CHARITON, Iowa (AP) – Authorities say a pilot has been found dead after the crash of his plane in south-central Iowa. The Lucas County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Thursday that the plane went down in northwestern Lucas County. The release said the pilot was alone in the plane but did not provide other details, including the pilot’s name and the type of plane he was flying.

The Sheriff’s Office says it was advised Wednesday afternoon by air traffic control in Des Moines that radar contact with the private plane had been lost and that officials thought the plane was somewhere in Monroe County. Searches were conducted in Monroe County and adjacent Lucas County, and the plane wreckage was found around 5:30 p.m. in Lucas County.

An accident Wednesday night in Glenwood resulted in damage to property and multiple vehicles, and the arrest of a woman on an OWI charge. Glenwood Police say 60-year old Mary Nissen, of Glenwood, was driving too fast for conditions, and driving in a reckless, erratic, careless, negligent manner. She was charged with OWI/1st offense and later released on a $1,000 cash bond.

Officials say Nissen was leaving her home at 227 Florence Avenue and began to drive south. Her 2013 Chevy Impala struck a 2001 Ford Explorer on the left rear side before continuing south and hitting a a 2003 Ford Crown Victoria on the left rear side. The Crown Vic spun around and came to rest against a 2014 Buick Verano.

Nissen’s Impala continued straight ahead through a yard at 111 W. Florence and hit a 1994 Dodge pickup on the passenger side. The pickup then slid into a 2001 Mitsubishi Galant. Damage from the crash amounted to $45,500.

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

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Police in Creston report the arrest Wednesday evening, of 29-year old Kenneth Williams, of Creston. Williams was taken into custody on a Union County warrant for Probation Violation. He was being held in the Union County Jail on a $10,000 bond.

And, a Creston resident reported to police Wednesday, that sometime around 1-a.m. that day, a person or persons unknown pulled the cable outside of her home. The cable was attached to her television. The action caused the TV to fall and break. The loss was estimated at $278.

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

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CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – Linn County supervisors have again voted to advance a measure increasing the county’s minimum wage. The board voted 4-1 Wednesday to raise the county rate to $8.25 an hour on Jan. 1. The wage would increase by a dollar in January 2018 and another dollar in January 2019. The current county, state and national rate is $7.25 an hour.

The board is scheduled to vote on the proposal for a third and last time Monday.

OSCEOLA, Iowa (AP) – Seven children and one adult were taken to two hospitals after their school bus toppled off a slick gravel road outside Osceola Wednesday afternoon. The Iowa State Patrol says the 2014 Thomas bus driven by 72-year old Darwin Griffith, of Osceola, was traveling north on 210^th Avenue, just north of Truro, when the bus went out of control and slid into the east ditch, where it struck a bridge railing and overturned, coming to rest in a creek. The accident happened just before 3-p.m., Wednesday.

Griffith and all seven children suffered minor injuries and were transported to the Clarke County Hospital in Osceola and Blank Children’s Hospital in Des Moines, as a precaution. Clarke County Sheriff’s Deputy Brian Akers says the area had received a heavy downpour that turned the road “all to soup,” shortly before the crash.

Two people were injured during a single-vehicle accident in Pottawattamie County, Wednesday. The Iowa State Patrol reports a 2006 Chevy Colorado pickup driven by 33-year old Rhonda Rodrick, of Maryville, MO., was traveling north on Interstate 29 at around 9:05-p.m., when the vehicle entered the median near the southern city limits of Council Bluffs (44.5 mile marker), and struck a cable barrier.

The pickup took out about 20 barrier posts before it came to rest against the barrier. Rodrick and her passenger, 28-year old Sheila McMichael, also of Maryville, MO., were transported by Lewis Township Rescue to Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs for treatment of minor injuries. The Patrol says Rodrick was wearing her seat belt, but McMichael was not.

Patty Judge — the Democrat who’s challenging Republican Senator Chuck Grassley’s bid for reelection — says Grassley is distorting HER record AND his own when it comes to pay raises. Grassley’s running a campaign ad that criticizes Judge for failing to voluntarily take a pay cut in 2009 when she was serving as Iowa’s lieutenant governor. “In the height of that recession, where he is trying to call me out, he took a permanent pay raise that was nearly $5000,” Judge says. “Now that was his 23rd raise since he went to Washington.”

Judge served one term as lieutenant governor and her salary was about 103-thousand dollars. “As lieutenant governor I never took a pay raise, including a cost of living adjustment. It simply was not done,” Judge says. Grassley told Radio Iowa earlier this week that “several times in the last five or six years” he’s taken “a pay cut.” Judge says that’s not a “straight answer.”

“He’s trying to claim that voting against a COLA — a cost of living adjustment — is the same thing as taking a pay cut, you know. Really,” Judge says. “Only someone who’s been in Washington too long would try to make that kind of argument.” According to the U.S. Senate’s website, the salaries for senators have been frozen at 174-thousand dollars since 2009. Judge says Grassley and other Republicans insisted on taking the longest summer recess since the 1950s — and she suggests their pay should be cut as a result of that extra vacation.

“Chuck Grassley is more concerned with airing negative attack ads today than working on behalf of Iowa,” Judge says. Grassley’s campaign manager is accusing Judge of trying to “change the subject” from her mismanagement of state government while she was lieutenant governor. Grassley campaign manager Robert Haus (like “house”) says Judge took a “meat cleaver” to the state budget and forced workers to take furloughs or be laid off, but wouldn’t take a pay cut herself.

Grassley told Radio Iowa on Tuesday that he has “consistently voted for measures to deny all congressional pay raises.” Judge says during the government shutdown of 2013 Grassley continued to accept his taxpayer-funded salary, while about 120 other members of congress donated their salaries to charity or back to the government.

(Radio Iowa)

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

OSCEOLA, Iowa (AP) — Children were taken to two hospitals after their school bus toppled off a slick gravel road outside Osceola. Clarke Community School District Superintendent Steve Seid says eight to 10 elementary and middle school students were in the bus when it slid off the road and overturned Wednesday afternoon near Squaw Creek. Seid told The Des Moines Register the children appear to have only minor injuries but were taken to hospitals in Osceola and Des Moines as a precaution.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — Authorities have identified a 10-year-old boy who died last week after crashing his bicycle into a tree. The Quad City-Times reports that Raydell Maurice Hurt Jr., of Davenport, died in the Friday accident. A preliminary investigation indicates that the boy was riding his bicycle down a hill in the cemetery when he lost control and hit the tree.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A third man convicted in the 2011 robbery and fatal shooting of a northwest Iowa resident has been sent to prison. Federal prosecutors say Courtland Clark, of Flowery Branch, Georgia, was sentenced Wednesday to 21 years in custody. He’d pleaded guilty to interference with commerce by robbery and to a weapons offense.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court has decided to let an attorney who took more than $99,000 from a client resume practicing law. The Des Moines Register reports that the justices ruled unanimously to reinstate Michael Reilly’s law license. The court ruling released Friday said Reilly had worked hard to overcome a gambling addiction that led to the theft. Several western Iowa lawyers had written letters vouching for his character.