From the Associated Press:
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa (AP) — Two men already jailed in connection with a botched 2019 robbery that led to a man’s death in Cedar Falls are now charged with first-degree murder. Authorities said Monday that charges were upgraded for 20-year-old Keyon Christian Roby and 22-year-old James Wright-Buls in the death of 24-year-old Grant Saul. The two men were already being detained on conspiracy and robbery charges in connection with the killing. Saul was shot to death at a downtown apartment on Dec. 4, 2019.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is seeking a role in a pair of legal battles over abortion access as the U.S. Supreme Court reaches a potentially defining moment on the issue. The Republican governor promised that if South Dakota loses an appeal in a legal fight over a state law that would require women seeking abortions to consult first with crisis pregnancy centers, which generally advise women not to get abortions, she would try to get the Supreme Court to consider the case. She has already signed onto a legal argument that seeks to undermine the Supreme Court’s previous ruling that access to abortions allows women equal economic and social rights.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A federal judge has blocked President Joe Biden’s administration from enforcing a coronavirus vaccine mandate on health care workers in 10 states that had brought the first legal challenge against the requirement. The preliminary injunction issued Monday applies to Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. Those states all have either a Republican attorney general or governor. A federal judge in Missouri said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid had no clear authority from Congress to enact the vaccine mandate for health care providers that participate in the two government programs. The rule requires workers to receive their first dose by Dec. 6 and their second by Jan. 4.
FAIRFIELD, Iowa (AP) — Two southeastern Iowa teenagers have pleaded not guilty to killing their high school Spanish teacher. Sixteen-year-olds Willard Noble Chaiden Miller and Jeremy Everett Goodale are charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the killing Nohema Graber in Fairfield. The 66-year-old Graber was reported missing on Nov. 2 and her remains were found later that day in a local park. Authorities say she suffered “inflicted trauma to the head.” Miller and Goodale, who are being held in juvenile detention centers, entered their pleas in arraignment documents filed with the court Monday. Authorities haven’t disclosed a possible motive for the killing.
NORTH LIBERTY, Iowa (AP) — A nonprofit is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop a plan aimed at saving Coralville Lake from increased sedimentation that threatens to silt-in the lake in as few as 20 years. Jon Kounkel is president of the group, Friends of Coralville Lake. He tells The Gazette that he joined the group after buying a house near the lake during the winter nearly two decades ago, only to discover the lake’s dirty brown water once the ice melted. Kounkel says he’s watched the lake decline ever since, as 1,300 acre-feet of additional sediment per year drops into the lake. The Army Corps estimates it will be 20 to 30 years before the lake silts in and becomes unusable for boating.
ELDRIDGE, Iowa (AP) — An eastern Iowa man has been charged with murder nearly six months after his wife was found shot to death inside their home. The Scott County Sheriff’s Office says in a news release Monday that 34-year-old Shane Bostrom, of Eldridge, is now charged with first-degree murder in the June 10 shooting death of 28-year-old Jessica Bostrom. Shane Bostrom was initially arrested on suspicion of various charges unrelated to the death, including several drug violations, misdemeanor child endangerment and felony obstruction. He has been held in the Scott County Jail since his wife’s death.
