STORM LAKE, Iowa (AP) — A Storm Lake woman faces a child endangerment charge after authorities allege she hit a child in the head with a cellphone. The Sioux City Journal reports that police arrested the 38-year-old woman after being called to home in Storm Lake by the Iowa Department of Human Services, which reported possible child abuse involving a 7-year-old girl.

Police and agency personnel say they found the girl suffering from a head injury. After an investigation, officials determined that the woman had hit the girl with a cellphone as a form of discipline.

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

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One person died in a crash involving a car and a semi in Dallas County early this (Saturday) morning. The Iowa State Patrol says 28-year old Danny Lynn Dunton, of Van Meter, who was wearing his seat belt, died in the crash that happened at around 1:35-a.m. just off the Van Meter exit from Interstate 80 westbound.

Officials say Dunton had begun to exit the interstate, when the 2014 VW he was driving came into contact with a 2016 tractor-trailer that was parked on the shoulder of the exit ramp. Following the collision, the VW came to rest on its top in the ditch. The operator of the semi, 52-year old James Ronald Renshaw, of Council Bluffs, was not hurt.

The accident remains under investigation.

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

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Authorities say two men from California have been arrested after nearly 400 pounds of marijuana was found in a recreational vehicle in Omaha.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office says the men, from Fontana, California, were taken into custody early Friday after a traffic stop in the city’s south side.

Authorities say a deputy’s dog indicated the odor of drugs in the RV. Twelve large boxes containing nearly 400 pounds of packaged marijuana was later discovered in various areas of the vehicle. The Omaha World-Herald reports a third man in the vehicle fled during the traffic stop. Authorities have been unable to find him.

About 12-hundred school board members and superintendents from across Iowa, including those from Atlantic, will be attending the Iowa Association of School Boards state convention next week. Luann Gvist is organizing the 70th annual meeting at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. Gvist says the three-day conference will feature several great keynote speakers. “One of the gentlemen is a school superintendent from Georgia who is doing a lot of innovative things in their public school district,” Gvist says. “Also, we’re excited to have one of our own teachers from Iowa who was the National Teacher of the Year in 2010, Sarah Brown-Wessling.”

Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds will be speaking at the convention on Thursday about the state of education in Iowa. A workshop on school finances will be very helpful, Gvist says, especially since the elections were just held a few weeks ago. “We’re welcoming a whole host of brand new school board members to our convention and we can provide them with in-depth learning on topics such as that and also board-superintendent relationships,” Gvist says, “and we also offer break-out sessions on a wide variety of topics.”

The convention runs next Wednesday through Friday. Learn more at the Iowa Association of School Boards website: www.ia-sb.org

(Radio Iowa)

Gas prices dropped a few pennies a gallon in the last week. Iowa Department of Natural Resources fuels analyst Harold Hommes says he’s seen the drop in and around the state’s capital. “Most here in the metro are on that two-14 mark. The state average would be a little bit higher than that, but are also certainly points in Iowa regionally that are somewhat under that two-14 mark, so that’s a pretty good competitive price now for fuels,” Hommes says. The statewide average is two-dollars, 30 cents a gallon. Hommes says good supplies have push down the wholesale terminal price of gas and that’s led to a drop in the retail cost.

“We’ve got a dollar-30 rack or terminal price in most points throughout Iowa, 130, 131, so that makes it a falling market,” Hommes says. “We started off the week at about 148 at the rack, so we’ve taken 18 cents down. I look for retail to fall a little bit further yet.” There are 47-and-a-half cents of taxes added to the rack price of gasoline, so that would put the cost at around one-dollar, 47 cents a gallon, leaving retailers with some 80 cents in profit depending on the rack price. Sumer holidays can make gas prices go up with increased demand, but Hommes says the Thanksgiving holiday isn’t expected to see an increase.

“It can lend to some temporary boosts, but the last few years frankly I haven’t seen that,” Hommes says. Hommes doesn’t see any big moves up in gas prices through the rest of this year. “I think that we’re going to see pretty favorable prices similar to what we have right now for the next couple of weeks,” according to Hommes. “If anything I think we may even see modest retreating from current levels and probably are going to get a little closer to that two-dollar mark in the next week to ten days.” The average price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline one year ago this week was two-dollars, 93 cents.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

SHELDAHL, Iowa (AP) — The central Iowa city of Sheldahl has issued a bottled water advisory after testing found concentrations of nitrate more than twice the maximum level considered safe. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says officials issued the advisory Friday after the DNR found nitrate levels of just over 2 milligrams per liter of water. The sample was taken November 4th but a laboratory didn’t notify the DNR within 24 hours as required. The city is flushing its water system. The DNR is conducting additional tests. The water is considered safe for adults and children older than 6 months but can be dangerous for younger children.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A report from Agriculture’s Clean Water Alliance says half of the 45 monitoring sites on the Raccoon River in central Iowa are showing the highest average nitrate levels in 10 years of data collection. The Des Moines Register reports the data on the river, which is a source of drinking water for 500,000 central Iowa residents, was included in the agribusiness group’s Thursday report.

CORALVILLE, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa inmate accused of trying to kill another inmate has been sentenced to additional time in prison. The Globe Gazette reports 22-year-old Michael Swanson was sentenced this month to 25 years in prison following a guilty plea of attempted murder. A criminal complaint says Swanson slashed an inmate in the neck at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville in November 2014. The victim required stiches for several cuts. Swanson was serving two life sentences at the time for the 2010 shooting deaths of 47-year-old Vicky Bowman-Hall and 61-year-old Sheila Myers. The women were working at separate convenience stores at the time of their deaths.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — Students from 18 high schools in the Quad-Cities area have collected enough food for nearly 548,000 meals. Officials at a final rally at the River Bend Foodbank in Davenport Thursday said students participating in the Student Hunger Drive gathered more than 657,000 pounds of food over the past six weeks — about 4,000 more pounds than last year. The food bank serves 22 counties in eastern Iowa and western Illinois.

The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa said Friday, that on November 13th, 2015, 49-year old Stephen Thomas, of Los Angeles, California, was sentenced by Chief District Judge John A. Jarvey to 80 months in prison for his role in leading a sophisticated counterfeit credit and debit card scheme in Iowa. Thomas was also ordered to pay restitution, to serve 3 years of supervised release following the period of imprisonment, and to pay a $300 special assessment to the Crime Victims Fund. Thomas previously pleaded guilty to the charges of conspiracy, access device fraud, and false statements to a federal official.

The investigation of this matter began as a result of a suspicious package that was delivered to a hotel in Des Moines. Law enforcement determined that the package contained counterfeit debit and credit cards that had been mailed from California to Thomas and others. Thomas and three co-defendants—50-year old Ronald Barre, Jr., 39-year old Nakika Carter, and 58-year old Richard Foust—left California together to execute the scheme across the Midwest.

The group used counterfeit debit and credit cards to withdraw money from casinos in Minnesota and Iowa, and to purchase items at retailers. The counterfeit cards contained legitimate debit and credit card information encoded onto the strips of the back of the cards, but were embossed with the names of the defendants.Thomas traveled with a California driver’s license in another person’s name, and provided a false name, date of birth, and social security number to law enforcement. At the time of his arrest, Thomas had an active arrest warrant for having escaped from federal custody.

Thomas’s co-defendants were previously sentenced for their roles in the scheme. Foust received 24 months imprisonment; Carter received 20 months’ imprisonment; and Barre received 32 months’ imprisonment. All co-defendants are jointly and severally liable for restitution.

The investigation was conducted by the United States Postal Inspection Service, the United States Secret Service, the Des Moines Police Department, the Bloomington, Minnesota, Police Department, and the Iowa Department of Public Safety Division of Criminal Investigation. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Iowa prison officials say a 30-year-old inmate who didn’t return from his job has been listed as escaped from the state’s Council Bluffs work release facility. Authorities say Matthew Ashby didn’t return to the facility on Friday. He was transferred there on Sept. 15th.

Since June 2010, Ashby has been serving a 20-year sentence out of Cass County for willful injury and child endangerment with serious injury.