(Council Bluffs, Iowa) – Police in Council Bluffs this (Saturday) morning, said after receiving several tips from citizens, two suspects in the shooting Thursday night of a 14-year-old male, were identified Friday afternoon.  Officers were able to take two 16 year old males into custody, without incident, last night (Friday October 18th) at approximately 10:30pm.

Both of the suspects are Council Bluffs residents.  They were each being charged with 2 Counts of Attempted Murder and Robbery 1st Degree; they are being held at the Southwest Iowa Juvenile Detention Center.

Original story:

The Council Bluffs Police Department is investigating an incident that took place early Thursday night. Authorities say that at approximately 7:14 pm, Council Bluffs Police and Fire Departments were dispatched to the area of East Pierce Street and South 1 st Street for a report of a shooting. Upon arrival, officers located a 14 year old male who sustained a gunshot wound to one of his legs. The victim was transported by Council Bluffs Fire Department medics to a local hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

The initial investigation revealed that two juvenile males were confronted by two male suspects at the intersection of East Pierce Street and Grace Street. During the confrontation, one of the male suspects produced a handgun and shot the victim once in the leg.

(Iowa City, Iowa) – Two University of Iowa professors are working to develop an artificial intelligence camera system that could eventually track and catch child abuse as it happens. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports Karim Abdel-Malek, UI professor and interim director of the Iowa Technology Institute, and social work Associate Professor Aislinn Conrad are merging their backgrounds in child welfare and human modeling technology to develop cameras that will clock when an instance of violence has occurred. The cameras would send a recording of the incident to the person who set up the system. Abdel-Malek said they’d start off targeting the software at abuse of children and elderly people, but as the program grows there will be more opportunities for it to be of aid. “It’s well known that kids and older adults do not speak for themselves, and so we hope that this tech can really help,” Abdel-Malek said.

The technology for the camera system started as a program called the “Virtual Soldier,” which Abdel-Malek said he and others developed over 20 years working with the military. The technology could determine someone’s “kinematics,” or the “position, velocity and acceleration of each limb as it moves,” he said. From there, he wanted to explore whether AI could identify through those kinematics whether someone is being physically abusive. It took two years to get the patent, he said, which was actually a fairly speedy process.

Abdel-Malek reached out to Conrad to bring her in as an expert in child abuse prevention, with both academic and in-the-field experience. Before coming to the UI to teach in the school of social work, Conrad worked as a child welfare investigator and case manager in the foster care system. As the two only started working together in September, Conrad is currently focused on applying for grants and other funding to help move the project forward. In the future, Abdel-Malek said the team hopes to bring in actors and develop scenarios in order to “teach” the AI system what it should flag as abuse and what it should overlook. They’re trying to find its limitations, Abdel-Malek said, as well as where it can be expanded and how it could be commercialized in the future. He’s worked on other programs like this that have been brought to market, like software that can detect spills in a grocery store and gun detection.

Aislinn Conrad

Karim Abdel-Malek

One real-world application would be for parents, who could hide the camera somewhere in their home to monitor a caretaker with their child. Abdel-Malek described it as “a little Big Brother,” but its intended use is for eliminating abuse. “When I talk to (parents), it’s very much the sigh of relief of wow, what would that be like to actually leave and know that if something did happen, it would be documented,” Conrad said. Not only would the parents or caregivers be notified if abuse did occur, Conrad said they could have a way to set up the program to have it notify authorities as well. In terms of where the system could be utilized, Abdel-Malek said they will start with targeting environments with children and the elderly, like babysitting situations, day cares and nursing homes. (Photos via the Univ. Of Iowa College of Engineering & School of Social Work)

However, Conrad said its applications won’t stop there. Eventually, once the product is out there and proven to work, the system could be pitched to child welfare agencies, other elderly services, schools and other gathering places where violence could occur. “We do believe this camera will change the way society handles and responds to violence, and it’s really a paradigm shift,” Conrad said. “I mean, it’s one thing to start with children and the elderly, but the applications of this are for any vulnerable person at risk for violence.”

About 1 in 3 people is at risk for violence, Conrad said, especially women, and 1 in 9 children will experience abuse. Despite the many efforts made over the years, Conrad said these numbers haven’t changed much. She and Abdel-Malek are hoping that with time and effort, this system will help change how people are educated and become aware of abuse, followed by changes in how to mitigate it. “I think it’ll take a little bit of time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years, we start seeing a shift,” Conrad said.

(Decorah, Iowa) – Following Luther College President Jenifer Ward’s announcement of her plans to retire at the conclusion of the current academic year, the Decorah private college has named its provost as president-elect. According to a news release, Brad Chamberlain, who has served in both academic and administrative roles at the university since 2001, was chosen by the Luther College Board of Regents to become Luther’s 12th president after a national search.

Chamberlain, as well as members of the board of regents, spoke to the campus community Friday, where he said he is “humbled” to have the faith and support of the board and college to name him as its new leader. In the news release, he said “When people think about a college that is drawing excellence out of students, I want them to  think about Luther College. Students arrive at Luther with a set of dreams, and we help them achieve those dreams. But we also want to plant within them dreams that are bigger than the ones they brought with them to college.”

According to the release, Chamberlain is the first internal candidate in more than 100 years to be chosen as president. Shannon Duval, vice chair of the Board of Regents and co-chair of the Presidential Selection Committee, said in the release that during the search, consultants shared that Chamberlain “brings a national-caliber set of experience and skills” to Luther, and the university is lucky that he chose Decorah to make his home.

Bradley Chamberlain – President-Elect
Provost
Professor of Chemistry (Luther College photo)

Before taking on the provost role on an interim basis in August 2022 then permanently in December 2022, Chamberlain served as the college’s vice president for mission and communication, according to the release, where he led efforts to put in place an integrated brand strategy, created a strategic internal communications plan and helped lead a response team to the COVID-19 pandemic. He started at Luther as a visiting professor before joining the chemistry department full-time.

In his speech to students, staff, faculty and alumni, Chamberlain said Luther and its community has shaped the last 20 years of his life, and while the university is facing challenges seen across higher education today, he has hope and confidence for the future. He said in the release he wants to use Luther’s identity as an institution that “inspires and equips students to courageously serve the common good” to ensure the university, and the students it prepares to lead meaningful and purposeful lives after graduation, thrive in the years to come.

“At liberal arts colleges, we talk about the power of ideas, and we teach our students how to evaluate ideas and connect ideas, how to activate ideas,” Chamberlain said in the release. “This is what I think the world needs right now. As we look at the challenges that society is facing, these are not necessarily technical challenges — they are adaptive challenges. This is what a place like Luther College prepares students to do. They are prepared to lead and to serve, but above all, through their leadership and service to others, to make everyone around them better.”

DES MOINES, Iowa [KCCI] — The Iowa Secretary of State’s office is determining whether a spelling error in the wording of a proposed constitutional amendment on Polk County ballots would create any problems in counting those votes. As early voting began Wednesday, some ballots in Polk County contained a typo in its section on the constitutional amendment related to the gubernatorial line of succession. The constitutional amendment reads:

Lieutenant governor or lieutenant governor-elect to become or act as governor or governor-elect.

If there is a temporary disability of the governor, the lieutenant governor shall act as governor until the disability is removed, or the governor dies, resigns, or is removed from office. In case of the death, resignation, or removal from office of the governor, the lieutenant governor shall become governor for the remainder of the term, which shall create a vacancy in the office of lieutenant governor. This section shall also apply, as appropriate, to the governor-elect and the lieutenant governor-elect.

On at least some Polk County ballots cast in early voting, the word “until” was misspelled as “unitl.”

The vote in this year’s 2024 general election is the final step in the state’s process of amending the constitution. The gubernatorial succession measure, as well as another proposed amendment dealing with age and citizenship requirements for voting, must be approved by a simple majority of voters to make it into the Iowa Constitution. Before these measures appeared on Iowans’ ballots, they were passed through two consecutive general assemblies as required by state law.

(WASHINGTON, D-C) – After the Small Business Administration (SBA) claimed it had run out of funds for disaster relief, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the top Republican on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, alongside her fellow committee members Senators Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), and James Risch (R-Idaho), demanded answers over the agency’s mismanagement of disaster resources. In the letter, the senators highlighted that the SBA failed to notify Congress of the need for supplemental funding ahead of time, as required by law. They also stressed how bureaucratic inefficiency was to blame for the SBA coming up short for Americans in need.

The senators wrote, “Under existing law, the SBA already has several reporting requirements to provide Congress with sufficient notification and information before any shortfall occurs in its disaster account. Unfortunately, the SBA failed to comply, or only partially complied, with several of these provisions and is now, at the eleventh-hour, sounding alarm bells. We must consider whether SBA’s internal decisions were the catalyst for this unfortunate situation. For example, SBA currently has more than $550 million in its disaster administrative expenses account to pay for salaries, but did not request any reprogramming to their disaster loan fund.”

They said also, “Further, during a disaster, on-the-ground staff and training is essential. Congress has long recognized the need for agencies to scale up and down during times of disaster. In light of this, the SBA has a statutorily authorized disaster cadre, which is not meant to fall below 1,000 employees. Based on information recently provided by the SBA in response to questions as it sought supplemental funds, it appears that this cadre may have vanished, but no one was notified. This raises stark concerns about the SBA’s ability to provide for disaster victims during the immediate aftermath of these storms and its ability to inform Congress in accordance with the law,” the senators concluded.

Click here to view the full letter.

Des Moines, IA – State Auditor Rob Sand, Friday, issued a response to the Iowa Judicial Branch’s statement explaining how errors in the collection and distribution of court debt occurred and the steps being taken to rectify the problem.

“The Judicial Branch should be commended for its transparency and bringing forward plans to resolve problems with the coding used to distribute court debt.  They have clearly stated how this process has unfolded this far – something the Auditor’s Office is statutorily prohibited from doing,” Sand said. He added, “This problem is not entirely of the Judiciary’s own making but partially due to legislators demanding very quick changes, and rather than mischaracterize facts, legislators should work to reallocate the money as only legislators can do.”

State Auditor Rob Sand

Chapter 11.42 of the Code of Iowa requires the Auditor’s Office to maintain confidential all information received during the course of an audit or examination, including allegations of misconduct or noncompliance, until a report is issued.

(DES MOINES, Iowa WHO-TV/Iowa Dept. of Ed)— Iowa will soon have a new education license plate and it will be designed by a student. The Department of Education is hosting a statewide contest where all kindergarten through 12th graders can take part in designing the state’s next education license plate.

Student have until December 1st to submit their designs to their art teachers. Teachers can submit up to 10 to the Department of Education. A panel will pick out the semi-finalists and all of these designs will be on display at the Iowa Department of Education. Iowans will then get to vote on their favorite.

The winner will be notified in late May, and production of the new license plate will start next summer.

Any Iowan can choose to have an education license plate on their vehicle. There is a $35 registration fee and a $10 annual recurring fee. All proceeds will go towards student transportation costs.

For more information on the license plate challenge, click this link.