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DES MOINES — A union representing meatpacking workers issued a report raising concerns about conditions at the Agriprocessors Inc. kosher meatpacking plant in Postville.

The United Food & Commercial Workers cited more than 250 noncompliance records from the Department of Agriculture in 13 months and two food recalls in 2007 in the report, released on Thursday.

Among concerns identified by the union were the plant's monitoring standards for mad cow disease and the presence of rodents in the plant.

It also cited a recall of kosher hot dogs due to possible underprocessing. The company also recalled frozen beef and chicken products because they may have contained albumen, a known allergen, which was not declared on the label.

The union does not represent workers at the Postville plant.

Andrea Nill, a spokesman for the union, said workers at the plant brought the problems to the union's attention.

St. LOUIS — Triple-digit temperatures killed at least three people this week in St. Louis' Illinois suburbs, officials said Friday.

Two men in Madison County and another in neighboring St. Clair County were found dead in their homes, none of which were air conditioned, according to the coroners' offices in those counties.

John Joseph Meyer, 57, was found dead early Thursday afternoon in his house in Prairietown, about 30 miles northeast of St. Louis, according to a news release from the Madison County Coroner's Office. The temperature in the house was just above 90 degrees when authorities found him.

Late Thursday night, 53-year-old George T. Swires was found dead in his home in Alton, about 20 miles north of St. Louis, according to the coroner's office. At midnight, the temperature was still 89 degrees in the house.

On Wednesday, 87-year-old James Erby was found dead in his East St. Louis home, according to a spokeswoman for the St. Clair County Coroner's Office.

INDIANAPOLIS — Authorities may have inadvertently given hundreds or even thousands of accused drunken drivers, speeders, drug dealers and others a way to get off the hook — the arresting officers were never sworn in.

A judge has ruled that a drunken driving arrest was invalid because the officer hadn't been sworn in as a member of a new police department formed when the city police and the Marion County Sheriff's Department merged on Jan. 1. Other officers also were not sworn in.

The state said it plans to appeal the ruling, which Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter said Thursday "raises questions about the propriety of hundreds, if not thousands, of arrests that have been made this year by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department."

Even if the ruling is upheld, it doesn't mean the jail doors would be opened wide, said James Voyles, one of the defense attorneys who made the motion leading to the court decision. Some arrests still could be valid, and motions for dismissal would have to be filed and argued in each case, he said.

WICHITA — A judge who once called abortion "the slaughter of the innocents" was picked Friday to handle a criminal case against one of the nation's highest-profile abortion providers.

Sedgwick County District Judge Anthony Powell previously served in the Kansas House and was among the Legislature's most vocal abortion opponents. He voted for — and, some say, helped write — a 1998 law restricting late-term abortions. Shortly after its enactment, he accused Dr. George Tiller of breaking it.

Tiller was charged with 19 misdemeanors in June. Attorney General Paul Morrison alleges the doctor failed to get a second opinion on some late-term abortions from an independent physician, which the late-term law requires. Tiller maintains his innocence, and his attorneys are challenging the law.

The case was assigned to Powell by Judge Gregory Waller, the county's chief criminal judge. Waller said he didn't know about Powell's past legislative activities and picked him because he was "the most available" for a hearing.

DETROIT — Gov. Jennifer Granholm surveyed the perimeter of a burned and charred Upper Peninsula forest Friday from a Blackhawk helicopter.

Granholm said she was awed by the destruction.

"Very wide expanses of land are completely black," she said. "It was incredible how much expanse of land is completely burned."

For nine days the fire has devoured tree, bush, weed and grass as it smolders with frequent flare-ups on its slow journey through Lake Superior State Forest. Crews from the state Department of Natural Resources and various fire departments have fought the blaze on the ground by burning brush and bulldozing earth to block its progress.

As of Friday afternoon, officials said the fire was 25 percent contained. Granholm said she was told it would be fully contained within four to five days.

The wildfire started Aug. 2 and has covered 28 square miles, mostly swampland in Luce County. The 18,158-acre fire is the third-largest in Michigan since the late 1800s.

CROOKSTON — University of Minnesota regional extension researchers Terry Nennich and Mike Klawitter like to imagine the day when the Northern Plains states become completely self-sufficient vegetable producers.

They think it's possible with the help of the high-tunnel greenhouse. "This is North Dakota's and Minnesota's hope to get away from California produce," Nennich says.

"If we can get enough of these, we won't have to truck in vegetables year-around anymore."

High tunnels trap radiant heat from the sun and utilize side vents that roll up to allow for cooling. If it gets too much below 50 degrees outside, then they roll them back down.

There are more than 150 high tunnels in Minnesota and they have the ability to produce three to 10 times the yield of field crops.

JEFFERSON CITY — A lawsuit by student-loan recipients seeks to block Gov. Matt Blunt's $350 million plan to finance college construction projects by taking money from the state's student-loan authority.

The lawsuit against the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority claims the agency is violating both its state-mandated mission and its fiduciary duty to students by allowing its money to go to buildings instead of better deals for its borrowers.

The lawsuit filed Thursday asks a Cole County judge to issue an injunction barring the loan agency and its board of directors from financing the building plan and to declare it illegal. A law authorizing the deal is set to take effect Aug. 28.

Instead of buildings, the lawsuit seeks to direct the money the loan authority has amassed to student-loan recipients by lowering interest rates on existing loans, forgiving portions of existing loans and making more low-interest-rate loans in the future.

LINCOLN — If all goes well, the Pawnee Tribe will be able to rebury the remains of more than 90 of its ancestors this fall on central Nebraska land the tribe once called home.

But before the burial, federal officials must approve the Hastings Museum of Natural and Cultural History's plan to return the remains to the Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. The plan must be published so other tribes have a chance to make a claim.

It's all part of the lengthy process spelled out in the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

The remains in Hastings — which the museum says include the bones of about 91 people — are the single largest collection of Pawnee remains still held by a museum, said Francis Morris, the tribe's repatriation coordinator.

The reburial will take place on about 60 acres of central Nebraska farmland. Nebraska author Roger Welsch, who owns the land, has given permission for burial of the bones at any time, and ownership of the land will pass to the tribe when he and his wife die.

FORT YATES — Decades after their land was flooded for a Missouri River reservoir, members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe are getting payments for their loss.

More than 100 tribal members who were displaced from their homes by the Oahe reservoir will share about $2.5 million. The tribe is providing the money from revenue at its Prairie Knights casino.

Tribal members picked up checks Thursday for up to $40,000.

In the mid-1980s, a joint federal-tribal advisory committee decided the Indians had been underpaid for their land. In 1992, Congress set up federal trusts for the Standing Rock tribe and the Three Affiliated Tribes on the Fort Berthold reservation near the Garrison Dam.

The perpetual trusts are used for education, economic development, social welfare and other tribal needs. Tribal officials say none of the trust money is earmarked for individuals, and the payments issued Thursday are intended to fill that need.

COLUMBUS — Nearly half of 21 summer camps recently inspected by the state failed to prove they had checked all of their employees' backgrounds, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said Friday.

Of the camps randomly selected for review this summer by the department, 10 were missing proof of fingerprint-based background checks, a violation of state law, said department spokeswoman Scarlett Bouder.

By the end of the month, the department will check about 10 more camps randomly chosen from the 280 day and overnight camps registered with the state, Bouder said.

This is the third year the department has performed random inspections after the Legislature passed a law requiring background checks on employees through the state.

SOUTH DAKOTA

SIOUX FALLS — A former general manager of Westward Ho Country Club in Sioux Falls has agreed to plead guilty to three felony counts of grand theft.

Nancy Frerichs, 60, of Sioux Falls, has been accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the country club. She had worked there for 26 years.

Don Hanson, deputy Minnehaha County state's attorney, said the charges carry a total maximum penalty of 35 years in prison. Frerichs' lawyer said his client has returned more than $400,000.

According to court papers, Frerichs wrote checks from Westward Ho's accounts to pay for luxuries such as vacations to places like the Virgin Islands. She left her job as general manager in January after a bank employee told the club's board about some irregularities.

MADISON — The owner of a Mexican restaurant is suing two pro-immigrant groups that helped organize pickets outside his business to protest his employment practices.

David Herrera, owner of La Hacienda Inc., in Madison, contends the demonstrations have interfered with his business and customers. He's asking a judge to make the protesters tone down their tactics.

The suit filed last week names the Immigrant Workers Union, the Interfaith Coalition for Workers and two protest leaders. The groups are part of a coalition that advocates for immigrant workers.

The groups have organized the pickets since last month at La Hacienda. They say employees have been forced to work off the clock without pay and five former workers are each owed between $3,000 and $11,000.

Herrera denies those claims. La Hacienda paid $38,000 in back wages in January 2006 after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor found wage violations.

OTTAWA — Royal Canadian Mounted Police horses and their scarlet-clad riders are being reined in after years of trotting along the bustling walkways that snake across the lawn in front of Parliament.

The mounted patrols are not being banned from the busy tourist hotspot, as some reports have suggested, but have been confined to enclosures on the Hill for the first time this summer, newly minted Commissioner William Elliott said Friday.

"As time goes on, more and more people are coming to Parliament Hill and more and more of them, frankly, aren't really very familiar with horses," Elliott said following a public swearing-in ceremony.

"There have been a number of close calls and we think, for the safety of the public, that we should change how we operate with our horses."

Don CampBell / The Herald-Palladium Artist Midnite Remisoski, from nearby Benton Harbor, works on a chalk drawing of a golden retriever during the annual Chalk on the Block, held Saturday in downtown St. Joseph, Mich.

Chalk on the Block