Regional News
Iowa News
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Figures compiled by the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency put damage statewide from recent flooding at more than $640 million. NEMA says on its website that current county estimates are of damage to public property of $553 million and private property of $89 million.
ANKENY, Iowa (AP) – Authorities have charged a burglary suspect shot by a police officer in a Des Moines suburb. County records don’t list an attorney for 27-year-old Myles Regenold, who’s charged with burglary and other crimes. Regenold was shot Tuesday after Ankeny officers were dispatched to a car wash to check a burglary call. Police say a masked man found there and later identified as Regenold didn’t comply with police commands and was shot in an elbow when he advanced on officers. Regenold wasn’t armed.
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) – A Pottawattamie County jury has found a man not guilty of the 2015 killing his 68-year-old mother in her rural south-central Iowa home. Des Moines station KCCI reports that 46-year-old Jason Carter was found not guilty on Thursday. He had been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Shirley Carter, whose body was found in the kitchen of her Marion County home.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The National Weather Service says the flooding in Nebraska and Iowa is just a preview of widespread major flooding to hit much of the country this spring. More than 200 million Americans will be at risk for some kind of flooding – with 13 million of them at risk of major flooding. The Mississippi, Missouri, Great Lakes, lower Ohio lower Cumberland and Tennessee rivers and their basins are at biggest risk.
Wisconsin News
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul is defending Wisconsin’s abortion restrictions in a legal filing made in response to a federal lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood. The filing Thursday comes a week after Republican lawmakers took steps to hire their own attorneys to intervene in the case because they don’t trust Kaul will vigorously defend the laws. Kaul is defending state laws that don’t allow nurses to perform abortions and limit the ability of women to obtain abortion-inducing drugs.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Democratic lawmakers are asking their Republican counterparts to stop paying outside attorneys representing the Legislature after a judge blocked the GOP’s lame-duck laws. Republican lawmakers passed laws limiting Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul’s powers. The laws allow lawmakers to intervene in lawsuits and hire their own attorneys rather than use Kaul’s Justice Department lawyers. Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess blocked the laws Thursday.
MILWAUKEE (AP) – MillerCoors has filed a lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch, saying its St. Louis-based rival wants to “frighten” people away from Miller Lite and Coors Light by claiming those beers have corn syrup. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Wisconsin federal court but the feud between the country’s two largest brewers began when Anheuser-Busch aired commercials making the corn syrup claim during this year’s Super Bowl. Corn syrup is a fermentation aid used by several brewers.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin’s unemployment rate has dropped to 2.9 percent after five straight months at 3 percent. The state Department of Workforce Development reported Thursday that Wisconsin’s unemployment rate was 2.9 percent in February. That is near the record-low of 2.8 percent reached in April last year. Prior to last year, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate never dropped below 3 percent.
Illinois News
CHICAGO (AP) – A Chicago judge is expected to rule on whether to let R. Kelly to travel overseas to perform several concerts to help the cash-strapped singer pay legal and other bills as he faces sex-abuse charges. A hearing Friday follows a defense motion saying the 52-year-old singer hopes to do up to five April concerts in Dubai. One bond condition was that Kelly not travel outside Illinois unless he got the judge’s permission first.
CHICAGO (AP) – A strategy seems to be emerging for how R. Kelly’s legal team intends to defend him against charges he sexually assaulted three girls and an adult woman. At trial, they’re likely to question the veracity of his accusers. Both Kelly and his attorney have said they are lying. Other statements indicate they’ll argue that, even if Kelly had sex with them, it was consensual and he thought they were of age. Prosecutors will try to corroborate the accusations, including with DNA evidence.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – The unemployment rate in Illinois was 4.3 percent in February. Illinois Department of Employment Security officials announced Thursday that the rate has remained unchanged since November. The state’s unemployment rate was 0.5 percentage points higher than the national rate of 3.8 percent reported for February. The state rate is down from 4.4 percent in February 2018.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Alternative rock band Shinedown will appear at the Illinois State Fair in August. Officials announced Thursday that the multiplatinum-selling group will headline the Illinois Lottery Grandstand on Aug. 17. Shinedown has sold 10 million albums worldwide, earned 11 platinum and gold singles and four platinum and gold albums. And each of the group’s released singles has reached the Top 5 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Songs Chart.