DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa Governor Terry Branstad has signed three bills dealing with abortion, voter identification and medical malpractice. The abortion bill signed Friday morning prohibits the procedure in most cases after 20 weeks of pregnancy and requires a 72-hour waiting period. Abortion-rights groups have indicated they will fight the law in the Iowa Supreme Court. Branstad called it a significant stride for the anti-abortion movement.

The voter identification measure requires voters to show ID at polls starting in 2019 and reduces Iowa’s early voting period, which opponents say will suppress turnout. Republicans say it is necessary to protect against voter fraud, while acknowledging the problem is rare.

The medical malpractice law restricts some payouts to patients who win such lawsuits, though juries can override the cap in some instances.

Deputies with the Page County Sheriff’s Office, Thursday night, arrested a man who they had previously arrested late last month. Just before 10-p.m., 27-year old Cody Robert Cordell, of New Market, was taken into custody on a Fremont County Warrant for OWI/1st offense.

Cordell was found in a vehicle parked by a building in a field, near the intersection of 185th Street and Highway 71 (about 2 miles Northeast of Clarinda).  Cordell was transported to the Page County Jail, where he later posted a $1000 cash bond.  He was subsequently released pending future court appearances.

Cordell was arrested April 27th as well. He’d been charged with Driving under suspension, felon Theft in the 2nd Degree, and Possession of drug paraphernalia.

Cody Cordell (Photo courtesy Page County S/O)

The Iowa Department of Public Health has received a federal grant of more than five million dollars to expand treatment for opioid abuse across the state. Project director Monica Wilke-Brown says the grant will help stop the growing epidemic of abuse. She says both the deaths associated with opioid overdoses and the hospital admissions for treatment have increased dramatically in the last 10 years. “So, we are really trying to get the issue under control where it has already become a big problem, and also prevent it from becoming a bigger in the communities that are less affected at this point,” Wilke says.

She says the five million dollar grant will allow them to use the successful treatment methods that have already been developed. “We want to expand it across the entire state so that all the counties and service areas have the chance to do the same thing,” Wilke says.Part of the process involves doing a community assessment. She says the agencies in communities will bring together everyone in the community and look for any gaps or needs in coverage and will be able to focus on prevention efforts, the prescription monitoring program and expand the treatment options.

According to Wilke, “We’ll have a formula specific to a variety of both kind of highest need and size of the service area. So, it’s not by county specifically. Some service providers share a county and some cover up to 10 or more counties.” She says they will try several different strategies. “One of them is promoting the C-D-C guidelines for prescribing opioid medications,” Wilke says, “because we know that a lot of people who end up with opioid use disorders may have started with a legitimate prescription that got out of control.”

Wilke says another key component is education in preventing overdose deaths. “Making sure people are aware of naloxone — which is the overdose reversal drug. That can be very instrumental in saving someone’s life if they have accidentally overdosed it,” Wilke says.

The five-point-four-five million dollar grant comes from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which is part of the U-S Health and Human Services Opioid Initiative.

(Radio Iowa)

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – Authorities say a man accused of killing a deputy and wounding another while escaping from the Pottawattamie County jail before being recaptured in Nebraska, will be held at a different county jail once he returns to Iowa. Twenty-three-year-old Wesley Correa-Carmenaty agreed to extradition during a hearing Thursday in Omaha.

Woodbury County Sheriff Dave Drew said Correa-Carmenaty will be held at his jail in Sioux City and that his officers will take great caution in handling him. Authorities say Correa-Carmenaty had just been sentenced to 45 years imprisonment in an unrelated case when he managed to grab one of the two deputies’ guns while being transferred the Council Bluffs jail.