SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – Officials of a city in western Iowa have agreed to spend more than $100,000 on a project to silence train horns that now frequently blare through downtown.  The Sioux City Journal reports that Sioux City Council voted on Sept. 18 to approve a contract with Twin Cities-based SRF Consulting Group Inc. to create a “quiet zone” at multiple BNSF Railway train crossings downtown. Quiet zones are areas which meet specific safety guidelines that allow trains to pass through a crossing without sounding their horns.

Mayor Bob Scott was the lone dissenting vote. He says he voted against the project because the contract was being given to an out-of-state company instead of a local business. The city created another quiet zone in the downtown area seven years ago.

SLOAN, Iowa (AP) – The Winnebago Tribe is hoping to reclaim land in Iowa that was once part of its reservation in northeast Nebraska, but local hunters are concerned they might lose access. The Sioux City Journal reports the 1,643 acres of land is owned by the federal government and attracts hundreds of hunters each year. The land, which is near the tribe’s WinnaVegas Casino, was part of the Winnebago reservation when it was created in 1865. But the eastern border of the reservation was the Missouri River, which changed course over the years.

U.S. Rep. Steve King introduced a bill earlier this month to transfer the land to the Bureau of Indian Affairs where it would be held in trust for the tribe.

What started off as a single vehicle accident resulted in one person dead and two others injured early Saturday morning, in eastern Iowa. The Iowa State Patrol says the accident happened at around 1:40-a.m., when a 2007 Freightliner semi tractor-trailer driven by 37-year old Destom M. Kidane, of Tyler, TX., entered the ditch off Interstate 80 eastbound in Iowa County, near mile marker 209. The semi came back onto the road and overturned, coming to rest partially on the road and in the median. A passenger in a passing vehicle, 43-year old Stanislow Gruszka, of Palinfield, IL., stopped to assist. As Gruszka was going back to his vehicle, a secondary collision occurred between a 2017 Chevy Malibu driven by 56-year old Gregg Robert Vigna, of Plymouth, MI, and a 2005 Ford Freestyle SUV driven by 62-year old Donal Pirkl, of Victor, Iowa. 

The impact resulted in one of those vehicle striking Gruszka, causing fatal injuries. Kidane (The driver of the tractor-trailer), and Vigna, were transported by ambulance to the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics in Iowa City. The crash remains under investigation.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A Mason City man has been sentenced to more than 10 years in federal prison for possessing child pornography. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa says 47-year-old Jeffery Landheer was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Cedar Rapids to 121 months.

He had pleaded guilty May 19 to one count of possession of child pornography, admitting that between 2009 and 2016, he knowingly possessed child pornography on a computer hard drive. The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa lawmakers will not return to the state Capitol for a special session, but Iowa’s finances remain on shaky ground. Staff for Gov. Kim Reynolds announced last week a projected shortfall for the roughly $7.2 billion budget that ended in June was drastically smaller than expected. Final accounting turned up more than $70 million in additional revenue. The Republican governor will borrow $13 million from emergency reserves to offset the shortfall.

Iowa has borrowed about $144 million from such reserves this year, and lawmakers plan to repay that money in the next two years. There are also unknown costs tied to the privatized Medicaid health care program for poor and disabled people.

This will impact the current budget, though it’s unclear by how much. It could lead to additional agency budget reductions, or complicate a Republican priority next year to cut taxes.