(Radio Iowa) – The U-S Supreme Court will hear constitutional challenges today (Wednesday) to a long-established law that protects Native children from being removed from their families. The Indian Child Welfare Act requires state agencies to work with tribes on child home placements. Iowa Assistant Attorney General Diane Murphy Smith says overturning the law would be devastating to tribal communities. Smith says, “In state court, we’re really facing huge implications for our Native children and Native families, and our tribal state agreements.” She says it would scale back the state’s ability to serve and collaborate with the Meskwaki tribe in Iowa.

Before the law passed in 1978, around one-fourth of Native children were taken from their families by state child welfare agencies. Of those, 85-percent ended up in non-Native homes. Great Plains Action Society representation director Jessica Engelking says reversal of the law would undo decades of work to protect Native children. Engelking says, “I’m absolutely terrified of going back to a time where our children were just stolen with impunity, more so than they are now.” The law’s opponents argue the legislation discriminates based on race, but tribes say being Native is a political designation, not a racial one, which means tribal sovereignty is also under threat.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller filed an amicus brief, urging the court to reject the challenges.

(reporting by Kendall Crawford, Iowa Public Radio)

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with the Creston Police Department report 36-year-old Melisa Rhiane Griesinger, of Creston, was arrested today (Wed.) at around 12:45-a.m.  She was charged with Public Intoxication/1st offense, and Interference with Official Acts. Griesinger was transported to the Clarke County Jail, where her cash or surety bond was set at $600.

And, a man residing in the 500 block of N. Pine Street, in Creston, told police late Tuesday morning, that the license plates on his truck had been stolen. The plate number is LGY 169. The loss was estimated at $15.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – A majority of Iowans feel the right to keep and bear arms should be a part of the Iowa Constitution. Unofficial results show 65% of Iowans voted in favor of a Constitutional Amendment, that summarily states any restrictions of the right to own and bear firearms will be subject to strict scrutiny.

Police in Red Oak report the arrest at around 3:30-a.m. today, of 49-year-old Jeffrey Dean Etter. He was taken into custody during a traffic stop, on a Montgomery County warrant for Failure to appear on a driving while revoked charge. His bond was set at $10,000. And, at around 10:35-p.m. Tuesday, Red Oak Police arrested 23-year-old Jacob David Berggren, of Red Oak, on a warrant out of Nebraska, for Violation of Probation. He was charged as a fugitive from justice and was being held in the Montgomery County Jail while awaiting extradition to Nebraska. Red Oak Police were assisted in handling the arrest, by deputies with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.