Creston Police say a Creston business, CHS, Inc., reported Thursday afternoon, that someone had stolen a portable welder from their storage building at 1310 E. Howard Street. The theft happened sometime between Sept. 1st and Dec. 15th, and resulted in a loss of about $4,500.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A state board has ruled that an Iowa casino does not have to follow the state’s open records laws because it no longer owes a debt to the county where it operates. The Iowa Public Information Board issued the opinion in response to a request from the Des Moines Register. Prairie Meadows casino in Altoona lost its federal nonprofit status earlier this year and has declined to release records related to contracts of its top executives.

The casino’s board is appealing the IRS decision on its nonprofit status. The casino had argued it no longer has to abide by Iowa’s open records laws because it’s no longer indebted to Polk County.

Iowa is joining 19 other states to sue the six largest generic drug makers. State Attorney General Tom Miller says they are alleging two illegal actions by the companies. “One is sort of a failure to compete, to use the time period and the mechanisms when a drug leaves its patent and gets into the generic category. And secondly, to allege that they manipulated and fixed prices of generic drugs.”

He says there are two specific drugs involved. “One is an antibiotic and the other is an oral diabetics medication,” Miller explains. “So two pretty important and well-used drugs that we are alleging antitrust activity on behalf of the six generic drug companies.”

The antibiotic is doxycycline hyclate, the oral diabetes medication is glyburide. Generic drugs currently account for approximately 88 percent of all prescriptions written in the United States, so Miller says many Iowans could have been impacted. “We don’t know how many Iowans have been affected, but we think it is significant.  Generally as a rule — we assume that Iowans use about one percent of whatever the consumer product is — because we are one percent of the population,” according to Miller.

The states are seeking two things in the federal lawsuit. “An injunction that would prohibit any of this antitrust activity in the future, and then we would want damages for the sales that have taken place,” Miller says. Miller says it is a complicated legal case that could take awhile, although there’s a good possibility they could reach a settlement. “In antitrust cases — like most civil cases — they are settled. Some are tried, but the majority of the cases are settled,”Miller says.

The lawsuit was filed in the U-S District Court for the District of Connecticut. The lawsuit is against the following companies:  Heritage Pharmaceuticals Inc., Auribindo Pharma U-S-A Inc., Citron Pharma L-L-C, Mayne Pharma (USA) Inc., Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Teva Pharmaceuticals U-S-A Inc.

(Radio Iowa)

The director of the Iowa Department of Education has filed an ethics complaint against an eastern Iowa superintendent who’s tapped into the district’s cash reserves rather than lay off teachers. Staci is a spokeswoman for the department. “We have a lot of respect for the fact that the superintendent of the Davenport School District is trying to do the right thing for kids,” Hupp says. “However, it’s illegal for a school district to overspend its authorized budget and we have an obligation when that happens to file a complaint.”

A couple of years ago, Davenport Superintendent Art Tate began calling on lawmakers to change the formula for distributing state aid to schools. He argues it’s short-changing his district and others. Tate and other Davenport officials appeared before a state panel on Tuesday, seeking permission to spend more than the current legal limit.
“Ultimately, the School Budget Review Committee wasn’t comfortable with granting additional authority to a school district that is intentionally breaking the law,” Hupp says, “so the request…was unanimously denied.”

Hupp says spending cash reserves is not against the law. “But it’s a violation to overspend your authorized limit when you’re a school district,” Hupp says. The ethics complaint against Tate has been filed with the Iowa Board of Education Examiners. Last year, Tate said he was willing to risk losing his license to be an educator to make the point that the formula for distributing state school aid should be changed.

(Radio Iowa)

Red Oak Police early this (Friday) morning, arrested a man on an assault charge. 22-year old Jacob William Avery, of Red Oak, was taken into custody at around 1:15-a.m. for Domestic Assault. The victim of the assault suffered minor physical injuries during the incident. Avery was being held in the Montgomery County Jail without bond, pending an appearance before the magistrate.