Home News Friday News, October 25

Friday News, October 25

The Iowa Department of Transportation will raise some sections of Interstate 29 north of Council Bluffs to keep traffic moving even when the Missouri River floods.

Since I-29 is in the floodplain, Austin Yates with the Iowa D-O-T says there are some critical gaps in protection.

Yates says raising parts near Honey Creek, Crescent and Blackbird Marsh mean the river would have to rise even higher to force a shutdown.

Missouri River flooding shut down parts of I-29 in southwest Iowa four times this year.

Some sections are being raised as much as 28 inches, which Yates says won’t make it flood-proof, but water won’t spill onto the road at such a low river level like it did just last month.

The D-O-T has awarded a contract to add 14-inches of asphalt to northbound I-29 from Honey Creek to Loveland.

More than two-feet will be added in both directions near Blackbird Marsh.

Work on the $3.3 million-dollar contract is expected to be done by December 1st.

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Three Sioux City teens facing murder charges in Fresno, California have entered pleas.

18-year-old Isaac Helms, 19-year-old Precious Green and 19-year-old Hannah Haywood were arrested in September with 20-year-old Alexa Ramos of Firebaugh, California after the the shooting death of 20-year-old Tyrel Truss of Fresno.

California authorities say the suspects set up a meeting with Truss to rob him.

Police say they met and an altercation inside Truss’s car ended with Helms shooting Truss, causing the car to roll.

At arraignments this week in Superior Court of California, Helms pleaded not guilty to murder, second-degree robbery and receiving stolen goods.

His bail is set at $1.5 million.

Precious Green and Hannah Haywood each pleaded no contest to murder and second-degree robbery.

Their bail is $1 million each.

The Sioux City teens will be back in a Fresno courtroom in December for preliminary hearings.

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Iowa Senator Joni Ernst says she has signed on to a Republican resolution that condemns Democrats for failing to follow the proper process in their impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, who is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced the resolution.

Ernst says Democrats in the House are not following through on any other work before them:

Ernst says she doesn’t have any information to make any kind of a decision on whether the president’s dealings with the Ukraine were an impeachable offense.

Ernst says she will sit as a judge in the Senate if the inquiry moves forward and will make a decision based on the information.

 

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Northeast Nebraska is finally getting a new district court judge.

Governor Pete Ricketts has appointed Bryan Meismer of Fremont to the Sixth Judicial District bench.

The 45-year-old Meismer most recently served as the Public Defender for Butler County and Colfax County.

From 2002 to 2018, Meismer was an associate attorney with Register Law Office in Fremont.

The vacancy he fills was due to the resignation of Judge Paul J. Vaughan earlier this year.

Judge Meismer will regularly sit in Dakota, Dixon, and Cedar Counties, and elsewhere as circumstances may require.

The primary office location of this judgeship will be in either Dakota City, Ponca or Ā Hartington.

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