(Radio Iowa) – The Sioux Center-based Midwest Honor Flight is taking some 255 veterans to Washington D-C today (Tuesday) to visit armed forces memorials. They’re from northwest Iowa as well as South Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Since its launch in 2017, Midwest Honor Flight has flown more than 16-hundred veterans to D-C, though board president and C-E-O Aaron Van Beek says a lot has changed since that first flight seven years ago.

“I could get a plane chartered for about $65,000, and now looking at our pricing going into the fall, it’s about double that, and so the price continues to change,” Van Beek says. “But this is a free opportunity, no expense to the veteran for the flight itself, all the meals, all the busing, all the transportation, all that kind of stuff is covered for them.” Van Beek says with six flights scheduled for this year alone, it’s a big bill, but they’ve got it covered.

“Thankfully, we’ve had great sponsors, great donors, great fundraisers,” he says, “and then of course our guardians and crew that go along and volunteer their time, in addition to making a donation to go on those flights.” The tour includes stops at Arlington National Cemetery to see the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Iwo Jima and Air Force Memorials, the Navy Memorial, while the World War Two, Korean War, and Vietnam War Memorials complete the tour. Five of the six flights this year are sponsored, he says, and sponsors provide most of the cost for a flight and receive naming rights.

“We want our veterans to all have the same experience,” Van Beek says, “to be able to see the memorials, to be able to reflect and visit, and to be honored as the heroes that they are.” Van Beek says all veterans from World War Two, Korea, and Vietnam are welcome to apply, but World War Two veterans and veterans with terminal medical diagnoses receive top priority for any flight. He says the waiting list never seems to go below 750, but he doesn’t want that to discourage veterans from applying. Not only does it get a veteran on the list, but Van Beek says it helps with fundraising and obtaining flight sponsors.

DES MOINES, Iowa [KCCI] — The death of a 13-year-old Eldora girl was the unintentional result of “gun play,” according to the Hardin County Attorney’s Office. Hardin County Attorney Darrell Meyer also confirmed the girl’s identity, Keeley Baer, of Eldora.

Baer was fatally shot by a 12-year-old boy on April 14. Meyer confirms the accused juvenile was taken into custody and the matter is being handled in juvenile court. Meyer says the boy was able to obtain a pistol that was in the suspect’s home at the time and that Baer was shot once. According to the county attorney, the investigation showed the shooting was unintentional and that the shooter and the victim were friends.

Meyer would not confirm whether the 12-year-old boy’s parents are facing any charges as a result of the boy having access to the gun.

DES MOINES, Iowa [KCCI] — Des Moines police have identified the 51-year-old woman who was found dead Saturday in the city’s fourth homicide of 2024. Police were called around 11:37 a.m. Saturday to a residence in the 1400 block of Fourth Street to investigate a report of a body found inside a home. Officers found a woman who had died from an apparent traumatic injury.Monday, police said the woman has been identified as Christy Lynn Watson, 51, of Des Moines.

Police say forensic evidence confirmed Watson sustained a gunshot wound. Evidence also shows that the residence she was found in had been unoccupied, and Watson had sought shelter within the residence before she died.

LE MARS, Iowa (KTIV) — A collision between a semi and a northwest Iowa school bus Monday morning sent a number of people to a hospital. According to the Iowa State Patrol, the crash happened at about 7:20 a.m. at the intersection of County Road K64 and 120th Street, which is located between the towns of Oyens and Carnes.

The state patrol says 61-year-old Raymond Holbrook was driving a Le Mars Community School bus west on 120th and failed to yield the right of way to a semi. That semi, driven by 67-year-old Brian Bachmann, struck the side of the bus, and both vehicles ended up in a ditch.

Le Mars Superintendent Steve Webner says four students were on the bus at the time of the crash. “We can confirm there were non-critical, non-life threatening injuries, and they were taken to the hospital,” Webner said in an email to KTIV. “The district is cooperating with law enforcement officials with the investigation in this matter.”

Webner said not all four students were taken to the hospital, while the state patrol says the drivers of the semi and school bus were taken to a Le Mars hospital.

(Radio Iowa) – The City of Keokuk is getting a nearly four-and-a-half MILLION dollar grant to clean up a site where heavy metals were produced for decades. The vacant site, which covers nine-point-six acres, is on a road called Carbide Lane in Keokuk. Zinc and lead were originally produced there, then in 1929 carbon was combined with other metals at the site to make carbide. By the 1950s, production shifted to carbon products.

Operations at the site ended in 2007. According to the E-P-A, the site is contaminated with hydrocarbons, heavy metals, inorganic materials and man-made organic chemicals called P-C-Bs. The mayor of Keokuk says the grant will be used to address those pollutants and to create new opportunities for development.

The City of Waterloo is getting a one MILLION dollar E-P-A grant to clean up several sites, including former industrial locations along Waterloo’s riverfront that can be used for housing and other projects.

(Radio Iowa) – The federal government has set new minimum staffing requirements for nursing homes. Within two years, a registered nurse will have to be on duty at all times and most nursing homes will have to provide each resident with three-and-a-half hours of direct care daily. Nursing homes in rural areas will have at least another year to meet those requirements. John Hale of Ankeny is a consultant and advocate for older Iowans who applauds the move. He says the next step is to find ways to recruit more health care workers into nursing homes.

“I think that’s a matter of working conditions, working flexibility. It’s a matter of pay and benefits, so I think the solutions are there,” Hale says. “They simply need to be worked on.” Brent Willett is the president and CEO of the Iowa Health Care Association, which represents the majority of Iowa’s nursing homes. He says many nursing homes cannot meet the requirements.  “What we don’t see in the rule today is is funding or investment in the training, recruitment, training and education expansion for nursing and other direct care professions,” Willett says.

Rules that have been in place since the 1980s have only required nursing homes to have sufficient staffing levels. Nursing homes can seek a hardship waiver from the new staffing requirements if they are in an area where there are not many nurses or aides. The rules come from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Medicare pays for the care of almost two-thirds of the residents in U-S nursing homes and many are eligible for Medicaid as well.