Police in Red Oak report the arrest this (Saturday) morning on separate charges, of a man from Red Oak and a woman from Clarinda. 53-year old James Scott Malmquist, of Red Oak, was arrested on a Montgomery County warrant issued for Violation of Probation on original charges of two controlled substance violations. And, 36-year old Becky Jo Hegarty, of Clarinda, was arrested on a Red Oak P-D warrant for three counts of Forgery.

The pair were taken into custody by Red Oak Police with assistance from deputies with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, at around 1:50-a.m. in the 400 block of E. Prospect Street, in Red Oak. Malmquist was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $10,000 cash bond. Hegarty was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $5,000 cash bond.

A man from Montgomery County was arrested early this (Saturday) morning on a drug charge. Police says 28-year old Benjamin William Hrabik, of Red Oak, was taken into custody at around 1:50-a.m., for Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. Hrabik was booked into the Montgomery County Jail and held on full bond.

Governor Terry Branstad is no longer asking state legislators to pass an anti-bullying law. “We have taken action through executive order last September. We’ve started the governor’s anti-bullying center at the University of Northern Iowa,” Branstad says. “We’re going to build on that.”

In each of the past three years, Branstad has forwarded a proposal to legislators that would have given school officials broader authority to crack down on bullying that happens off of school grounds and online. Branstad says he’d “love to have” legislators revive that proposal and pass the bill, but he’s not counting on it and that’s why he took executive action in September.

“We, through the two anti-bullying summits, and the involvement of more students in standing up to bullies,” Branstad says, “plus the better reporting and requiring every school to notify parents when bullying occurs I think is going to help reduce the amount of bullying that goes on in our state.”

The Governor’s Office for Bullying Prevention at U-N-I has worked with the Iowa Department of Education to develop the procedures Iowa schools should follow when bullying occurs and it includes notifying parents. Last September, Branstad went to a Cedar Rapids school to say he was done waiting for the legislature to act and he issued an executive order that addressed most of the issues he had hoped legislators would tackle by passing a bill.

The 2016 legislative session begins Monday, January 11th and Branstad’s “Condition of the State” message is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

(Radio Iowa)

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst says “ObamaCare” is not working and President Obama made the wrong call by vetoing a Republican plan to repeal broad sections of the Affordable Care Act.  “The president had promised us that through ObamaCare we would see about $2500 savings per family,” Ernst says. “Unfortunately, the exact opposite has happened with rising health care and health insurance costs.”

Obama issued a statement, saying repealing the law would harm the 22 million Americans who are getting health insurance coverage through Affordable Care Act provisions.

(Radio Iowa)