From the Associated Press (11:20 a.m.):
DOWS, Iowa (AP) – Authorities in north-central Iowa are investigating the death of a man in the small town of Dows. The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation says EMS crews called to a home on Tuesday found the body of Mario Salvador Lopez. His body was sent to the State Office of the Iowa Medical Examiner. DCI says that after the autopsy, the death is being investigated as a homicide. No further information was released. Anyone with information is urged to contact the Wright County Sheriff’s Office.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Des Moines police are investigating a shooting that left four people injured. The shooting happened about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday on a residential street near a middle school in the northeastern part of the city. Police say the injuries are not life-threatening. Police have not disclosed the circumstances surrounding the shooting and have not released the names or ages of the victims.
MOLINE, Illinois (AP) – Deere executives say the company won’t return to the bargaining table with striking workers because it won’t offer a better contract than one they rejected that included immediate 10% raises. Marc Howze, the chief administrative officer of Deere & Co., said Wednesday that the deal the United Auto Workers union rejected on Tuesday represented the most it could offer and still keep its costs competitive. Pressure on the union to reach a settlement will mount the longer workers go without pay. The disputed contract would cover more than 10,000 Deere workers at 12 facilities in Iowa, Illinois and Kansas, who make the company’s iconic John Deere green tractors and other equipment.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Neal Smith, a World War II bomber pilot who became a successful lawyer before representing Iowa for 36 years in Congress, has died. He was 101. Smith was first elected in 1958 and remained until 1995, a tenure that made him Iowa’s long-serving U.S. House member. Smith was known as a quiet but effective leader whose greatest accomplishments revolved around the approval of federal funding for dams and reservoirs that safeguarded cities from flooding and created much-used lakes for recreation.
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – Voters have reelected the black mayor of Iowa’s eighth-largest city, Waterloo, which will also have its first majority-black City Council. The historic outcome of Tuesday’s election followed a campaign marked by bitter debates over policing and race. Quentin Hart, who became Waterloo’s first black mayor in 2015, won a fourth two-year term. With three black candidates also winning open City Council seats, four of its seven members will be black. Hart and all four winning council candidates, including a white incumbent, defeated rivals endorsed by a political action committee, Cedar Valley Backs the Blue, that formed to oppose Hart’s reelection and support what it called “pro-law enforcement candidates.”
URBANDALE, Iowa (AP) – An Iowa man has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a Wisconsin woman whose body has not been found. Polk County authorities said Wednesday that 46-year-old James Shiloh Klever, of Mount Ayr, Iowa, is suspected of killing 30-year-old Rachel Reuter, of Cassville, Wisconsin. Her father reported her missing on June 16. The Polk County Sheriff’s office said evidence indicated the woman had been killed June 13 at a home in Bondurant. Klever is being held on $1 million bond.
