(Radio Iowa) — The Quad Cities will play host to hundreds of competitors from one of the fastest growing sports in the country. The metro area will be home to the 2021 U-S Masters Championships for the Professional Disc Golf Association. Chase Roberts, who owns a disc golf supply store in Moline, Illinois, is one of the local tourney organizers. With no snow and warmer-than-normal temperatures, he says some disc golfers are still at it. Roberts says, “We obviously have a slowdown season when it gets too cold, but one of the great things about it is that anybody can play it, and it’s relatively cheap to get involved with the game.”

Disc Golf

Roberts says the association chose the Quad Cities for the championship because it successfully hosted two previous national competitions in 2007 and 2017. Roberts says disc golf is similar to traditional golf, but with something resembling a frisbee. “They’re actually more like a discus that you would use in track and field than they are a traditional frisbee,” Roberts says. “We still have some discs that resemble the frisbee form — those are putters. They’re slower speed discs. There’s mid-range discs that are a little bit better for control, and then there’s drivers and distance drivers for high-speed and long-distance shots.”

It’s scored the same as golf, but instead of holes competitors “putt” into baskets. The 2021 Masters Championships will be for those age 40 and above. It will be held in September of 2021. Roberts says the Quad Cities is a “hotbed” for disc golf, with 11 courses in the area and a total of about 40 within a short driving distance.

More State and area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) – A 19-year-old driver has made a plea deal on charges stemming from a fatal collision during a police chase in Davenport. Court records say Angel Ochoa intends to plead guilty to vehicular homicide, reckless driving and other charges. The records say that in return, prosecutors will drop a charge of vehicular homicide while driving under the influence. The judge is not bound by the agreement. On June 13 an officer tried to stop Ochoa’s car and a chase ensued. Investigators say Ochoa’s car reached speeds of up to 90 mph and ran through several red lights before broadsiding a car, killing Lori Letts.

The area’s latest and/or top news stories at 7:06-a.m. From KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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A man and woman from Creston were arrested Tuesday afternoon on several charges. Creston Police report 45-year old Jennifer Campbell and 55-year old Roger Austin were taken into custody for Child Endangerment, Possession of a Controlled Substance/1st offense, and Possession of Paraphernalia. Both were later released from the Union County Jail on $3,300 bond, each. And, at around 12:45-a.m. Wednesday (Jan. 1st), Creston Police arrested 19-year old Isaiah Jones, of Dallas Center, for OWI/1st Offense. Jones was later released on $1,000 bond.

(7:05-a.m. Newscast)

(Radio Iowa) — New Jersey Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Cory Booker says he hopes the election raises the moral conscience of the country — and he’s cautioning his fellow Democrats not to succumb to tribalism. “The 60 million people that voted for Donald Trump are not our enemy. They are our countrymen and women,” said Booker. “And Understand this…The call of the Democratic Party — the ultimate moral call — is not to beat Republicans, simply. It’s to unite Americans in common cause and common purpose.”

Booker urged a crowd in Shenandoah on New Year’s Day not to get hung up on the policy differences among the Democratic candidates. “Let me tell you a little secret. Whoever becomes your president, is probably going to steal the 90 or 100 policy ideas, platforms that each of us have,” Booker said. “…They better be taking the best ideas from the whole lot to bring them to bear in our policies.” Booker, the former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, says mayors understand how to enact real change with little money. “All the candidates here are really good people, but the next president is going to face impossible problems, and they can’t play by the rules that we are playing by now. They have to think of creative ways to get us out of these situations,” Booker said. “If I’m your president, I am not going to give in and give up on anything.”

Booker campaigned in Creston early Wednesday afternoon and spoke to more than 100 people Wednesday night, in Perry. California billionaire Tom Steyer kicked off a bur tour of Iowa with an event in Council Bluffs on New Year’s Day.

OMAHA, Ne. (AP) – A survey report suggests the economy is growing slowly in nine Midwest and Plains states as the U.S.-China trade war continues. The Mid-America Business Conditions index rebounded to 50.6 in December from 48.6 in November. Creighton University economist Ernie Goss oversees the survey, and he says the trade war and the global economic slowdown will be drags on the overall Mid-America economy for the first half of 2020. But he expects overall regional growth to remain soft but positive. Survey organizers say any index score above 50 suggests growth. A score below that suggests decline.

(Radio Iowa) — Recreational marijuana became legal in Illinois Wednesday, and one distributor has set up up a heated tent and a shuttle service in preparation for new border-crossing customers. Nature’s Treatment of Illinois is located just outside of the Quad Cities, in Milan. The store’s Tammy Lafontaine says they’ve already gotten a lot of interest from across the border. “We are expecting a lot, a lot of Iowa residents. I have been fielding phone calls from people saying they’re traveling from the middle of Iowa, they’re renting rooms in Jumers (casino hotel), etcetera. It’s…it’s going to be quite, quite busy here,” Lafontaine says.

Out of state residents will be able to buy half the amount of marijuana that in state-residents can buy. Lafontaine says they’re also trying to warn out-of-state residents about the legal limitations.  “It’s still federally illegal. So whatever they’re going to purchase here in Illinois, they need to find a place that they can consume it in and those need to be private residences,” she says. “So if you have friends in Illinois, go to their house, enjoy your cannabis, go back home.”

It is still illegal to use marijuana in public in Illinois, to transport it across state lines, or drive under the influence of the drug.

(Radio Iowa) — January is typically the worst of the peak months for the flu in Iowa and health officials warn things are shaping up for a particularly severe season for the flu and other respiratory viruses. Dr. Melanie Wellington, an epidemiologist at the University of Iowa Hospitals, says they’re concerned because the southern hemisphere had a bad flu season. “We use that as an indicator to predict what’s going to happen during our flu season and it suggests that the flu season could be a bad one,” Wellington says, “but that is not a science.”

Iowans are being advised to watch out for what’s called respiratory syncytial (sin-SIS-shul) virus, or R-S-V. Symptoms are similar to the common cold, but it can cause severe illness — or even death — in young infants, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems. Wellington says, “You should seek medical attention if you have a cold this year, where it’s simply not getting better, where your breathing rate goes very high, where someone’s struggling to breathe, grunting or having troubles with their oxygen levels.”

R-S-V affects between ten and 20-percent of the state’s population each year. Wellington says the best way to prevent R-S-V is by regularly washing your hands. She notes, it’s still not too late to get a flu shot. While flu cases often show up during October and November, the peak months are December through February, though cases are sometimes reported as late as May.

(Reporting by Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) — The state medical director says while very few Iowa kids are smoking cigarettes these days, there’s been a sharp increase in the use of other kinds of nicotine products. Dr. Caitlin Pedati says 22 percent of 11th graders admitted on a 2018 survey that they used e-cigarettes to “vape.”

“That’s in contrast to just two years prior when only nine percent of 11th graders reported using those products,” Pedati says. Dr. Pedati, who works in the Iowa Department of Public Health, is state medical director AND state epidemiologist. She says the U.S. Surgeon General has declared e-cigarette use among youth to be an epidemic for good reason.

“We know that nicotine is highly addictive. We know that it can affect things like learning, memory and attention — especially in people whose brains are still developing which happens until about age 25,” Pedati says. “There’s also a concern that some of these products may contain things we don’t even know about and so they might have short or long term health effects.”

Research also shows routine nicotine use among teenagers increases anxiety. A 2018 survey found two percent of sixth graders and eight percent of eighth graders admitted they had “vaped” and state officials warn they’re using things that look like wrist watches, computer thumb drives or pens that adults may not recognize as a vaping device.