(Radio Iowa) – An ethanol industry group is accusing Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy of being hypocritical for supporting construction of an oil pipeline, but opposing carbon pipelines. Ramaswamy often recites what he calls the 10 “truths” on the campaign trail. One of them is that human flourishing requires fossil fuels and Ramaswamy has said construction of the Keystone X-L Pipeline for crude oil should resume.

GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy speaks to crowd at his Iowa campaign headquarters on Nov. 28, 2023. (RI photo)

This week, Ramaswamy criticized Governor Reynolds and other Republicans for not opposing the use of eminent domain to seize land for proposed pipeline to ship carbon out of ethanol plants. The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association says Ramaswamy’s playing a typical political game, not driven by principles. The group’s executive director says Ramaswamy is a hypocrite whose campaign is running on fumes.

At noon today (Friday), Ramaswamy and the Free Soil Coalition, a group that opposes the carbon pipelines, are holding an event in Des Moines.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa, reports a central Iowa man entered a guilty plea, Wednesday, to a charge of wire fraud. According to public court documents, 47-year-old Zachary James Flaherty, of Clive, used his position as an insurance agent and annuity salesperson to defraud elderly individuals out of their retirement savings and other monies. Flaherty admitted to engaging in a scheme to defraud some of his insurance clients, specifically, that he intended to defraud some of his clients by making false statements to those clients to obtain financial benefits for himself to the detriment of his clients.

For example, Flaherty told one of the victims, referred to in court documents as Victim #10, that he would invest proceeds from the sale of her house on her behalf and for her benefit, even though Flaherty knew that his representations to Victim #10 were false. As a result of Flaherty’s false representations, Victim #10 wrote two checks, totaling $170,000, to a company Flaherty owned and/or operated. Flaherty used the proceeds of his fraudulent scheme to acquire various assets, including a boat and automobiles.

Flaherty is scheduled to be sentenced on April 12, 2024, and faces a potential sentence of up to twenty years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine the sentence Flaherty will receive after considering the United States Sentencing Guidelines and other sentencing factors.

United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. The Iowa Insurance Division’s Fraud Bureau and the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the case, with assistance from the Des Moines Police Department, Clive Police Department, and the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Division of Criminal Investigation.

(Davenport, Iowa) – A pursuit in eastern Iowa’s Scott County, Thursday night, resulted in a crash and two people injured. According to the Iowa State Patrol, a 1988 Suzuki motorcycle operated by 28-year-old Dayshaun Rias, of Davenport, was actively eluding law enforcement, when Rias failed to yield the right-of-way to a 2016 Dodge Dart, driven by 25-year-old Ryan Harris, of Davenport. The motorcycle and car collided at the intersection of W. 2nd and Gaines Streets, in Davenport, at around 10:20-p.m., Thursday.

Harris was not injured in the crash. Rias, and a passenger, 26-year-old Jessica Brady, of Davenport, were injured and transported by ambulance to Genesis East Hospital, in Davenport. The incident remains under investigation. The Patrol was assisted at the scene by Davenport Police, Fire and Medic personnel.

DES MOINES, Iowa — A non-profit group whose goal is to put an end to the sex trafficking of minors, gives Nebraska and Iowa an F for how the States handle prosecution of the crime. Shared Hope International handed out grades in six different categories. Iowa got a B- for how the state holds traffickers accountable and a C for having other options when it comes to victims testifying against traffickers. But in all other categories, the group claimed Iowa failed.

Nebraska did well in criminal provisions with a B but failed in four other categories including response to victims, tools for victims, and prevention and training. Shared hope said the lack of safe harbor laws plays a major factor in the grading. “Those laws are ones that protect survivors from being re-victimized in the criminal justice system and that also give victims access to services that can help them recover from that,” said Stephen Padre from the organization.

Almost every state surrounding Iowa also got an F in the report.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – The state-run Glenwood Resource Center for people with disabilities has allegedly failed to comply with all the requirements of a 2022 settlement agreement with the federal government. According to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, the agreement was intended to address claims by the U.S. Department of Justice that the state had violated the constitutional rights of Glenwood residents and exposed them to unreasonable harm. The DOJ alleged that harm stemmed from “uncontrolled and unsupervised experimentation” on residents, as well as inadequate physical and behavioral health care.

Glenwood is run by the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, the same state agency that’s charged with protecting the health and welfare of children and dependent adults in Iowa. The agency plans to close Glenwood by the end of 2024.

As part of DHHS’ 2022 settlement with the Justice Department, the agency agreed to implement a wide range of changes intended to improve the overall care and treatment received by the residents of Glenwood. The agreement includes a provision that has resulted in a court-approved monitoring team checking on conditions in the home to ensure the state’s compliance with the agreed-upon standards of care. In October, the monitoring team completed one such review and recently submitted to the court a written report of its findings.

The report indicates Glenwood has failed to meet numerous standards in two critical areas: the protection of residents who are being transitioned into community settings as Glenwood moves toward the planned shut-down in 2024, and the clinical and medical care that’s now being provided to residents, In the area of clinical and medical care, Glenwood was found to be in substantial compliance in only 15 of the 65 standards that were evaluated. In the area of discharge and transition planning, the home was judged to be in substantial compliance in only four of 34 standards.

To be considered in substantial compliance with one of the agreed-upon standards, the home had to meet those standards in only 80% of the cases that were reviewed.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak, Thursday, arrested 37-year-old Ryan Allan Wells, from Red Oak. Wells was taken into custody at around 3:10-p.m. in the 1100 block of E. Reed Street, after officers responded to a reported theft. Upon further investigation, Wells was arrested for Possession of drug paraphernalia, and unlawful possession of prescription drugs. He was transported to the Montgomery County Jail, and held on a $1,000 bond.