(DES MOINES, Iowa) – To help address the issue of opioid misuse, the Iowa Department of Health of Human Services (HHS) is expanding their initiative to provide naloxone (the opioid overdose reversal medication) to Iowa organizations, businesses and schools, which may be in a position to render aid to a person at risk of experiencing an opioid overdose. Since February of 2022, HHS has offered eligible organizations and businesses free naloxone nasal spray kits. Now, the program is expanding to include schools. The purpose of this initiative is to equip organizations, businesses and schools, in the event that their employees, agents, or volunteers encounter someone experiencing a suspected opioid overdose.

While the hope is there would never be a need for the use of naloxone, having this medication available as part of a first-aid response could save someone’s life. Eligible organizations, businesses and schools, include but are not limited to: retail/convenience stores; libraries; public or nonpublic schools, community colleges, colleges, universities; restaurants; bars; community or social services organizations; event venues; and mobile service providers.

Click here to view eligibility information and program requirements.

HHS’ State Opioid Response office was recently awarded $9,083,075 per year for two years to provide treatment and recovery programs for an estimated 1,100 people. In addition, the program will provide prevention and harm reduction services to more than 11,000 people.

Although Iowa is considered a low-incidence state compared to many others, the increases in opioid- related deaths are concerning, with 258 official records of opioid-related deaths in Iowa for 2021, up from 157 deaths in 2019 and 213 deaths in 2020. Synthetic opioids, such as illicit versions of fentanyl, are now involved in the vast majority of opioid-related deaths in Iowa, and have increased in all age groups. Increasing instances of these synthetics being detected in combination with other drugs such as stimulants, indicate that some people who think they are taking something other than an opioid are also dying due to contamination of those substances with illicit fentanyl.

The recently announced award comes as a follow-up to previous opioid grants and will allow for continuation and expansion of the prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts in the state. The free naloxone program in combination with training available around the state from local grantee organizations ensures that more Iowans have access to this life saving medicine.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – One person suffered from lacerations, following an accident southwest of Atlantic, this (Wednesday) morning. The Cass County Communications Center dispatched Cass EMS to the scene near 58882 Whitepole Road, at around 6:35-a.m., where a vehicle apparently crashed through a gate or fence. After Deputies arrived, they determined that a 2016 Jeep Cherokee left White Pole Road north of a residence, went through a fence and a bean field, before striking machinery in the yard of the residence.

The injured party was transported to Cass County Memorial Hospital and later transported by helicopter to a hospital in Omaha. Additional details are currently not available.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – In an update to our report on Tuesday, Republican Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, from Red Oak, has announced that the proceeds from her annual Roast and Ride fundraiser on October 22nd, will go toward a fundraiser set up in honor of a fallen Midwest Marine. Twenty-three-year-old Cpl. Daegan Page, who grew up in Ernst’s hometown of Red Oak, was one of 13 U.S. service members killed during an Aug. 26, 2021, bombing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan. The attack came as thousands of people tried to evacuate the region before the Taliban took over the country. Family members set up the Corporal Daegan Page Foundation in his honor.

Daegan Page. (Photo from the FB memorial page.)

The Roast and Ride event will take place at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased HERE. The link also has more information about the Oct. 22nd event.

(Radio Iowa) – Eleven organizations in central Iowa have put together a pilot project for what’s called a basic income plan. The Director of Principal Foundation, Jo Christine Miles, says they will provide 500 dollars each month to participants. “Folks who we know are tending to struggle to make ends meet. And let’s see how their health, their children’s educational outcomes, their work in housing choices are impacted by having this basic income to help them make those ends meet,” Mile says. She says the idea came from Doctor Nalo Johnson, who is the President & CEO of Mid-Iowa Health Foundation, after she saw results from other pilots across the country.

“One of the things that we look forward to establishing is the positive health outcomes that come from people believing that financial stress in being able to get better nutrition, etcetera,” Miles says. They will seek 110 low-income individuals living in Polk, Warren and Dallas Counties. She says they want to see what happens when you help people get caught up — so that they can move into higher income levels. “What changes do we see occur on the psychological mental behavioral level, on the day-to-day, you know pedestrian bits of life food choices, etc. That’s why we wanted to give the income what happens when we remove money as a barrier,? She says.

Miles says giving the participants money gives them more options compared to other supports like food assistance which has many restrictions on how it can be used. She says the data from the other pilots across the country has shown the money is well spent. “They tend to spend it on basic needs. They tend to spend it on medical care, they tend to spend it on reducing debt, that’s been a stressor for the household. And much of that debt is medical debt,” She says. They tend to spend it on food, they tend to spend it on clothes and shoes that they might not have otherwise been able to get for their families.”

Miles says the stories about people getting assistance and spending the money on things it wasn’t intended for tend to get more attention. She says that hasn’t proven to be true in these pilots. “What we’re seeing is families are taking care of necessities, they aren’t out there, you know, buying booze or drugs or anything like that. Now, out of the thousands of cases, could there be one? Possibly? I haven’t heard of one. It hasn’t been reported in the literature,” according to Miles. The other pilots across the country have been in places like Stockton, California, Baltimore, Maryland, Chicago, Atlanta, and Mexico. Miles says the Iowa project is unique.

“Most of the other ones are in an urban context. This one, since it’s in central Iowa, and covering Polk, Warren and Dallas counties, you’re gonna get urban participants, primarily from Des Moines, you’re gonna get that kind of suburban participant coming out of parts of Dallas and Warren counties,” she says. “And you’re gonna get a rural participant, primarily out of Warren and you know, the far reaches of Dallas County. No other project or pilot in the country has achieved that.”

Miles says the Iowa pilot should provide some really interesting data to add to the national conversation. Recruitment is expected to begin in late November 2022, with the first payments starting in February 2023. This project is supported in part by federal funds under the Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund awarded to Des Moines, Urbandale, and Polk County by the U-S Department of Treasury. Others involved are the Mid-Iowa Health Foundation, Principal Foundation, Wells Fargo Foundation, Windsor Heights, Bank of America, The Director’s Council, Telligen Community Initiative, and United Way of Central Iowa.

(Radio Iowa) – The La Nina weather system often brings Iowa and the Midwest an above-normal helping of precipitation, but even though the pattern is expected to stick around for yet another winter, we’re still suffering with drought. Doug Kluck, the climate services director for the Central Region of the National Weather Service, says there would normally be a lot more rainfall, especially in the Missouri River basin. Kluck says, “It is possible that La Nina can contribute in a positive manner more usable precipitation for the basin.” The expected amount of precip simply hasn’t been materializing, he says, and it’s unclear whether that will change with the snowpack in the winter season ahead.

“The last two years have been La Nina and those last two years have been something like 88 and 90% of normal snowpack, where we would hope that La Nina would give us over 100%,” Kluck says, “but that didn’t happen.” Kluck says this situation is what adds to so much climate prediction uncertainty. “It tells you the fickleness, to be honest, of using La Nina only as a forecast tool for that neck of the woods,” he says.

The National Climate Prediction Center is forecasting this La Nina will fade away by early spring. The latest report from the U-S Drought Monitor shows 80 percent of Iowa is either abnormally dry or in some level of drought.

Police in Red Oak, Tuesday evening, arrested 53-year-old Fred Francis Welch, IV, of Red Oak. Welch was taken into custody on a valid Montgomery County warrant for Failure to Appear, on original charges of OWI/1st offense, and Possession of a Controlled Substance. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $5,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – A northwest Iowa man caught getting meth through the mail has been sentenced to nearly two decades in federal prison. According to the U-S Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Iowa, 55-year-old Armando Silva Reyes of Spencer gave a quarter pound of meth to an informant on two occasions.

On February 3rd of last year Silva Reyes and others received three pounds of meth through the U-S Post Office in Spencer. Prosecutors say Silva Reyes was part of a network that distributed meth by the pound in northern Iowa.

Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and two counts of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine.

Des Moines, Iowa – Governor Kim Reynolds today (Tuesday), announced her appointment of Jessica Noll as a district associate judge in Judicial Election District 3B. Noll, of Akron, Iowa, currently serves as a magistrate in Woodbury County and practices law with Deck Law, P.L.C. in Sioux City. Noll received her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of South Dakota.

District Associate Judge Jessica Noll

Noll fills a vacancy created by the addition of four new district associate judge positions authorized by the legislature in this year’s session. Judicial Election District 3B includes Crawford, Ida, Monona, Plymouth, Sioux, and Woodbury counties.

(Radio Iowa) – Members of the 185th Iowa National Guard in Sioux City have been in Woodbine, building a giant tension fabric structure (tfs) that is a precursor to an Innovative Readiness Training (IRT) mission soon to take place at the Woodbine High School. Woodbine Schools Superintendent Justin Wagner, is also a colonel with the 185th, and says the fabric structure will initially house teams of U-S. military members traveling to the area to help construct a new Ignite Pathways building already under construction in Woodbine.

“And they’ve done exactly what they’ve done overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq. They took something completely bare just like this field. And they’re building this and these folks have been up in the morning at 7. They’re working to 7 p-m,” he says. “I’m not sure I’ve seen a better example of the Iowa National Guard connecting with the community for a value added project.” Wagner requested the support of the Department of Defense I-R-T program to help construct the new ignite building as well as the accompanying structure.

“It’s called Ignite Pathways it’s a 45-thousand square foot facility completely focused on Career and Technical Education. And so it’s the skills kids learn by doing and so that process to get approved as a D-O-D I-R-T project is taking about 18 months,” Wagner says. This is the first ever I-R-T in Iowa. As part of their annual training, Iowa guard members from the 185th Air Wing set up the privately donated 30-thousand square foot structure in woodbine. Wagner says when construction on the adjacent Ignite building is complete, the school plans to use the tfs building as an indoor athletic facility.

“It combines two really important things, the governor’s push on current technical education and our future-ready Iowa initiative which is really on the school side what we’re really trying to push, and then that D-O-D I-R-T push being the first ever in the state of Iowa is pretty special to us,” he says. The Ignite building project is scheduled to be completed at the beginning of the 2023 school year. Colonel Wagner also serves as the vice wing commander with the 185th Air Refueling Wing in Sioux City as a traditional guard member.

(Radio Iowa) – A security breach at one of the nation’s largest health systems has affected hospitals in Des Moines and Omaha. Officials at Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health say an I-T security incident happened on Monday. Some MercyOne facilities in central Iowa have been affected. A MercyOne spokesman says some I-T systems have been taken offline and that may include electronic health record systems.

The Omaha World Herald reports the Creighton University Medical Center and two other C-H-I hospitals in Omaha have taken steps to respond to the security incident as well. It’s unclear how extensive the hack may have been. News reports in other states indicate hospitals in Tennessee and Georgia have rescheduled some surgeries and doctors’ appointments.