Montgomery County Auditor and Commissioner of Elections, Stephanie Burke, has announced that absentee ballots for the November 5, 2019, City/School Elections are available in the Auditor’s office. Absentee ballots may be cast in the Montgomery County Auditor’s Office at the Courthouse, during regular office hours from 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Monday- Friday, through November 4. Absentee ballots are available for all cities and school districts within the Montgomery County boundaries.

Absentee ballots must be requested in writing. Request forms are available at the Auditor’s office, on the Montgomery County website at www.montgomerycountyiowa.com and at the Iowa Secretary of State’s website at www.sos.iowa.gov. The deadline for the Auditor’s office to receive a request form to have an absentee ballot mailed to a voter is Friday, October 25 at 5:00 p.m. You can mail your request form to PO Box 469, Red Oak, Iowa, 51566. Ballots requested through the mail must be returned and postmarked by midnight, November 4. Ballots may also by hand-delivered to the Auditor’s office before 8 p.m. on November 5.

For more information about the 2019 City/School Elections in Montgomery County, contact the Auditor’s office at 623-5127.  Voters can keep up with the latest Election happenings on the Montgomery County Auditor & Elections Facebook page.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court says the founder of a boarding school for troubled youth will get another chance to potentially discredit a student whose testimony helped convict him of abuse charges. The court on Friday ordered a hearing to determine whether the student previously made false allegations of sexual abuse against her adoptive or foster parents. If a judge determines that false allegations were made, the court says 41-year-old Ben Trane should get a new trial on three sexual abuse and child endangerment charges.

Trane is the former owner of Midwest Academy in Keokuk, a boarding school that was shut down by authorities in 2016. A jury convicted Trane last year of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, sexual exploitation by a counselor and child endangerment. The convictions stemmed from allegations that Trane sexually assaulted the 17-year-old female student and kept two male students in confinement for extended periods of time. Trane has been free on bond during his appeal.

Police in Council Bluffs report a masked man who allegedly used a baseball bat on Oct. 5th to break out several windows at St. Peter’s Church in Council Bluffs, was arrested this (Friday) morning. The church’s security cameras captured the incidents and images of the suspect, 18-year old Tate Pilger, of Council Bluffs. Acting on a citizen’s tip, detectives were able to identify the man, and an arrest warrant was issued.

Pilger was booked into the Pottawattamie County Jail on one count of Criminal Mischief in the 2nd Degree (Causing damage greater than $1,500, but less than $10,000), which is a Class-D Felony. If convicted, Pilger faces up to five-years in prison and a $7,500 fine. The mask, bat and clothing worn during the incident were recovered inside Pilger’s home.

HAMBURG, Iowa (AP) — Some people forced from their homes by Missouri River floodwaters will be leaving their refuge at an Iowa state park. Waubonsie State Park sits dry a few miles north of the southwest Iowa community of Hamburg, which was hit hard after two nearby river levees failed. Park manager Matt Moles told Omaha, Nebraska, station KETV the park had about 80 flood refugees staying there during peak occupancy this past spring. But that’s dwindled as people returned to their homes or found other accommodations.

Other flood victims found temporary quarters elsewhere in Iowa and even across the river in Nebraska. But now winter approaches, and Iowa officials say park water service must be turned off because of the impending freeze and the need for repairs. Electricity still will be available, and off-season camping will be allowed.

RED OAK, Iowa – U.S Republican Senator Joni Ernst, a combat veteran, has joined a bipartisan group of senators in calling on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to take action following a troubling report from the Government Accountability Office that found Veterans Health Administration facilities are hiring providers with a history of misconduct. Ernst and her colleagues are requesting detailed information from the VA about the steps it will take to address the problem.

The Senators wrote, “Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities lack adequate safeguards to ensure that veterans are not treated by providers who have a history of adverse actions against them related to providing substandard patient care, endangering public safety, substance misuse, or unprofessional conduct. We urge you to take immediate action to correct this issue and to ensure quality care for veterans who have sacrificed much in the brave defense of our freedoms.”

The Senators point to a disturbing and inconsistent adherence to policies related to verifying a potential provider’s credentials. This is due in part to a lack of uniform and mandatory credential training across facilities. The Senators continued, “In fact, the report details that staff responsible for the implementation of these credentialing standards were unaware of the standards in at least five facilities. Without uniform policies, appropriate training, and consistent implementation, VHA continues to hire providers that lack proper credentials to the detriment of veterans.”

Earlier this year, Senator Ernst introduced the Ensure Quality Care for Our Veterans Act, which requires that every health care provider hired by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) with a revoked license undergoes a third party review of that provider’s care. If the review determines that a competent practitioner would have managed the veteran’s care differently, the veteran will be notified. Ernst spoke before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee urging support for this legislation.

(Radio Iowa) — A University of Iowa pain researcher has won two grants as part of a national effort to improve treatments for pain and cut the use of opioids. Professor Kathleen Sluka says one grant funds research into why 40 to 50 percent of people develop acute pain after surgery or following a broken bone. “This study will look at biological and psychological and various different factors in the acute period to see which of those factors are important for the development of the chronic pain within six months. And also, what were any specific factors that helped those people that got better that were different between the two groups,”Sluka says.

She says very little is known about why some people recover easily from acute pain — and they hope to find pain signatures that can help them ease the pain. “Whether pharmacological therapies or non-drug therapies — to help people prevent the development of chronic pain altogether,” she says.  Sluka says cutting the source of the pain should lead to a drop in the use of opioids. “So if you have less pain and you don’t develop chronic pain — in theory there would be less use and need for opioids. And especially long-term need for opioids,” Sluka says.

Sluka is a professor of physical therapy and rehabilitation science and says they also received a grant to examine a treatment that doesn’t use opioids. “The one that we have been looking at is called transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation or TENS. And TENS is just the application of electrical current through the skin for pain control, and that activates our bodies own opioid system,” according to Sluka. She says there are a lot of benefits to using the body’s own pain killers. “When it does that it doesn’t come with all the bad side effects of taking an opioid — it just activates the pain inhibition part. We just finished a test on a clinical trial that shows that it works very well with individuals with fibromyalgia as an addition to their existing treatment plan,” Sluka says.

She says there are some products available now that use this system — but they haven’t had a lot of testing. Sluka says they are going out to 20 or 30 physical therapy practices and ask to give it to patients with fibromyalgia during treatment and see if it helps them have less pain, allows them to do more therapy, and whether it leads them to be more compliant with their physical therapy.” She hopes they want a lot more data on this type of treatment.”Our goal is to try have this for more frequent use — just because of its safety profile and because it does work for people with pain,” Sluka says.

Sluka says there’s been a lot of money put into finding ways to slow or end the opioid epidemic. She says some of it is going to be a matter of going away from the old idea that you have a pain — so you just pop a pill to take care of it. “You know there’s a lot of options out there — but I don’t think people know what all the options are. I don’t think most people think that if I go exercise that will help my pain, They think it will make it worse,” Sluka says. “But the reality is if you exercise on a regular basis and you are more active — you have less pain.”

The first grant is six-and-a-half million dollars for four years. The second award is around the same dollar amount for five years. Sluka is working with Laura Frey Law, a U-I associate professor of physical therapy and rehabilitation science, and Christopher Coffey, a U-I professor of biostatistics on the first project. The second trial is being done in collaboration with the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the U-I College of Public Health.

(Radio Iowa) — Representatives of the Obama Foundation have been in Iowa this week, looking for artifacts from Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns in Iowa. Sam Michel  is a spokesman for the foundation. “Obviously Iowa in 2008 played a huge role in the Obama campaign,” he says, “and as the museum team was designing the Obama Presidential Center they wanted to highlight the role of Iowa, the role of the people who were volunteering and working on the Obama campaign in telling the story of President and Mrs. Obama.”

Earlier this week, the foundation hosted events in Mason City and North Liberty for Obama campaign volunteers to share their stories — and their memorabilia.”Yard signs, campaign pamphlets, photos as well as things that are personal memento’s to people who worked on the campaigns, things that mean a lot to them,” Michel says, “things that help explain why they decided to work for then-Senator Obama.” There’s an event tonight (Friday) in Des Moines for more story telling and memorabilia sharing. “Right now, we’re just trying to get a good understanding of what all is out there,” Michel says. “We’ll catalog it this week, we’ll record it and then go back to Chicago, figure out what we want to display in the Presidential Center Museum and go from there.”

Tonight’s Obama Foundation meeting will be held at the headquarters of the Isiserettes, a drill and drum corps made up of Des Moines kids. In November of 2007, the group led Obama, his wife and Obama supporters on a march up a Des Moines street to the Iowa Democratic Party’s annual fall fundraiser. The Obama Presidential Center Museum is still being designed and Michel says they hope to break ground within the next year or so.