(Clarinda, Iowa) – The Page County Sheriff’s Office reports that on January 13th, they received a report of a burglary / theft from a building in rural Page County, located south of Essex. A partial list of the property stolen includes:

• Miller Millermatic 211 MIG welder on cart
• a Honda generator
• a Large floor fan
• 2 log chains: 1- 3/8” chain and 1- ½” chain
• Electric cords: 2- 50’ and 2- 100’
• 2-forced air kerosene / diesel fuel “torpedo” heaters
• A very large anvil
• A children’s air-tired tricycle
• A set of combination wrenches
• A set of ½” sockets
• Jumper cables and welding leads

Those items were in very good condition and should be easily spotted if someone is trying to sell them. Sheriff Lyle Palmer says the Burglary / theft is now a Crimestopper’s case. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Page County Sheriff’s Office at 712-542-5193 or their local Law Enforcement agency. The caller can remain anonymous and will be given a number. They will need to give a contact phone number for member of the Page County Sheriff’s Office to call them back to get their information about the case. The case is eligible for a Crimestopper’s reward if the information given by the caller leads to the arrest and filing of charges on a suspect(s).

(Radio Iowa) – MidAmerican Energy has filed plans with the Iowa Utilities Board for a three-point-nine BILLION dollar($3.9) renewable energy project. Company spokesman Geoff Greenwood says the goal is to hit net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. “It includes wind projects, solar by 2024 — but we’d also like to study some new technologies for clean energy. And that includes, carbon capture, energy storage, and modular nuclear,” Greenwood says. They are calling the project Wind PRIME and Greenwood says they would add more than two-thousand megawatts of wind generation and 50 megawatts of solar. The location of each has not yet been decided.

“It’s a little bit hard to say. We know what we would like to add right now in terms of additional wind and solar generation. What we don’t know yet is where we would have these projects,” Greenwood says. So, we know roughly how many more projects we need to add — but we don’t yet know exactly where we would add them.” Greenwood says past projects were built with federal production tax credits — but the amount paid in tax credits is dropping — and could lead to customers paying more. “It’s not as much as it used to be — it used to be 100 percent — and now it has gone down to 60 percent. So we expect that this will still be of value for our customers — but there likely will be a modest cost to our customers over the life of these project,” according to Greenwood. “But nonetheless, it is renewable energy and that is something that our residential and business customers are demanding more of.

The wind and solar projects are the major part of the plan, while Greenwood says they want to explore other things like carbon capture. That would help reduce emissions for coal-fired energy plants. “Our current plan calls for retiring our existing (coal) generating plants no later than 2049. So we are looking for a shorter-term carbon capture technology that may allow us to capture that carbon sooner rather than later,” he says. He says they want to look at all the technology available and the does include the small modular nuclear generation.

“We certainly have not decided to pursue this — but it is something that we think is worth exploring, because it is an emissions-free technology. And it is something that can help us get to where we want to get and where our customers want us to get — which is NetZero greenhouse gas emissions,” Greenwood says. The proposal has to go through the I-U-B process to get the plan approved. That will include public hearings and comments on the plan.

(Radio Iowa) – Veterans groups are urging legislators to increase a tax break for veterans. A property tax exemption worth 18-hundred-52 dollars is available to veterans who served in a war or were on active duty during peacetime for at least 18 months. Iowa Veterans Affairs Commission chair Elizabeth Ledvina says the exemption reduces the assessed value of a veteran’s home. “There’s not been an improvement or an increase of that since 1974,” she says, “so we feel it’s very important.”

The commission is also calling for more money in the fund that provides grants to first-time home buyers who’re veterans of the first Gulf War in the early 1990s or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in this century. Each grant is worth five-thousand dollars and Ledvina says there are often more applicants than grants available. “It’s a great thing to move to Iowa and get these benefits,” Ledvina says. “so we need more support to further fund that Home Ownership Grant for our veterans and our service members coming back into the State of Iowa.”

The grants may be used to cover down-payments and closing costs on a home, townhouse or condo that will be the veteran’s primary residence.

(Radio Iowa) – Charges are dismissed against a man who was accused of breaking into a Wright County hog operation in 2020, placing hidden cameras and stealing a live piglet. Thirty-five-year-old Matthew A. Johnson of Berkley, California was to have had his trial starting today in Wright County District Court in Clarion on the charges of third-degree burglary, electronic or mechanical eavesdropping and agricultural production facility trespass. On Tuesday, Wright County assistant attorney Joseph Corrow filed a motion to dismiss the charges.

According to criminal complaints and court documents, Johnson and an accomplice entered the Iowa Select hog site in rural Dows in May of 2020 without permission. Johnson and his accomplice, Linda L. Cridge of Fishers, Indiana placed two live video streaming cameras and an audio recording device in the facility. Johnson was being prosecuted under a new section of the Iowa Code known as the Iowa Ag Gag law put into law prior to the break in at the Iowa Select farm facility. Meanwhile Johnson’s motion to dismiss on the grounds that the ag gag law is unconstitutional under the first amendment was denied.

Wright County district court judge Derek Johnson dismissed the charges with prejudice, meaning the defendant cannot be charged with these crimes for the offense again.

More area, and State News from Ric Hanson.

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WASHINGTON – You see them during television news and hear them on other programs multiple times per day: advertisements for prescription drugs for everything from diabetes control and maintenance, to skin treatments and arthritis relief. On Wednesday, Iowa 3rd District Representative Cindy Axne introduced legislation that would end taxpayer subsidies for prescription drug advertisements targeted at American consumers by big pharmaceutical companies. Under current law, drug manufacturers are allowed to deduct the cost of advertising expenses from federal taxes, meaning taxpayer dollars are used to subsidize drug advertisements.

According to Axne, “Iowans are paying more than ever for their prescription drugs while giant pharmaceutical companies clear record profits in part by exploiting loopholes in our tax code to flood our airwaves with T.V. ads subsidized by Iowa tax dollars. This is unacceptable and insulting to the Iowans who tell me at every town hall I hold, the incredible lengths they are going to just to afford their medications.”  Axne says she’s joining with Congresswoman Slotkin, of Michigan, and Congressman Trone, from Maryland, “to introduce legislation that will cut off these tax breaks for drug companies and stop my constituents’ tax dollars from funding the never-ending carousel of prescription ads on their televisions.”

The No Tax Breaks for Drug Ads Act would prohibit any tax deduction for direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug advertising, thereby making sure that taxpayer money isn’t being used to subsidize drug ads. The bill would cover any ad that refers to a prescription drug product and is primarily targeted to the general public, including through journals, magazines, newspapers, broadcast media such as radio and television, and digital platforms such as social media and web applications.

DTC advertising expenses by pharmaceutical companies have more than quadrupled over the past two decades, rising from $1.3 billion in 1997 to $6 billion in 2016. In that same time period, advertising from drug companies has increased from 79,000 ads to 4.6 million ads, including 663,000 TV commercials. Margarida Jorge, Campaign Director for Lower Drug Prices Now, call the tax breaks for drug companies “…corporate welfare of the worst kind.”

The Senate companion of this bill was introduced by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with the Creston Police Department say a woman residing in the 900 block of N. Division Street, in Creston, reported Wednesday morning, an incident of vehicle vandalism. She said that sometime between 10-p.m. Tuesday and 7-a.m., Wednesday, someone broke out the back window of her Dodge 1500 pickup. The damage was estimated at $200.

The latest area news from Ric Hanson.

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[Updated 6:18-a.m.] (Honey Creek, Iowa) – Firefighters responded to a structure fire late Wednesday night, in Pottawattamie County. According to KETV in Omaha, crews from at least four area fire departments were called to 27125 Ski Hill Loop at about 11-p.m. They remained at the scene for at least two hours, but weren’t able to put out the flames before the building was destroyed.

Authorities say they believe the property was used to grow mushrooms for area restaurants. No injuries were reported.

(Radio Iowa) – U-S Senate candidate Abby Finkenauer of Cedar Rapids is calling for congressional term limits and pledging to serve just two terms if she’s elected in November. She is one of four candidates running in the Democrat primary in hopes to challenge incumbent Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. Finkenauer is calling for a 12-year term limit for each chamber of Congress.  “You look at somebody like Senator Grassley who has been harping on term limits for almost the entire time he’s been in office but refuses to term limit himself, this is what is wrong with Washington D-C,” Finkenauer says.

Finkenauer served one term as Iowa’s First District U-S House representative after losing a bid for re-election. Finkenauer says she’s in support of two voting rights bills before the U-S Senate this week — and says Grassley should as well.  “If he really cared about bipartisanship he’d be supporting this voting rights act and getting rid of gerrymandering in this country which has created these congressional districts that are so far left or so far right that you’ve got folks who are even afraid to talk to each other because they might get primaried on one side or the other,” Finkenauer says.

Grassley says the voting rights proposals by Democrats are an attempt to federalize elections. Grassley is running for an eighth term to represent Iowa and faces a primary challenge from state senator Jim Carlin from Sioux City.

(By Clay Masters, Iowa Public Radio)