More State and area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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Police in Creston say two people were arrested late Wednesday morning at a residence located in the 800 block of Laurel Street, in Creston. 37-year old Amie Jo Jackson and 47-year old Paula Shimer, both of Creston, were arrested for Theft in the 5th Degree. Both women were later released from custody on a Promise to Appear, in court.

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 monthly survey report suggests that the economy expanded in nine Midwest and Plains states last month amid mounting concerns about tariffs and trade skirmishes. The report issued Thursday says the Mid-America Business Conditions Index slumped to 54.9 in October from 57.5 in September . The October reading is the lowest since January 2017. Creighton University economist Ernie Goss oversees the survey, and he says he expects a slowdown in the regional economic expansion in the months ahead.

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.

DES MOINES – Nearly 40,000 votes have been tallied in Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate’s Fall 2018 Iowa Youth Straw Poll. Although some results continue to trickle in, Secretary Pate projects Kim Reynolds the winner in the gubernatorial race. Rod Blum, Christopher Peters, David Young and Steve King are the projected winners in Iowa’s four congressional races, respectively.

As of Wednesday, 39,937 votes had been tallied, with hundreds of schools participating, covering 92 counties. Secretary Pate invited every school and youth group in Iowa to take part in the straw poll. Most of the participants are high school students.

Locally, the number of students participating in the Iowa Youth Straw Poll include:

Orient/Macksburg School District: 67 students.

Southwest Valley High School (Adams County): 95 students.

Atlantic High School/Middle School & CAM School District: 351 students in total.

4RKidsHomeschool, AC/GC High School, Panorama Secondary School: 278 total.

Red Oak High School: 73 students participated.

Clarinda High School: 156 students participated.

Schools in Pott. County: 1,756 students altogether.

Harlan Community High School: 130 students.

Secretary of State Paul Pate said he wants to “Thank all the teachers, principals and staff that helped make the Youth Straw Poll possible, but most importantly, thank you to the 40,000 students who made their voices heard. This was hopefully a valuable, hands-on learning experience for them, and I hope all of them will continue to be a voter throughout their lives.”

The vast majority of participants, 84 percent, said they would register to vote when they old enough. Results are available on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website, sos.iowa.gov. The results are unscientific. The Iowa Youth Straw Poll is conducted for educational purposes only.

WEST POINT, Iowa (AP) — Authorities have ruled the death of a woman who jumped out her boyfriend’s car in southeast Iowa was accidental. The Des Moines Register reports that authorities don’t expect to file more charges against the man driving the car, 29-year-old Damian Hamann. He’s pleaded not guilty to leaving the scene of a fatal accident. The body of 20-year-old Sadie Alvarado was found Aug. 5 in a ditch on a gravel road, about 5 miles southwest of West Point.

Hamann told authorities that he and Alvarado were arguing when she leaped out. He drove home to Morning Sun but went back to look for her.
Lee County Attorney Ross Braden says an autopsy showed Alvarado’s injuries jibed with Hamann’s explanation. Braden also says it doesn’t appear that had Hamann gone back sooner or remained that he “likely would have been able to do anything to save her.”

HAMPTON, Iowa (AP) — Rep. Steve King is keeping a low profile. Engulfed in controversy for his past support of white supremacist groups and leaders in light of Saturday’s massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the Iowa Republican is riding out the closing days of a re-election campaign whose success is suddenly in question. King has no campaign events scheduled and his staff has stopped responding to inquiries. His public appearances have been limited to friendly territory, such as the Crawford County Republican Party fundraiser Sunday. Democrats are already hoping to flip two of Iowa’s four congressional seats, and the turmoil surrounding King has them thinking they could take his seat as well. It’s a tough task in a district that President Donald Trump won by 27 percentage points. But even some Republicans acknowledge King is in for a tough challenge from Democratic challenger J.D. Scholten.

“This is the strongest competition he’s ever faced,” said Gwen Ecklund, a former GOP chairwoman in Crawford County, one of 39 counties in the vastly agricultural district that stretches from most of the Minnesota border west to the Missouri River. “But I think the stronghold of his support remains intact.” That premise has been challenged in recent days, as King has come under fire from House GOP leadership for tweets he’s posted endorsing a white nationalist candidate for Toronto mayor, and praising a nationalist party in Austria with Nazi ties. The comments were the latest in a long line from the 69-year-old congressman lamenting the rise of minorities as a threat to white Americans, along with anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic comments over the years.

Not until Tuesday, in the days after the Pittsburgh shooting, did National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers decry King’s comments. That day, longtime King financial backers Land O’Lakes, a Minnesota-based food company, and its subsidiary Purina Pet Care, both with plants in King’s district, withdrew their support from King, as did the microprocessor company Intel.
In Iowa, however, Republicans have been silent. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who named King her campaign chairman a year ago, said nothing amid calls from Democrats for her to disassociate herself from the congressman. King’s son, Jeff, who is managing the congressman’s campaign, could not be reached for comment, despite several attempts.

Instead, King has spent the past few days stopping in at county GOP events and tweeting. He unapologetically blamed the media Tuesday for the turmoil. “These attacks are orchestrated by the nasty, desperate and dishonest fake news,” he wrote, borrowing from Trump’s script. As King has hunkered down, the 38-year-old Scholten has only charged ahead. The former minor-league pitcher and paralegal from Sioux City was rumbling across northern Iowa Wednesday in a Winnebago RV emblazoned with his name. He has put more than 25,000 miles on the vehicle since last summer. He was stopping in at coffee shops along Highway 3, making his fourth and fifth visits to the district’s counties. “With this bump, for lack of a better term, I’m getting more confident every day. We’ve been able to capitalize on this momentum,” Scholten said of the King controversy as he walked through tiny Hampton en route to Rustic Brew Cafe. “But this has been 15 to 16 months in the making.”

As of this month, King had raised roughly $737,000, less than half of Scholten’s haul, which has received renewed backing from rising national Democratic figures such as California Sen. Kamala Harris, who is weighing a 2020 bid for president. Scholten has spent $1.3 million, more than twice that of King, and has been running radio and television ads for months boosting his name in a district where King is well known.
Although King’s favorability in the district has dipped since his 2016 re-election, Republicans still outnumber Democrats in the district by more than 20,000 registered voters. Scholten has netted former Republicans, including former state Sen. David Johnson, who left the GOP in 2016 after Trump won the party’s presidential nomination.

However, early voting tallies so far show Republicans have outpaced Democrats in returning ballot requests by more than 10,000. Music teacher Randi Heisler, a Democrat, said after meeting Scholten in the cafe that she’d converted her Republican husband to support Scholten. But she fears that may not be enough. “Are enough people fed up and ready to vote with their hearts and minds, above the party?” she said. “I don’t know.”

Police in Red Oak, Wednesday evening, arrested a man wanted on a Page County warrant. 28-year old Mark Lee Parkinson, Jr., of Red Oak, was taken into custody at around 6:45-p.m. on the warrant charging him with three counts of Harassment in the 1st Degree, an aggravated misdemeanor. Parkinson was transported to the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center, where he was being held on $6,000 bond while awaiting extradition to Page County.

(Radio Iowa/Karla James – Omaha) — A National Park Service employee is credited with rescuing a man who jumped from a bridge into the Missouri River. Biologist Chris Holbeck says he was in his office Tuesday morning when he noticed, from a window, something splashed in the water. Holbeck quickly realized it was a man who jumped from the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge that connects Council Bluffs and Omaha.

Bob Kerrey Pedestrian bridge; Photo credit: Omaha Convention & Visitors Bureau

“So I called out to my colleagues to call 911 and I ran downstairs,” Holbeck said. “We keep a rescue ring by the back door because we’ve seen people jump from the bridge before.” Holbeck took the rescue ring down to the riverbank, but the current was pulling the man too far away.  “I couldn’t get to him. I kept calling to him to keep his head above water and swim toward shore,” Holbeck said. “Eventually, the boardwalk runs out and I lost sight of the guy.” Although he believed the man likely drowned, Holbeck continued to search the banks.

“I started searching the riverbank and sure enough, there he was and I pulled him from the river,” Holbeck said. According to Omaha Police, the jumper was taken to a hospital and will be okay.

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

HAMPTON, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King is keeping a low profile in the closing days of a re-election campaign that has suddenly turned competitive. King has been engulfed in controversy for his past support of white supremacist groups and leaders in light of Saturday’s massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue. King has announced no public campaign events and is sticking to a light schedule.

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) — A Roman Catholic diocese in Iowa is acknowledging that it kept quiet for 32 years about a priest’s admission to having sexually abused dozens of boys. The Diocese of Sioux City told The Associated Press in a statement Wednesday that it never contacted police or informed the public about the Rev. Jerome Coyle, despite his 1986 admission. With diocese assistance, Coyle recently moved into a Fort Dodge retirement home that’s across the street from a Catholic school.

MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa (AP) — A former friend of an Iowa father whose infant son was found dead and maggot-infested in a baby swing last year has testified he wasn’t even aware the man had a baby. The Courier reports that Jordan Clark testified Wednesday at the trial of 29-year-old Zachary Paul Koehn, who’s charged with murder and child endangerment in the August 2017 death of 4-month-old Sterling Koehn.

LARCHWOOD, Iowa (AP) — A former employee has bought out the owners of an animal vaccine plant in northwest Iowa. The Sioux Falls (South Dakota) Argus Leader reports that Eric Schuler completed the deal in mid-August for Elanco’s operations in Larchwood, where he once was head of engineering. He’s formed Vos BioTech and intends to retain as many of the plant’s employees as possible.