CHEROKEE, IA (IRN) – Another Iowa county is a Second Amendment Sanctuary. The Cherokee County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution Monday morning. Proponents say it means law enforcement there can’t enforce future laws the county believes violate the Second Amendment. Critics note that Federal laws supersede county resolutions and state laws. Cherokee County is now the 31st Iowa county to do it.

WATERLOO, IA (IRN) – A woman was sentenced Monday to two life sentences for starting a fire that killed a 9-year-old boy and his mother in Waterloo. Denise Susanna O’Brien, 45, was upset that her boyfriend was staying in a house with another woman. The boyfriend and the other woman escaped but the two victims were found dead in an upstairs bedroom. Evidence showed O’Brien intended to trap everyone inside when she set fires at the front and back doors of the home.

BOONE COUNTY, IA (IRN) – A man wanted in the brutal assault of a woman in Des Moines in November has been captured. 25-year-old Ricardo Jeremiah Carroll was wanted in a brutal assault that lasted for several hours when a woman was “intentionally punched, kicked, choked, and burned,” according to police. Carroll was arrested on a domestic violence charge in Boone County Saturday.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – State public health data released Monday shows Iowa is beginning the new year with a large surge in coronavirus cases. The Department of Public Health posted 17,773 confirmed positive tests in the past seven days. That rate of about 2,500 cases a day almost doubles the daily average during December.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – When outgoing Iowa Cubs chairman and owner Michael Gartner gathered the team’s 23 full-time employees last week, he told them he was handing out new business cards. What he handed out instead were bonus checks to the tune of $600,000. Everyone got a check — $2,000 for every year they had been employed. The longest-tenured employee received a check for $70,000.