A body was found Tuesday morning in rural Poweshiek County, Iowa, and officials are working to identify it, said Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Assistant Director Mitch Mortvedt.

Iowa DCI is holding a press conference regarding the Mollie Tibbetts investigation with  “a very significant update,” at the Poweshiek County Sheriff’s Office at 4 p.m. central time Tuesday, said Mortvedt.

Nobody has been charged yet in relation to the case, Mortvedt said.

Fox News and CBS have reported that it’s the body of Mollie Tibbetts, a missing University of Iowa student from Brooklyn, Iowa, who disappeared over a month ago.

Greg Willey, the vice president of Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa, told the Associated Press a body was found Tuesday and is believed to be Tibbetts. Her father, Rob Tibbetts, declined to confirm the information to the Des Moines Register.

More specific information on where the body was found has not been released. 

No one was being held overnight or had been brought in to the Poweshiek County Jail as of Tuesday morning, a jail employee there said.

The nearly $400,000 reward for Mollie Tibbetts’ discovery will now become a reward for information leading to the capture of any suspects involved in her death, Willey said.

A press conference will be held at the Poweshiek County Sheriff’s Office at 4 p.m. central time Tuesday, Iowa DCI Special Agent Mike Krapfl said.

Previous coverage:

This is a developing story. Check back for more updates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 

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WASHINGTON – Aging coal-fired power plants could get a new lease on life under an industry-friendly proposal by the Trump administration that would replace the Clean Power Plan, Barack Obama’s signature plan to confront climate change.

Unveiled Tuesday, the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule would give states broad latitude to in how they would regulate power plant’s greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warmingas well as other pollutants, such as smog, soot and mercury.

“Today we are fulfilling the president’s agenda. We are proposing a (plan) that promotes, affordable clean and reliable energy for all Americans,” Wheeler told reporters Tuesday, adding that the Clean Power Plan “exceeded the agency’s legal authority.”

But by EPA’s own admission, the proposal could lead to more than 1,000 premature deaths a year, a statistic opponents pounced on.

“With today’s Dirty Power Plan proposal, the Trump EPA once again proves that it cares more about extending the lives of old coal plants rather than saving the lives of the American people,” said Conrad Schneider, advocacy director of the Clean Air Task Force.

In addition, environmental groups and some states vowed to sue to stop the plan’s implementation just as opponents of Obama’s Clean Power Plan have done.

Ina tweet, California Gov. Jerry Brown  called the EPA proposal “a declaration of war against America and all of humanity” that will not go unanswered.

The Clean Power Plan rule was finalized in 2015, mainly targeting coal-fired power plants that account for nearly 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. But it remains on hold under a Supreme Court stay pending the outcome of the legal challenge from the states.

In October, then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rolled it back, carrying out a promise by Trump to push an energy agenda that encouraged the use of coal. The president, who has called global warming “a hoax” perpetrated by China to gain a competitive edge, wrote in a May 18 tweet that “we have ended the war on coal.”

Aimed squarely at coal-fired power plants, Obama’s proposal would require existing power plants to cut harmful emissions compared to 2005 levels. By 2030, the reduction would be 32 percent for carbon, 90 percent for sulfur dioxide and 72 percent for nitrogen oxides.

Wheeler called the Obama plan ” overly prescriptive and burdensome”that would have led to “double-digit” increased in electricity prices in as many as 40 states, Wheeler told reporters on a conference call. EPA officials on the same call said consumer prices will fall slightly under the Trump plan by 2025.

According to the EPA, the Trump plan would:

• define the “best system of emission reduction” for existing power plants as on-site, heat-rate efficiency improvements.
• provide states with a list of “candidate technologies” that can be used to establish standards of performance and be incorporated into their state plans.
• update the New Source Review permitting program to further encourage “efficiency improvements” at existing power plants.
• Give states “states adequate time and flexibility” to develop their own plans.

Environmental groups decried the plan as a sop to the coal industry at the expense of public health and the inescapable reality of climate change. 

Gina McCarthy, former EPA administrator under Obama and an architect of the Clean Power Plan, called the Trump administration’s move “a huge gimme to coal-fired power plants” by giving them a “free pass” to increase not just carbon emissions but other unhealthy pollutants as well.

“They are continuing to play to their base and they are following industry’s playbook step by step,” she told reporters. “This is all about coal at all costs.”

More: President Trump directs EPA to ease air quality rules he says suffocates industry

More: Clean Power Plan was the wrong answer

More: Climate Point: Summer is getting warmer, faster

 

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Two Champions Leagues, eight domestic titles and 15 cup triumphs. Jose Mourinho’s sides know how to win – so why is it the Portuguese tends to bow out after three seasons at a club?

Just once has Mourinho made it into a fourth campaign, only to leave Chelsea before Christmas during his first spell at Stamford Bridge.

The 55-year-old is now entering his third season as Manchester United manager, but is already being touted as the next Premier League boss to leave his job.

So what leads to Mourinho heading for the exit after season three? And do his sides actually perform worse than the previous two campaigns? BBC Sport examines the evidence.

Built for short-term success?

Having begun his managerial career with a short stint at Benfica, Mourinho enjoyed a successful half-season with Uniao de Leiria that led to Porto appointing the then 39-year-old in January 2002.

Porto:

• 2001-02: Climbed from fifth in the league to finish third after taking over in January
• 2002-03: Primeira Liga champions, Uefa Cup winners, Portuguese Cup winners
• 2003-04: Primeira Liga champions, Champions League winners, Portuguese Super Cup winners, joins Chelsea

Chelsea:

• 2004-05: Premier League champions, League Cup winners, Champions League semi-finalists
• 2005-06: Premier League champions, Community Shield winners
• 2006-07: Premier League runners-up, FA Cup winners, League Cup winners, Champions League semi-finalists
• 2007-08: Leaves club by mutual consent in September

Inter Milan:

• 2008-09: Serie A champions, Supercoppa Italiana winners
• 2009-10: Serie A champions, Champions League winners, Coppa Italia winners, joins Real Madrid

Real Madrid:

• 2010-11: Copa del Rey champions, La Liga runners-up, Champions League semi-finalists
• 2011-12: La Liga champions, Champions League semi-finalists
• 2012-13: Supercopa de Espana winners, Champions League semi-finalists, Copa del Rey runners-up. Leaves Real by mutual consent

Chelsea:

• 2013-14: Third in Premier League, Champions League semi-finalists
• 2014-15: Premier League champions, League Cup winners
• 2015-16: Leaves Chelsea in December

Manchester United:

• 2016-17: Europa League champions, League Cup winners, sixth in Premier League
• 2017-18: Premier League runners-up, FA Cup runners-up
• 2018-19: ?

The form book

What happens in season three?

Leaving Porto on a high: Two-and-a-half seasons after taking charge, Mourinho left Porto after delivering the Champions League as part of a remarkable treble.

The end at Chelsea, part one: Having won both domestic cups and finished second in the league in his third season, the Blues’ fourth campaign under the Portuguese manager got off to a stuttering start and a 1-1 draw at home to Rosenberg in the Champions League saw the reign of the ‘Special One’ come to an end.

Inter: Mourinho left after two seasons.

Runners-up at Real Madrid: With two games left of the season, it was announced Mourinho would leave Real Madrid. At the time, his side trailed Barcelona by 13 points and had lost the Spanish Cup final to Atletico Madrid, as well as being knocked out of the Champions League at the semi-final stage.

Chelsea, part two: Sixteen league games, just four wins and languishing one point above the relegation zone – Mourinho’s tenure was up at Chelsea for a second time, just seven months after he had delivered them a title.

What are the early signs during Mourinho’s third season at Manchester United?

Defeat at Brighton on Sunday, following an unconvincing win over Leicester at Old Trafford on the opening day, has done little to dispel the notion of a ‘third-season syndrome’.

They host Tottenham at Old Trafford next.

Friction and fallouts – who’s to blame?

Mourinho’s departures from both Chelsea, twice, and Real Madrid have followed high-profile fallouts and fractious relationships with both club officials and players.

Do things always come to a head for Mourinho during his third season?

Leaving Porto on a high: Mourinho’s knee slide at Old Trafford as his side knocked out Manchester United in the Champions League may have irked Sir Alex Ferguson, but there were no complaints in Porto as he left the club a hero.

Tension at Chelsea: Mourinho’s relationship with Blues owner Roman Abramovich became increasingly strained and was not helped when the Russian billionaire bought Andriy Shevchenko for £30m from AC Milan – a player the manager was reluctant to pick.

Tensions bubbled in the January of Mourinho’s third season, when he was reportedly unhappy over having a lack of funds to sign players. The pair also disagreed over the arrival of director of football Avram Grant in the summer, who then replaced Mourinho as manager in September.

Winning at Inter: Mourinho didn’t make it to a third season at Inter, announcing after the Champions League victory he was “sad, as almost for sure it’s my last game with Inter”, and adding “if you don’t coach Real Madrid then you will always have a gap in your career”.

Boiling over at the Bernabeu: “Nobody’s been sacked,” said Real Madrid president Florentino Perez when announcing Mourinho would leave the Bernabeu, but the announcement followed a string of public arguments with some of the club’s key players:

• Mourinho drops iconic goalkeeper and club captain Iker Casillas, who alongside defender Sergio Ramos is then forced to issue a statement denying they threatened to be transferred if the manager was not sacked.
• Portugal defender Pepe says he regrets the handling of Casillas, with Mourinho responding by saying the player’s problem was “Raphael Varane” – a rival for Pepe’s place in the team.
• Club chairman Perez calls a news conference to address the reports, also denying rumours of in-fighting between Mourinho and club directors.

Feeling blue, again: The Blues’ medics felt the wrath of Mourinho in his last season at Stamford Bridge. The Portuguese called them “impulsive and naive” for running on to treat Eden Hazard during a draw against Swansea. Eva Carneiro and Jon Fearn saw their positions downgraded.

Carneiro left the club in the September, eventually settling a dismissal claim against the club the following year.

Then, after a defeat by Leicester City that would prove his last game in charge, Mourinho called out his players.

• “I’m frustrated with the difference between what they do in training and what they do in matches. I don’t think in this moment they can feel they are top players or they can feel they are superstars.”

Same again for Jose?

Will Mourinho’s third season at Old Trafford be marred by similar disagreements?

A tetchy news conference following a 4-1 pre-season defeat by Liverpool suggested Mourinho was far from happy before the season had even began. Back then, he said:

• If he was a fan, he would not have paid to watch the teams, adding “this is not even 30% of my squad”.
• The match “gave me nothing at all” and he was trying to avoid “ugly defeats”.
• Antonio Valencia had “too much holiday” and returned in poor condition.

More recently, Mourinho tried to quash reports of Paul Pogba being unhappy.

• Paul Pogba, 12 August 2018: “If you’re not happy, you cannot give your best. There are things I cannot say otherwise I will get fined.”
• Jose Mourinho, 17 August: “I cannot demand more from him, I cannot ask more from him. I’ve never been so happy with him as I am now.”

But Mourinho was also frustrated by United’s lack of activity in the transfer window, saying his side are in for a “difficult season”.

The question is, will he be in charge come the end of it?

The counter-argument…

Bar his second spell at Chelsea, when he departed before Christmas, Mourinho has delivered silverware in each of the third seasons he has had at a club.

At Porto this was a treble that put the charismatic Portuguese boss on the map, while during his first spell at Chelsea Mourinho’s side won both domestic cups and at Real Madrid he won the Spanish Super Cup in his final season.

But what would be deemed a season of success for many sides is regarded as a minimum requirement at the calibre of clubs Mourinho manages.

He set the bar high at Chelsea, winning back-to-back Premier League titles, but was unable to deliver the Champions League title Blues owner Abramovich so craved.

The Portuguese also failed to achieve European success at Real Madrid, while finishing adrift of Barcelona in the La Liga and lost in the Copa del Rey final to rivals Atletico Madrid before his departure.

There’s a fine line between third-season success and third-season ‘syndrome’, it seems.

The UN’s nuclear watchdog said it hasn’t seen any indication that North Korea’s nuclear activities have ceased despite pledges to denuclearise and it’s causing “grave concern”.

A new report published late on Monday by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) listed ongoing efforts at various nuclear facilities, including the Yongbyon power plant that is believed to produce plutonium for North Korea’s nuclear weapon tests.

Construction of a possible additional reprocessing plant that could extract plutonium from used reactor fuel has continued, according to the report.

The IAEA said it has been monitoring a site near the capital, Pyongyang, whose characteristics and construction history “are not inconsistent with a centrifuge enrichment facility”. Enriched uranium can be used in nuclear warheads.

“The continuation and further development of the DPRK’s nuclear programme and related statements by the DPRK are a cause for grave concern,” IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said in the report, referring to North Korea’s official name – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Pyongyang didn’t immediately respond to the report.

Trump-Kim deal

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to work towards a nuclear-weapons-free Korean Peninsula when he met South Korean President Moon Jae-in in April and US President Donald Trump in June.

Trump said in an interview with Reuters news agency on Monday he believed North Korea had taken specific steps towards denuclearisation and he would “most likely” meet again with Kim.

However, Pyongyang has given no indication it is willing to give up its nuclear weapons unilaterally as the Trump administration has demanded.

IAEA inspectors are not allowed into North Korea, but they have been monitoring the country via satellites and other available information.

Dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme and verifying it would be an enormous and complex task. The IAEA has said it is best placed to verify a deal. 

Monday’s report is to be submitted to an IAEA board meeting in September.

Falling into a dark abyss is normally the stuff of nightmares — but for one unlucky museum patron, it was a kind of reality after he tumbled into an art installation.

According to the Art Newspaper, a visitor to a Portugal museum fell into an art installation that features a deep hole painted dark enough to look like a circle painted on the floor. The hole is part of the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Serralves museum in Porto.

The installation that included the eight-foot-deep hole, aptly called “Descent into Limbo (1992),” creates the illusion of a endless void — a disturbing concept if I do say so myself.

Image: ART on FILE/Getty Images

The hole is painted with an extremely black paint that helped create the illusion that the hole was bottomless, or lacking any depth at all. According to the Times, Kapoor purchased the rights to “Vantablack” paint in 2016, which absorbs 99.6 percent of the light that hits it.

Per the Art Newspaper, though there were reportedly many warnings to prevent a person from falling into the hole — and a waiver to inform museum patrons of the potential dangers involved in visiting the exhibit — the visitor seemingly didn’t notice them and fell in anyway. Ouch. The exhibit’s since been closed, but it’s supposed to reopen in a few days.

The unlucky visitor suffered back injuries from the fall but has since been sent home, per the Times.

I feel like the big takeaway from all of this is that maybe it’s not the best idea to step directly onto someone’s art, or leave an eight-foot-deep hole in the ground unattended. But that’s just one woman’s opinion.

WASHINGTON – With just three months until the midterms, states are spending an infusion of federal money to hire experts, add layers of security and adopt paper trails to thwart cyberthreats to their election systems.

“There is no going back to the way things were,” said Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, co-chair of the Elections Committee at the National Association of Secretaries of States. “We have to constantly be wary and face the facts that our elections are under threat at an international level. We have to safeguard our democracy.”

The federal Election Assistance Commission will release a report Tuesday highlighting what states and territories plan to do with the $380 million Congress approved earlier this year to help them protect against cyberthreats. USA TODAY got an advance copy of the report.

Nearly all the states and territories have received their share of the federal funds, ranging from $6 million for Alabama to $19 million for Florida.

States plan to use nearly 37 percent of the funds to improve cybersecurity and 28 percent to buy new voting equipment, according to the report.

“By and large you see very robust, very earnest plans around security and infrastructure improvement across the board,” said Mark Abbott, director of grants at the EAC.

Here are what some battleground states plan to do:

• Florida, which recently hired five cybersecurity experts, plans to use some of its $19 million to train local election officials on cybersecurity.

• Pennsylvania plans to use a chunk of its $13 million to upgrade its aging voting machines and add a paper record.

• Indiana wants to use some of its $7.5 million to test its voting equipment, including poll books, for vulnerabilities.

Abbott noted that Indiana proposed nine steps to harden its security, including voter registration security scans, email encryption and digital signatures.

“They already had some robust stuff going on around cyber, but with this plan and with input from their stakeholders they really amped it up,” he said. “I think it’s a good example of how serious states are taking the security posture of their systems.”

With the midterms looming, many states are using the funds to make changes quickly, including training staff, hiring cybersecurity experts and adding verification steps. They also plan to pay for post-election audits. Several states are upgrading or replacing voter registration systems.

Others plan to use the funds for long-term projects, including buying new voting machines.

Still, many state election officials say they need more money, said Thomas Hicks, the  commission chairman.

“Wherever we go I hear from folks saying, ‘Thank you for this money. This is a great down payment, but we need additional resources,’” said Hicks, who recently met with local election officials in Mississippi and plans to go to Louisiana next week. “They were always preparing for 2018, but the additional funding helps them even more for 2018 and 2020 and beyond.”

Over the years, elections officials have faced challenges ranging from hanging chads to long lines and attempts by Russians to interfere in the 2106 elections.

Congressional lawmakers and security experts warn there may be more attempts ahead of the midterms.

Microsoft reported Tuesday it had uncovered Russian hackers targeting conservative think tanks.

Last month, President Donald Trump met with his National Security Council about election security. Trump pledged a “whole-of-government” effort to prevent foreign interference in U.S. elections after drawing criticism for not doing enough to protect America’s ballot boxes.

Congress also has been under pressure to do more, and in March approved the extra pot of money. So far, the EAC has disbursed nearly 96 percent of it to states.

The agency used a formula under the 2002 Help America Vote Act to determine each state’s portion. States had to provide a 5 percent match.

“We had strings attached to the money,” Abbott said. “You had to have (a) match, you had to spend it within five years (and) you can’t simply replace your money with ours.”

The EAC also prioritized security and infrastructure.

“People got that loud and clear,” said Abbott, adding that there was also a focus on improving access to the polls. 

Even before the federal money came available, states had taken their own steps to protect election data by encrypting their systems and asking the Department of Homeland Security to check for vulnerabilities.

“They all take the cybersecurity threats seriously and are working hard to make sure that they’re prepared for 2018 and beyond,” said Amy Cohen, executive director of the nonpartisan National Association of State Election Directors. “Elections don’t stop after November.”

More: New Russian hacking attempts targeted conservative groups, Microsoft says

More: 11-year-old hacks replica of Florida state website, changes election results

Cohen said state election directors feel more prepared now than in 2016 in part because of better information sharing between their agencies and DHS officials.

Despite those efforts, experts and state officials note that most elections are run at the local level where resources are limited.

Most local jurisdictions don’t have the resources to “battle something of this nature in a field that is very expensive,” said Gorbea, who called the recent round of federal funding a “start.”

“We really need to have consistent federal funding going forward to address cybersecurity and the threats that we’re facing as states,” she said. “There has been very little appetite to really include the ongoing support to address cyberthreats.”

Adam Ambrogi, director of the Election Program at the Democracy Fund, said a Senate committee is scheduled Wednesday to consider the “Secure Elections Act,” a bipartisan bill proposed by Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Amy Klobarchar, D-Minn., that aims to address election security concerns by, among other things, requiring federal officials to share information about cyberthreats. But the legislation doesn’t include funding, he said.

“It’s really important that Congress steps up and provides a regular stream of funding for these risks. The states just don’t have the funds,” said Ambrogi. “It’s important that after we get through 2018 … that states have the capacity and knowledge to begin prepping for the 2020 presidential election.”

 

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England women’s manager Phil Neville has recalled captain Steph Houghton and Alex Greenwood for the final 2019 World Cup qualifiers against Wales and Kazakhstan.

Centre-back Houghton is fit after a knee injury, while left-back Greenwood returns from suspension.

Uncapped Everton defender Gabby George is also in the 23-player squad.

The winners of Wales-England at Newport on 31 August – to be shown live on the BBC – will qualify for the World Cup.

Wales are a point ahead of England in Group 1, having played one game more.

Defeat for England will end their chances of automatic qualification, but a draw would mean they will top the group with victory in Kazakhstan on 4 September.

Neville said: “Wales will be determined to make the most of home advantage and their crowd will be expecting a victory.

“We will have to be at our very best to get the result we need and no-one in our squad is looking beyond this match.”

England squad

Goalkeepers: Karen Bardsley (Manchester City), Mary Earps (Wolfsburg), Carly Telford (Chelsea).

Defenders: Millie Bright (Chelsea), Lucy Bronze (Lyon), Rachel Daly (Houston Dash), Gabby George (Everton), Alex Greenwood (Manchester United ), Steph Houghton (Manchester City), Abbie McManus (Manchester City), Leah Williamson (Arsenal).

Midfielders: Isobel Christiansen (Lyon), Fran Kirby (Chelsea), Jordan Nobbs (Arsenal), Jill Scott (Manchester City), Keira Walsh (Manchester City), Fara Williams (Reading).

Forwards: Toni Duggan (Barcelona), Melissa Lawley (Manchester City), Beth Mead (Arsenal), Nikita Parris (Manchester City), Jodie Taylor (Seattle Reign), Ellen White (Birmingham City).