ATLANTIC, IA (February 8, 2024) – Produce in the Park’s Sweetheart Market 2024 is this Saturday, February 10, from 12 PM – 3 PM at the Nishna Valley Family YMCA. Local favorite food truck Zipp’s Pizza will be on site, and the YMCA will set up free bounce houses for the kids. Vendors at this year’s Sweetheart Market will include food vendors offering a variety of local
foods–from fresh produce and meat, to fresh breads and desserts–as well as craft vendors selling wood products, decorations such as handmade gnomes, crocheted items, jewelry, candles, and more.

Sweetheart Market Vendor list as of February 7:

• Bridgewater Farm
• Sugar Mama Cookie Co.
• Frosting, Inc.
• Brun Ko Farm
• Imagine Garden Gift
• Cakes, Cookies, and Confections
• The Kringle Man
• Creekside Crystal and Crafts
• Aubreys Bows
• Ter Bear Honey
• Solis Wolf Woodworking
• Gnome-atic Fanatics
• Neighborhood Bakehouse
• Shelbi Crochets
• Dragonfly Creations
• Threads by Callie
• Rustic Door Boutique
• ReMakes
• Providence Farm
• Flathers Tastefully Simple
• Twisted Sisters Boutique
• Smelly Farms
• Rising Traditions Bakery
• Juj’n Juj’n

Sweetheart Market 2024 is sponsored by Cass Health, Gregg Young of Atlantic, First Whitney Bank & Trust, Nishna Valley Family YMCA, Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce and the City of Atlantic. For the latest information on Sweetheart Market and all Produce in the Park markets, follow Produce in the Park on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ProduceInThePark) or Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/produceintheparkatlanticia/).

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Montgomery County Auditor Jill Ozuna reports Montgomery County conducted a Special Election for the City of Coburg City Council TFV (To Fill a Vacancy) race, on Tuesday February 06, 2024, at Precinct 6 at the Stanton Community Center in Stanton, Iowa. (Unofficial Results shown below)

The Canvass of Votes will be conducted on Tuesday February 13, 2024, at 8:30 a.m. in the Supervisors meeting room in the basement at the Montgomery County Courthouse. A post-election audit of the special election was ordered by the Secretary Of State’s Office (standard procedure). By random selection, Precinct 6/City of Coburg will be the audited precinct. The polling place for Precinct 6 is the Stanton Community Building.

The Montgomery County Auditor’s Office will conduct the audit on Tue., Feb. 13th, beginning at 9-a.m. The audit will take place in the old Supervisor’s meeting room on the first floor of courthouse, in Red Oak. The proceedings are open to the public.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Officials with the U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa, say a Des Moines man was sentenced today (Wednesday) to 384 months in federal prison after a jury convicted him of charges related to firearms straw purchasing and illegally possessing firearms and a machinegun.

According to public court documents and evidence presented at trial and sentencing, believing that a group of people contained a rival gang member, Dontavius Rashawn Sharkey, age 27 and a member of the C-Block gang, open-fired with two firearms into a crowd of people attending a baby shower at a Des Moines apartment complex.  Three teens were struck by Sharkey’s bullets, causing serious injuries to each.  All three survived.  As noted in the government’s sentencing memorandum, “[h]is motive, that a rival gang member happened to be in that crowd, was unconscionable.”

Following the shooting, Sharkey, a convicted felon, recruited an individual to illegally purchase him multiple firearms from various gun stores in the Des Moines area.  One of those firearms was recovered by law enforcement on November 2, 2022, during a search warrant at Sharkey’s Des Moines residence.  During that search warrant, Sharkey ran from police with this loaded firearm, which he had converted to a machinegun with an auto-switch.  Sharkey was captured by an ATF K-9.

Twenty-four months of his sentence resulted from the revocation of his federal supervised release. Sharkey was serving a term of federal supervised release at the time he committed these crimes.  He had been released from federal prison on February 17, 2022, after serving a 60-month sentence for felon in possession of a firearm.

After completing his term of imprisonment, Sharkey will be required to serve three years of supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system.

“The Des Moines Police have enjoyed a long-standing working relationship with the ATF, FBI and the United States Attorney’s Office,” stated Des Moines Police Chief Dana Wingert. “This partnership continues to pay dividends in our community, whereas violent criminals are held accountable for their actions. The collective efforts in this particular case are certainly impressive, and we vow to continue pooling our resources in a relentless pursuit of those individuals who compromise the safety our of citizens through gun violence.”

“The ATF has no greater mission than keeping firearms out of the hands of violent criminals. This case not only demonstrates the lengths to which criminals will go to acquire firearms, but more importantly, ATF’s expertise and commitment to investigating such violations of federal law,” said Bernard Hansen, Special Agent in Charge, Kansas City Field Division, ATF. “With our law enforcement partners and the United States Attorney’s Office, we will continue to work tirelessly to bring those who disregard the safety of our communities to justice.”

United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement.  Assistant United States Attorneys Kristin M. Herrera and Adam J. Kerndt prosecuted the case This case was investigated by the Des Moines Police Department – Intelligence Division; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF); and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.  Des Moines Police Detective/ATF Task Force Officer Brian Minnehan was the lead agent in the investigation.

This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. PSN, an evidence-based program proven to be effective at reducing violent crime, is the centerpiece of the Department of Justice’s violent crime reduction efforts. Through PSN, a broad spectrum of stakeholders work together to identify the most pressing violent crime problems in the community and develop comprehensive solutions to address them. As part of this strategy, PSN focuses enforcement efforts on the most violent offenders and partners with locally based prevention and reentry programs for lasting reductions in crime.

(Radio Iowa) – Who better than a dentist to recommend food you can really sink your teeth into? A University of Iowa pediatric dentistry professor has compiled a cookbook that includes family recipes dating back more than a century and 100-percent of the proceeds go to an Iowa charity. Dr. Michael Kanellis says his book, “Iowa Mike’s Family Recipes,” contains 247 pages of tasty kitchen concoctions that cover a range of cuisines and cultures.

“I did this kind of as a project for myself during the pandemic, to try to round up all the recipes that we use on a weekly or monthly basis and self-publish it into a single cookbook,” Kanellis says, “and then one of the third-year dental students at the college thought it might be a good idea to have a fundraiser.”

During just two recent noon-time sales on the Iowa City campus, Kanellis says the cookbook has already raised more than $1,400. All the proceeds from the sale go to a fund at the College of Dentistry to help pay for dental care for kids that don’t have dental insurance,” he says, “or who maximize their benefits and still have more treatment needs.”

His family has a long history with food, as Kanellis’ uncle opened a restaurant, The Majestic Lunch, in Cedar Rapids in 1916. He’s revised and added to the original cookbook, combining recipes he’s accumulated over decades in three-ring binders, recipe boxes and hard drives. It includes Greek, Mexican and Midwestern comfort foods.

“I never liked pork chops until I came across a recipe for baked pork chops that is just amazing and now we eat that a lot, which I’m surprised, so you know it’s good if you don’t like it to start with and then you love it when you taste it,” Kanellis says. “There’s some pasta recipes in there that are incredible. There’s a lot of appetizers, too.”

You can order the book on Amazon, but if you do, Kanellis says it’ll cost more and it won’t benefit the UI’s Pediatric Smiles Fund. Instead, he urges people to contact him directly at: michael-kanellis@uiowa.edu to order the cookbook for $20.