One person was complaining of head pain and being shaken-up, following a two-vehicle accident this morning, about a mile west of Wiota. The Cass County Communications Center dispatched Anita Rescue and Cass EMS to the scene on Highway 83, where both vehicles ended up in a ditch. The collision occurred at around 8:50-a.m.

Additional details are currently not available.

Police in Red Oak report a woman arrested Wednesday evening on a Montgomery County warrant for OWI/2nd offense, also faces a Class-D felony charge: Possession of Contraband in a Correctional Facility. 58-year-old Melinda Jane Inman, of Red Oak, was taken into custody at around 7:50-p.m. Her bond was set at $5,000.

(Radio Iowa) – The weekly report from the Iowa Department of Public Health shows the number of Covid cases statewide has increased nearly 170 percent in the past WEEK. The number of Covid patients in Iowa hospitals has significantly increased this summer, from 46 on June 24th to 355 yesterday (Wednesday). Megan Schaeffer — an epidemiologist from the Polk County Health Department — is urging people to get vaccinated and wear masks in public indoor settings. She estimates as many as 600 people with active infections a day, on average, may be at the State Fair this year.

“If you consider each of those people will spread to two to four individuals, whether that’s their family, their household or even at the Fair, that’s a pretty big exponential spread,” she says. Polk County officials say 95 percent of admitted COVID-19 patients in the Des Moines metro area are unvaccinated.

(Reporting by Iowa Public Radio’s Natalie Krebs)

(Radio Iowa) – After a more than four month delay, the U-S Census Bureau is scheduled to release population data today (Thursday) that’ll be used to develop new boundaries for Iowa’s congressional and legislative districts.

The boundaries for Iowa’s congressional districts and for Iowa House and Senate districts are redrawn every 10 years based on the updated census count. . By law, the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency is to produce a series of new district maps within 45 days of getting the data. With this year’s delay, the legislature is unlikely to meet the September 1st deadline for approving a plan. The Iowa Supreme Court is responsible for overseeing redistricting if lawmakers fail to meet that deadline, but the court has signaled that due to this year’s circumstances, it will allow the legislature to keep following the redistricting process beyond that September 1st deadline. Ed Cook, an attorney with the non-partisan Legislative Services Agency, will be leading development of the proposed maps. He says under state law, no Iowa county can be split into two separate congressional districts.

“Keep in mind, with only 99 pieces of the puzzle, there’s not an infinite number of ways you can combine them,” Cook says. Redrawing the boundaries of state legislative districts is guided by state law, too. For example, so called “nesting” is required — so two Iowa HOUSE districts are in each Iowa SENATE district. The districts have to be as compact as possible, too, meaning the boundaries form something similar to a square or rectangle.

“Our approach is a blind process,” Cook says. “…We don’t go in and make an analysis as to what’s competitive. As a non-partisan staffer, I think that would be a disconnect for me to make a determination as to that.” Cook, who worked on the three previous redistricting processes, made his comments during a forum on Iowa’s reapportionment process that was broadcast on C-SPAN. If legislators reject the first set of proposed maps, the Legislative Services Agency has up to 35 days to present lawmakers with a second batch. If the second set it rejected and a third set of redrawn districts is required, legislators can propose and vote on changes to that third set. The first two plans cannot be altered before legislators vote on them.