From the Associated Press:
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The new owners of an Iowa amusement park say a water ride where a boy died last year will not reopen this summer. Bill Lentz, general manager of Adventureland in Altoona, said the park officials are still discussing whether the Raging River ride will ever reopen. Eleven-year-old Michael Jaramillo died and his brother and father were injured after their raft capsized, trapping them in the water. Plentz said the new park owner, Palace Entertainment, has hired the ride’s original maker, Intamin Amusement Rides, to exam what steps would be needed to make the ride safe. That review could take several months.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a second suspect in a deadly Iowa nightclub shooting is in custody in Illinois. The U.S. Marshals Service said 29-year-old Dimione Jamal Walker was arrested on Monday in the Chicago suburb of Matteson. He is a suspect in the shooting April 10 at the Taboo Nightclub and Lounge in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The U.S. Marshals said law enforcement officers in Iowa determined Walker had fled the state the day after the shooting and investigators received information last week that he was in the Chicago area. Another man, 32-year-old Timothy Rush, has been charged with second-degree murder and other counts in the shooting.
ARMSTRONG, Iowa (AP) — A former Armstrong police officer has been charged with dozens of crimes, making him the latest in a string of former town officials to face criminal charges in the last 14 months. Radio station KILR reports that former Armstrong officer Benjamin Scheevel was charged earlier this month with 84 felony and misdemeanor counts — some dating back to 2016. The counts include stalking of at least two women, non-felonious misconduct in office, assault and unauthorized dissemination of criminal history data. He also faces counts of obstruction, theft and tax evasion. The case is being prosecuted by the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, which is also pursuing cases again other former Armstrong officials, including the former mayor, police chief and several town clerks.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that Democratic Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer qualifies for the primary ballot, rejecting a lower court decision and allowing her to continue her campaign for the nomination. The court’s decision Friday leaves Finkenauer as the likely front-runner in a race with two lesser-known candidates ahead of Iowa’s June 7 primary. The winner will face Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who is seeking an eighth term in the Senate. The court rejected a lower court ruling that found Finkenauer failed to meet a state law that requires candidates to submit at least 100 signatures from at least 19 counties to qualify for the ballot.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Month by month, more of the roughly 40 million Americans who get help buying groceries through the federal food stamp program are seeing their benefits plunge. The reductions come even as the nation struggles with the biggest increase in food costs in decades. The payments to low-income individuals and families are dropping as governors end COVID-19 disaster declarations and opt out of a still-ongoing federal program that made their states eligible for dramatic increases in SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. The increased benefit were in response to surging unemployment after the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the country. The result is that depending on the politics of a state, people find themselves eligible for significantly different levels of help buying food.
Three mass shootings in the U.S. over the Easter holiday weekend capped a month of rampant gun violence that’s touched both big cities and small, rural communities across the nation. The shootings have rattled residents in Dallas, Pittsburgh and Sacramento, California, as well as in Hampton County, South Carolina, and Dumas, Arkansas, both of which have populations under 20,000 people.
