(Radio Iowa) – The candidates running in Iowa’s third congressional district are each accusing the other of having an extreme position on abortion. Democratic Congresswoman Cindy Axne of West Des Moines and her Republican opponent, Zach Nunn, debated last Thursday night on KCCI in Des Moines.

Nunn, who is currently a state senator, emphasized his votes in the Iowa legislature on abortion restrictions. “I support the mother and the baby,” Nunn said, “and we’ve voted here in Iowa to provide exceptions for the health of the mother…rape, incest and fetal abnormalities.” Axne opposes the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade. “We woke up one day and our boys had more rights than our daughters did,” Axne said. “…This shouldn’t be a decision that states get to make. This is a decision that women get to make.”

Axne cited Nunn’s response during a debate this spring, when he raised his hand in support of a ban on abortion without exceptions. “My opponent…can slice and dice this however he wants,” Axne said. “…This was just a few months ago, folks.” Nunn then accused Axne of supporting abortions “up until the day of a birth.” “This is more extreme than places we see in anywhere else in the world, in China and North Korea, and it’s wrong,” Nunn said.

Axne said it’s “completely offensive” to suggest she supports abortions after women give birth. “Does he really think women are having babies and then all of a sudden we’re saying: ‘Kill the babies,’” Axne said. “That’s crazy talk.” Nunn expressed opposition to using taxpayer money to pay for abortions. “We in Iowa have taken votes to support the mother and provide reasonable exceptions and to say, ‘No to late term abortion,’” Nunn said.

The new third congressional district covers 21 counties in central and southern Iowa and includes the cities of Des Moines, Creston and Ottumwa.

(Radio Iowa) – The value of incumbency was the opening topic as Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and his Democratic opponent, Mike Franken, debated on television last (Thursday) night. Grassley, who is seeking an eighth six-year term, will have the most seniority in the Senate if he’s re-elected and he described it as a position of influence. “I will be number one in the United States Senate,” Grassley said. “…My opponent will be number 100.” Franken is a retired Navy admiral who has never held elected office.

“I will be like that young draft pick,” Franken said. “…I’ve got the vivaciousness and the intellect, the ideas.” The two candidates disagreed on a variety of topics. Franken favors making the 1973 Roe v Wade decision that had legalized abortion for nearly 50 years a federal law. “This is a private time where a tough decision has to be made, where a lawyer being in the room is not part of the equation,” Franken said, “nor is an intrusive government.”

Grassley said the U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v Wade has left abortion policymaking to elected STATE officials and he’d vote no on a Republican Senator’s bill that would ban abortions NATIONWIDE after the 15th week of a pregnancy.  “I think everybody knows that throughout my life I’ve been pro-life, pro-mother, pro-family,” Grassley said. “I think the Supreme Court decision was the right decision.” If elected, Franken would vote to repeal Trump-era tax cuts.

“The ones for the middle class or the upper middle class, they expired in 2021.” Franken said. “They’re slowing going out of vogue, although the big ones for the Uber wealthy, they’re still in place.” Grassley said repealing those tax cuts would lead to lead to the biggest tax increase in the history of the country. “And look at what happened as a result of the 2017 tax bill,” Grassley said. “Before the pandemic, we had the best economy we’d had in 50 years. We had the lowest unemployment we’d had in 50 years.”

Near the end of the debate, Franken responded to a former campaign aide’s allegation that he had kissed her without her consent. Franken, who said he has zero tolerance for sexual misdeeds, seemed to suggest the Grassley campaign had a role in making the allegation public.  “It is just a ploy because he’s got a problem, because it’s know that he’s got some anti-women activity in his career,” Franken said. Grassley responded: “My colleague, you’re in no position to lecture me about women. You’re in not position to do that.”

The candidates agreed the U.S. should be supporting Ukraine’s effort to repel Russia from its territory. Franken said if Russia’s president orders a nuclear strike, the U.S. should send in unarmed soldiers who are specially trained to respond to radiation victims. Grassley said deployed American soldiers should be armed so they can defend themselves.

Last (Thursday) night’s debate, which aired on Iowa P-B-S, is the only joint appearance the candidates will make before the November election.

(Radio Iowa) – Due to factors ranging from retirement to COVID burnout, some studies show Iowa hospitals will be short hundreds of nurses in the coming few years, and the University of Iowa is stepping up its effort to train more of the vital medical professionals. Dr. Sandy Daack-Hirsch, executive associate dean of the U-I College of Nursing, says the first class of students will start in January in the new “Master of Science in Nursing — Entry into Practice” program.

“This is for people who have a degree in some other major, other than nursing, maybe out working, may have just finished college but have decided, ‘Hey, you know, I think I might want to be a nurse,'” Daack-Hirsch says. “This gives people an option to get a nursing degree at the masters level, but entry into practice is at the RN licensure.” The 15-month program has fewer than 20 students in the first class, but the U-I plans to ramp up quickly in the coming years to 48 students in per class. The U-I has also long offered a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, or B-S-N. 

“We graduate 80 students in December and then we graduate 80 students again in the spring from our BSN program. That’s the program that we offer to incoming freshmen,” Daack-Hirsch says. “This is 48 more students in addition to that, so that’s a pretty big jump for us.” Decades ago, a majority of nurses in the U-S were women, but that’s been steadily changing.

“We’re not at 50-50, but we have a growing number of men in nursing,” Daack-Hirsch says. “I would say that we see a nice increase every year.” About half of the Iowa City institution’s B-S-N program graduates stay in Iowa to practice and she’s hopeful the master program will attract even more people who will remain in-state to put their valued skills to use.

https://nursing.uiowa.edu/academics/msn-entry-practice

(Radio Iowa) – Residents of Ames will be able to get electronics, small appliances, computers, bicycles, clothing, or other items that need some work, fixed for free this weekend.

Mike Van Vertloo organized the Ames Repair Café where some 25 volunteers will lend their repair skills to the effort.
“We can teach them how to repair or improve the function of those items,” he says. Van Vertloo says the goal is to cut down on the amount of waste that goes to the landfill by keeping the items working.

“Unfortunately, a lot of times financially that makes the most sense. You know, the newer thing is made more cheaply, or made in a part of the world where labor is super cheap. And it is often cheaper to replace something, and then that is to fix it,” Van Vertloo says. He had the idea for doing this and then came across some others in the community who were also looking to get it started.

(City of Ames graphic)

Van Vertloo says it’s something that is happening globally. “People around the world have events like this, but this is the first one in Iowa, that I found, I haven’t been able to find anything in Iowa, ” he says. Van Vertloo says some of the fixes may not take long.

“A lot of repairs can be deceptively simple. Once you know kind of what to do,” he says. “And you know, sometimes it comes down to having the right specialized tool. And we are looking at ways to sort of combat that where somebody doesn’t have the right tool, so maybe they’ll go to Lowe’s or Home Depot and pick up a tool for 20 dollars and use it exactly once.” He says they hope to eventually branch out from the repair Cafe idea and maybe create a tool library that lets people borrow the tool they need to make their own repairs.

Van Vertloo says the Repair Cafe will be first-come, first-serve. He says they had a booth at a recent event in Ames and there appears to be a lot of interest. “I suspect, we will have a good turnout, I think it might even get to the point where we end up turning people away, because we don’t have the capacity to do everything within the six hours that we’ve got,” he says. Van Vertloo says they may eventually make this a regular ongoing event.

The Repair Cafe for Ames residents runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday (Oct 8) at the Ames Public Library.