(Radio Iowa) – Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis says former President Trump has an inconsistent record on abortion. During a C-N-N town hall in Des Moines last (Tuesday) night, DeSantis accused Trump of being a flip flopper. DeSantis pointed to Trump’s remarks at a pro-life rally in 2020, when he said all life is a gift from God, then DeSantis cited Trump saying this fall that a six-week abortion ban — like the one Governor DeSantis signed in Florida — was a terrible mistake.

DeSantis also commented on the Texas Supreme Court’s rejection of a woman’s request for an abortion under the medical exception clause to that state’s six-week abortion ban. DeSantis said the woman faced an incredibly difficult medical situation. DeSantis said policymakers have to “approach such issues with compassion.”

DeSantis listed Florida’s abortion ban exceptions if an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother or in cases when there’s a fatal fetal abnormality.

DES MOINES – Today (Tuesday), Governor Reynolds announced the final round of Covid-era stipends for  licensed and registered child care providers, including Child Care Centers and Child Development Homes. The application period begins today through January 12, 2024.

“Child care is the catalyst that drives economic growth,” said Governor Reynolds. “At a time when most parents work outside the home, access to reliable, safe, and affordable child care allows parents to pursue their careers and contribute to the productivity and growth of our economy.”

Award amounts will range from $10,000 to $50,000 based on program size and number of applications received.  Funds can be used for one-time expenses related to employee recruitment and retention, minor renovations, or upgrading equipment. Stipend application and more information about the funding can be found on the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) website.

Iowa is committed to multi-faceted solutions to child care challenges to provide quality care for children, keep parents working, and drive economic development.  In addition to issuing more than $218 million in Stabilization Grants directly to child care providers during the pandemic, HHS has launched programs to fund recruitment and retention bonuses, allow child care workforce to qualify for Child Care Assistance, and to promote partnerships between child care centers and local businesses to support wage enhancements for child care providers.

HHS has also partnered with Iowa Workforce Development to improve access to quality child care options. More than $35 million in Child Care Challenge grants have been awarded to regional and community projects to create more than 4,880 new child care slots across the state. In addition, the Child Care Business Incentive grant program encourages employers to offer child care as part of their benefits package. Funds support infrastructure investments to build or expand child care capacity, or support arrangements between employers and child care providers to expand and reserve slots for their employees’ children. To date, the $27 million in grant awards has generated a $58 million total investment and more than 1,860 new child care slots.

For more information about child care programs, visit the HHS website.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa – The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa reports the remaining defendants in a deadly fentanyl distribution network were sentenced to federal prison today for a variety of crimes including conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, carrying firearms in furtherance of the distribution of fentanyl, and distribution of fentanyl resulting in death or serious bodily injury.

A total of eleven defendants were sentenced in the Southern District of Iowa as follows:

·         Kyrell Deshawn Wells, 21, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced to 360 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl on October 18, 2023;

·         Ja’cara P. Baker, 42, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced to 300 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl on October 18, 2023;

·         Alejandro Diaz, 34, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced to 216 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl Resulting in Death or Serious Bodily Injury, and Carrying a Firearm in Furtherance of a Drug Trafficking Crime on March 16, 2023;

·         Janelle Lee Cline, 31, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced to 156 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl Resulting in Death or Serious Bodily Injury on February 16, 2023;

·         Christian Blaize Arman, 29, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced to 42 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl on December 12, 2023;

·         Edward James Arman, 32, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced to 42 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl on December 12, 2023;

·         Samantha Mae Neemann, 35, of Lincoln, Nebraska, was sentenced to 168 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl Resulting in Death or Serious Bodily Injury on April 13, 2023;

·         Hai D. Nguyen, 30, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced to 45 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl on April 13, 2023;

·         Megan Kayleen Johnson, 27, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, was sentenced to 168 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl Resulting in Death or Serious Bodily Injury on March 16, 2023;

·         Richard Andrew Null, 26, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, sentenced to 150 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl, and Carrying a Firearm in Furtherance of a Drug Trafficking Crime on December 12, 2023; and

·         Jarik Mathew McPherson, 30, of Council Bluffs, Iowa, sentenced to 120 months in prison for Conspiracy to Distribute Fentanyl on December 12, 2023.

This investigation began in January 2022, after the Council Bluffs Police and Fire Departments responded to a Council Bluffs residence where an adult female had overdosed on fentanyl. After that victim died, law enforcement began a lengthy investigation into individuals who were actively conspiring to distribute fentanyl in the Omaha and Council Bluffs metro area. Ultimately, investigators identified Kyrell Wells and Ja’cara Baker as the primary distributors of fentanyl to others, including the members of the conspiracy listed above. The fentanyl pills distributed by this organization in the Omaha, Lincoln, and Council Bluffs areas resulted in at least eleven overdoses and six deaths. Kyrell Wells, Alejandro Diaz, Hai Nguyen, and Richard Null were also found in possession of firearms.

Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Special Agent in Charge Eugene Kowel said “The Kyrell Wells fentanyl trafficking organization received and distributed more than 10,000 fentanyl pills every five days. The organization was connected to more than seventeen overdoses. Six people in our community died. The FBI and our local, state, and federal partners are dedicated to disrupting and dismantling the most significant drug trafficking organizations in our community.”

This case was investigated by the Council Bluffs Police Department, Southwest Iowa Narcotics Enforcement Task Force, Omaha Police Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the FBI.

United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement.

Fentanyl has become the leading cause of drug overdose deaths in the United States. Counterfeit, fentanyl-laced pills often resemble pharmaceutical pills, but contain potentially lethal doses of fentanyl. Visit the Drug Enforcement Administration’s website to learn more about One Pill Can Kill.

The Iowa AND Iowa State marching bands are finalists in a first-ever competition sponsored by the heavy metal band Metallica. In April, Metallica announced marching bands could use their music for free and enter the contest to win 75-thousand dollars. The University of Iowa Marching Band staged its Metallica show in Kinnick Stadium on September 30th, during a night game.

Photo courtesy of University of Iowa

The Hawkeye Metal band joined the performance, which ended with fireworks.

The Iowa State University Marching Band performed its Metallica show on September 23rd in Ames.

Master of Puppets — the title track to Metallica’s 1986 album — was the closer.

The two in-state rivals and bands from Auburn, Fresno State and the University of Texas are the five finalists in the competition among Division One football schools. The winner will be announced during the first week of January.

(Radio Iowa) – Despite drought conditions, a five-acre operation at the Johnson County Historic Poor Farm wrapped up the growing season by reporting record production. Grow Johnson County produces fresh fruits and vegetables, 100-percent of which is donated to 16 local emergency food organizations. Program manager Claire Zabel) says they produced 40-thousand pounds of fresh food this year, the farm’s highest-ever yield.

Zabel says the season’s production increase is due, in part, to increased staffing this year.

Some 83-percent of Iowa is experiencing drought conditions. The U-S Drought Monitor says more than a quarter of the state is in exceptional drought. Historically, that has significantly impacted row crop yields.

(Radio Iowa) – Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy kicked off a five-day, 29-county swing through Iowa this morning (Tuesday), with stops in Northwood and Osage. The tour comes after a man was charged with sending text messages threatening to kill Ramaswamy yesterday (Monday) at an event in New Hampshire.

The Des Moines Register/N-B-C News/Mediacom “Iowa Poll” released yesterday (Monday) found Ramaswamy has the support of five percent of likely Iowa Caucus-goers. Ramaswamy says many of his supporters are younger voters who aren’t being captured in polls.

Ramaswamy says he’s picking up support on Iowa college campuses and among Libertarians.

Early this (Tuesday) evening, former President Donald Trump is scheduled to speak at a rally in Waterloo and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will be at Grand View University in Des Moines for a town hall forum broadcast on C-N-N at 8 p.m.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa State University Farmland value survey shows a record price once again, but the increase is less than last year. I-S-U’s Rabail Chandio oversees the survey, and says the average price for an acre is 11-thousand-835 dollars. “This is a three-point-seven percent (3.7%) increase from last year, and a 424-dollars increase from last year,” she says. The single digit increase comes after two straight years where land values went up by double-digits. “Last year, we saw an increase of 17 percent…, and before that the increase was 29 percent So we’re still seeing an increase, but it’s a lot more modest and has slowed down,” Chandio says. She says the current land value trend appears to be following what happened about ten years ago when land values rose, and then there were minor adjustments without a crash in the market.

“And we’re seeing kind of a similar thing here. Right now we’re seeing we were at a quite a high value during the last couple of years, which is decreasing. And we’re hoping again, that it won’t really crash but we’ll see a soft landing,” Chandio says, “as is happening in the broader economy, we avoided a recession we hope to see kind of same thing happen in the land markets.” Chandio says the slowdown led to one of the nine land districts seeing a drop in overall values for the first time in several years.

“This year the northwest (district) saw a decrease of zero-point-eight percent. All of the other crop reporting districts show and increase in the land values, with the highest being the south-central and the southeast at 12-point-eight percent and nine-point-six percent,” she says. Chandio says it appears the southern district was lagging a little behind the others in their increases, and that could be why they are showing the higher values in this report.

(Radio Iowa) –  [updated] Governor Kim Reynolds says a display from the Satanic Temple of Iowa will stay in the Capitol in Des Moines this month, but she’s asking Iowans to join her in prayers focused on the nativity scene nearby.

The Satanic Temple display features a statue with a ram’s head surrounded by electronic candles. The group got a permit to put up the display in December. A Republican lawmaker called on the governor to have it removed. Reynolds says she finds the display objectionable, but the governor says in a free society the best response to objectionable speech is more speech.

Image of left of Satanic Temple of Iowa display near the Grand Staircase; image on right of crowd gathered around Christmas tree and nativity scene in center of Capitol rotunda. (RI photos)

Reynolds is encouraging Iowans to join her today in praying over the Capitol, where a nativity scene is also on display. Reynolds says the nativity represents the true reason for the season.

Reynolds joined a large crowd gathered in the Capitol today (Tuesday) for a midday prayer service. The crowd gathered around a Christmas tree and a nativity scene that are in the center of the Capital rotunda. The smell of incense from the Satanic Temple display near the main staircase wafted over the crowd.

(Cumberland, Iowa)  – Cumberland Mayor Virginia Coughlin reports the City is conducting maintenance at the treatment center this morning. In a statement on social media, the Mayor said “At this time we are [asking] residents to boil water until we let let you know otherwise. Thank you.”

Police in Red Oak (IA) report the arrest at around 9-a.m. today (Tuesday), of a woman on a Theft charge. 61-year-old Brenda Marie Mutschler, of Red Oak, was arrested at the Red Oak Rehab and Care Center, for Theft in the 5th Degree. Her bond was set at $300.