The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said today (Monday), 18-year old Wyatt Dean Baldwin, of Villisca, was arrested at around 3:15-p.m. (Monday) for Operating a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. Baldwin was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $2,000 bond.

An Iowa State University researcher studying the impact of wind turbines on Iowa crops hopes to win funding to expand on the initial work he has done. Gene Takle has already found some differences in conditions such as temperature and humidity in fields near turbines. That funding is running out in the next year. “We have written one proposal to the National Science Foundation for additional funding and we’re in the process right now of writing a proposal — if it were funded — would bring researchers from several institutions to focus on this problem,” Takle says.

Takle, a distinguished professor of agronomy and geological and atmospheric sciences, says there are many other researchers who are interested in taking part. “Scientists from Purdue, from the University of Illinois, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, from the University of Oklahoma, the National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment — which is a U-S-D-A lab — is interested in coming and bringing instruments. And we also have interest from the Finnish Meteorological Institute and the University of Helsinki that are interested and want to participate in the analysis of any data that we get in,” according to Takle.

Takle says his research is different from what has been done by others. “There have been researchers who have looked at two aspects. They have looked at conditions upwind and downwind of winds farms, but they haven’t measured conditions inside a wind farm,” Takle says. Other researchers have examined satellite images of wind farms. “They’ve looked at Iowa and they’ve looked the landscape over Texas, where there is a lot of wind farms,” Takle explains, “and they see a consistent pattern that at night the satellite pictures show that there is a very slight warm spot associated with each of these wind farms.”

He says that warm spot is similar to heat islands seen on satellites near cities. Takle says there is more to learn more about why the heat island is created. “These researchers have not been down on the ground to say ‘well it’s because it was an irrigation region around this area or cattle were grazed there, or crops were managed differently of for some other reason other than the turbines creating it,'” Takle says. “So we are the first to measure inside a wind farm and concurrently outside a wind farm so we can actually measure the differences.”

Takle says all these other variables will make it harder to find answers to the causes of the impact on farm fields near the turbines.

(Radio Iowa)

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) – A Nebraska man accused of threatening to stab someone with a syringe that he said held HIV-tainted blood has pleaded guilty to a reduced Iowa robbery charge. Court records say 35-year-old Jeshua Divis, who lives in Omaha, pleaded guilty Thursday in a Council Bluffs courtroom and was sentenced to time served.

Divis had been convicted of robbery in March 2015. His conviction was overturned and he was granted a new trial after he challenged his conviction. He said some of the evidence against him should not have been allowed at trial and that his attorneys were ineffective.

Prosecutors say Divis told a woman at the Ameristar Casino in Council Bluffs in November 2014 that he’d inject her with the tainted blood if she didn’t hand over her money.

Officials with the Stuart Police Department say a joint investigation between Guthrie County Deputies, Panora Police Officers and Stuart Police Officers has resulted in several juveniles being charged with various crimes. As part of the investigation a search warrant was conducted Sunday night in the 300 block of North Division Street, in Stuart. During the search, officers and deputies recovered several types of illegal narcotics, including what is believed to be Cocaine and a substance commonly referred to as “Acid”. The names of the juveniles involved will not be released due to their age.

The Board of Supervisors in Adair and Cass Counties will hold their annual organizational meetings Tuesday morning (Jan 3rd), in Greenfield and Atlantic, respectively. The meeting in Atlantic begins at 8:30-a.m., while the Greenfield meeting gets underway at 9-a.m.

Both Boards will take care of Administrative duties that include electing a Board Chair and Vice-Chair for 2017, setting their meeting schedule, approving the appointments of Deputies and/or their assistants; Adopting a Master Matrix livestock Resolution for submission to the Iowa DNR that makes recommendations to approve or deny construction permit applications for livestock facilities, and much more.

In Adair County, a Public Hearing will be held at 9:30-a.m. Tuesday, on a Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Amendment, followed by a Resolution approving the amendment as written. Bob Kempf, with the Adair/Guthrie County Emergency Management Agency, will present a 28-E agreement and change in Tax Draw, to the Board. And, County Engineer Nick Kauffman will present for signature, a Resolution for Empowerment of the Engineering, as well as a Resolution Designating the County Engineer. Kauffman is also serving as Interim County Engineer in Union County.

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

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Members of the Atlantic and Griswold School District’s Boards of Education will meet Tuesday evening in Griswold Midde/High School Library. Available Board members from both schools will be meeting at 6-p.m. with southwest Iowa Representative Tom Moore and Senator Tom Shipley on legislative matters of importance to the districts and education in general.

The session is open for the public to attend. No action is expected, only discussion.

Thousands of Iowans celebrated the New Year in Pasadena, California last year as the Iowa Hawkeyes played in the Rose Bowl. There will be at least six Iowans there today (Monday) for the annual Rose Parade as part of the Choose Life float honoring organ donations. Iowa Organ Donor Network spokesman, Tony Hakes (like Lakes), says they want everyone to start the year out by thinking about being an organ donor.

“There’s an absolute shortage of organs nationwide and we really feel it’s a solvable problem,” Hakes says. “We encourage everyone to mark ‘yes’ on their driver’s license or register online, or just make their wishes know to their family, because 120-thousand people at any given time are on the wait list.”

Hakes says the organ donation float in the Rose Parade is a great way to bring attention to the issue. Hakes says some 800 million people watch the parade on T-V and one million are there in person, and he says it is a good way to let people know that organ donation “saves lives, it heals lives.”

The float in the parade will include a florograph with a likeness of Iowa organ donor Dyllan Lawson. Lawson had just completed his first year at the University of Iowa in pre-medicine when he was involved in a car accident on June 30th, 2011 that left him with severe head injuries. His organs were donated to four people. Cindy Newton will walk alongside the float which her daughter Carlie will ride on. Cindy donated part of her liver to Carlie, who was born with a disease that kept her liver from functioning.

The Iowa Donor Network has participated in the parade and float for many years. Hakes got to go last year and says all the Iowans there made it special. He says they knew they were going to the parade in the summer and having so many Iowa fans there made it a lot of fun.

For more information on signing up to be an organ donor, go to the Iowa Donor Network website. (http://www.iowadonornetwork.org/)

(Radio Iowa)

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

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The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office says a man from Nebraska was arrested Sunday afternoon on a warrant out of Mills County. 31-year old Jared Wayne Gatlin, of Bellevue, NE., was pulled over at around 1:45-p.m. following a traffic stop. Gatlin was taken into custody on a Mills County warrant for Contempt of Court, the bond for which was set at $2,500. Gatlin was turned over to Mills County Deputies.

And, Red Oak Police say 37-year old Philip Michael Eshelman, of Red Oak, was arrested just before 8-p.m., Sunday, for Driving While Suspended. He was brought to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $300 bond.