From the Associated Press:
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district announced he will resign in June after a decade-long tenure, which included a standoff with the state’s conservative governor over coronavirus protections that led to his public reprimand. Thomas Ahart said Monday that he would quit his position leading the 31,000-student district on June 30. He expressed satisfaction about accomplishments during his 10 years as superintendent but acknowledged the job at times was “frustrating and exhausting.” The board’s action followed a dispute between Des Moines schools and Gov. Kim Reynolds over her effort to require all Iowa public school students to have the option of in-person classes at the start of the 2020-2021 academic year.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Police have identified a woman who was found fatally stabbed inside a Des Moines apartment over the weekend. Police say in a news release Monday that 35-year-old Randi Light, of Des Moines, died after officers and medics found her unconscious and suffering from a stab wound early Saturday in a southwest Des Moines apartment. Officers arrested 33-year-old Clarence Edward Reed at the apartment and later charged him with first-degree murder. Light’s death marked the second homicide in Des Moines this year.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A judge has cleared the way for newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises to use a voting system that will ensure two longtime directors are reelected at next month’s annual meeting despite the objections of a hedge fund that is trying to buy the company. The Davenport, Iowa-based publisher said the Delaware judge threw out Alden Global Capital’s latest lawsuit Friday. The publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Buffalo News, Lincoln Journal Star and dozens of other newspapers rejected Alden’s $141 million takeover offer in December because Lee said it “grossly undervalued” the company. The New York-based hedge fund has a reputation for imposing severe cuts and layoffs at the more than 200 newspapers it owns.
ANKENY, Iowa (AP) — Police are searching for two people who exchanged gunfire with Ankeny police officers Saturday night. Ankeny police Sgt. Corey Schneden said officers were responding to a fight at Prairie Point Apartments where gunshots were reported when they spotted a white car with its lights off. When officers pulled the car over, two people got out and started shooting at officers as they fled into a wooded area. Officers returned fire but it wasn’t immediately clear whether they wounded the suspects. No one else was injured. Two other people who were in the white car were taken into custody and were being questioned Sunday while police continued to search the wooded area for the two suspects.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Des Moines man has been sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison for killing a woman and her two children. The Des Moines Register reports that prosecutor Kevin Hathaway told a Polk County district judge Friday that the murder of Rosibeth Flores-Rodriguez was “horrific,” but the murders of her two children were worse. Judge David Porter sentenced Marvin Esquivel Lopez, 34, to consecutive life sentences in the 2019 deaths of the 29-year-old mother and 11-year-old Grecia Daniela Alvarado-Flores and 5-year-old Ever Jose Mejia-Flores. Esquivel Lopez was convicted in January of shooting the mother during an argument in his Des Moines home, then killing her children.
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Investigators in Iowa say they used genealogical data to link the 1982 fatal stabbing of a woman to an Illinois trucker who was found shot to death in a shallow grave months later. Police in Council Bluffs, which sits on Iowa’s western border, said Friday that they believe Thomas O. Freeman killed 32-year-old Lee Rotatori at a local hotel in June of 1982. Rotatori, who had just moved to Council Bluffs from Nunica, Michigan, was stabbed once and was sexually assaulted. Police didn’t have any suspects after the killing, but they submitted DNA evidence to a lab that determined last year that it was Freeman’s. He was found dead in a shallow grave near Cobden, Illinois, in October of 1982.
