced Thursday. She’d pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact. Prosecutors had charged her with bank robbery but changed the charge in return for her plea. Prosecutors say Merrick drove Phillip White away from Iowa State Bank in Le Mars after he robbed it on Dec. 12, 2018. Officers managed to flatten the vehicle’s tires during a chase and arrest the pair. White’s been sentenced to 12 years.

Police in Creston say two residents reported incidents of theft, Thursday. A man residing in the 300 block of South Division Street reported at around 8-a.m., that sometime between 9-a.m. Wednesday and 8-a.m. Thursday, someone broke into his car. Items missing from the vehicle included: a $100 Casey’s gift card; Hy-Vee Fuel Saver card; a pack of cigarettes; a Samsung phone charger, and two spare sets of keys. The loss was estimated at $227 altogether.

And, at around 11:50-p.m., a man residing in the 500 block of  North Vine Street in Creston, reported to police that sometime between 4-and 6-p.m., Thursday, someone broke into his home. He was missing a Howa 1500 .308 rifle with a scope, and a small bat. The items were valued at $720.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – A deal has been struck that could avert a strike by unionized nurses at MercyOne Siouxland Medical Center in Sioux City. Nurses represented by the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 222 voted earlier this month to authorize a walkout. The hospital announced the tentative agreement Thursday night, but details have not been publicly released. The union says voting dates on the deal will be announced soon. The local’s current contract expired Sept. 1. The nurses have been seeking a better nurse-to-patient ratio, higher pay, better benefits and an improved strategy to handle turnover at the hospital.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s public schools saw an increase in students and teachers in the last year. Iowa Department of Education spokesman, Jay Pennington, says the latest Condition of Education report shows an increase of nearly 14-hundred (1,388) students .”This is the eighth consecutive increase in student enrollment after about a 17-year decline,” according to Pennington. “So, it’s nice to see continued, sustained growth in our schools.” There were 487-thousand-652 students in the school system in the last year. Pennington says the increase is similar to the population growth of the state as whole. “Other places are growing at faster rates — but I think it’s definitely good for Iowa schools to see sustained, continued growth,” he says.

He says that growth has included an increase in another area. “While we’re seeing overall growth in the student population, we’re also seeing more and more diversity in our schools,” Pennington says.”In the most recent year, we have just under 25 percent or one-in-four students in Iowa schools is now a student of color.” The percent of students whose native language is not English is six-point-five percent — up from six-point-one percent the year before. Pennington says the state also has more teachers — an upward trend that started in 2001. “We seen about an addition of 37-hundred teachers over that period of time. We’ve also seen a significant increase in the average salaries of educators. So, I think two really good pieces of data from the most recent report.”

The 37-thousand-386 full-time teachers in public schools in the last year compares to 33-thousand-610 in the 2000-2001 year. The average salary is now 57-thousand-463 dollars. That ranks Iowa at 21st in the nation for average salary compared to 22nd the year before. Pennington says there are a lot of good numbers in the report — including an increase in the number of students taking higher-level mathematics, including calculus, statistics and trigonometry courses. But he says there is still a lot of area for improvement. “With the most recent data — we know that for the class of 2019 — 33 percent of students took physics. And while that is an all-time high — we know that there’s still 66 percent of students who are not taking that key course within high school.”

The report says the amount of state money spent on each student went up by 333 dollars to 10-thousand-536 dollars. That ranks the state per-pupil expense 30th in the nation ahead of other the nearby states of Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan and South Dakota. You can see the full report on the Iowa Department of Education’s website.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – A Cedar Rapids man has been given five years in prison for slamming his pregnant girlfriend into a wall. The Gazette reports that 29-year-old Randelle Brown was sentenced Wednesday in Cedar Rapids. A jury convicted him Oct. 2 of domestic abuse assault, abuse assault and other crimes. Prosecutors say Brown grabbed the 25-year-old woman by the neck and slammed her against the wall on Jan. 22, 2018. He also slapped her face. She was 25 weeks pregnant at the time. Prosecutors say he told her that if she tried to leave him he’d beat her again and that if she went to police, he would kill her.

(Radio Iowa) — Iowa Congressman Steve King says he won’t speak publicly about the case of a young girl who was raped by a family member and became pregnant, but he is open to talking privately with those directly involved. The girl was between the ages of 10-and 13.

King held a town hall in Clear Lake yesterday (Thursday) and was asked if he would support an abortion in a case like this — the same question King was asked in August at a town hall meeting in Rockwell. “This is a specific case that people in the neighborhood know,” King said. “…I don’t want to say anything here or in front of the press that’s going to put any more stress on anyone.”

King is a long-time advocate of banning all abortions. He was non-committal yesterday, though, as to whether abortions should be allowed when a girl who is not yet a teenager becomes pregnant due to incest. “That’s way too tough a decision for a legislator or a legislature to make,” King says. “I don’t want to touch that one right now because there are very, very few cases.”

King, who is seeking a 10th term in the U.S. House, faces Republican challengers in the June Primary. About 30 people attended his town hall meeting in Clear Lake.

(Radio Iowa) — A proposal advancing in the Iowa Senate would amend the Iowa constitution to make it more difficult to raise INCOME taxes. The amendment would require any income tax increase to be approved by a two-thirds supermajority in the House and Senate. Republican Senator Jim Carlin of Sioux City says the requirement would help Iowa be more competitive with South Dakota, which does not have a state income tax.

“In our part of the state we have seen so many jobs drive across the river and take all their tax revenue with them because we don’t have any competitive footing on taxes with South Dakota,” Carlin says. Senator Bill Dotzler, a Democrat from Waterloo, says it would make it harder for lawmakers to raise the INCOME tax in order to cut OTHER taxes, like the state sales tax.

“This piece of legislation would protect the wealthiest individuals in our state from paying their fair share,” Dotzler said. If the proposal clears five other hurdles in the legislature this year, it would still have to be approved again by the legislature sometime in the following two years before Iowans could vote on it in 2022.

In 1999, Iowa voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have limited state spending. In 2010, Iowa voters approved an amendment setting up a new state water conservation and outdoor recreation fund, to be filled the next time the sales tax is raised.