MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) – Men from Texas and Alabama have been sentenced for posing as Internal Revenue Service agents and bilking a northern Iowa woman. The Mason City Globe Gazette reports 41-year-old Eduardo Cruz, of Grapevine, Texas, last week was sentenced to four days in jail. A $625 fine was suspended, and he was ordered to pay nearly $5,000 in restitution. He’d pleaded guilty to theft.

Co-defendant Coty Phillips, of Eufaula, Alabama, last month was sentenced to 85 days in jail and ordered to pay $69 in restitution. Police say Phillips and Cruz had called the woman and threatened her with arrest if she didn’t pay them money they said she owed the government.

Woodworkers from around the country for a conference worked on a special project to create wooden urns for the Iowa Veterans Cemetery. Dave Campbell, the editorial content chief of “Wood” magazine, which hosted the conference. He says they try to do a special project every year. “Last year we built 29 little free libraries to promote literacy in central Iowa and then we had those scattered around central Iowa that were built by our attendees,” Campbell says.

Campbell says this year’s project meets another need. “There are a large number of indigent veterans that if their cremains go unclaimed, they are turned over to the Veterans Cemetery and often times they are interred in just a plastic box,” Campbell says. “We didn’t really feel that was a very respectful or dignified burial for someone who has served our country.”

They got things underway Saturday to make enough urns to handle the need for one year. “The Veterans Cemetery says they can use about a hundred of these in about a year’s worth of time,” Campbell says. He says it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to build an urn and they planned to run right assembly lines to machine, cut, rout, sand and assemble the finished products. “Each box will have a lazer-engraved medallion of the branch of service that the veteran served in,” Campbell says. T

he special project was part of the activities at the three-day conference, where the woodworkers learned new techniques from experts. Liberty Hardwoods, Incorporated in Des Moines donated the red oak lumber to construct the urns, and Ridgid and Ryobi provided the power tools needed to build them.

(Radio Iowa)

From now (Monday, May 22nd) through Sunday June 4th, state and local law enforcement agencies across Iowa and the nation, will be stepping up seat belt enforcement.  Memorial Day weekend kicks off the busy summer season with many more families on the roads.  Iowa’s seat belt usage rate of 94 percent is one of the highest in the nation but the remaining six percent of vehicle occupants account for approximately half of all traffic fatalities.

The Department of Public Safety and the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau would like to bust some seat belt myths (2015 data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration):

Pickup trucks will not protect you in a crash if you are not wearing a seat belt.  Sixty percent of pickup truck occupants who were killed were not buckled.  That compares to 42 percent of passenger car occupants.

Where you sit in the vehicle does not matter.  Forty-seven percent of all front-seat passenger vehicle occupants killed in crashes were not wearing seat belts, but 57 percent of those killed in back seats were unrestrained.

Country driving is not safer.  Nationwide, there were 12,797 traffic fatalities on rural roads compared to 8,262 on urban streets.  Fifty percent of those killed in rural crashes were unbuckled compared to 46 percent in urban crashes.

Young drivers are not invincible and they are dying at a disproportionate rate because they are not wearing seat belts, especially young males.

Remember:  The habit of buckling up is as simple as turning on a light switch.  It should be an automatic action for you and everyone in your vehicle.

Authorities say SEAT BELTS ARE THE SINGLE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO SURVIVE IN A CRASH. Day and night, front seat and back, Click It or Ticket!  You just may save a life.

A crash over the weekend in Madison County has claimed the life of a Winterset woman.  The accident happened early Saturday afternoon and involved a vehicle that left a roadway, struck a pole, and ended up in a ditch. The driver, 59-year-old Leslie Wildin of Winterset, was injured. His wife, 62-year-old Donna Wildin, was killed in the crash. Police said they’re working to determine the exact cause of the accident.

(Radio Iowa)

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

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad says one of his former Lt. Governors, Joy Corning, has died at the age of 84. Corning served two terms as lieutenant governor under Branstad beginning in 1990. She had lived with a liver condition for 21 years, but she told the Des Moines Register recently that her health had been failing.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Some advocates for programs that help low-income people are expressing puzzlement over Gov. Terry Branstad’s decision to veto spending from an infrastructure fund. When he used his line-item veto authority last week to cut $1.8 million in spending approved by the Legislature, Branstad wrote that he would prefer state funds be spent on people, not buildings. But the proposed spending came from a fund that can only be used on building work.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — A Davenport college is unveiling plans for more than $50 million in improvements to student housing, buildings, athletic fields and other aspects of campus. The Quad-City Times reports Palmer College of Chiropractic unveiled preliminary plans at a community meeting Thursday. The college hopes to make the improvements over the next 10 years. Vice Chancellor Aaron Christopher says part of the plan is already being implemented with the construction of a $14 million athletic facility.

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — The eyesore that used to be the Waterloo Greyhound Park has fallen into disrepair while two groups with a claim on it battle in court. The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports city officials have stopped issuing citations for broken windows, overgrown weeds and graffiti until the legal dispute between the National Cattle Congress and the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Des Moines police are investigating after a man was found dead in a church parking lot early Sunday. The Des Moines Register reports the dead man was found in the parking lot of Zion Lutheran Church around 2:30 a.m. with a 27-year-old man who was wounded in a shooting.

Police say that at least two other people injured by gunfire in the city overnight, but it wasn’t immediately clear how many different shootings occurred. The man who died was identified as 19-year-old Ruot Gach of Carroll, Iowa. Zion Lutheran officials planned to hold their regularly scheduled worship services Sunday.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Some advocates for programs that help low-income people are expressing puzzlement over Gov. Terry Branstad’s decision to veto spending from an infrastructure fund.

When he used his line-item veto authority earlier this month to cut $1.8 million in spending approved by the Legislature, Branstad wrote that he would prefer state funds be spent on people, not buildings. But the proposed spending came from a fund that can only be used on building work.

Sen. Rick Bertrand, the Republican chairman of the subcommittee that oversees the infrastructure fund, says he doesn’t understand the veto, noting “This fund is not set up for individuals.”

When asked about the governor’s move, Branstad spokesman Ben Hammes offered a response that largely repeated the veto statement. Hammes declined to answer further questions.

Residents of Des Moines are waking up to the news another person has died as the result of a shooting, the 15^th homicide in the Capital City this year. KCCI TV reports Des Moines Police are investigating the shooting that took place in the 4300 block of Beaver Avenue in the Parking lot of Zion Lutheran Church. The incident, which happened at around 2:30-a.m., resulted in one person killed, three others injured.

Witnesses provided a potential suspect vehicle description to officers. Police later located and stopped that vehicle after a short pursuit. Inside, they found a third shooting victim. He was taken to a local hospital. Detectives are now interviewing the other people in that vehicle. A fourth victim later showed up at a local hospital.

No word yet on the conditions of the three surviving victims.

Sheriff’s Deputies in Montgomery County early this (Sunday) morning, arrested a woman for Public Intoxication. 28-year old Madison Marie Bowling, of Red Oak, was taken into custody at around 1:45-a.m. in the 700 block of E. Corning Street, in Red Oak.

Bowling was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $300 cash bond.