DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The owner of six cosmetology schools in Iowa will forgive some student debt, pay a fine and submit to outside oversight to settle a lawsuit filed by the Iowa attorney general’s office. The Des Moines Register reports La’ James International Colleges agreed to forgive $2.1 million in student debt and pay a $550,000 fine. The settlement also requires former U.S. Attorney Nicholas Klinefeldt to serve at least three years as an independent settlement administrator who can oversee the company’s compliance.

The agreement settles a lawsuit filed in 2014 that had contended La’ James engaged in deceptive and unfair practices in its marketing, enrollment and instruction. La’ James has schools in Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Fort Dodge, Iowa City and Johnston. The company didn’t admit wrongdoing in the settlement.

The Adair County Auditor’s Office will close at noon on Tuesday, July 12, 2016 through Friday, July 15, 2016 for extensive training in Elections, Human Resources, and Budget and Finance. The office will re-open at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, July 18, 2016.

If there is an emergency and you need to talked to the Auditor’s office during that time, please call 641-202-1146 to leave a message and someone will respond at the first opportunity. County Auditor Mindy Schaefer sincerely apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause and thanks you for your patience.

The National Weather Service sent a team into southwest Iowa this morning (Thursday) to look for any damage to trees, crops and buildings from last night’s two possible tornadoes. Meteorologist Van DeWald, in the weather service’s Omaha office, says the severe weather rumbled through both Harrison and Pottawattamie counties.

“We had a pretty strong storm that developed near Persia, Iowa, and then moved southwest toward Underwood,” DeWald says. “We do have reports of a couple of tornado touchdowns. We are sending out a survey crew to look at that to see if it’s one tornado or two and to find the beginning and ending points.” Persia and Underwood are about 16 miles apart and he says the area was pelted with large hail during the storm which struck about 6 P-M.

“I don’t believe there’s any injuries and there is some damage out there but it seems to be mostly to trees,” DeWald says. “I haven’t heard of a lot of structural damage at this time.” Iowans will need to keep an eye to the sky as more severe weather is possible within a matter of several hours.

“We do have a cold front coming down into the area,” DeWald says. “That could trigger some thunderstorms throughout the day today. Some of them could be strong, especially this afternoon into early evening.”

(Radio Iowa)

Some relatively cool conditions have settled over Iowa to end the month of June, similar to the way the month started. But, State Climatologist Harry Hillaker says it was extremely hot nearly every other day. “Overall, it’ll probably end up being just a little bit shy of being four degrees warmer than a typical June, which may not sound like a lot, but we’d probably have to go back to 1988 to find a June that averaged warmer than this one did,” Hillaker says.

The average High in Atlantic thru the 29^th, was 87.4-degrees, which was 4.7-degrees warmer than normal. Statewide, the average temperature for June will wind up being close to 74 degrees, also about 4 degrees warmer than normal.

Statewide, the average temperature for June will wind up being close to 74 degrees. Hillaker expects this will likely be the 11th-hottest June in Iowa in 144 years of records. In Des Moines, temperatures reached the 90s on 13 of June’s 30 days. “We had only one location in the state that managed to get to triple digits during June and that was the town of Little Sioux, between Council Bluffs and Sioux City on the Nebraska border. They hit an even 100 degrees on June 11,” Hillaker says.

The average low for the month of June in Atlantic (through June 29^th, was 61.5-degrees, which is 2.7-degrees warmer than normal. Rainfall amounts over the month varied widely, with the heaviest totals in northeast Iowa.

“Some areas up there had well above normal precipitation for the month. A few places are over 10 inches of rainfall for June, which would be roughly about double the usual amount,” Hillaker says. Other areas of the state received very little rain in June. “The west-central and southeast corners of the state saw less than an inch of rain for the full month,” Hillaker says. “June is usually the most reliable month of the year for rainfall, so to get less than an inch is quite unusual,” Hillaker said.

In Atlantic, thru June 29^th, we received just eight-tenths of an inch of rain. Normally, we would have received 4.98-inches. The U.S. Drought Monitor indicates “moderate drought conditions” exist over southeast Iowa and most of southern Iowa is abnormally dry.

(Radio Iowa/KJAN weather data)

A couple of months ago, KJAN News told you Rex Pharmacy in downtown Atlantic had been nominated for a Health Mart Pharmacy of the Year, award. Now we can let the cat out of the bag. It’s official: Rex Pharmacy is the winner. The establishment has been serving Atlantic and Cass County for more than 75-years. Owner Josh Borer, who purchased the business a few years ago, and his family were present to receive the award June 27^th during a banquet and awards program held in Chicago.

4,600 independent, individually-owned Health Mart pharmacies nationwide were in the running for the top award. Jeff Aden, McKesson (Health Mart parent company) retail sales manager/representative, nominated Rex Pharmacy and owner Josh Borer, for the award.

The Atlantic Police Department reports an Audubon County man was arrested Wednesday on drug and other charges. 55-year old Philip Gross, of Hamlin, faces charges that include: Possession of a Controlled Substance/methamphetamine – 3rd offense; Possession of Contraband in a Correctional Facility; Possession of a Controlled Substance/Marijuana – 3rd offense, and OWI. Gross was booked into the Cass County Jail.

And, an Atlantic man was arrested Wednesday for OWI/2nd offense. 52-year old Tim Planck was also being held in the Cass County Jail.

As the Fourth of July approaches, local and national authorities are hoping to convince persons who plan on having a private fireworks display, and those who purchase fireworks outside of Iowa (which is illegal), to leave those types of displays to the professional. Atlantic Fire Chief Mark McNees said fireworks are illegal to possess and shoot within Atlantic city limits at all times.

He said also, “As President of the IFA [Iowa Firefighters Association], we helped lead the charge of fire and emergency response agencies in defeating another attempt to expand Iowa’s fireworks laws this past legislative session.” McNees said ” We are concerned with public safety and the vast majority of serious life altering injuries occur to children. Omaha had an incident a couple of days ago where a guy burned his hands and lost at least one finger.”

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) says there’s no safe way to use consumer fireworks. According to NFPA, coordinator of the Alliance to Stop Consumer Fireworks, U.S. fire departments responded to an annual average of 18,500 fires caused by fireworks between 2009 and 2013. These fires included 1,300 structure fires, 300 vehicle fires, 16,900 outside and other fires, and killed two people per year

Last year, two NFL players made headlines by losing fingers in accidents involving fireworks. The two separate high-profile incidents raised awareness about the dangers of consumer fireworks.

Almost half (47 percent) of the fires reported on Independence Day in the U.S. during this period were started by fireworks, more than any other cause of fire. However, the vast majority of fireworks injuries occur without a fire starting. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), more than half of fireworks injuries each year are to extremities – hand or finger (36 percent), legs (14 percent), and arms (5 percent). Most of the remaining injuries were to parts of the head (38 percent), including the eye (16 percent of total).

Lorraine Carli, NFPA’s vice president of Outreach and Advocacy says “Each year, thousands of people are injured from using consumer fireworks and some of those injuries are extremely serious. Even sparklers, which are often thought of as harmless enough for children to hold, burn at 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit and can cause significant injuries.”

The Consumer Product Safety Commission’s 2014 Fireworks Annual Report shows fireworks were involved in an estimated 10,500 injuries that were treated in hospital emergency departments across the United States in 2014. The report indicated that 67 percent of these incidents occurred from June 20-July 20, 2014. That year, there were also 11 non-occupational fireworks-related deaths in the U.S., several of which involved people who were not using fireworks but were trapped in house fires that were caused by them.

Thirty-five percent of people injured by fireworks were under the age of 15, with children between the ages of five and nine requiring the highest level of emergency treatment. Seventy-four percent of the victims that sustained fireworks-related injuries were males, while 26 percent were females.

So how can you celebrate the holiday safely? Attend public fireworks displays put on by trained professionals. Carli says “Knowing the harm fireworks inflict each year, particularly on young people, we urge everyone to leave fireworks to the professionals who are trained to safely put on spectacular displays. It is by far the safest way to enjoy them.”

NFPA offers a wealth of information on fireworks safety, including videos and tip sheets that demonstrate just how dangerous consumer fireworks can be. More fireworks statistics can be found in NFPA’s 2016 Fireworks Report.

Iowa Republican U.S. Senators Joni Ernst and Charles Grassley, along with Nebraska Republican Senators Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse, have introduced “Sarah’s Law,” legislation to honor Sarah Root, an Iowan who was killed earlier this year by a drunk driver in the country illegally. Sarah’s Law would require U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to take custody of an individual who is in the country illegally and is charged with a crime resulting in the death or serious bodily injury of another person. (A pdf of the bill can be found here: http://www.ernst.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/8846bada-c343-4e14-996d-8e5e7c2c8769/6F049B3393E40AA2A666B915E9A4A6FF.sarah-s-law.pdf )

On the night of her graduation, a vehicle driven by 21-year old Sarah Root, from Council Bluffs, was hit in Omaha by Eswin Mejia, who entered the country illegally and was driving drunk – three times over the legal limit – and drag racing. Root died from injuries she suffered in the crash. Following state criminal charges of motor vehicle homicide and outreach by local law enforcement, ICE declined to use its discretion to issue a detainer requesting that local authorities hold the individual until it could take custody. Mejia subsequently posted bond and has since disappeared. Nearly five months later, Mejia still remains at-large.

The Senators say Sarah’s Law would amend the mandatory detention provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act to require the federal government to take custody of anyone who entered the country illegally, violated the terms of their immigration status, or had their visa revoked and is thereafter charged with a crime resulting in the death or serious bodily injury of another person. The legislation also requires ICE to make reasonable efforts to identify and provide relevant information to the crime victims or their families.

Joint-Efforts by the Iowa and Nebraska Senators to Obtain Justice for Sarah Root:

· On March 25, 2016 the Iowa and Nebraska Senators demanded answers from ICE Assistant Secretary Sarah Saldana on why the agency did not detain Edwin Mejia after he killed Sarah Root in a drunk driving incident.

· On April 27, 2016 the Iowa and Nebraska Senators sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell demanding to know who was monitoring Edwin Mejia as he entered the country illegally as an unaccompanied minor.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the state’s longstanding policy of barring felons from voting unless their rights are restored by the governor. The court ruled Thursday that felonies result in disenfranchisement under the Iowa Constitution, which bars voting by those convicted of “infamous crimes.”

The American Civil Liberties Union argued that only a small number of crimes that are an “affront to democratic governance” triggered the loss of voting rights. The ACLU had hoped to use the case to restore thousands of former offenders to election rolls and to erase Iowa’s status as one of the harshest toward felons’ voting rights.

Iowa, Florida and Kentucky are the only states with lifetime voting bans for felons unless their rights are restored by the governor.

Creston Police are investigating a couple of recent incidents of Theft. Officials say a woman residing in the 700 block of S. Poplar Street in Creston, reported Wednesday that someone had taken a wheel and tire from her vehicle, while it was parked outside of her home. The incident, which is believed to have occurred at around 7:30-a.m. Wednesday, resulted in an estimated $350 loss.

And, early this (Thursday) morning, a man residing in the 300 block of W. Montgomery Street in Creston, reported someone stole the front door from his apartment. The incident occurred sometime between 2:30-p.m. Wednesday and 2-a.m. today (Thursday). The loss was estimated at $50.