(Radio Iowa) – An ethanol industry group is accusing Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy of being hypocritical for supporting construction of an oil pipeline, but opposing carbon pipelines. Ramaswamy often recites what he calls the 10 “truths” on the campaign trail. One of them is that human flourishing requires fossil fuels and Ramaswamy has said construction of the Keystone X-L Pipeline for crude oil should resume.

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks to crowd at his Iowa campaign headquarters on Nov. 28, 2023. (RI photo)

This week, Ramaswamy criticized Governor Reynolds and other Republicans for not opposing the use of eminent domain to seize land for proposed pipeline to ship carbon out of ethanol plants. The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association says Ramaswamy’s playing a typical political game, not driven by principles. The group’s executive director says Ramaswamy is a hypocrite whose campaign is running on fumes.

At noon today (Friday), Ramaswamy and the Free Soil Coalition, a group that opposes the carbon pipelines, are holding an event in Des Moines.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa, reports a central Iowa man entered a guilty plea, Wednesday, to a charge of wire fraud. According to public court documents, 47-year-old Zachary James Flaherty, of Clive, used his position as an insurance agent and annuity salesperson to defraud elderly individuals out of their retirement savings and other monies. Flaherty admitted to engaging in a scheme to defraud some of his insurance clients, specifically, that he intended to defraud some of his clients by making false statements to those clients to obtain financial benefits for himself to the detriment of his clients.

For example, Flaherty told one of the victims, referred to in court documents as Victim #10, that he would invest proceeds from the sale of her house on her behalf and for her benefit, even though Flaherty knew that his representations to Victim #10 were false. As a result of Flaherty’s false representations, Victim #10 wrote two checks, totaling $170,000, to a company Flaherty owned and/or operated. Flaherty used the proceeds of his fraudulent scheme to acquire various assets, including a boat and automobiles.

Flaherty is scheduled to be sentenced on April 12, 2024, and faces a potential sentence of up to twenty years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine the sentence Flaherty will receive after considering the United States Sentencing Guidelines and other sentencing factors.

United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. The Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau and the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the case, with assistance from the Des Moines Police Department, Clive Police Department, and the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Division of Criminal Investigation.

(Davenport, Iowa) – A pursuit in eastern Iowa’s Scott County, Thursday night, resulted in a crash and two people injured. According to the Iowa State Patrol, a 1988 Suzuki motorcycle operated by 28-year-old Dayshaun Rias, of Davenport, was actively eluding law enforcement, when Rias failed to yield the right-of-way to a 2016 Dodge Dart, driven by 25-year-old Ryan Harris, of Davenport. The motorcycle and car collided at the intersection of W. 2nd and Gaines Streets, in Davenport, at around 10:20-p.m., Thursday.

Harris was not injured in the crash. Rias, and a passenger, 26-year-old Jessica Brady, of Davenport, were injured and transported by ambulance to Genesis East Hospital, in Davenport. The incident remains under investigation. The Patrol was assisted at the scene by Davenport Police, Fire and Medic personnel.

(Radio Iowa) – D-N-R State Deer Biologist, Jace Elliott, says the numbers from early hunts show the first firearm deer season that begins this Saturday should be comparable to previous years. “This year where we’re tracking along pretty closely with last year’s harvest to date,” he says. Nearly 30-thousand deer have been taken in the early seasons that include archery and youth hunts. The gun season has expanded from the original shotgun-only, to now include muzzleloaders, handguns ad, most recently, rifles. The gun seasons are always the most popular, with some 100-thousand hunters expected to take part. “These two seasons end up taking of about 50 percent of our deer harvest throughout all of our seasons, just in these two firearm seasons,” Elliott says. “So we definitely expect as long as weather cooperates to have a very successful season.”

He says hunters shouldn’t have trouble finding deer in most of the state. “Statewide, we’re at a stable to slightly increasing level and have been for the past several years. There’s of course areas in the state that we’re actively trying to recover populations, particularly far western, and northwestern Iowa,” Elliott says. “And then of course, there’s also areas where we’re working on reducing deer numbers to some degree, but for the most part, we’re very happy with population levels in Iowa.”

Elliott says there has been some concern about the E-H-D outbreak and the impact on the deer population in Iowa. He says there was a severe E-H-D outbreak, statewide this year, and particularly in the southeast region. “The message to hunters is that this disease can have severe local impacts, we’re talking about the property scale or the section scale,” he says, “but at a county level even though this was one of our more severe outbreaks, it does not seem that any particular county has been affected to the level that would require management intervention.”

Elliott says the counties that are hit hard with E-H-D but have ample deer populations to start with, tend to recover in just a matter of a few years. The first deer gun season starts Saturday (Dec. 2) and runs through Wednesday December 6th. The second deer gun season is December 9th through the 17th.

DES MOINES, Iowa — A non-profit group whose goal is to put an end to the sex trafficking of minors, gives Nebraska and Iowa an F for how the States handle prosecution of the crime. Shared Hope International handed out grades in six different categories. Iowa got a B- for how the state holds traffickers accountable and a C for having other options when it comes to victims testifying against traffickers. But in all other categories, the group claimed Iowa failed.

Nebraska did well in criminal provisions with a B but failed in four other categories including response to victims, tools for victims, and prevention and training. Shared hope said the lack of safe harbor laws plays a major factor in the grading. “Those laws are ones that protect survivors from being re-victimized in the criminal justice system and that also give victims access to services that can help them recover from that,” said Stephen Padre from the organization.

Almost every state surrounding Iowa also got an F in the report.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – The state-run Glenwood Resource Center for people with disabilities has allegedly failed to comply with all the requirements of a 2022 settlement agreement with the federal government. According to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, the agreement was intended to address claims by the U.S. Department of Justice that the state had violated the constitutional rights of Glenwood residents and exposed them to unreasonable harm. The DOJ alleged that harm stemmed from “uncontrolled and unsupervised experimentation” on residents, as well as inadequate physical and behavioral health care.

Glenwood is run by the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, the same state agency that’s charged with protecting the health and welfare of children and dependent adults in Iowa. The agency plans to close Glenwood by the end of 2024.

As part of DHHS’ 2022 settlement with the Justice Department, the agency agreed to implement a wide range of changes intended to improve the overall care and treatment received by the residents of Glenwood. The agreement includes a provision that has resulted in a court-approved monitoring team checking on conditions in the home to ensure the state’s compliance with the agreed-upon standards of care. In October, the monitoring team completed one such review and recently submitted to the court a written report of its findings.

The report indicates Glenwood has failed to meet numerous standards in two critical areas: the protection of residents who are being transitioned into community settings as Glenwood moves toward the planned shut-down in 2024, and the clinical and medical care that’s now being provided to residents, In the area of clinical and medical care, Glenwood was found to be in substantial compliance in only 15 of the 65 standards that were evaluated. In the area of discharge and transition planning, the home was judged to be in substantial compliance in only four of 34 standards.

To be considered in substantial compliance with one of the agreed-upon standards, the home had to meet those standards in only 80% of the cases that were reviewed.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak, Thursday, arrested 37-year-old Ryan Allan Wells, from Red Oak. Wells was taken into custody at around 3:10-p.m. in the 1100 block of E. Reed Street, after officers responded to a reported theft. Upon further investigation, Wells was arrested for Possession of drug paraphernalia, and unlawful possession of prescription drugs. He was transported to the Montgomery County Jail, and held on a $1,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Three dog parks in the Quad Cities have been closed after a few cases of a mysterious respiratory illness have been diagnosed in local dogs. The illness has been reported in 14 states, leads to pneumonia in some dogs and, in rare cases, has been fatal. Dr. April Blong, a veterinarian, is a professor at Iowa State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. She says there have been no known cases at the university’s Small Animal Hospital and researchers do not yet have a definitive answer about what may be causing some dogs to get seriously ill.

“Until we have some idea or a better idea of exactly what we’re dealing with, it’s a little hard to track,” Dr. Blong says. Dr. Blong says just like when humans catch the flu, some dogs are getting far sicker from whatever virus this may be. “Just like with regular kennel cough that dogs get all the time, in certain individuals for whatever reason it seems to become more serious and can progress to an overt pneumonia that can be very serious,” she says. As with kennel cough, puppies and dogs with underlying health conditions like diabetes may be at higher risk.

“An animal with a chronic disease, you should just be more mindful of where you’re taking them, what they’re potentially being exposed to and the same with the young dogs,” Dr. Blong says. “There’s a lot of things younger animals can contract besides a respiratory illness, just by being in contact with other dogs.” That’s because it takes a while for the immune system in a young animal to fully develop. Coughing, difficulty breathing and lethargy are symptoms of respiratory disease in dogs. Dr. Blong says if your dog is healthy, though, being around other health dogs is a good activity.

“Dogs are social animals,” she says, “so if we keep them by themselves or don’t let them play with anyone or do anything, that actually could be detrimental from a behavior standpoint.” The American Veterinary Medical Association says dog owners should take their pet to a vet as soon as coughing or other respiratory symptoms appear. The medical group says researchers haven’t determined if recent cases of serious respiratory distress in dogs were caused by a virus or bacteria. There’s no indication the illness can spread to humans.

(Radio Iowa) – The country’s largest book publisher, four authors and the state teachers union have filed a lawsuit challenging part of a new Iowa law that requires schools to remove books that describe or depict sex acts. Dan Novack is the Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Penguin Random House. “Senate File 496 is a book ban, plain and simple,” Novack says. “…It’s also created the paradox that under Iowa law a 16 year old student is old enough to consent to sex, but not old enough to read about it in school.”

Novack says Penguin Random House has filed a similar lawsuit against a Florida school district. “We are prepared for a drawn out battle to restore sanity in the way that we are approaching public education and literature,” Novack said. Melinda Lo — author of “Last Night at the Telegraph Club” — is another best-selling author who’s part of the lawsuit. “In the two years since it won the National Book Award it has been banned, challenged or restricted in over40 school districts and communities across the country, including six in Iowa,” Lo said. “…I am so grateful to have this opportunity to stand up for my readers and the First Amendment.”

Laurie Hulse Anderson is the author of SPEAK, a story about a 13 year old girl who struggles with the trauma of rape during her first year of high school.  “The families of Iowa have the right to supervise and choose what their own children are reading, of course,” Hulse Anderson said, “but no one group of parents or politicians has the right to limit the books available to other citizens.” Iowa State Education Association president Mike Beranek, a retired third grade teacher, says Iowa educators are trained in what are age-appropriate materials for classrooms and library shelves.

“This is an incredibly important issue not only for us here in Iowa, but for the country as a whole,” Beranek says. Earlier this week Governor Kim Reynolds said protecting children from pornography and sexually explicit content should not be controversial — and books with graphic depictions of sex acts have absolutely no place in Iowa schools.

There are now two lawsuits challenged new state education policies. A lawsuit filed by the A-C-L-U of Iowa on behalf of a group of parents and students also addresses a part of the law banning instruction about sexual orientation in elementary classrooms.