Now that party primaries are settled in Iowa, 84 female candidates will be running on this November’s ballot — and that’s a record. It’s a 29 percent increase in women candidates from just two years ago. The two women who won Iowa congressional races Tuesday also won by large margins. Dianne Bystrom, an Iowa State University professor who leads I-S-U’s Center for Women and Politics, has been watching this year’s primary races.  “What we’re seeing across the country with women running is that they’re not only winning, but they’re winning by these impressive margins in races where there’s two or three other candidates,” Bystrom said.

Abby Finkenauer of Dubuque won the Democratic Party’s nomination in the first congressional district with two-thirds of the total vote in a four-way race. Cindy Axne of Des Moines was running against two male competitors — and won with 58 percent of the vote. “Really impressed with their margins of victory,” Bystrom says. “I was up until after one to see what was going on for the secretary of state’s office on the Democratic side and it was a little closer there than I thought it might be, but — certainly — great wins for women.”

Democratic Primary voters nominated Deidre DeJear to run against incumbent Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate in November. If DeJear is elected, she would be the first African American to serve in statewide office. Bystrom says research is showing 2018 voters are more inclined to vote for a female candidate.”They see a woman as more honest, more collaborative, more of a change agent and I think certainly women have been using that to their advantage in a number of these primaries,” Bystrom says. “…It’s not only happening just in Iowa, it’s happening in other states as well…Women are winning by these large margins or they’re winning when they weren’t expected to win.”

Iowa’s political parties can fill open slots on the ballot before the August deadline for designating General Election candidates — so there may be more than 84 female candidates on Iowa’s fall ballot.

(Radio Iowa)

The Creston Police Department reports 38-year old Ryan Rinehart, of Creston, was arrested Wednesday evening. Rinehart was taken into custody at his home at around 7:15-p.m., on a Black Hawk County warrant for Forgery. He was being held in the Union County Jail awaiting transport to Black Hawk County.

SAC CITY, Iowa (AP) — A western Iowa man has pleaded guilty in another marijuana case. The Sioux City Journal reports that 35-year-old Keegan Cross entered the plea Wednesday in Sac County District Court. The charge: manufacturing a controlled substance. His sentencing is scheduled for July 18. Cross and his mother, 58-year-old Glenda Turnquist, were arrested in February after Sac County deputies found marijuana plants and equipment used for growing them in the Schaller home Turnquist and Cross shared. She’s pleaded not guilty, and her trial is scheduled to begin July 17.

The two were given probation after pleading guilty in an earlier case. They were arrested in March 2017 after deputies found a similar growing operation and 80 marijuana plants in the same house.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — A man who was granted a new trial in the stabbing death of his ex-girlfriend has been sentenced to prison for life. Nicholas Luerkens was sentenced Tuesday in Linn County District Court. Luerkens was in court May 17 for a hearing on a motion before his second trial but unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty of first-degree murder.

Luerkens admitted stabbing 29-year-old Lynnsey Donald to death on April 21, 2015, in front of Donald’s son in a Marion grocery store parking lot. Luerkens then injured himself. The Iowa Court of Appeals last year ordered a new trial for Luerkens after ruling the trial court erred in denying his request to submit an insanity defense instruction to the jury.

This is the last day of a special program conducted by the D-O-T’s Office of Motor Vehicle Enforcement to check the big rigs that roll across Iowa’s highways. Sergeant Blake Wittrock says it’s an international event called “Roadcheck.” “They’re checking brake components, cargo securement, equipment with the truck and the trailer of the vehicles, as well as the paperwork with the driver. So, it’s the complete inspection, the most comprehensive one that we do,” Wittrock says. There is a special emphasis on making sure the drivers are following the regulations for the amount of time they can be on the road. That involves a check of what’s called the E-L-D. “It’s electronic logging device. So it’s the electronic system that’ sin the truck that’s hooked into the engine components, the brains of the truck. They are going to be using that as their log book,” Wittrock says. “And it will record their hours, their mileage, different documents if you will for the trip.”

Wittrock says the electronic devices make it easier for truckers to keep track of their driving — and makes it easier to check on them to be sure they follow the rules. He says commercial drivers can drive 11 hours of driving with three hours to do other tasks in a day, and then at there is a 10 hours off duty in what’s known as the sleeper or rest period.  Another part of the Roadcheck is to work with drivers to educate them on how to spot and report human trafficking. “When we do our inspections or conduct our safety inspections we are advising them what to look for when they are out there because they are in the trucks stops, they are on the road and they see things that we don’t always get to see, and we just encourage their assistance,” according to Wittrock.

Wittrock says drivers are willing to help out and he says it helps build a little camaraderie between the officers and truckers. “When people get inspected they kind of think it’s a bad thing. We’re just looking for compliance,” Wittrock says, “then we can also ask them to help us and work together as a team to combat this issue that’s out there, that’s moving up and down the roadways every day.”  Each driver will be given a Truckers Against Trafficking wallet card which provides them with the Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline 888-3737-888 and some guidelines on what information to report. Wittrock says officers do routine checks of trucks every day, but this is a little more concentrated over a 72-hour period along the major highways.

(Radio Iowa)