(Radio Iowa) – The Sioux City Public Library is one of 15 in the nation to receive federal funding to help schools and libraries address the gap for those who currently lack necessary internet access, or the devices needed to connect online. Library director Helen Rigdon says Sioux city’s library has received more than one million dollars in funding from the emergency connectivity fund. “This program was available for all eligible schools and public libraries and they covered the reasonable costs of laptops, tablets, Wi-Fi hotspots, modems and routers. And then of course the cellular connectivity is available for 12 months on those,” she says.

The library is using the funding to launch the “Internet forAll” initiative, a program that provides 19-hundred internet-enabled devices connected on t-mobile’s nationwide network available for checkout through the Sioux City Public Library. Residents have already started checking out the devices from the library. Rigdon says there is a time limit for their use. “For individuals, it’s three months their Chromebooks and the iPads, then you can bring it back in — and if we have availability — then you can renew it and check them out again,” Rigdon says. “But you’d have to bring them back in just so we can make sure they’re still functioning properly. The routers and hotspots are 12 months.” Chris Kuchta is with the Connections Area Agency on Aging, which hopes to have check out devices to use for their older adult technology series.

“So we’ll be going and doing technology training with those programs for seniors. The purpose isn’t to help build their skills but to help them use those devices in everyday life,” Kuchta says. All Sioux city residents with a public library card in good standing are eligible to check out an internet-enabled device from the library while supplies last.

(Radio Iowa) – The F-D-A is granting what’s called accelerated approval for a new drug that shows promise in clinical trials to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Lauren Livingston, spokeswoman for the Iowa Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, calls the announcement “exciting” and says the drug Lecanemab isn’t a cure, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. “During the clinical trial, it slowed the cognitive decline of those in the trial by nearly 30% over 18 months, so that’s a huge improvement,” Livingston says. “It gives people more time with their families, more time to drive and take care of their finances and participate in the things they love, so it’s great news.” There are several downsides, however. In some patients, the drug caused serious side effects. Plus, it will be difficult to obtain, and then there’s the cost.

“It is a very expensive treatment. I believe I saw it is close to $30,000 for one year of treatments from the drugmaker,” Livingston says. “That is why it is so important for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to change their decision that they made almost a year ago to cover this drug.” Under current regulations, the drug wouldn’t be covered unless the patient is taking part in a clinical trial, and there are no such trials underway in Iowa.

“You’d have to pay for it out of pocket to go to a healthcare system that offers it,” Livingston says. “If you want to take the drug and have it be covered under Medicare at this time, you would have to travel somewhere that has a clinical trial. So either way, it’s either hard to access because of location and time or hard to access because of finances.” Patients in the trial had moderate cognitive impairment or early-stage Alzheimer’s so it’s still unclear what impact it might have on those with more advanced stages of the disease. More than 66-thousand Iowans are living with Alzheimer’s.

www.alz.org

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A traffic stop early this (Tuesday) morning in Red Oak, resulted in the arrest of a man on a drug charge. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office says 57-year-old Kenneth Allen Rhamy, of Red Oak, was pulled over at 4th and Nuckols Streets, in Red Oak, and subsequently arrested for Possession of Methamphetamine/1st Offense. Rhamy was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – The estimated Mega Millions jackpot for tonight’s (Tuesday) drawing is one-point-one BILLION dollars — making it the fifth largest U-S jackpot. Iowa Lottery spokesperson, Mary Neubauer, says the jackpot has been growing since October 14th. “That’s the thing about a game like Powerball or Mega Millions you just never know when the next big one is going to hit,” she says. “So when it hits, everybody starts talking about it, it becomes that thing that everybody’s getting in on — and then we’ll wait to see what the next one brings.”

Neubauer says people like to pool their money for big jackpots and it is important to be sure everyone involved knows what is happening. “Keep really close track of who puts money into the pool and how much — so that there’s never a question later about who was in and who was out,” Neubauer says. “It’s something fun at the time and we just don’t want it to turn into a complication later.”

Blank forms for the Mega Millions lottery (File photo)

She says you also need to remember the cutoff time for buying a Mega Millions ticket in Iowa is 8:59 p-m. Any ticket purchase after that time is for the next drawing. You can opt to take the cash payout if you win the jackpot and bring home nearly 569 million dollars.

(Shenandoah, Iowa) – A traffic stop at around 8:45-p.m. Monday in Shenandoah, resulted in an arrest. According to the Shenandoah Police Department, 39-year-old David Anthony Chambers, of Shenandoah, was taken into custody for Driving While Barred, and OWI/3rd or subsequent offense. Chambers was also cited for Open Container. He was being held in the Page County Jail on bond amounting to $7,000.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Sheriff’s officials in Montgomery County report a man from Union County was arrested late Monday night, in Red Oak. Mathew Garcia was taken into custody in the 100 block of W. Coolbaugh Street at around 11-p.m.  He was arrested on an active Montgomery County warrant for Failure to Appear on an original charge of Driving while license denied or revoked. Garcia was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley was at the Iowa Capitol Monday for the opening day of the state legislature, so he could administer the oath of office to his grandson, who is House Speaker.

Chuck Grassley served 16 years in the IOWA House before his election to congress. State Representative Pat Grassley is entering his 17th year in the Iowa legislature. “I will guarantee you I will still not being doing this, though, as long as he has, either way,” Pat Grassley said, to laughter. The 89-year-old Grassley is entering his 43rd year in the U.S. Senate and has the most seniority of any current senator. Grassley says when he left the Iowa House in 1974, he wasn’t sure his campaign for a seat in the U.S. House would be successful, as he faced four other candidates in a G-O-P Primary.

U.S. Senator Grassley swears in his grandson Pat as Speaker of the Iowa House. (Photo from Pat Grassley’s Twitter feed.)

“I was in the hospital, don’t forget, for 10 or 15 days before that primary and so my wife went out and campaigned for me and a lot of other people did and I won the primary with 42% of the vote,” Grassley says. “But at that point, when you’re laying in a hospital bed, you wonder what’s going to happen to you. In fact, I had to wait two days to decide whether they were going to amputate my leg or take care of it another way.” Grassley had a non-malignant tumor on his left leg.

Doctors at the University of Iowa used what was a new procedure at the time to transplant bone chips from Grassley’s hip into the area where bone had been removed from his lower leg. “Now, if you saw it on X-rays, you’d just see a little mark around where they grafted it in,” Grassley said. “But they took more than two thirds of the bone below the knee.” Grassley was on crutches then, for the rest of the 1974 campaign. Grassley then served six years in the U.S. House before his election to the United States Senate in 1980.