Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch

An 800-year-old English charter that was hugely consequential for establishing rights of people to use public lands also protects a rural Rolfe man accused of illegally cutting down and stealing dozens of trees from a wildlife management area in northwest Iowa, the man’s attorney argues.

That is among several reasons why Jason Levant Ferguson, 41, wants a judge to reverse a jury’s verdict last month that he is guilty of 51 charges for taking the trees without permission from public property in Pocahontas County.

His attorney, Kevin Fors, of Harcourt, argues that the provisions of the Charter of the Forest — issued in 1217 by King Henry III — were transferred by common law to the United States when it declared independence from England, according to documents Fors filed in state district court. ...

He mentioned the payments to farmers several times during his roughly hourlong address to a capacity crowd in the gymnasium of Fort Dodge High School. The gym’s scoreboard time was set to 20:24, with the team scores set to 45 and 47, to signify the upcoming election year, his status as the 45th president and his hope to be the 47th.

“We gave $28 billion to the farmers,” Trump said. “And just so you know, my people have said, ‘Sir, please don’t talk about that so much. It makes you sound very arrogant.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute, I got $28 billion for the farmers!’”

Those payments in 2019 were bailouts to farmers affected by Trump’s attempts to overhaul the nation’s trade policies. He imposed new tariffs on Chinese products, and the country responded, in part, with tariffs on American soybeans. ...

The crimes range considerably in their scope and sophistication, and the value of the heists can be lucrative. Some of the culprits might haul their looted timber with ramshackle trailers. Others might have full-on logging rigs.

Some of the thefts happen out in the open, such as when a company is contracted to harvest timber from a certain area but oversteps its bounds to cut down a valuable-looking tree on an adjacent property. A prime black walnut trunk can fetch upwards of $10,000.

Other thefts are conducted in the dead of night. In one recent instance, a thief was cutting trees in an area near a highway and would only operate his chainsaw when the sound of passing traffic would cover its noise. ...

Trump announced earlier Tuesday he has received a letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith saying he is a target of the federal investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Typically, such a notice precedes an indictment.

There is also pending investigation in Georgia into Trump’s alleged attempt to alter the results of the 2020 election. Trump asked Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” 11,780 votes — one more than his slim deficit to Democrat Joe Biden — according to a recording of a phone call between the two men.

But Trump said Tuesday those investigations — and two others that have already yielded criminal indictments against him — are the result of Democrats’ fears that he could be reelected. ...

Three Black Waukee high school students were told to ride home from a 2021 band trip in the back of a school bus after a white parent chaperone allegedly instigated an altercation with them that turned physical, according to a recently filed lawsuit and other documents.

The incident with the Northwest High School students followed a September 2021 marching band competition in Omaha, Nebraska, according to a letter penned by the attorney of one student who is suing the school district.

The letter — sent to the district’s superintendent in December 2021 — alleges the parent volunteer was perturbed that the students had gone to the bus before the competition’s awards ceremony had concluded because it was “disgraceful to their teammates.” ...