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Keep up-to-date with Fox News Radio, Radio Iowa, Brownfield & the Iowa Agribusiness Networks!
Drake University in Des Moines is partnering with C-B-S News to offer educational programming designed to bring lessons on good character and kindness to teachers and students around the world — for free. Amy Smit, spokeswoman for Character Counts and Drake’s Robert D. and Billie Ray Center, says the web-based “Kindness 101” features short videos from C-B-S reporter Steve Hartman’s “On the Road” series.
The three-minute videos include lesson plans, activities, and family connections focused on the Six Pillars of Character, and Smit says they’re appropriate for any grade level.
The program isn’t just for Iowa teachers, but teachers anywhere on the planet, and Smit says they’re hoping Kindness 1-0-1 snowballs in popularity.
Smit says it’s very helpful for students to see role models who are demonstrating character and kindness in their daily lives.
Hartman launched Kindness 101 as schools closed for the pandemic in 2020. It was nominated for a News Emmy that same year, and has since been adapted into a weekly series for “CBS Mornings.” Smit encourages everyone, especially parents, to log on for free.
The number of pheasants taken by hunters last fall was up more than 60 percent and D-N-R Wildlife Biologist Todd Bogenschutz says other species like quail and Hungarian partridges also saw good seasons.
Hunting numbers were up by more than 30 percent. Their license isn’t specific to pheasants, and he says they will take an opportunity when they see it.
Bogenschutz says hunters took the most mourning doves since they started the season in Iowa.
Mourning dove hunters took nearly 195-thousand birds in 2023.
(Radio Iowa) – A northwest Iowa man has been sentenced to probation in a vehicular homicide case. State prosecutors had recommended a 10 year prison sentence or at least two years in jail for 22-year-old Caleb Richard DeBey, of Alvord.
Police say DeBey was driving at least 126 miles an hour when his vehicle left the road and a passenger was killed on July 30th of last year near Rock Valley. The Iowa State Patrol’s report indicates DeBey’s blood alcohol level was nearly twice the legal limit. Then, in September of last year, DeBey was charged for a second time with drunk driving. A judge has issued a suspended sentence and ordered DeBey to serve five years of probation. DeBey was sentenced to seven days in the county jail for the two O-W-Is, but he was given credit for the 11 days he previously served.
DeBey has been ordered to complete a substance abuse evaluation and comply with any recommendations.
(Des Moines, Iowa) – Four years after he was forced from his job amid a wide-ranging scandal at the state-run Glenwood Resource Center, the facility’s former medical director is facing allegations of incompetence from the state’s own regulators.
According to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, the Iowa Board of Medicine has charged Dr. Mohammad E. Rehman with professional incompetency – an offense that is defined by the board as including malpractice, negligence, a lack of knowledge or ability to discharge one’s professional duties, or a failure to exercise a degree of care ordinarily exercised by physicians. The board has not publicly disclosed the basis for the charge or publicly stated where or when the offending conduct took place.
The charge against Rehman was filed in June but was only recently made public. A board hearing on the matter has been scheduled for Sept. 18, 2025. Court records indicate that as medical director at Glenwood, a state-run residential treatment center for severely disabled individuals, Rehman was the focus of a unanimous vote of “no confidence” from the medical staff in November 2018. Rehman continued to work at the facility, but resigned in April 2020, with state officials saying the resignation had been submitted in lieu of his termination.
(Photo via Google Earth; seal courtesy the State of Iowa)
His departure followed staff complaints of poor medical care, reports that the death rate at Glenwood had doubled, and that a federal investigation had begun into sexual arousal studies the home was planning to conduct on residents. That same year, Rehman and Glenwood’s former superintendent were among the defendants named in a civil lawsuit filed by six former Glenwood employees, including two physicians and a nurse practitioner. The lawsuit alleged Rehman had criticized doctors for providing residents with “too much” diagnostic care and treatment, and for sending too many patients to area hospitals for treatment rather than providing treatment using Glenwood staff.
The plaintiffs also alleged Rehman hired a physician at the facility to provide neurological care to Glenwood residents, although the doctor did not have any board certifications or experience as a neurologist. In addition, they claimed Rehman directed others to falsify or erase entries in medical records to hide damaging information that Rehman did not want to appear in the regularly audited patient records.
Much of the lawsuit centered on claims of wrongful termination in violation of public policy and on alleged violations of the state’s whistleblower law. A Polk County judge dismissed the case earlier this year after ruling the plaintiffs had failed to show a clearly defined and well-recognized public policy that protected their activities at Glenwood, and that they had failed to show they acted as whistleblowers by reporting their concerns to law enforcement or other public officials. The plaintiffs have appealed that ruling.
(Radio Iowa) – Sac County’s Jail in Sac City has been in operation for over 80 years and the county’s voters will decide in November whether a new jail should be built. The Sac County Board of Supervisors is proposing that a new county jail be built across the street from the current one, then the old one would be used by the county sheriff’s office. The supervisors have voted to put a nearly 11 million dollar bond referendum on the General Election ballot to finance the two-phase project.
According to the state jail inspector, Sac County has the second oldest jail in Iowa and it does not meet current safety standards, putting staff, inmates and the public at risk. Iowa’s oldest county jail is in Pocahontas. Last November, Pocahontas County voters overwhelmingly approved eight-and-a-half million dollars in bonding for a new 18-bed jail.
(Radio Iowa) – Voters in Iowa’s second largest school district will decide next month on whether to continue a levy for school facility maintenance and equipment. Cedar Rapids Community Schools Superintendent Tawana Grover says for 50 years, the voter-approved Physical Plant and Equipment Levy — or PPEL — has been an important pot of money for the district.
Last year, voters said no to the district’s bond for new buildings. This special election does not include any projects from that plan. Some of the district’s buildings are over a hundred years old. Since the district has already been putting aside the money for 50 years, Grover says re-upping will -not- impact tax rates.
If renewed, PPEL would provide more than 10-million dollars over ten years for facilities, equipment, security and other improvements. Today (Wednesday) is the first day voters in the district can receive absentee ballots or vote early in-person. Special Election Day is September 10th.
DES MOINES – As part of a new three-year, $150,000 “Financial Inclusion Grant Program” addressing barriers to financial well-being for minority populations in Iowa, the Iowa Credit Union Foundation (ICUF) has announced the organizations receiving the first $50,000 in grant funding. The new program was launched in response to the findings of the recent ICUF statewide report “Economic Realities of Communities of Color,” which identified challenges faced by Iowa’s most vulnerable communities.
Financial Inclusion Grants direct funding to organizations serving minority populations in policy areas covered by the report: affordable housing, business ownership, childcare, education, employment, and health access and outcomes.
After announcing the program last Fall, ICUF collaborated with credit union partners across Iowa to identify qualifying organizations working in their communities. Credit unions were able to nominate mission-aligned nonprofits this Spring, who were then invited to apply for grants ranging from $5,000-$10,000. Eight nonprofit organizations were selected from the proposals received, for a total of $50,000 in first cycle of Financial Inclusion Grant funding. These organizations serve minority communities in a variety of geographic regions in Iowa, representing both urban and rural parts of the state.
Ena Babic Barnes, Executive Director, ICUF said “The Iowa Credit Union Foundation is excited to announce the first grant recipients in the Financial Inclusion Grant Program. These selected organizations represent the critical work required to tackle barriers to financial well-being for all Iowans. We take pride in supporting their impactful work and believe that highlighting their contributions will significantly advance economic equity and foster greater financial inclusion across our State.”
The recipients of the first round of ICUF Financial Inclusion Grant funding include:
Founded in 1995 as the philanthropic arm of the Iowa Credit Union League (ICUL), ICUF’s mission is guided by the credit union philosophy of ‘people helping people’. Guided by this philosophy ICUF works to champions financial wellbeing for all. For more information, visit www.IowaCreditUnionFoundation.org.
[UPDATED](Radio Iowa) – The man convicted of first-degree murder in the killing of Algona Police Officer Kevin Cram in September of 2023 received a sentence of life in prison this (Wednesday) morning in Kossuth County District Court. Forty-four-year-old Kyle Lou Ricke was found guilty following a four-day trial in Dickinson County last month. Assistant Attorney General Scott Brown prosecuted the case and said prior to the sentencing that Ricke earned the mandatory sentence of life with no parole.
Ricke took his opportunity to make a statement before his sentencing.
Several of Officer Cram’s family members read victim impact statements before Judge Nancy Whittenburg handed out the sentence of life without parole. Ricke will be transferred to the Iowa Medical and Classification Center at Oakdale for further processing by the Department of Corrections.
(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Court of Appeals has denied an Ottumwa man’s request for a new murder trial. Christopher Yenger was found guilty two counts of first-degree murder for throwing a Molotov cocktail at a rural Wappello County house after getting his nose bloodied in a fight there in 2006. Two men died in the fire. Yenger appealed the convictions, saying his attorneys were ineffective for not calling an expert witness to challenge the state’s arson investigation.
The Appeals Court ruling says his attorneys made a strategic decision to not call the expert witness because there was no reasonable likelihood that the outcome of the trial would have been different if the expert testified.
Yenger was not arrested and convicted until ten years after the fire when a witness came forward to tell what happened. He is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole in the deaths of Nathan Messer and Seth Anderson.
(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says President Biden has every right to be irritated about his situation. Grassley — the longest serving Republican in the U-S Senate — watched Biden’s speech at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night.
Grassley and Biden served in the Senate together for 28 years. When asked earlier this summer whether Biden was fit to serve as president, Grassley said he was not going to dump on Biden about his age, but was focused on critiquing Biden’s policies.
Grassley, who is nine years older than Biden, made his comments after visiting a business in Plymouth County. Grassley says he’s completed his annual tour of Iowa’s 99 counties with a final stop in Woodbury County.
In a post on social media, Grassley said he celebrated his 44th tour of Iowa’s 99 counties by having both a strawberry malt and a Reece’s Blizzard at a Dairy Queen in Sioux City. Grassley was elected to the U-S Senate in 1980 after serving six years in the U-S House.
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