(Creston, Iowa) – A man from Stuart was arrested late Monday night on drug charges, in Creston. According to Creston Police, Patrick Nolte was arrested at the intersection of Fremont and Elm Streets at around 10:36-p.m.  He was charged with Intent to Manufacture/Deliver Methamphetamine. Nolte was being held in the Union County Jail while awaiting an appearance before the magistrate.

(Radio Iowa) – A federally funded program is ending soon that’s helped some 17-thousand Iowans stay in their homes with the lights on. In addition to paying for back rent, the Iowa Finance Authority’s Rent and Utility Assistance Program has higher income barriers, opening it to many more Iowans than comparable rent assistance programs. Lynette Jacoby, director of social services in Johnson County, says the challenge will be to find programs that can fill the gap. “We know though at the local level that there isn’t funding,” Jacoby says. “We can’t fill a gap of $350,000 a month in rental assistance.” Jacoby said the program’s 170-million dollar impact was not just for residents, but also landlords who would have lost income from emptied units or the eviction process.

The Iowa Finance Authority says the program will stop accepting new applicants at the end of August, following the national trend of dialing back COVID-era assistance programs. Luke Elzinga works at DMARC, which runs a network of food pantries in the Des Moines area. He says when people have fewer resources to cover rent, they’ll have to make it up somewhere else.  “A lot of the time, people will make sure their rent is paid first so they can remain housed and then figure out how they’re going to feed themselves,” Elzinga says. “That oftentimes looks like turning to a food pantry.”

The program ends as DMARC, like other food pantries, was already reporting record levels of demand for food assistance.

(reporting by Zachary Oren Smith, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – Mike Franken, the Democrat challenging Republican Senator Chuck Grassley’s bid for reelection, says politicians owe it to the next generation to do better. “I now see the political charged environment that now haunts us and it’s the Iowa that I don’t recognize…where you’re not so sure if you’re friends with your neighbor any more,” Franken says. “People, we cannot have this future. We must have a new dawning…There’s far more things that make us the same…than what separate us.”

Franken is a retired Navy admiral. He suggests it’s hard to imagine the national unity so evident after the 9/11 attacks 21 years ago has largely evaporated. “We must do better,” Franken says. “We must think about the future of America, not get balled around with the difficulties and the political leadership in Washington, D.C.” Franken made his comments Monday afternoon on the Des Moines Register’s Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair. He drew cheers by reciting New Deal programs like rural electrification that Democrat Franklin Roosevelt promoted and the Great Society programs of the Johnson presidency.

“Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security,” Franken said. “These are basic Democratic principals we are all reliant on today.” Franken said Democrats have a history of leaning forward and he says if elected, he’ll promote doing things like rebuilding the energy grid. A spokeswoman for Grassley’s campaign says Franken wants Iowa to be more liberal and is out of step and out of touch with Iowans.

(Radio Iowa) – Ryan Melton, the Democratic candidate in Iowa’s fourth congressional district, is opposed to construction of pipelines that capture carbon from Iowa ethanol plants. “The big concern is that three companies are asking the Iowa Utilities Board here in Des Moines to allow them to use eminent domain to take private landowners’ land away to plant these carbon capture pipelines and we know eminent domain is not for that purpose,” Melton says.

Melton says the projects will benefit private corporations and the government’s eminent domain process is supposed to be used for projects that have a public purpose. “If you do the research on this, you do the digging on this, carbon sequestration plants have closed by the multitudes because it’s a failed technology,” Melton says. “It over-promises and under-delivers.”

Melton, who lives in Nevada, is challenging Republican Congressman Randy Feenstra’s bid for a second term in the U.S. House. In a column by Feenstra that was published in several newspapers last year, Feenstra said carbon pipelines have the potential to boost the ethanol industry AND ensure Iowa farmers continue to have a strong market for their corn. Melton says the further north and west you go in Iowa, the more concerns you hear about the proposed pipelines. “Why would you give the burden of a risk of carbon capture pipeline leak, why would you put that burden on us — on our shoulders on the ground, just so corporations could rake in massive profit from that, for a failed technology that is not a climate solution? Melton asked the crowd at the State Fair. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Melton says the focus, instead, should be to expand wind and solar power generation to reduce the use of carbon-based energy sources. Melton made his comments on the Des Moines Register’s Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair.