Police in Creston are reporting three arrests. At around 11-p.m. Thursday, 23-year old Cranston Donell Claggett, of Creston, was arrested at his home for Possession with the Intent to Sell, Possession of a Controlled Substance/1st offense, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. Claggett was being held in the Union County Jail on a $5,000 cash bond or surety.

Also arrested Thursday night, was 49-year old James Leroy Jones, of Creston, for Public Intoxication/1st offense. Jones was being held on a $300 bond.

And, Thursday afternoon, Creston Police arrested 30-year old Shaune William Tindle, of Creston. Tindle was taken into custody on a Union County warrant for Probation Violation, and was being held in the Union County Jail on a $2,000 bond.

The area’s top news at 7:06-a.m., w/KJAN News Director Ric Hanson

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One person was transported to Jennie Edmundson Hospital following a single-vehicle accident this (Friday) morning, in Council Bluffs. According to Council Bluffs Police, 36-year old Meghan Ostrand, of Council Bluffs, was driving a 2007 Nissan Maxima southbound on Park Avenue at around 1:25-a.m., when she lost control of the vehicle near Pomona Street. The car hit several parked vehicles and a curb before flipping onto its roof.

Ostrand suffered non-life threatening injuries during the crash, which remains under investigation. Shewas cited for failure to maintain control of a motor vehicle and is being investigated for possible intoxication.

(Updated 7:30-a.m.)

GRAETTINGER, Iowa (AP) – Authorities say several fuel tank cars are burning after a freight train, possibly carrying ethanol, derailed in northwestern Iowa. The Palo Alto County Sheriff’s Office says the derailment occurred around 1 a.m. Friday, near Graettinger, about 160 miles northwest of Des Moines.  Residents have been asked to evacuate the area.

Photo by Ryan Long/KCID in Spencer, via Radio Iowa.

Palo Alto County emergency management director Mark Hunefeld says no one is injured. Hunefeld says at least 27 cars derailed, including the burning tanks that he believes were loaded with ethanol.

(6-a.m. Friday) — The National Weather Service in Johnston reports two separate snow events look to impact Iowa over the next 72 hours. The first round of snow will primarily affect Central, west and southwest Iowa from Midnight tonight through Noon, Saturday. Forecast snow amounts range from 1″ in Ames, to as much as 3″ in far southwest Iowa. Winds won’t be too much of a factor, though (Easterly at 5-10mph), but roadways could become snow covered and slippery.

The second snow event will impact the area from Noon Sunday through Noon, Monday, with 2- to 4-inches of snow from southwest through central Iowa. As much as 4-to 6-inches of snow can be expected from Ames northward, to the Minnesota border. Winds will be southeast at 10-15mph. Roadways are likely to become snow-covered and slippery. Visibility may be less than 1 mile during periods of heavier snow. The Monday morning commute may be significantly impacted!

If you have travel plans in Iowa, especially Sunday afternoon through Monday morning, make sure you are prepared for snow-covered, slippery roads & increased travel times. The rest of next week looks to be cool, with high temperatures in the 20s and 30s, and low dipping to the teens several days next week.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Officials say more than 220,000 poor or disabled Iowans could lose access to Mercy Health Network because of a contract dispute with a Medicaid management company.

The patients receive Medicaid through AmeriHealth Caritas, one of three companies the state hired last year to run the program. The Des Moines Register reports that AmeriHealth has told those patients in a recent letter that it’s been unable to negotiate new contract terms with Mercy. AmeriHealth says the Mercy system no longer would be an AmeriHealth network provider if a deal isn’t struck by July 1.

AmeriHealth says Mercy could continue serving those patients if it were to accept lower, out-of-network fees. The Mercy Health Network includes Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, hospitals in 12 other cities, plus about 200 clinics.

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst says she’s just started reviewing the proposal passed in the U-S House to replace Obamacare and isn’t ready to say yet if she’ll support the legislation. “What I am looking for is that I want to ensure that Iowans will have access to affordable coverage that meets their individual and their family needs,” Ernst says.

Ernst, a Republican from Red Oak, says “So many of the families and individuals I talk with have come forward and they’ve stated ‘sure now we’re covered by Obamacare, but it’s still too expensive, I can’t go to the hospital because of the out-of-pocket costs and high deductibles.’ So, we’ve heard many times about the premiums that have increased significantly and the frustrations families have.”

Ernst says one of the things she has seen that she likes is allowing people with pre-existing conditions to get insurance. “As it has been put in the package right now, those pre-existing conditions will be covered. There is also a provision in the current package that allows for children to be covered on their parent’s policies through age 26,” according to Ernst. “Those are two of the biggest things that we hear about, so those should really please a lot of people that we took that into consideration.”

Ernst was asked if getting the replacement for Obamacare promised by Republicans is proving to be more difficult than they thought. “I think that we have known that it was going to be complicated, but we have to have the fortitude to work through this to make sure that if families are covered that they actually can go to the doctor,” Ernst says.

Ernst made her comments during her weekly conference call with reporters.

(Radio Iowa)

The Iowa Senate has approved a bill that would make so-called “project labor agreements” illegal on construction that’s financed by state or local governments. Republicans say non-union contractors do not bid on government-financed projects because of these agreements. Senator Dennis Guth, a Republican from Klemme, steered the bill through the senate. “Taxpayers deserve the best construction that they can get at the very best price that they can get,” Guth says. “This bill will make that happen by encouraging more contractors to bid on a project.”

Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Rob Hogg of Cedar Rapids say “project-labor agreements” help unmask “shysters” trying to land work on a publicly-funded project.
“We want to look at the experience of bidders…at their track record,” Hogg said. “…We want to look to make sure they’re treating their employees above board and not underground.”

The president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Iowa says if the bill becomes law, more in-state contractors will start competing for government projects. In other action Thursday, the Senate unanimously passed a bill that would allow prosecutors to argue a motorist was reckless because they were using a hand-held device at the time of an accident and should be charged with vehicular homicide.

(Radio Iowa)

The Iowa Department of Education released a policy paper Thursday, which shows the statewide effort by Iowa schools to catch and correct reading problems in students early on is showing progress. The paper says nearly nine-thousand students in kindergarten through third grade who had fallen short of benchmarks in reading in the fall of 2015 met or surpassed benchmarks by the spring of 2016, an increase of four-point-two (4.2) percentage points. The Ed Department’s Amy Williamson oversees the Bureau of School Improvement. She says the early warning system implemented in 2014 is a key part of helping kids improve their reading.

“What we are doing is measuring something that teachers can use on a three-times-a-year basis, or even progress monitor on a weekly basis with universal screening assessments,” Williamson says. “That has to be something that can be done quickly and detect very fine increments of progress.” Williamson says it gives a much better picture of what’s happening with students than the annual assessments.

She says the annual assessments are like a weight loss plan where you don’t weigh yourself every day and see changes by the ounce. But she says they have to see fine increments on a weekly basis to change the reading instruction.

The 398 public and non-public schools using the early warning system saw a nearly 61 percent increase in the percentage of students in kindergarten through third grade that were at or above the state benchmark for reading. Waterloo saw the biggest increase among urban districts at 14-point-six percent from the fall of 2015 to the spring of 2016. Jane Lindaman, the district’s superintendent, says it has been a group effort.

“There is not doubt that the district, the implementation, the buy-in from the teachers, the leadership matters. And so when people believe in the system, when they believe in kids and they are tracking it all along the way — I think it is truly about the work ongoing,” Lindaman says. She says getting kids to become better readers goes beyond trying to meet some state requirement.

“For us it is not just something that we do for compliance,” Lindaman says,”we don’t just do it and then turn in the scores and have then have the state look at them. For us in Waterloo it doesn’t have much to do with the state at all. It has everything to do with our Waterloo kids.” Lindaman says parents are also coming along.

“I would say that right now our parents probably have more questions that answers, but they are asking the questions, which is part of the process,” Lindaman says. “So they are starting to say ‘how does this work?’ And so we are along the journey, we are down the road a little bit on our working with parents and letting them know. They fit in because they can support the work at home, but right now we need them to understand where they students are and what the school is doing to help them improve.”

Centerville third-grade teacher, Tynne Sulser, says the last three years of implementing the program have been a learning experience for her as a teacher. “I thought that I was doing the best that I could. And it turns out I needed to look at what I needed to do in the classroom and I did need to make changes in my core instruction,” Sulser says. “And by doing that — I cannot tell you, it brings tears to my eyes the first time my kids — they were so excited, they were self-confident. These are kids who struggle in reading every single day.”

She says she’s seen improvement even in the kids who struggle the most. “They may be a lot lower than proficiency and so when they are gaining 40 correct words per minute in two months, three months, and they are still not proficient — you can’t ask any more for that child,” Sulser says. Sulser says the kids gain confidence in the progress they have made and it will continue. “You just keep on going and you keep on going and that confidence is going to get them there,” Sulser says. “It might not be in third grade, but it’s going to be in fourth grade.”

Increases in the highest-growth school districts ranged from 19 to 32 percentage points. Iowa’s early literacy law passed by the Legislature in 2012, focuses on making sure all students are proficient readers by the end of third grade.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:30 a.m. CST

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A utility that supplies drinking water to Des Moines has spent millions of dollars to rid its water supply of pollutants that run off farm fields. Exasperated officials at Des Moines Water Works filed a lawsuit to force the agricultural counties to clamp down on the runoff. But Iowa’s Republican controlled Legislature, strongly influenced by the farm lobby, is now working on a bill to dissolve the utility, which would effectively kill the lawsuit.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Republican-controlled House approved a contested voter identification bill along party lines Thursday after forcing debate to end. The legislation would require people to show approved identification to vote. People without a state driver’s license are expected to receive a free state-issued card in the mail. The bill would also create a system for distributing money for purchasing or updating electronic elections software.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa House has approved a Republican-backed bill that would ban local governments from raising the minimum hourly wage, effectively revoking some wage increases for low-income workers. The chamber approved the bill Thursday night, will all the votes in support coming from the GOP majority. The bill now moves to the Senate, where the Republican majority also supports the proposal.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Police say a teen has been killed after being hit by a road grader as he crossed a Des Moines street. Police say in a news release that 16-year-old Antonio Sanchez, of Des Moines, was hit Thursday afternoon as he crossed SW 9th Street. Police and medics were called around 2:40 p.m. and found Sanchez on the street. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died.

WEBSTER CITY, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a man has died in an overnight house fire in central Iowa, and a woman was critically injured in the fire. Iowa Department of Public Safety officials say the fire was reported around 10:45 p.m. Wednesday in Webster City. Officials say a search of the home led firefighters to discover the couple inside. Both were taken to a hospital, where the man died.