(Radio Iowa) — Leaders of Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant say the school will remain open this spring and recruiting for new students will continue. Thursday’s announcement followed word from administrators earlier this month that the school might close because of financial troubles. Annette Scieszinski, chair of the Iowa Wesleyan Board of Trustees, says alumni and residents of Mount Pleasant rallied around the school. “We are so grateful for the support of the community,” Scieszinski said. School officials on Thursday also announced the formation of a “New Directions Team” to address needs beyond this academic year. “I think Iowa Wesleyan University will stand as a leader in higher ed for the prospects that we see and the open-mindedness that we exercise in going forward in a changed environment,” Scieszinski said.

A couple weeks ago, University President Steven Titus said the school needed to find $2.1 million to have a spring semester. Students and faculty were among those who helped raise the money to keep the 176-year-old school in business. “I think it speaks of the commitment of this community,” Titus said. “I also think it illustrates how important institutions like this are to rural communities.” Prior to Thursday’s announcement, Kristi Ray of the Mount Pleasant Area Chamber of Commerce said the loss of Iowa Wesleyan would devastate the local economy. “We’re going to see houses on the markets, you’re going to see sales tax revenue decrease, and we’re going to see students in our public schools that have to leave because their parents were administrators here,” Ray speculated.

Iowa Wesleyan administrators said they’re open to institutional changes, including a potential merger with another school. They say long-term solutions will depend on more donor support and new partnerships with other organizations.

(Reporting for Radio IA by Theresa Rose, KILJ, Mount Pleasant & Kate Payne, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) — Attorney General Tom Miller says the budget for the Iowa Department of Justice has reached a “perilous” point. Miller says there’s not enough money to cover the costs of working with county attorneys on criminal cases, working to uphold criminal convictions that are appealed AND representing the state when it’s sued in civil court. “Pretty vital functions of our office and state government,” Miller says. The situation, Miller says, has been caused by a series of budget cuts over a long period of time. “Earlier this year we really had a crisis or a semi-crisis in representing the state in civil litigation. A whole sort of ‘perfect storm’ came at us,” Miller says. “I was extremely concerned and we worked through that, at least temporarily, but we’re just teetering on what the citizens of Iowa want us to do and expect us to do.”

Miller says “to avert total disaster” over the past two years, lawmakers gave him authority to use payments from legal settlements paid to the state by companies accused of bilking Iowa consumers. Miller says that fund can’t be tapped forever. He’s asking the governor and legislators for a half-a-million dollar boost for the current state budgeting year and a one million dollar increase in his agency’s budget for the following fiscal year.

This past spring, a key Republican lawmaker threatened to cut Miller’s budget by 10 percent — because Miller is joining lawsuits challenging Trump Administration policies. Miller, a Democrat, was just reelected to a 10th term in office. Republicans did not nominate a candidate for attorney general in 2018.

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

MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa (AP) — A private school in southeast Iowa that was on the verge of closure says it has secured new funding that will keep its doors open. The board of Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant voted Thursday to continue operations after securing funding from alumni and the community, as well as collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has ordered flags on state property flown at half-staff to honor a fallen sailor from Traer in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. U.S. and state flags are to be lowered from sunrise to sunset Friday to coincide with a burial Mass in Traer for William Kvidera. Kvidera was a 22-year-old carpenter’s mate 3rd class assigned to the USS Oklahoma when it was torpedoed on Dec. 7, 1941. His remains were recently identified.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Banking giant Wells Fargo has informed employees that it will lay off 400 workers in the Des Moines area. Local bank spokesman Steve Carlson told the Des Moines Register that the company notified employees in the home lending department on Thursday. The layoffs go into effect early next year. Wells Fargo employs more than 15,500 people in Iowa, including about 14,000 in metropolitan Des Moines.

JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) — Dozens of students were sent to hospitals after a building with high levels of carbon monoxide was evacuated at the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy in suburban Des Moines. An overnight security officer detected a strong odor a little before 6 a.m., academy director Judy Bradshaw said. Nearly 60 students with elevated blood levels of carbon monoxide were sent to hospitals, and Bradshaw said other students who’d been exposed but displayed no symptoms were taken to hospitals as a precaution.

Officials with the Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources said Thursday, that a plugged manhole at the Smithfield Foods plant in Denison, sent some rinse water to the Boyer River early Thursday morning.

Smithfield crews noticed the discharge around 3:30 a.m., about 15 to 30 minutes after they think it started. An unknown amount of final rinse water flowed across the property, then entered a storm sewer that flows into the river.

In less than two hours, a construction crew built a small dam, stopping the flow into the river. Another crew began vacuuming up the rinse water. DNR staff were on site before 8 a.m., checking on the cleanup and the river. DNR will continue to monitor cleanup efforts and consider appropriate enforcement action.