The Red Oak Police Department reports the arrest at around 9-p.m. Tuesday, of a woman following a traffic stop. Authorities say 55-year-old Barbara Darlene Wilson, of Red Oak, was arrested for Driving While Suspended. Her bond at the Montgomery County Jail, was set at slightly more than $491.

(Radio Iowa) – Smoking has been banned in public places in Iowa since 2008, but there’s been an exception that has allowed smoking in the gaming areas of Iowa casinos. Senator Janet Petersen, a Democrat from Des Moines, notes the state’s tribal casinos and some state-licensed casinos temporarily moved to ban smoking to prevent the spread of Covid-19.  “I do think that may be one silver lining of this horrible pandemic that we’ve been living through is we’ve seen casinos across the state make the decision to eliminate smoking on their premises,” Petersen says, “and it is time for the legislature to just put that policy in place.”

In 2008, Petersen was a member of the Iowa House and chairwoman of the commerce committee that led the effort to pass the Iowa Smokefree Act. At the time, Iowa’s casino industry argued it would lose customers to casinos in the Illinois Quad Cities where smoking was allowed, but smoking is now banned in casinos in Illnois and South Dakota — and gambling regulators overseeing construction of new casinos in Nebraska have just proposed a smoking ban.

“I really see the competition argument is weakening because of the states surrounding us,” Petersen says, “as well as the tribal casinos eliminating smoking.” There’s been a no-smoking movement in casinos run by Native American tribes nationwide. Wes Ehrecke is president and C-E-O of the Iowa Gaming Association, which represents the 19 state-licensed casinos.

“Casinos probably have some of the best filtration and ventilation systems around. We have to accommodate both smokers and non-smokers in a very acceptable and quality indoor environment and we do that,” Ehrecke says. “…We’re bringing in fresh air several times every hour and that’s really helped during this Covid.” Ehrecke says it’s not a workplace safety issue — and he says adults should be allowed to make adult decisions in adult venues.

“It’s still legal in this country to (smoke)…but we want to be proactive with it and we are,” Ehrecke says. “…The employees don’t seem to have complaints that I know of because we are doing such a proactive effort with our ventilation and filtration.” Ehrecke made his comments during a recent appearance on “Iowa Press” on Iowa P-B-S.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says if you are confused by all the talk about COVID — there’s one thing to do. “Listen to their own doctor — particularly on vaccinations — be as cautious as you can. Don’t listen to the politicians,” Grassley says. The Republican from New Hartford says Democrats have politicized the issue, and cites President Joe Biden’s recent statement that there is no federal solution to the pandemic.

“If Trump had said that same thing, he would be lambasted. And that’s what Democrats were saying, that we’ve got to have a federal solution to it. Now their president comes along and says it’s up to the individual states,” he says. Grassley says he agrees that the solution should be left to the states. “Because we have such a geographically vast country. New York is so different from Des Moines Iowa that you shouldn’t pour this country into one mold and expect everything to be done in Washington D-C is going to fit all parts of the country the same way,” according to Grassley.

He says Biden’s statement wasn’t criticized even though it was the opposite of what his party has been pushing. “It’s completely different from the message he gave during his campaign that it’s all Trump’s fault and the federal government is going to solve all these problems,” Grassley says. Grassley says Iowa — and fellow Republican Governor Kim Reynolds — has done a good job of handling the pandemic.

(Radio Iowa) – Seven states have passed laws in 2021 that restrict transgender athletes from participating in girls sports activities in schools. House Speaker Pat Grassley says many House Republicans have an interest in passing similar legislation here, but he says the key is ensuring what’s passed could be enforced by the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union and the Iowa High School Athletic Association. “We shouldn’t just pass something so we can go home and say: ‘We passed something.’ If we’re going to pass policy, it has to be a policy that they can implement,” Grassley says. “…We’re trying to come up with a way that gives the clarity that’s needed because, ultimately, they’re the ones that are going to have to make sure who’s participating in what.”

Grassley says while there’s no bill ready on day one of the 2022 legislative session, that doesn’t mean one won’t emerge before the end of the 2022 legislative session. “I spend about four days a week of mine in a gymnasium, watching my two daughters play a lot of extracurricular activities,” Grassley says. “This is an issue that I hear a lot about.” Grassley says he’s also hearing from school board members who’re asking for a statewide policy on books in schools that some parents complain have pornographic content. Grassley says ensuring parents get input in their child’s education is a huge topic nationally right now.

“A bill that goes in and says: ‘You’re going to ban X, Y, Z book’ — a very hard piece of policy to craft, obviously,” Grassley says, “but the conversation itself will continue.” House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, a Democrat from Windsor Heights, says these types of conversations are not helpful in addressing Iowa’s workforce shortage. “In the last session, Iowa had the most LGBTQ bills of any state in the country introduced and none passed. Even the introduction of those bills sends a hateful message to people who are looking to live here or stay here after they graduate from college,” Konfrst says. “We need to be doing things to make Iowa more inclusive, not less.”

The 2022 Iowa legislative session starts on Monday, January 10th.

(Radio Iowa) – A district court judge has dismissed a request by the state to throw out a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by the former spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Public Health. Former department spokesperson Polly Carver-Kimm sued Governor Kim Reynolds and administrators in the Health Department last year, alleging she was forced to leave her job for providing open records information to the media. The lawsuit says requests that Carver-Kimm had previously replied to were required to go through the governor’s office once the pandemic started.

As first reported by the Des Moines Register, the judge ruled Carver-Kimm in her job had “the specific obligation to fulfill open record requests,” and dismissed the claim by the Assistant Attorney General defending Reynolds that state open records law is not “a well-recognized public policy.”

(Webster City, Iowa) – A rear-end collision in north-central Iowa’s Hamilton County, Monday evening, claimed the life of a man from South Dakota. The Iowa State Patrol reports a semi tractor-trailer, driven by a 24-year-old man from Hyattsville, MD, and a2013 Toyota Avalon driven by 61-year-old Rodney Earl Hutt, of Sioux Falls, SD, were both westbound on Highway 20 at around 6:50-p.m., Monday, when the car struck the semi’s trailer and became lodged underneath it. Hutt – who wore a seat belt -died at the scene. The driver of the semi was not hurt.

The accident remains under investigation.