Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:40 a.m. CDT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A fast-moving Iowa bill would eliminate the public’s right to access 911 calls involving emergencies in which people are injured, sealing key information about public safety. The House passed the measure this month, and a Senate committee approved it Thursday. The bill declares that 911 calls involving injured victims are medical records and exempt from Iowa’s open records law. Calls involving juveniles would all be confidential.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The long-time best friend of former lottery computer technician Eddie Tipton is poised to testify at trials in Iowa and Wisconsin about how Tipton created computer code that enabled him to predict winning numbers. Robert Rhodes, a Texas businessman who has known Tipton for decades, has reached a plea agreement to testify.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Gov. Terry Branstad has signed into law a ban on local governments raising the minimum hourly wage and another law changing Iowa’s workers’ compensation system. Branstad signed the measures Thursday at a public event. The wage reversal is effective immediately and comes just days before the state’s most populous county was set to raise pay for some workers. The law restricting workers’ compensation will change benefits for on-the-job injuries in the state.

HOPKINTON, Iowa (AP) — Law enforcement officials in northeastern Iowa are on the lookout for some hot artifacts and antiques. Cedar Rapids television station KCRG report that someone broke into the Delaware County Historical Society’s building in Hopkinton on Wednesday night and stole several items dating back to the 1800s. The items include about 40 arrowheads, a silver tea set and Native American moccasins and a vest.

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A 43-year-old Winterset woman has been charged with child endangerment after police say she was found drunk at the West Des Moines preschool where she worked.

Other preschool workers called police on March 23 to report their suspicion that Angela Hircock was intoxicated. A responding officer said Hircock had bloodshot eyes, was unable to stand on her own and that her water bottle smelled strongly of alcohol. Prosecutors say she had a blood alcohol content of .37 — nearly five times the legal limit to drive.

The preschool director says Hircock was kept from children after workers suspected she was drunk. She’s been fired. She is free after posting $2,000 bail.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Gov. Terry Branstad has signed into law a ban on local governments raising the minimum hourly wage and another law changing Iowa’s workers’ compensation system. Branstad signed the measures Thursday at a public event.

The National Employment Law Project says Iowa is one of two states to reverse local wage increases that have already gone into effect. The wage reversal is effective immediately and comes just days before Polk County, the state’s most populous county, was set to raise pay for some workers.

The law restricting workers’ compensation will change benefits for on-the-job injuries in the state. It decreases some coverage for shoulder injuries and permanent injuries impacting the whole body. It also creates a retraining program for some injured workers. The changes go into effect July 1st.

If you were in the vicinity of the Atlantic High School this (Thursday) afternoon, you may have been wondering what was going on with all the rescue units on the street in front of the High School. It was all part of “Every 15 minutes,” a program held in Atlantic and other Cass County schools, before, that deals with the consequences of impaired and distracted driving.

Students watching the “accident” scene aftermath.

The alleged “drunk driver” takes a Field Sobriety Test

In the mock accident, Hunter Oliver, who plays the “drunk driver” of a vehicle, lost control of the vehicle on Highway 71 and collided head-on with a vehicle “driven” by Sam Coder. A 16-year old passenger in the Oliver vehicle, Gratt Reed, “dies” at the scene. Another passenger, Bailey Schildberg, “dies” later at the Cass County Memorial Hospital. A third passenger in the Oliver vehicle, Lexington Grooms, along with Sam Coder, were transported to the hospital for treatment of their “injuries.”

Program Coordinator Judi Nelson, says the scenario plays out from the moment of the crash, through the sobriety test, courthouse appearance and sentencing for two counts of “Homicide by motor vehicle,” and concludes tomorrow (Friday), with a “Memorial Assembly and funeral” presented to the high school students and parents. The whole idea is to get students and parents to understand there are life altering consequences to impaired and distracted driving, and change their habits.

The program has been held at the Atlantic high school twice before, and seventh time in Cass County. Griswold and CAM students have also experienced the “Every 15 minutes” program, the premise of which is that someone dies every 15 minutes from dangerous driving habits.

The “accident scene” (Ric Hanson/photos)

And, while the accident, trial and other activities are “staged,” Nelson says what isn’t staged are the emotions involved, especially when it comes to Friday’s “Memorial Service” at the High School, and in the testimony of families who have lost loved ones, as well as man who was convicted following a western Iowa crash that claimed four lives.

The “Memorial service” will be complete with caskets, flowers, music and obituaries, along with letters the “victim’s” parents and the victims wrote to each other called “Today I died.”

Program organizers hope it stimulate conversations between parents and their children about distracted and impaired driving.

A new report ranking the healthiest places to live in Iowa finds both the worst- and best-ranked counties in the state are on the western border. Andrea Ducas, a program officer with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, says the philanthropic organization’s 8th annual County Health Rankings study looked at more than 30 factors. “In addition to measuring things like poor health days and obesity rates, we also look at education rates, we look at employment, we look at children in poverty,” Ducas says. “We want to attain a complete picture of what’s making people healthy and contributing to health where people live, learn, work and play.”

In northwest Iowa, Sioux County ranked number-one in the state for the health of its residents, while Monona County, just a few counties to the south, ranked 99th. Still, the last-place ranking doesn’t mean Monona County is a “bad” place to live, Ducas says it just helps to identify some areas where improvement is needed. “They’re doing well when it comes to excessive drinking, they’re doing relatively well when it comes to the number of people with insurance and with housing issues,” Ducas says, “but some of those factors that are more of the predictors like high school graduation rates, college, unemployment, those are high and that tends to be the case across low-performing counties.”

On the other side of the coin, Ducas says just because Sioux County ranked first on this year’s list doesn’t mean everything there is perfect, either. “If you were to dig into a data point like children in poverty, these are kids that are born behind, and we hope, won’t stay behind, the number is very low in Sioux County, it’s 8%, but if you look at it across different population groups, you actually see for white children in Sioux County, it’s only 6% are living in poverty but 41% of Hispanic children are living in poverty.”

The ranks for Health Outcomes are based on two types of measures: how long people live and how healthy people feel while alive. The ranks for Overall Health Factors are based on four types of measures: health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic, and physical environment factors.

In the immediate KJAN listening area, Cass County ranks 80th overall in Health Outcomes and 68th in Health Factors. Other counties list as follows for Health Outcomes: Shelby, 49th; Harrison, 62nd; Guthrie, 64th; Montgomery, 65th; Adams, 68th; Adair, 71st; Union, 87th; Mills, 89th; Audubon, 90th and Pottawattamie, 91st. And, as for Health Factors: Shelby County ranks best, coming in at #12; Adams County ranks 33rd; Adair County is 36th; Audubon County, 39th; Harrison County, 40th; Guthrie County, 49th; Mills County, 59th; Union County placed 65th; Montgomery County, 88th; and Pott. County, 95th.

The reports shows the five healthiest counties in Iowa are: Sioux, Winneshiek, Lyon, Chickasaw and Cedar. The five counties in the poorest health are: Monona, Decatur, Wapello, Pocahontas and Lee. Sioux and Monona counties were also numbers-one and 99 on last year’s rankings. The study covers all 50 states and some 3,000 counties nationwide.

Ducas says the rankings are designed to bring revealing data to communities across the country and the tools and resources to help them take action to improve health. See where your home county stacks up at: www.countyhealthrankings.org.

(Radio Iowa/KJAN)

Iowa Lieutenant Governor Kim Reynolds says a tight state budget could keep efforts to expand the state’s school choice program from happening this year. “This has been a very, very difficult budget this year, I think it’s going to be very hard to do this year,” Reynolds says. She says the legislature as look at a variety of issues from providing flexibility in different areas that have impact districts across the state. The governor has already had to make a couple of cuts in the current budget and that means the establishment of an education savings fund to help families pay for private education may have to wait.

“We’re working with the Legislature, you know it’s been a tough budget year and we’re looking at a tough budget year in ’18, we start to pull out of it in ’19. So, they’re going to continue to look at those areas,” Reynolds says. ” It’s the art of what’s possible in a really tight budget.” Reynolds made those comments after a meeting Iowa Board of Education.

During that meeting, board member Mary Ellen Miller of Mason City told Reynolds that state legislators talked with them about an emphasis on private education and she asked what kind of commitment the state should be making to public education. “I think we are making it every single day by trying to provide educators with the tools that they need to be successful, I think we’ve done that with the T-L-C, by creating a system where teachers and educators can collaborate and work together,” Reynolds says. “By working on the early warning assessment that you talked about — which is again giving teachers the tools to identify where their students are at –so they can adjust the strategies and help them get to proficiency and beyond.” But Reynolds says she also supports parents having choice.

“You know, we need both. We need strong public schools, and we also shouldn’t be afraid of giving parents the opportunity to choose where they send their student,” Reynolds says. Reynolds says she’s the product of public education in Iowa, and her daughter is a teacher, so she wants public education to remain strong too.

(Radio Iowa)

Clarinda Police Chief Keith Brothers reports the Clarinda Police Department is filing numerous complaints against two juveniles who absconded from the Clarinda Academy early Saturday morning, March 25th. The juveniles ages 17 and 15 are being charged with one count of felony second degree burglary for breaking and entering an occupied home at 722 S. 22nd St. and stealing a 2000 Buick Lesabre from the garage. The pair are also being charged with felony burglary and theft for entering a garage at 115 S. 19th St and stealing miscellaneous personal property and tools.

The two juveniles are also accused of breaking into a garage at 415 W. Main Street and stealing various items of personal property, and they charges of burglary and theft in connection with a motor vehicle that was parked in the 300 block of North 19th Street. The juveniles were apprehended later Saturday morning, March 25th in Otoe County, Nebraska by Otoe County Deputies.

The 2000 Buick was recovered along with numerous items of personal property stolen from the garages and vehicle. One of the juveniles is currently being held in the Polk County, Iowa Juvenile Detention Center and the other in the Sarpy County, Nebraska Juvenile Detention Center.

All complaints against the two-juvenile alleging commission of various crimes/delinquent acts will be forwarded to Page County Juvenile Court Services and the Page County Attorney’s Office for review and formal charging decisions.