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

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Sheriff Kevin Aistrope reports that early this morning the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office received a report of theft from the Pilot Travel Center. Upon deputies arrival the subjects had fled the scene and left the car they were operating on the side of the road after striking something and making the vehicle inoperable. A short time later Deputies located the three subjects, two of whom were juveniles. During the investigation 18 year old Cameron Peters of Lincoln, NE was found to be in possession of a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia. All three subjects were transported to the Law Enforcement center where Peters was being held on a $1,300 bond. The two juveniles were cited into court and released to guardians.

Cameron Peters

(Radio Iowa) — The employees of six county jails in Iowa are being praised for going “above and beyond” the minimum state standards for those facilities. Delbert Longley, the chief jail inspector for the Iowa Department of Corrections, selected the six county jails as 2018 “Best of the Best” award winners. “I inspect 106 facilities every year. The vast majority of them do a tremendous job of making sure they are doing the right things and they never get recognized for that,” Longley said. “They’re just kind of like the red-headed stepchild out there…nobody wants to talk about them until, all-of-the sudden, something bad happens.”

Delbert Longley presents award to Shelby County authorities.

The awards were recently handed out at an annual banquet held by the Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies’ Association. The six jails are located in Madison, Shelby, Iowa, Sioux, Dubuque and Marshall counties. Longley commended all six for being responsive to the needs of inmates. “They treat them with respect and (the jail staff) demand respect in return,” Longley explained. “We know the individuals who are (in jail) have been charged with something, otherwise they wouldn’t be there, but that doesn’t mean they should be treated as second-class citizens.”  The jails also scored high marks for cleanliness. “I don’t care how new or how old of a facility you have, I don’t believe there’s any reason why it should be dirty. I will cite that quickly,” Longley said. “I just don’t want poor living conditions – and not only that, it’s poor working conditions for staff.”

Another priority for Longley is making sure the county employees keep “thorough and complete” records of all jail proceedings. “The documentation is what’s going to keep a lot of jails out of lawsuits. If you can show what you’ve done, when, and why you’ve done it – that is very, very important,” Longley said. According to Longley, administrators and employees of many county jails face substantial challenges including limited budgets, overcrowding, and facilities that are badly in need of replacement or repair. There are several county jails in Iowa that were built in the early 1900s.
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The 2018 “Best of the Best” county jail award winners:
Small jails (up to 25 beds) – Madison and Shelby counties
Medium jails (26-100 beds) – Iowa and Sioux counties
Large jails (over 100 beds) – Dubuque and Marshall counties

(Radio Iowa) — Hundreds of Iowa high school students may lose access to required foreign language classes if lawmakers don’t provide a cash infusion to a state-run initiative. The program is called “Iowa Learning Online” and Iowa Department of Education director Ryan Wise uses the shorthand “I-LO” when discussing it. “It is virtually impossible to get the fees and the demand at a point where ILO pays for itself,” Wise says. The program was launched six years ago with an annual budget of one-and-a-half million dollars in state tax money. That funding ended three years ago and schools are now charged 260 dollars for each online course offered to each student. Once the fees went into effect, enrollment dropped by 40 percent and Wise says federal funding to supplement those fees is no longer available. “Really, without a state appropriation at this point, there’s not a sustainable path forward,” Wise says.

That’s especially critical for students in rural Iowa, according to Wise. Nearly 75 percent of the Iowa Learning Online courses being taken now are foreign languages. “So if (Iowa Learning Online) were to go away after this year, what you see is a big gap in opportunities, especially for rural schools that may struggle to get that world language teacher, that Spanish teacher or French teacher to come in,” Wise says. “We’re able to offer French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese — all online and so this really meets a need in our schools.”

Wise says about 17-hundred Iowa high school students are enrolled in the program’s online courses for THIS school year. He’s asking the legislature and governor to provide half a MILLION dollars in state tax dollars so the program can continue in the next school year.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:45 a.m. CST

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Instead of issuing a ticket, two Iowa sheriff’s deputies have treated a woman to a Christmas shopping spree after pulling her over. Television station KCCI reports that the deputies pulled the woman over for not having license plates. Reserve Deputy Rod Eilander says the woman was on her way to borrow $10 to buy dinner for her kids. Instead of giving her a ticket, the deputies bought her children Christmas gifts.

MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) — Police say tips have picked up on the 1995 disappearance of Iowa news anchor Jodi Huisentruit after she was featured on CBS’ “48 Hours.” Mason City Police Chief Jeff Brinkley told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier that police received at least two dozen calls and emails since the Dec. 15 episode. Huisentruit was 27 when she went missing on her way to work at station KIMT in Mason City.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — Food pantries in eastern Iowa and western Illinois are being flooded with milk donations under a federal program to buy and distribute nearly $50 million in dairy products to compensate farmers hurt by trade tariffs. River Bend Foodbank CEO Mike Miller tells the Quad-City Times about 80,000 half-gallons of milk will be distributed to pantries across the Quad-City region until March. Donations are intended to help farmers hurt by President Donald Trump’s disputes with Mexico, China and Canada.

GRINNELL, Iowa (AP) — A federal board has approved a request by students at Grinnell College to withdraw their request to expand a union representing student workers. The National Labor Relations Board on Friday notified the college and students that a regional director at the agency had approved the withdrawal of the union petition.

(Radio Iowa) — Students from Iowa and several other states will soon be able to pay in-state tuition rates at South Dakota’s public universities. That state’s Board of Regents approved the new policy for the so-called South Dakota Advantage earlier this month. Regents President Kevin Schieffer says there’s already a reciprocity agreement with Minnesota. “Pilot programs have been successful and we’re now applying it to the surrounding states,” Schieffer says. “It has been a positive thing. Not only has it generated more revenue but it also is great for workforce development in South Dakota.”

He says 30-percent of students who go to South Dakota end up joining the state’s workforce upon graduation from college. Schieffer says they have some targets to hit with incoming students from Iowa and the others. “We need to attract another roughly 80 students from those states to break even or do a little better than break even,” he says, “and there’s some confidence we’ll be able to surpass break even.” Schieffer says the expanded policy could help control in-state tuition rates, at least that’s the goal. “This is a calculated business decision,” Schieffer says. “Every dollar we can raise in out-of-state money takes pressure off of tuition increases for the resident rate.”

The new program is for students from Iowa as well as Wyoming, North Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado. The policy begins with the 2019 summer term.

(Radio Iowa) — The Sioux Honey Association Co-op in Sioux City wants Americans to know who their honey comes from and they have launched a national campaign. Co-op chairman Rob Buhmann, says the campaign features the faces and stories of local beekeepers across the country. “it’s our product, we are putting a domestic product on the shelf. We are not doing anything to it to damage it,” Buhmann says.

He says they work hard to make sure they keep up the standards. “We are checking ourselves constantly with testing protocols to make sure that the honey produce, any honey we purchase is what it says it is,” according toe Buhmann. The Sioux Honey Association was established in Sioux City in 1921 to operate based on “what’s best for its beekeepers, its honey and its customers.”

MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) — Police say tips have picked up on the 1995 disappearance of Iowa news anchor Jodi Huisentruit after she was featured on CBS’ “48 Hours” this month. Mason City Police Chief Jeff Brinkley told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier that police received at least two dozen calls and emails since the episode aired Dec. 15. Brinkley didn’t comment on the information in the tips, citing the ongoing investigation. But he told the newspaper that he hopes the exposure from the program will help spur more people to come forward with information.

Huisentruit was 27 when she went missing on her way to work June 27, 1995, at station KIMT in Mason City. Investigators have never found Huisentruit, who was declared legally dead in 2001. No one has been charged in her disappearance.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Instead of giving her a ticket, two Iowa sheriff’s deputies treated a woman to a Christmas shopping spree after pulling her over. Jasper County Sheriff’s Reserve Deputies Rod Eilander and Nathan Popenhagen pulled the woman over for not having license plates on her truck, Des Moines television station KCCI reported Monday.

When they asked if she was ready for Christmas, she said “no.” Eilander told the station that the woman had no money, was out of gas and was on her way to borrow $10 from a friend to buy dinner for her kids. Eilander said he and Popenhagen decided to buy her children gifts. They picked up a football, a bucket of slime, earrings and a new backpack at a Walmart. Then other people at the store started taking part in the act of kindness.

“Out of nowhere, an angel walked up to us and handed her a $50 Walmart gift card,” Eilander said.
A different customer gave the woman $20, someone in the parking lot pitched in another $20, and the deputies gave her $20 for dinner. The deputies then wrapped the presents at the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office while the woman went through donated clothing at the jail.

“My heart is full tonight being with the ones I love and to spread the holiday cheer to others less fortunate than me,” Eilander said.

(Radio Iowa) — Thousands of Iowans are getting new televisions, cell phones, laptops, and other high-tech gadgets as Christmas gifts. Iowa DNR Senior Environmental Specialist Susan Johnson is urging them to recycle their OLD electronics. “Many retailers will take back e-waste for recycling, regardless of whether you purchased a product from the retailer or not,” Johnson said.

It’s believed U.S. consumers who fail to recycle e-waste, annually, send over two-million tons of computers, TVs, cell phones, printers, scanners, and other such items to landfills.  “E-waste accounts for about 40-percent of the lead and 75-percent of the heavy metals found in landfills,” Johnson said.  Most electronic products contain toxic materials such as lead, cadium, arsenic and mercury. If they end up in landfills, those toxins will contaminate groundwater. While many retailers recycle e-waste, there are also regional collection centers for household hazardous waste in 93 Iowa counties.

“Not only do they take back most electronics, but other household hazardous waste too, such as stains, varnishes, and pesticides,” Johnson said. E-waste recycling habits are improving in the state. According to Johnson, Iowans recycle – on average – over six-million pounds of TVs and computers every year.