IOWA – The Girl Scout Cookie Program^® is underway in Greater Iowa. Organization officials say the annual event allows Girl Scouts “unbox” their futures as young business leaders through the world’s largest entrepreneurial program for girls, and acquire important life skills like goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills, and business ethics. All proceeds from cookie sales stay 100% local to power Girl Scouts’ amazing experiences year-round.

This year’s theme, Unbox the Future, aims to remove social barriers that often keep girls boxed in. Every box of cookies sold provides invaluable experiences for Girl Scouts such as service projects, troop travel, and summer camp. This season, cookie lovers can enjoy the full assortment of Girl Scout Cookies, including fan favorites such as Thin Mints®, Caramel deLites®, Peanut Butter Patties®, and more.

“When you buy delicious Girl Scout Cookies, you are helping girls not only discover their inner leadership potential but also use their earnings to power amazing experiences for themselves and their troop,” said Beth Shelton, CEO of Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa. “Many Girl Scouts put the money toward impactful community projects right in their own backyards, from supporting animal shelters and food banks to working with local and state legislators to change laws.”

Just a few of the many cookie varieties available to purchase from your local Girl Scout

Cookie Varieties: Adventurefuls®, Caramel Chocolate Chip, Caramel deLites®, Lemonades®, Peanut Butter Patties, Peanut Butter Sandwich, Thin Mints®, Toast-Yay!®, and Trefoils®.

Price: $6 per package

When: February 1 – March 24, 2024. Customers can place orders starting on February 1, and booth sales begin on February 9.

How to purchase Girl Scout Cookies this season:

Girl Scout Cookie season is recognized in Greater Iowa from February 1 through March 24, 2024, Consumers can support Girl Scouts by purchasing cookies a few different ways:

• If you know a registered Girl Scout, reach out to her to find out how she’s selling cookies.
• If you don’t know a Girl Scout, visit girlscoutsiowa.org/findcookies to find cookie booths available in your area.
• Beginning February 16, customers who do not already know a Girl Scout will also be able to purchase cookies to be shipped directly to their homes by entering their zip code into the Girl Scout Cookie Finder. This link can also be used to find a local booth, purchase cookies, and/or to donate cookies for local community causes.
• You can also text COOKIES to 59618 to stay informed about how to purchase Girl Scout Cookies and other exciting Girl Scout news. Learn more about the Terms and Conditions and the SMS Privacy Policy.

For more than 100 years, Girl Scouts and their enthusiastic supporters have helped ensure the success of the iconic annual cookie program—and they’ve had fun, developed valuable life skills, and made their communities a better place every step of the way. Girl Scout Cookie season is recognized nationally from January through April, but local timing varies; visit girlscoutcookies.org to sign up to be notified as soon as your local troop begins selling in your area.

Girls in grades K–12 can start their journey to fun, friendship, and new experiences by joining the world’s largest entrepreneurial organization for girls at any point in the year. Girls can join and adults can become a volunteer at girlscoutsiowa.org/join.

(Soldier, Iowa) – A collision Friday afternoon in Monona County resulted in one person being transported to the hospital. The Iowa State Patrol reports the accident happened near Soldier (IA).

A 2015 Chevy Impala driven by 31-year-old Elizabeth Meadows, of Ute, was traveling south on Highway 183 at around 1-p.m., at the same time a 2015 Peterbilt semi driven by 21-year-old Jacob Boock, of Cushing, was traveling east on Highway 37. Meadows failed to yield at the posted stop sign prior to entering the intersection of Highways 183/37.

Boock saw the car enter the intersection and attempted to brake, but the truck struck the car in the middle of the intersection. Both vehicles entered the ditch on the northeast corner of the intersection before coming to rest. Meadows was not wearing a seat belt. She was transported by Monona County EMS to Burgess Medical Center, in  Onawa.

The crash remains under investigation. The Patrol was assisted at the scene by the Monona County Sheriff’s Office.

(Atlantic, Iowa) –  Officials with the Cass County Tourism Committee report the Committee met on December 16, 2023. After some discussion, the group decided to change things up a bit for the 2024 year. The schedule will now include four meetings per year, with meetings at 9:00 a.m. on the first Wednesday of the following months: February, May, August and November. Meetings will take place at the Atlantic Chamber unless otherwise noted.

A new slate of officers was elected for the 2024 year.

President: Lora Kanning

Secretary: Emily Kennedy

Treasurer: Kenner Baxter

According to a report from Travel Iowa, the economic impact of visitors in Iowa is significant, including our own Cass County! Visitor spending in 2022 (the most current economic impact statement) was a whopping $6.9 BILLION dollars! That means approximately $19 MILLION was spent EVERY DAY by visitors to Iowa.

In Cass County, local sales taxes collected amounted to over $1,700,000! And state sales taxes collected in Cass County for the year was $2,170,000! Tourism is much more than fun and games…it means business!

If you’re interested in the future of Tourism in Cass County, please plan to attend the next Tourism Committee meeting this coming Wednesday, February 7, 9:00 a.m. at the Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce Office on north Chestnut Street (the former Rock Island Depot).

DES MOINES, Iowa [KCCI] – A Des Moines man convicted of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the United States Capitol is out of federal prison. Doug Jensen, 44, was transferred last month from a Texas prison to a residential reentry management facility in Kansas City, Kansas.

In September 2022, Jensen was found guilty of obstruction of a law enforcement officer during civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, assaulting, resisting or impeding a police officer, unlawfully entering a restricted building with a weapon, disorderly conduct inside a restricted building with a weapon, disorderly conduct in the Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a capitol building.

Douglas Jensen (2021 Polk County Jail photo)

Pictures and videos show Jensen at the front of a crowd in the Capitol Rotunda on the day of the riots. Jensen’s attorney said at trial that his client’s actions were motivated by right-wing conspiracy theories.

Jensen was sentenced in December 2022 to five years in prison with three years of supervised release.

Updates from Jensen’s wife say he’s able to find a job and will be able to come back home on weekends.

(Omaha, NE) – Troopers with the Nebraska State Patrol arrested an Iowa man following a pursuit in Omaha, early this (Friday) morning. Authorities say at approximately 1:40 a.m., a trooper observed a westbound Dodge Durango speeding on Interstate 80 near 60th Street in Omaha. The trooper attempted a traffic stop, but the driver refused to yield and accelerated. The trooper initiated a pursuit.

The vehicle continued westbound, exited I-80 at 84th Street, crossed the median, lost a tire, and reentered I-80 westbound at a high rate of speed. The trooper continued pursuing as the vehicle fled westbound before exiting I-80 at 144th Street, where the driver turned around and reentered eastbound I-80. As the suspect vehicle reached the downtown area, it entered I-480 northbound.

The vehicle exited and reentered I-480 multiple times, running red lights on surface streets. The driver then reentered I-480 toward Iowa. Just before the Missouri River bridge, the vehicle hit a patch of ice on the roadway, lost control, and crashed into a concrete barrier. The driver was then taken into custody without further incident.

The driver, William Ganzhorn, 51, of Woodbine, Iowa, was transported to UNMC with non-life-threatening injuries. Ganzhorn was cited for flight to avoid arrest, willful reckless driving, fictitious license plate, and numerous traffic violations.

KEOKUK COUNTY, Iowa – The Iowa Department of Public Safety reports that on Thursday, February 1, 2024, investigators with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), Ottumwa Police Department, and Keokuk County Sheriff’s Office served a search warrant at 21891 Highway 78 near Ollie. The search warrant was part of an effort to locate 40-year-old Craig Smith, who was reported missing on January 20, 2024.

During the search, investigators found the remains of an adult. The condition of the remains is preventing law enforcement from making a positive identification. Evidence and statements collected during the investigation have led investigators to tentatively identify the remains as those of Craig Smith. The State Anthropologist, the Office of the State Medical Examiner, and the DCI Crime Lab are working to make a positive identification.

Jeffrey Gautreaux

This (Friday) afternoon, DCI agents charged 44-year-old Jeffrey Gautreaux with Murder in the First Degree and Abuse of a Corpse. Gautreaux, who lived with his stepfather, 63-year-old Steven Grant, at the Ollie address, was arrested without incident at the Keokuk County Sheriff’s Office on February 1. Gautreaux and Grant were initially charged with drug offenses. Grant has been released from custody.

This investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information related to this investigation is asked to contact the DCI at 515.725.6010 or at dciinfo@dps.state.ia.us.

A criminal charge is merely an accusation and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

(Radio Iowa) – Senate Republican Leader Jack Whitver says he opposes a bill introduced in the Iowa House that would let 20 percent of House or Senate members force a vote on the use of eminent domain for proposed carbon pipelines.

The House bill, which cleared a subcommittee this week, would let 11 senators or 21 state representatives file a petition to intervene in Iowa Utilities Board proceedings and lawmakers would decide whether pipeline projects get eminent domain authority to seize property from unwilling landowners.

Governor Kim Reynolds told Radio Iowa she will not support any retroactive changes that would affect applications already filed for carbon pipeline construction permits.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver on the “Iowa Press” set on Feb. 2, 2024.. (Photo courtesy of Iowa PBS)

Whitver says there are widely varying views among the 34 Republicans in the Iowa Senate.

Whitver says there has been legislation introduced in the senate that would require pipeline companies to fully restore farmland that’s dislodged along the pipeline route and that may be considered this year.

Whitver says he’d be interested in reviewing, but doesn’t have an opinion yet on another proposal that would speed up the court process for resolving property disputes along the pipeline routes.

Whitver made his comments during taping of Iowa Press which airs tonight (Friday) at 7:30 on Iowa P-B-S.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled it was not illegal for Des Moines Area Community College to pay a man a significantly higher salary than a woman who was doing the same work. Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson reports.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson is joining with dozens of her Republican colleagues in criticizing President Biden’s actions and policies regarding the U-S border with Mexico. Hinson has signed a letter with more than 60 other G-O-P House members, calling for the president to reverse his executive actions which she says “undermine U.S. border security.”

On his first day in the White House, Hinson says Biden “immediately took executive action” to halt border wall construction and issued a moratorium on deportations and immigration enforcement.

Hinson says Biden has been “systematically and unilaterally unraveling policies that secured our border and deterred illegal immigration.” She says one of the results has been a “flood of deadly drugs” pouring into communities across the country, including in Iowa.

The president released a statement last week, saying he’s waiting on a bipartisan bill to emerge from the Senate that would provide him with more options and “new emergency authority to shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed.” Biden says he’s waiting on Congress to provide the funding he requested last fall to secure the border, including money for more border patrol agents, immigration judges, asylum officers and inspection machines to intercept drugs.

(Radio Iowa) – Much of Iowa is seeing above-normal temperatures for the first week of February, a radical change from just a couple of weeks ago. January wrapped up with some Iowa cities reporting mid-50s for highs, and state climatologist Justin Glisan says that’s some 60 to 70 degrees warmer than the middle of the month when we were in the teens below zero, with wind chills of 40-below.

Some Iowa cities saw more than 20 inches of snow during January, and many communities ended up 10 to 15-inches above their averages for snowfall.

Say goodbye to the last of that snow! (Radio Iowa photo)

Glisan says the month concluded as the third-snowiest January on record for Iowa.

That allowed the water to filter down into the soil, he says, which brought some improvements in our statewide drought conditions. As for the month ahead, Glisan says we can expect more of what we’ve been seeing all week — warmer-than-normal temperatures.

The National Weather Service says the two snowstorms we had during mid-January dropped more than 27 inches of snow on Des Moines, which recorded its second-snowiest January on record, while the 25-plus inches that fell on Waterloo made it -the- snowiest January in history for that northeast Iowa city. It was also Waterloo’s fourth-snowiest month of any month on record.