DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Officials with the Iowa Department of Transportation say they’re still unsure why the agency’s first drug-sniffing dog jumped out of a truck window on Interstate 80 in October, and fled into traffic. Earlier this week, the Iowa Appeal Board approved a $1,323 payout for damages to the owners of the vehicle that struck and killed the 2-year-old Belgian Malinois named Sara. The Oct. 8 incident was ruled an accident.

David Lorenzen, chief of the department’s motor vehicle enforcement division, says Sara had been added to the department about a year before her death following a rigorous selection process. He says she was trained not to jump and may have done so out of fear. The department has since replaced Sara with another Belgian Malinois named Storm.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Residents across Iowa and the nation are being asked to take time today to stop and think about how their words may disparage others – whether that is the intent or not. This is “Spread the Word to End the Word” day, when people are asked to remove the word “retarded” from their vocabulary.

“When we use the word, we disparage those who do have an intellectual disability,” said Rik Shannon, public policy manager for the Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council. “What we really would like to see people do is select language that’s more respectful and inclusive.”

While today is focused on getting everyday people to stop using the “R-word,” Shannon said, on a
higher level, the state of Iowa has stopped using the term in health, eduction and labor policy, following the lead of the federal government.

“In 2010, President Obama signed what’s called Rosa’s Law, which removed the terms ‘mental retardation’ and ‘mentally retarded’ from federal code language,” he said, “and replaced it with terms such as an ‘individual with an intellectual disability,’ or simply ‘intellectual disability.’ ” In Iowa, Shannon said, there are nearly 50,000 individuals with intellectual disabilities and their family, friends, neighbors and coworkers, all of whom deserve the same respect as everyone else.

Details about the observance are online at r-word.org. The text of Rosa’s Law is at govtrack.us and Iowa resources are at idaction.org.

(Iowa News Service)

Sheriff’s officials in Audubon County report the arrest Tuesday afternoon, of  a Cass County man. 19-year old Jacob Quentin Dvorak, of Atlantic, was taken into custody at around 1-p.m. on an Audubon County warrant charging him with a probation violation. Dvorak was being held in the Audubon County Jail on $10,000 bond.

A bill that would have raised the speed limit on Iowa’s interstates has hit a dead end in the Iowa Senate, but legislators are advancing bills targeting those caught texting and driving on Iowa roads.The Senate Transportation Committee on Tuesday tabled a bill that would have given the D-O-T authority to raise the speed limit to 75 miles an hour on highways designed for higher speeds.
Senator Brad Zaun, a Republican from Urbandale, was the bill’s sponsor.

“I heard from probably hundreds of Iowans — some for, some against and I would say it’s healthy to have the conversation,” Zaun says. “I would say it’s dead for right now.” But Zaun says if there’s an opportunity to insert his proposed speed hike into another bill being debated in the senate, he’ll try it. “Might possibly do an amendment if I find the right vehicle to do that, no pun intended,” Zaun says, with a laugh. A bill that would ban drivers from holding a cell phone while they’re driving is eligible for debate in the House Transportation Committee this afternoon (Wednesday).

The SENATE Transportation Committee, however, has voted to allow police to pull someone over if they suspect the driver is texting, but the committee did NOT vote to ban talking on a cell phone while driving. Senator Tod Bowman, a Democrat from Maquoketa, says it’s “common sense” not to start listing all kinds of behavior — from talking on your cell to eating a hamburger — that leads to distracted driving.

“We’re hoping that people and technology adapt so that holding a hand-held will be a thing of the past,” Bowman says. Under current Iowa law, drivers are not to be writing, reading or sending texts while they’re behind the wheel, but law enforcement cannot pull you over simply because they suspect you’re texting. A driver has to be committing some other traffic violation like speeding or running a stop light. The bill now eligible for debate in the Senate would make texting while driving a “primary offense” and give police the authority to cite it as the sole reason for a traffic stop.

(Radio Iowa)