(Radio Iowa) – The union representing state corrections officers says two prison workers were assaulted by an inmate Monday at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. AFSCME Council 61 president Todd Copley issued a statement that says correctional officers across the state are being asked to work under dangerous, understaffed, and under-resourced conditions, and says they’re not seeing the leadership needed from the Governor’s office to address these issues.

The Iowa Department of Corrections issued a statement saying it is aware of the AFSCME statement in regards to an assault at the Iowa State Penitentiary. The statement says the Department doesn’t comment on open investigations and goes on to say “The safety of our correctional officers and inmates is of top importance. We are committed to implementing best practices in security, training, and compliance to create an environment where all individuals can feel safe.”

(Washington, D-C) – The federal Bureau of Prisons mistakenly released an Iowa man from custody before he finished serving his 30-month sentence for storming the Senate chamber during a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, Justice Department prosecutors said in a court filing this week. WHO-TV in Des Moines reports Leo Christopher Kelly of Cedar Rapids was freed last Thursday after an appeals court agreed to throw out one of his convictions stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

But prosecutors believe Kelly’s release was a mistake because he only served 11 months of his 30-month sentence. In a court filing Monday, they asked U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth for a hearing to address Kelly’s release. The Bureau of Prisons told The Associated Press that Kelly was “inadvertently released” last week after a “misinterpretation of a court order.” The bureau’s statement doesn’t elaborate on the reason for the error, but it says that Kelly, 39, reported to a probation officer “as instructed” and remains free while awaiting a resentencing hearing.

Prosecutors also are asking the judge to schedule a hearing for resentencing now that Kelly’s only felony conviction has been tossed by the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia circuit. In May 2023, a jury convicted Kelly of all seven counts in his indictment. One of his convictions was for a charge that he obstructed an official proceeding, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden ‘s electoral victory over Donald Trump.

In June, however, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the government’s use of that obstruction charge. The justices ruled 6-3 that the charge of obstructing an official proceeding must include proof that defendants tried to tamper with or destroy documents. After the ruling, prosecutors and defense attorney Nicholas Smith joined in asking the appeals court to vacate Kelly’s obstruction conviction. His remaining convictions were for misdemeanor offenses. Judge Lamberth sentenced Kelly in August 2023 and refused to release him pending the outcome of his appeal. Lamberth indicated last month that he was unlikely to reduce Kelly’s sentence.

A Bureau of Prisons database doesn’t specify where Kelly was serving his sentence when he was released last week.

A day before the Jan. 6 riot, Kelly drove to Washington, D.C., to attend then-President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House. He marched to the Capitol, joined other rioters in entering the building and made his way to the Senate floor. Kelly approached the dais where then-Vice President Mike Pence had just presided over the Senate. He took videos of documents on desks — including a ballot sheet, handwritten notes and a script — before police cleared the rioters out of the chamber.

Approximately 1,500 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. More than 600 of them have been convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.

(Des Moines, Iowa)  — A new poll shows Gov. Kim Reynolds’ job approval rating is the lowest it has been since she first took office in May of 2017. The latest Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll reveals half of Iowans disapprove of the job she’s doing as governor.

Iowans have been polled 18 times since Reynolds has been in office as the state’s governor. This September, 45% of Iowans polled say they approve of her job performance, while 50% disapprove. The same poll shows Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird with a job approval rating of 39%.

State Auditor Rob Sand, a Democrat, is polling a job approval rating of 53%. That’s the highest approval rating among Iowa’s statewide elected officials.

FARNHAMVILLE, Iowa — Iowa authorities have identified the missing teenager found dead Monday in Calhoun County. 17-year-old Michele “Luna” Jackson was first reported missing Sunday evening in Farnhamville. Her body was discovered early Monday morning. Jackson was a student at Southeast Valley High School.

The Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday evening that 21-year-old Nathaniel Bevers-McGivney, of Gowrie, is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the teen’s death. A Criminal Complaint details how he allegedly killed Jackson. Bevers-McGiveny was originally charged with “abuse of a corpse – failure to disclose known location.”

Nathaniel Bevers-McGivney booking photo (IA DPS)

Bevers-McGiveny is being held in the Carroll County Jail.

(Radio Iowa) – The presidents of two European nations will be in Cedar Rapids Friday to mark a milestone at the National Czech and Slovak Museum. This Friday, the presidents of Slovakia and the Czech Republic will visit the museum in the Czech Village of Cedar Rapids. They’ll be part of a ceremony to dedicate the repaired clock tower at the site that was damaged by the 2020 derecho.

The clock tower has a design similar to the clock tower in Prague that features the 12 Apostles. A dozen figurines created by a Slovakian artist will be added to the clock tower in Cedar Rapids and each represents an immigrant from the Czech and Slovak region who settled in America.

Slovakia’s president will be at the museum Thursday night to dedicate a collection of artifacts that tells the story of a Catholic priest who helped organize the Slovak community in Cleveland, Ohio, around the turn of the 20th century. Both presidents will attend events at the museum on Friday.

(Radio Iowa) – State Auditor Rob Sand says a private auditing firm will review details about the closure of a grocery store that got about two million dollars worth of tax incentives and grants from the City of Waterloo. All-in Grocers in downtown Waterloo opened on October 3rd of last year.

The store’s co-owner announced on August 10th the store would close temporarily as it switched to a more affordable supplier of food and other goods, but the store has remained closed and is up for sale.

In a written statement, State Auditor Rob Sand says his staff is passing information they’ve received about All-in Grocers to the private firm hired to audit the City of Waterloo’s finances. Sand says it’s the fastest and most efficient way to ensure public funds provided for the project were spent appropriately and as intended.

(Radio Iowa) – Sioux City’s warming shelter that was scheduled to close at the end of the month due to a lack of funding, will now stay open with support of local agencies and the city council. Shelter board member and treasurer, Joe Twidwell says more local support has developed. “Rumor of the city’s possible support for this year has caused many individual donors and businesses to come forward and say, ‘We need to be part of this. We recognize that this is something we need to do,'” Twidwell says.

The city council had approved a 50-thousand dollar grant for the shelter in July and Monday approved an additional 150-thousand dollars. Mayor Bob Scott says he did not like the way the city was made out to be the villain in the shelter closing. “Quite frankly, we’ve got it before us, because it is a crisis, and trashing people, police chiefs and mayors and council members when we don’t even have all the facts, that’s not fair. It’s not fair at all,” he says. The Mayor reminded Twidwell the city gave the shelter 50-thousand dollars.

“I’m going to plug my nose today and vote for this, because I think it’s important that we have a plan going forward, and we’re in a crisis, so sometimes you have to vote for things that you wish you had a longer time to put a plan together,” Scott says.

The city council approved giving the homeless shelter 150-thousand dollars next February on a 4-1 vote.

If you are looking for fresh local produce, make sure to check our stands all across the county. The Cass County Iowa Local Food, Farmers Markets, and Food Access Facebook page also shares when produce has been donated to stands.

• 208 Chestnut St. Anita

• 507 Popular St. Atlantic

• 1209 E 8th St. Atlantic

• 1020 E. 3rd St. Atlantic

• 500 Main St. Cumberland

• 100 Cass St. Griswold

• 412 W. Main St. Lewis

• 418 2nd St. Marne

• 74851 Richland Rd. Massena

• 108 Pioneer St. Wiota

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Lottery sales are off to a slow start in the new fiscal year after setting a sales record the previous year. Lottery C-E-O Matt Strawn gave the Lottery Commission an update during their meeting this (Tuesday) morning. “Gross lottery sales through the first two months of fiscal ’25 totaled 69-million-490-thousand and 821 dollars. This represents a 26-point-eight percent decrease from this same point last year,” Strawn says. He says lottery proceeds to the state through August are down around 48 percent from the same point last year.

Strawn had warned at the end of the last fiscal year that maintaining the record sales would be tough due to national economic conditions and soft sales in national lotto games. He cited Powerball sales as am example of how lotto games have impacted the new fiscal year. “So last year through August, Powerball sales in Iowa totaled 16-point-five million dollars. This year, over that same two-month time frame, Powerball sales in Iowa totaled five-point-nine million dollars,” Strawn says. “Thus, year-over-year Powerball sales in Iowa are down 64-point-oh-eight percent.”

Strawn says national Powerball sales trends are down a nearly identical amount. Strawn says jackpots are hard to predict and once they get going they bring in a lot of people who are not regular players. “And that’s even more so when those jackpots climb above the one BILLION-dollar threshold, which happened twice during the first two months of last fiscal year alone. Once in Powerball and once in Mega Millions,” he says. “And so not surprisingly as a result, Mega Millions performance to start the fiscal year is larger mirroring that of Powerball, as Mega Millions game sales are down 66-point-five-nine percent over the first two months.”

Strawn says the national economy has an impact on sales, and that includes changes in interest rates that impact the annuity or jackpot amount. “Simply stated, higher interest rates do lead to corresponding higher advertised grand prize amounts. And those higher advertised grand prize amounts lead to additional sales,” Strawn says. He says the issues they are facing were factored in as they prepared the budget for this fiscal year, and that has helped them stay close to their projections.

” Lottery sales for the first two months of fiscal 2025 are three-point-one million dollars ahead of budget projections. Lottery operating expenses are 247-thousand under budget. And when it comes to fiscal year-to-date proceeds, we are just less than one million behind our budget projections,” he says. Strawn says sales are unlikely to reach the record heights of recent years, but the adjustments they made in this year’s budget and continued diversity of products will help them deal with the drop.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley is blasting the U.S. Postal Service over a whistleblower’s claims that a registered sex offender got a job as a letter carrier, even though he revealed his status on the application. Grassley says the postal service has refused his request for a list of letter carriers who are registered sex offenders, and he can’t say yet how many there are, or if any of them may be in Iowa.

“No, we haven’t got the list yet, and my speech yesterday made it clear how idiotic their reasoning is for not giving us a list,” Grassley says, “and maybe they will end up giving us a list.” Congress is entitled to the information, Grassley says, but postal officials won’t supply the employee list, saying: “They have a personal privacy interest in protecting the fact that their name appears on a sex offender registry.”

Grassley says, “They don’t have any reason to withhold the list, but we don’t have any of that information at this point.” He says the investigators on his staff asked the postal service for a list of all letter carriers on the payroll, to which the reply was: “Current employees’ names, titles and duty stations are generally considered to be public information and releasable,” but then refused to provide the information. Grassley says it’s infuriating and calls the situation “a disgrace.”

“Isn’t it odd that you make an application for a job and you say you’re on the registered sex offender list and you still get the job?” Grassley says. “We asked, are they delivering mail near schools, homes, places where young people are, and they don’t seem to have that concern.”

Grassley says the whistleblower told his office, once the Postal Service figured out what happened, the employee was placed on paid leave. He says, “our communities deserve much better.”