(Stuart, Iowa) – Four teenagers face charges following a pursuit over the weekend that began in Stuart. According to reports, the incident began at around 12:30-a.m. Saturday, when a Stuart Police Officer in a marked patrol vehicle, initiated a traffic stop on 105th Street in Stuart, after observing a vehicle traveling at a high rate of speed.

The suspect vehicle failed to stop when the Officer engaged their vehicle’s emergency lights and siren. The resulting pursuit was terminated about one-half hour after it began, due to the reckless manner the suspect vehicle was operating while traveling at high rate of speed. The vehicle was being driven with its headlights off, and through posted stop signs.

Authorities says a little after 1-a.m., Saturday, the same Stuart Police Officer who initiated the pursuit, came across the same suspect vehicle in a wooded area. Four juveniles were detained and later released to the custody of their parents or guardians.

Charges against the teens were pending as of the last report. Authorities did not release the names of the subjects involved in the incident, due to their age.  Stuart Police were assisted during the incident by the Guthrie and Dallas County Sheriff’s Offices. An investigation into the incident was ongoing.

POLK COUNTY, Iowa [WHO-TV] — The Saydel Community School District is the next Iowa school to switch to a four-day school week. For two years the district has been trying to switch to a four-day school week due to loosing teachers and a decline in enrollment, which has resulted in a decrease in state funding. At a meeting Monday evening those two years paid off as the Saydel School Board voted unanimously to switch from a five-day school week to a four-day week.

The plan would begin the switch to a four-day week at the start of the 2024-25 school year. School days would also be 30 minutes longer. Earlier this month, the Martensdale-St. Mary’s Community School District’s school board voted to transition to a four-day school week beginning with the 2024-25 school year.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic High School Speech & Debate has had a very busy and very successful Large Group season. High School/Middle School Spanish Instructor
Co-Head Speech/Debate Coach Trisha Niceswanger reports January 20th was the District Large Group contest held at ACGC High School. Atlantic took 6 entries varying from Ensemble Acting, Group Improvisation, Radio Broadcasting, Choral Reading and Readers Theatre. At the District level, students perform in front of a judge and receive a rating. A Division I rating is the highest, followed by Division II, III or IV. Pieces that earn a I rating will advance onto the State contest. Atlantic had two pieces move on: Ensemble Acting “Mugged”, and the Choral Reading “Nobody is Safe”.

At the State contest held at Ankeny Centennial High School on February 3rd, students performed for a panel of three judges to again receive the Division I or II ratings. The Acting group of “Mugged” performed mid-day and received straight I’s from all three judges. The Choral Reading group unfortunately was not able to go on as all individuals were abruptly evacuated from the High School. A non-credible threat had been discovered at the contest. For more information on that story and how it impacted the rest of the contest day, follow this link to the AHS Needle article written by J Molina, one of the students performing that day. https://ahsneedle.com/39379/fine-arts/atlantic-speech-team-evacuated-from-competition-after-bomb-threat/

Ensemble Acting group: Coach Troy Roach, J Molina, Nick Bennett, and Josie Handlos.

Choral Reading group: Margaret McCurdy, Megan Birge, Nissa Molgaard, Alix Nath, and Josie Handlos. (Photos courtesy Trisha Niceswanger)

Through all of the extra excitement, the Choral Reading earned straight I’s as well. The evening of Feb 6 led to the nervous refreshing of the IHSSA homepage looking for the announcement of All-State nominations. At least two of the three State judges must nominate a group to reach All-State, the collection of the best pieces in the state of Iowa. When the list dropped, the Choral Reading group was thrilled to see they had received Performing All-State honors. An extra bonus for this performance is that it is a piece written by coach Troy Roach, leading to a much more personal connection to the material. The Choral Reading students will perform their piece one more time on Saturday Feb 17 at the ISU Campus.

(Radio Iowa) – The latest edition of the “Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll” from Iowa State University Extension finds a few shifts in thoughts about climate change. J. Arbuckle oversees the poll and says they first asked the climate question in 2011, and added it again this past year. “That climate change is due to human activities that was increased from ten percent to 15 percent over that time period. And then let’s see, the climate change is occurring, and equally due to natural human causes went from 35 to 40 percent,” Arbuckle says. The climate change question has been asked two other times and he says the number of people who believe it is an issue dropped in the recent poll.

“In 2013 and 2020, there are actually a greater proportion of farmers expressing belief that climate change is occurring, then did the same in 2023,” he says. ” So there’s been a kind of decline between 2020 and 2023, in that, in that metric, whether or not climate change is happening.” Arbuckle says no matter what they think, farmers are trying to react. “It doesn’t really matter, necessarily what they attributed to, they know what’s happening and they’ll tell you , extreme weather is happening more frequently, whether it’s drought, or extreme rains, and so forth,” Arbuckle says. “And many of them are making changes in their, in their operations in response to changing weather.” Arbuckle says complementary research to survey finds the same reaction from farmers.

“Most farmers are concerned about increasingly extreme weather, and the other potential impacts that come along with that, like, you know, disease, and pests, and so forth, and then making decisions to try to adapt,” he says. You can see the complete 2023 poll and past polls on the Iowa State University Extension website.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congressman Zach Nunn says former President Trump’s suggestion that he might encourage Russia to attack European allies who don’t fulfill their NATO obligations is akin to President Biden’s decision to end sanctions against Iran.

“When we have a situation where we have a president, sitting or former, who doesn’t stand up to an adversary or threatens our allies, we are doing a disservice to our own national security right here at home,” Nunn says. Trump has long criticized NATO allies for relying on the U-S and failing to spend enough on their own defense. This weekend, Trump said if a big European country were delinquent in its NATO obligations, he’d encourage Russia to do whatever it wishes because the U-S would not protect a country that hadn’t paid its bills. Nunn says provoking Russia is bad behavior.

“I think anyone who would threat our allies is doing a disservice to our country,” Nunn says. “…Anyone who’s going to, you know, stash intelligence material in their garage or their compound — these are things that people need to be held accountable for. I don’t care if they’re the sitting president or the former president.”

Nunn, a Republican from Bondurant, has served 20 years in the various branches of the military and is currently in the Air Force Reserve.

DES MOINES – Today (Monday), Governor Kim Reynolds signed an extension of the proclamation relating to the weight limits and transportation of grain, fertilizer, and manure.   

The proclamation is effective immediately and continues through February 23, 2024. The proclamation allows vehicles transporting corn, soybeans, hay, straw, silage, stover, fertilizer (dry, liquid, and gas), and manure (dry and liquid) to be overweight (not exceeding 90,000 pounds gross weight) without a permit for the duration of this proclamation.  

This proclamation applies to loads transported on all highways within Iowa (excluding the interstate system) and those which do not exceed a maximum of 90,000 pounds gross weight, do not exceed the maximum axle weight limit determined under the non-primary highway maximum gross weight table in Iowa Code § 321.463 (6) (a) and (b), by more than 12.5 percent, do not exceed the legal maximum axle weight limit of 20,000 pounds, and comply with posted limits on roads and bridges.  

See the proclamation here. 

(Radio Iowa) – In response to last month’s school shooting in Perry, Republicans in the Iowa House are proposing that Iowa school or college employees with professional gun permits be allowed to carry weapons on school grounds. Nathan Gibson, school board president of the Interstate-35 district in Truro,said the bill could help districts that want their staff to be armed, but can’t get liability insurance. “This is long overdue,” he said, “and something we need to do to protect the most precious assets we have in our life.”

Angela Olsen, director of special projects for the Spirit Lake School District, said her district had armed staff for six months, but cancelled the program after struggling to find an insurance carrier. Olsen said having a school resource officer in the high school isn’t enough. “And I would compare it to Perry, like they have an SRO but he wasn’t there,” Olsen said. “…If we have the ability to have multiple people in multiple buildings at all times of the day, it’s the only way to address an active shooter at the time.”

Catherine Lucas, a lawyer with the Iowa Department of Public Safety, told lawmakers the agency has a lot of unanswered questions about the bill, like what kind of weapons would school staff be allowed to carry and who would do the required training for armed school staff. “Ohio has a program like this and they have a staff of 40. Currently the Governor’s School Safety Bureau in Iowa has one sworn member,” Lucas said. “…Rolling out all the training is going to be a very significant lift on the Department of Public Safety.”

Hannah Hayes, a Des Moines high school senior, is in the Students Demand Action group that supports new gun restrictions. Hayes, the only student who testified during the House subcommittee hearing on the bill, urged lawmakers to oppose it. “Making schools a war zone is not going to make me feel safer,” she said.

The bill also would require the state’s 11 largest school districts to hire at least one officer from the local police department or a private firm to provide security in high school buildings. There would be no mandate for other Iowa high schools, but all school districts could apply for a $50,000 state grant to cover the cost of a security officer.

(Radio Iowa) – A man convicted of killing a teenager during a robbery in Davenport in 1974 has died in prison. Kenneth Ray Sheffey was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting and killing of 15-year-old Roddy Lee Hahn. Hahn was helping James Christensen deliver bread to the supermarket early in the morning and the two discovered Sheffey was inside.

Christensen was seriously wounded, and Sheffey was also convicted of assault with intent to commit murder, along with breaking and entering.

He was sentenced to life in prison in November of 1974, and the Department of Corrections says Sheffey died of natural causes on February 8th at the age of 71.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congressman Zach Nunn says more Russian assets need to be seized before he’ll vote for more U-S military aide to Ukraine. “There’s $300 billion in Russian assets that are currently frozen in U.S. banks and European banks, basically money that’s making interest for Russian oligarks,” Nunn says. “Before I put one single U.S. taxpayer dollar into fighting back against Russia, I want to make sure we’re holding Russia accountable in a meaningful way to pay for the destruction, the invasion, the loss of tens of thousands of lives in Ukraine.”

Nunn, a Republican from Bondurant, proposed a resolution last year that would use those frozen Russian assets to pay for rebuilding Ukraine. Nunn says it’s too soon to speculate about what might happen in the House if the Senate passes a bill this week that would provide U-S military support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.  “I think we need to figure out if the senate’s going to be able to move anything before we start talking about hypotheticals,” Nunn says.

Nunn says no foreign aid package to Ukraine, Israel or Taiwan should send cash to those countries and, instead, should be about providing weapons, ammunition and other military assets.