Governor Terry Branstad and Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds opened their weekly news conference Monday speaking to reporters in a conference room via Skype from the governor’s office. “As kids start picking up their school supplies, packing their backpacks, boarding the bus, we’re announcing a new initiative called Skype your School, and hope that classrooms across the state will take part in this initiative,” Branstad said. Schools that sign up can talk with the governor or lieutenant governor via Skype. “We’re hopeful that students will find this to be fun, informative, and a innovative exercise,” according to Branstad.

Lieutenant Governor Reynolds is leading the state STEM task force that seeks to improve education in science, technology, engineering and math. “We want students to continue to be excited about technology as well as civics and government, and we hope that our participation helps raise their interest level,” Reynolds explains. “We’re excited to partner with Iowa schools to utilize a relatively new technology that is becoming more and more available to the general public, and that’s Skype.” Reynolds said it is easy to schedule a Skype discussion.

“To request a Skype Your School classroom chat, teachers or administrators and students are encouraged to click on the featured image at the governor’s website, governor-dot-Iowa-dot-gove,” Reynolds said. She said you can also go to the comment section on Facebook, either the governor’s or her Facebook page or through Twitter at the hashtag: SkypeYourSchool. The governor and lieutenant governor have already done several Skype chats with students, and said they want to be sure that every school has that opportunity.

(Radio Iowa)

President Obama is headed to campaign rallies in Oskaloosa, Marshalltown and Waterloo today (Tuesday), after spending part of Monday evening at the Iowa State Fair. Obama’s stroll through the fairgrounds came about seven hours after Paul Ryan — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s running mate — spoke to a crowd gathered around The Des Moines Register’s Soapbox. “We’re not growing this economy like we need to. We’re not creating jobs like we can in America and that is why Mitt Romney and I have a plan for a stronger middle class, to get this country back on track, get this country growing jobs again and get us back on the path to prosperity in this country,” Ryan said early Monday afternoon. There were protesters who heckled Ryan throughout his speech.

“We’re used to this in Wisconsin,” Ryan said nine minutes into his 12 minute speech, laughing, as his supporters chanted Romney’s name to try to drown out the protesters. Obama arrived in Council Bluffs mid-day Monday and quickly took aim at Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman who is in his 14th year as a member of the U.S. House. “What’s holding us back right now is Washington politics,” Obama said. “You’ve got folks on the other side who think compromise is a dirty word,” Obama said and someone in the Council Bluffs crowd yelled: “Yes, they do.” Obama suggested the “main idea” Republicans are presenting voters in 2012 is the “same old, top-down economics” that created the economic downturn. Late Monday afternoon during a speech in Boone, Obama amplified on that theme.

“They have tried to sell us this trickle down fairy dust before,” Obama said, “and it did not work then. It won’t work now.” Last night, at about 7:30 Obama walked through one of the gates into the Iowa State Fairgrounds, talking with fair-goers and posing for pictures for about an hour before going into a beer tent and ordering a Bud Light. Obama also ate a cold pork chop. The president-elect of the Iowa Pork Producers had been holding two pork chops on a styrofoam plate for 45 minutes, waiting to give them to Obama.

(Radio Iowa)

A Glenwood High School graduate and former audio-visual technician at the school, has agreed to plea guilty to a charge of 3rd degree sexual abuse, in connection with an incident involving a female student who was 15-years old at the time the incident took place. According to the Omaha World-Herald, 20-year-old Andrew Schoening, of Glenwood, agreed to plead guilty to having sex with the student inside a high school closet on December 20th, 2011, in return for the prosecution not seeking prison time. His attorney had argued the sex was consensual.

The Mills County Attorney says he’ll ask the judge during sentencing on November 5th, to place Schoening on supervised probation, with the stipulation that the conviction remain on Schoening’s record. If he had been convicted of statutory rape, Schoening could have faced up to 10-years in prison. Schoening, who was hired by the Glenwood School District in September 2011, resigned from his position last January, once the allegations became public.