Democrats in the Iowa House staged something akin to a four-and-a-half hour filibuster Thursday to protest of the state’s new voter verification law. Representative Bruce Hunter of Des Moines authored half of the changes Democrats were seeking in the law. “Start creating laws in this state to make it easier to exercise your constitutional right to vote,” Hunter said. “…We’ve certainly done it with gun rights. It’s time to treat our voters at least as well as our gun owners.”

House Republicans rejected each one of the Democrats’ proposals. The debate came on what Republicans like Representative Michael Bergen of Dorchester described as a non-controversial measure to correct “technical errors” in state election laws. “There are a number of topics, discussion points that came up during our debate that, quite frankly, just are detracting from our bill,” Bergen said at the conclusion of the debate.

Bergen said the bill would make the state’s voting system “work better.” Democrats say the new law is causing confusion and Iowa’s secretary of state needs to do more to educate voters. One lawmaker said poll workers misinterpreted the new law when he and his wife went to vote in a municipal election this past week and initially tried to bar his wife from casting a ballot.

(Radio Iowa)

The experts are maintaining their prediction for slightly above-normal runoff into the Missouri River reservoir system this spring. Nicolle Shorney, an engineer with the U-S Army Corps of Engineers in Omaha, says little is changing in the latest forecast. “The 2018 calendar year runoff forecast for the Upper Missouri basin above Sioux City, Iowa, is 29-million acre feet which is 115% of average,” Shorney says.

The Corps of Engineers continues to watch the snow pack in the higher elevations of the Missouri River basin, but at this point, Shorney says they expect run off in the lower basin to be closer to average. “For the lower reaches, from Lake Oahe to Sioux City, we’re forecasting near-average runoff for the March through July period based on plains snowpack, soil moisture conditions, precipitation outlooks and current runoff trends.”

Corps officials said they have 16-million-acre feet of flood storage space available above the main stem dams.

(Radio Iowa)

Officials say the state-run database tracking available hospital beds for psychiatric patients soon will be “closer to accurate” with twice-daily updates. Theresa Armstrong is with the Department of Human Services — the state agency that created the database after two of the state’s four Mental Health Institutes were closed in 2015. “The software we use is called ‘Care Match’ and it tracks the available inpatient psychiatric beds at the MHIs as well as the 26 hospitals that have psychiatric services,” Armstrong says.

Those 26 hospitals and the Mental Health Institutes in Cherokee and Independence have been reporting openings. However, there was no state rule for how often the updates were to be made. A new state regulation will require the facilities to update their list of openings for patients who need in-patient psychiatric care twice a day. “It would assure that the information in the system would be closer to accurate,” she says. “Folks, on average, probably stay in a bed for about two days, maybe three days, so there is a lot of turnover and we do see if from morning to afternoon.”

Armstrong says “most” Iowa hospitals with in-patient psychiatric care have been updating the list regularly. “At least, probably, 90 to 95 percent of the hospitals on a daily basis are updating it,” Armstrong says.

The state database is being used by hospital staff as well as local officials helping police and sheriffs’ departments find in-patient care for someone suffering from an acute mental health crisis. Critics have complained the database hasn’t been offering “real time” information about available hospital beds for psychiatric patients. A bill passed by the Iowa legislature LAST YEAR called for twice-a-day updates to this database. A rule implementing that requirement was approved Friday, by a legislative review panel.

(Radio Iowa)

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

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — It’s time to spring forward again, as the country makes the switch to daylight-saving time. Like those in almost all other states, residents in Nebraska and Iowa will trade an hour of sleep starting Sunday morning for an extra hour of sunlight in the evening. The government expanded daylight-saving time in 2007 in an effort to save energy. It now begins on the second Sunday in March and continues until the first Sunday in November.

The official change occurs at 2 a.m. Sunday, local time, although people often change their clocks before going to bed Saturday night. Daylight-saving time ends Nov. 4.

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

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Nine Iowa cities are splitting more than three-MILLION dollars in federal funding to help finance updates to city sewers and water-related systems. Clinton is getting 600-thousand dollars for its project. Hamburg and Central City are each getting half a million dollars. Portsmouth is planning to dig a new well and install new water mains and is receiving 195-thousand dollars in federal funds for the project. Three-hundred thousand dollar grants are going to Armstrong, Scranton and Shelby.

The communities of Lehigh and Smithland will each receive 242-thousand dollars.

(Radio Iowa)

A traffic stop Friday night on Highway 25 in Adams County, resulted in the arrest on drug charges, of Carlos Miranda Gutierrez, of Lenox. He was taken into custody at around 10:30-p.m., for Possession of a Controlled Substance/1st offense, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, OWI/1st offense, and Driving Under Suspension.

Sheriff’s officials in Montgomery County report a Pottawattamie County man was arrested Friday evening on warrants out of Council Bluffs. 29-year old Zachary Clay Younts, of Council Bluffs, was arrested at around 5:50-p.m. on valid arrest warrants for Possession of a Controlled Substance/Marijuana, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. Younts was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,300 cash bond. Red Oak Police assisted with the arrest.

A woman who fell out of a pickup truck Friday night and was struck by a car in Webster County, died from her injuries at a hospital. The Iowa State Patrol says 29-year old Sarah Jensen, of Newell, who was not wearing a seat belt, fell out of a 2006 Chevy Silverado pickup as the vehicle was traveling north on Highway 169, north of County Road D-14. The accident happened at around 8:45-p.m.

After she fell, Jensen was struck by a 2010 Mazda driven by 31-year old Cynthia Andrews, of Joplin, MO.  Jensen was transported to Trinity Regional Hospital in Ft. Dodge, where she was pronounced dead. The accident remains under investigation.