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Keep up-to-date with Fox News Radio, Radio Iowa, Brownfield & the Iowa Agribusiness Networks!
KJAN News can be heard at five minutes after every hour right after Fox News 24 hours a day!
Keep up-to-date with Fox News Radio, Radio Iowa, Brownfield & the Iowa Agribusiness Networks!
(Radio Iowa) – Confirmation hearings will begin Monday for President Trump’s choice to fill the vacancy on the U-S Supreme Court and both of Iowa’s U-S senators are serving on the Judiciary Committee. Senator Chuck Grassley was chairman of the panel in 2018 when the president’s pick of Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed, after much contention. Grassley, a Republican, hopes it will be different next week with Judge Amy Coney Barrett. “I hope the Democrats don’t make a mockery of the process like they did when I was chairing the committee when Kavanaugh was before us,” Grassley says. “I think everybody knows how much of a mockery that was.”
Grassley says he has -not- made up his mind yet about confirming Barrett, while he did approve of her appointment as a federal judge in 2017 and today (Wednesday) called her “very well qualified.” “Although I’ve been pretty open about the fact that, since I voted for her three years ago, there would have to be something dramatic come up that I wouldn’t vote for her again,” Grassley says, “but I even told her that I was going to wait until after the hearing to make a final decision.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee has 22 members — 12 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Two Republicans on the panel are in isolation due to COVID-19, which raises the question of a possible 10-10 tie that would mean the nomination doesn’t get out of committee. Unless more members of the panel are unable to attend, Grassley says he is -not- concerned about a tie vote, even with two fellow Republicans in isolation with COVID. “In some cases, it tends to be 10 days and in some cases it’s 14 days,” Grassley says, “but even if it’s 14 days, by the time we have to vote on it, the rules of the committee require that we lay over one week, so it would be sometime towards the tail end of the next week that we vote on it, so they would be beyond that 14 days.”
While Barrett is expected to attend the hearing in person, Grassley says he’s not sure how many other people will actually be in the room. “I would bet a lot of the members are going to be virtual and not in the committee room,” Grassley says. “I think I will be in the committee room because there’s plenty of distance. People, if they’re close to you, wear masks and they’re pretty good about the things you’re supposed to do.”
While the hearing starts on Monday, that day will be devoted to members of the committee making speeches about the nominee. The questioning will run next Tuesday and Wednesday, with each senator being allotted a total of 50 minutes to quiz Barrett about her judicial philosophy. Iowa Republican Joni Ernst also serves on the committee.
(Radio Iowa) – The latest survey by a group representing 22 of the largest businesses in the state finds a big jump in optimism for the third quarter of this year. Iowa Business Council executive director Joe Murphy says the overall survey index is up by more than 14 points. “We’re very excited to report for the first time in 2020 the Iowa Business Council is projecting a positive economic outlook over the course of the next six months — and that’s really a significant increase in optimism,” Murphy says.
The survey measures expectations for sales, capital spending, and employment for the next six months. Murphy says the survey optimism is at its highest level since the fourth quarter of 2019. “While we are not out of the woods on the pandemic or the pending recession, I think there’s some glimmers of hope out there for Iowa businesses and for Iowa employment,” according to Murphy. One key is the survey number for expected sales. “More than 55 percent of them have said that they expect sales to increase over the next six months,” he says, “which is really important not only for our members but for all Iowa businesses. When you think about the Iowa Business Council, their business partnerships, their customers and clients are really focused in on those Iowa companies as well. We view this as a positive metric for the state.” He says capital spending is another area where the businesses show a lot of optimism. “Forty-five-percent of our members expect an increase in capital spending over the next six months. Which is a huge number when you think about the level of pause that was going on in the first six months of the year, nine months of the year,” Murphy says.
Murphy says a lot of the optimism comes from the businesses seeing how the pandemic has played out and adapting. “We’ve been in this now going on seven months and businesses in Iowa are very capable of adapting to new realities,” Murphy says. “And I think you are seeing businesses — both our members’, large companies in the state — but also medium and small businesses in the state as well, learning but also adapting to this new reality,” Murphy explains. Forty-one percent of the I-B-C businesses expect employment to increase in the third quarter. Murphy says that’s part of moving forward with the knowledge gained from what has happened so far with the pandemic. “I think just getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is a good way to think about it. However you slice it, the fact that we’re projecting optimism, positive economic sentiment, is certainly a good thing for us to celebrate right now,” Murphy says.
While there is optimism, he says I-B-C members continue to cite challenges with attracting and retaining a talented workforce as an issue that was there before the pandemic and continues now.
For more on the survey, go to www.iowabusinesscouncil.org.
Two men from Glenwood were arrested recently, on separate charges. Wednesday (today), 31-year old Logan West was arrested for OWI/1st offense. West has since posted a $1,000 cash or surety bond. And, on Tuesday, 63-year old Russell Fuller was arrested in Glenwood on a Mills County warrant. His cash/surety bond was set at $25,000.
Three people were transported to the Shenandoah Memorial Hospital following an accident Tuesday afternoon. The Page County Sheriff’s Office reports deputies responded at around 2:11-p.m. to a two vehicle accident with injuries, at the intersection of Highways 2 and 59. An investigation determined a car driven by 60-year old Denise Renee Bryant, of Coin, was traveling south on Highway 59. As she attempted to make a left (east) turn onto Highway 2 eastbound, 57-year old Carol Lynn Kirkpatrick, of Westboro, MO. was driving an SUV northbound on Highway 59.
Bryant said that she was looking at an ambulance that was stopped at the eastbound stop sign of the intersection on Highway 2 waiting for traffic to clear. The ambulance did not have any
emergency lights activated. When Bryant turned east from Highway 59 into the path of the Kirkpatrick SUV, the front passenger side portion of the Kirkpatrick vehicle struck the front passenger side fender / front end of the Bryant vehicle. Bryant’s 2011 Mercury Milan vehicle spun around and came to rest in the northbound lane / shoulder part of Highway 59, north of Highway. Kirkpatrick’s 2014 Jeep Cherokee veered in a northeast direction coming to rest in the east ditch of the intersection.
Authorities say it appears that both vehicles went over the westbound Highway 2 stop sign of the intersection. Bryant, Kirkpatrick, and a passenger in the SUV, 57-year old Helen Marie Settles, of Westboro, MO., were transported to the hospital for treatment of undisclosed injuries. Deputies cited Bryant for Failure to yield upon left turn.
The Page County Sheriff’s Office was assisted at the scene by the Clarinda Ambulance service, the Shenandoah Ambulance service, the Shenandoah Police department, the Shenandoah Fire Department, and the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office.
(Corrects location) 9-a.m. News…(In an update to our previous reports…) The Cass County Sheriff’s Office says a Wiota man was injured during a single-vehicle accident Tuesday night, east of Atlantic. Deputies responded to the scene off White Pole Road (Highway 6), just west of 650th (Highway 71), around 9:24 p.m. Upon their arrival, a vehicle was found upside down in a cornfield. The lone male occupant, 44-year old Joseph Lewis Grimes, of Wiota, was extricated from the vehicle by rescue crews and was taken to Cass County Memorial Hospital.
Grimes was later flown by Life Flight to an unknown hospital, for treatment of serious injuries. An investigation into the crash is ongoing. The Sheriff’s Office was assisted by Cass County EMS, Atlantic Fire and Rescue, and the Iowa State Patrol.
WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — A 42-year-old Iowa woman convicted of a 1993 stabbing death when she was a teenager has been granted work release. The Courier reports that Ruthann Veal was granted the transitional status Tuesday following an interview with a three-member panel of the Iowa Board of Parole. Veal was a 14-year-old runaway from Mason City when she was charged as an adult in the 1993 killing of 66-year-old Catherine Haynes, of Waterloo.
Police said Haynes had been stabbed to death in her home and her credit cards stolen. Veal was sentenced to life in prison, but the U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that such sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional.
More State and area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.
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(Radio Iowa) – One of the county auditors who distributed partially-filled-out forms for requesting absentee ballots says at least 75 percent of the voters in WOODBURY County who mailed BACK those requests have submitted a SECOND form that complies with court rulings. Two district court judges ruled the forms auditors in Woodbury, Linn and Johnson Counties mailed this summer should NOT have included the voter’s address and voter I-D number and should have been blank. Woodbury County Auditor Pat Gill. “A big percentage of those folks have already requested a ballot through a different form, so we feel pretty good about that,” Gill says.
Gill says it’s time to move on from the court fight — and focus on in-person early voting. “Most of the people who had their requests invalidated have already requested a new ballot and a lot of them are already showing up at the Long Lines Family Rec Center to vote in-person absentee,” he says. The Iowa Supreme Court intervened yesterday (Tuesday) and issued a stay, setting aside a Polk County District Court judge’s ruling that might have validated some of the nullified absentee ballot request forms in Woodbury, Linn and Johnson Counties.
The area’s latest and/or top news stories at 7:06-a.m. From KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.
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Two people were arrested on separate charges, Tuesday, in Creston. Authorities say 42-year old Brandie Whitney, of Creston, was arrested at around 1:10-a.m. in the 600 block of S. Maple Street, for Possession of a Controlled Substance/2nd offense, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. Whitney was transported to the Union County Jail, and later released on a $2,300 bond.
And, at around 5:30-p.m. Tuesday, 28-year old Steven White, of Creston, was arrested for Public Intoxication. White was being held in the Union County Jail on a $300 bond.