From the Associated Press (11:20 a.m.):
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – The trial of a Cedar Rapids teen charged with killing his parents has been pushed back to October. The Gazette reports that attorneys for 17-year-old Ethan Alexander Orton sought the delay, which a judge granted. Orton’s first-degree murder trial had been set to begin Tuesday. Orton is charged as an adult in the Oct. 14 killings of 42-year-old Casey Arthur Orton and 41-year-old Misty Scott-Slade. Police say the 17-year-old killed his parents with a knife and ax at their Cedar Rapids home and told investigators he did it “to take charge of his life.” He remains jailed on a $2 million cash-only bond.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds says she is calling an end to the coronavirus public health emergency, a move that will limit the release of state public health data but reflects the governor’s long-held belief that it’s time to move on from pandemic restrictions. Reynolds said in a statement Thursday that the state cannot treat COVID-19 as a public health emergency indefinitely. Iowa Department of Public Health Director Kelly Garcia says the state will report COVID-19 data similar to other respiratory viruses by providing weekly updates on its website of positive tests, cases by county and deaths since March 2020. Information about how many Iowans are fully vaccinated also will be provided.
LOGAN, Iowa (AP) – A fatal hit-and-run that stemmed from a fight between friends over mayonnaise has ended with an Iowa man being sentenced to life in prison. The Des Moines Register reports that 29-year-old Kristofer Erlbacher, of Woodbine, was sentenced Monday to a mandatory life sentence after being convicted in December of first-degree murder in the 2020 killing of 30-year-old Caleb Solberg, of Moorhead. Investigators have said the men were eating and drinking at a Moorhead bar the night of Dec. 17, 2020, when Erlbacher put mayonnaise on Solberg’s food, leading to a fist fight. Prosecutor say Erlbacher left and later ran Solberg down with his truck outside a Pisgah caf.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – Electric power generation from the Missouri River’s six upstream dams fell below average in 2021, forcing the federal agency that sells the power to buy electricity on the open market. The $18 million in additional costs ultimately may be passed on to ratepayers in a half-dozen states. Energy production from the dams in the Dakotas, Montana and Nebraska was below average because of drought. The Western Area Power Administration sells power to rural electric cooperatives and other customers in the Dakotas, Montana, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. The agency says the added costs would likely be minimal for individual ratepayers.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The Iowa House has overwhelmingly approved a bill that expands the biofuels market in Iowa by requiring gas stations to sell fuel with higher blends of ethanol unless they obtain an exemption because of inadequate equipment. The bill passed 81 to 10 on Wednesday with nine House members absent. It now moves to the Senate. The bill requires existing gas stations that have compatible equipment to offer E15 – a blend of gasoline with 15% ethanol – from at least one pump by 2026. Stations must meet the new mandate if they can upgrade equipment with state-funded grants within certain cost limits. After next January, any new gas stations or those that install new tanks, pumps and hoses must offer E15 from at least half of their available pumps.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Police say they don’t know why a 36-year-old man walked into a neonatal intensive care unit at a Des Moines hospital and fed a baby that wasn’t his before leaving. Adam Wedig was charged on Monday with two counts of criminal trespass. Police say Wedig got into the NICU unit at MercyOne on Dec. 28 and bottle fed a baby. KCCI-TV reports Wedig had no connection to the child and police say he did not intend to harm the baby. Police Sgt. Paul Parizek says Wedig did not offer police any possible motive for his actions.
