(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Mills County Sheriff’s Office says four arrests took place, Wednesday:

• 22-year-old Bryon Nikolas Parker, of Council Bluffs, was arrested at the Pottawattamie County Jail on a Mills County warrant for Violation of Probation and Contempt (Bond:$2,000.00);
• 19-year-old Devon Nicholas Pridell, of Glenwood, was arrested for Reckless Driving (Bond: $300);
• 29-year-old Caitlyn Marie Capano, of Tabor, was arrested for Child Endangerment (Bond: $300.);
• 44-year-old Seighfred Esley Watson, III, of Malvern, was arrested in Mills County for Abandonment/Neglect Dependent, 4 counts of Child Endangerment, Possession of a Controlled Substance, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia (Bond: $19,300).

(Harlan, Iowa) – The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office says there were 17 arrests that took place between Nov. 1st and 30th. Beginning with the most recent arrests:

On Nov. 30th, 34-year-old Cole Jacob Benton, of Hamlin, was arrested for Driving While Barred, and Failure to provide Insurance.

On the 28th: 21-year-old Kaden Ray Mahan, of Atlantic, was arrested for OWI – 1st Offense, Possession of a Controlled Substance, Unlawful Possession of a Prescription Drug, and Child Endangerment; And, 27-year-old Connor Patrick Green, of Harlan, was arrested for Criminal Mischief in the 5th degree.

November 27th, Shelby County Deputies arrested 34-year-old Cody Emmett Lister, of Harlan, for Possession of a controlled Substance – Marijuana 3rd offense, Possession of a Controlled Substance – Methamphetamine/3rd offense, Prohibited Acts, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

On the 25th of November, 31-year-old Brandon Christopher Allen, of Harlan, was arrested on an active Shelby County warrant; And, 29-year-old Anthony Michael McCoy, of Minden, was arrested on charges of Driving while LIcense Denied or Suspended, Failure to Provide Proof of Insurance, and Speeding.

Here is the rest of the list provided by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office:

11/23/2024: Barbara Ann Luft, Age 69, Council Bluffs, IA. Luft was arrested after a Traffic Stop. Luft was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with OWI- First Offense.

11/21/2024: Sarah Elizabeth Koester, Age 35, Harlan, IA. Koester was arrested after a Traffic Stop. Koester was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance – Marijuana 3rd offense, Possession of a Controlled Substance – Methamphetamine 3rd offense, Prohibited Acts, operating a Non-Registered Vehicle, Failure to Provide Insurance, and Open Container.

11/20/2024: Winston Joseph Leal, Age 33, Harlan, IA. Leal was arrested after a call for service. Leal was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with Domestic Abuse Assault- 2nd Offense.

11/19/2024: Albert Alexander Johnson, Age 39, Atlantic, IA. Johnson was arrested after a Traffic Stop on Hwy 59. Johnson was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance- Marijuana, Possession of a Controlled Substance, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia, and Driving while Suspended.

11/17/2024: Jill Annette Wensel, Age 53, Logan, IA. Wensel was arrested following a Traffic stop. Wensel was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with Driving while Barred; Mackenzie Ann Robinson, Age 29, Harlan, IA. Robinson was arrested after a call for service. Robinson was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with Contempt- Violation of No Contact Order.

11/15/2024: John Allen Lindeman Sr. Age 50, Defiance, IA. Lindeman was arrested and transported to the Shelby County Jail on an active Shelby County Warrant.

11/14/2024: Tyler Alan Miller, Age 35, Harlan, IA. Miller was arrested following a Traffic Stop. Miller was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with Prohibited acts, Possession of a Controlled Substance, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

11/10/2024: Liberty Lynn Cole, Age 24, Woodbine, IA. Cole was arrested following a Traffic Stop. Cole was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with Driving While Barred, and cited for No Insurance.

11/06/2024: Mark Allen Boardman, Age 55, Portsmouth, IA. Boardman was arrested and transported to the Shelby County Jail on an active Shelby County Warrant. Boardman was also charged with interference with Official Acts.

11/01/2024: Mary Kristen Davis, Age 54, Harlan, IA. Davis was arrested after a call for service. Davis was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with Public Intoxication.

(Radio Iowa) – After several months of discussions, the Storm Lake City Council has narrowly passed a homing pigeon ordinance. Up to one hundred domestic pigeons will be allowed on a single property within Storm Lake city limits. City officials began debating the topic after complaints about the number of birds in the city. A Storm Lake resident said their family raised homing pigeons as a hobby — for races. Storm Lake City Councilman Kevin McKinney opposes letting up to 100 pigeons occupy a single property — and he questions how the ordinance can be enforced. “It’s going to be a little tough to go in there and count pigeons and stuff like that,” he says.

Storm Lake’s city manager says they’re planning to set up a licensing process. It will require that pigeons be wearing leg bands showing their owner’s name. Scott Olsen is a building official for the City of Storm Lake. “When we get the application for them to be legally able to have those in city limits and we get a complaint that there’s too many, there’s more than 100 or any other issues, it’d be like any other nuisance,” he says. “We’d have to go in and investigate.”

Storm Lake Racing Pigeon Club (Facebook photo)

In the sport of pigeon racing, trained homing pigeons are taken to a racing spot, released and timed for how long it takes the birds to fly home. Under state law, it is illegal to kill, capture or detain a homing pigeon that has the name of its owner on the band around its leg.

(Radio Iowa) – The manhunt is still underway in New York City after Iowa native and UnitedHealthcare C-E-O Brian Thompson was shot to death outside his hotel on Wednesday morning while in town for a conference. The 50-year-old Thompson lived in Minneapolis with his family. He grew up in Hamilton County, Iowa, and was a 1997 University of Iowa graduate. He graduated in 1993 from South Hamilton High School in Jewell, where Todd Coy is the principal. “He was an outstanding student,” Coy says. “It’s been over 30 years, probably 31 years since Brian was here at South Hamilton, but he still stands out as one of those students that definitely left a lasting impression on staff and the Class of ’93. Just a great kid.”

Coy says everyone there remembers Thompson.  “He was that model student, always striving for excellence,” Coy says. “I mean, if he missed an answer on a test, he wanted to know why, and could it have possibly been that the question was worded wrong? So he was a great kid.” Coy says Thompson stood out in academics, athletics and other extra curricular activities. “He was class president. He was their homecoming king. He was our valedictorian. He was an all-state trombone player. He strived in golf,” Coy says. “Pretty much seemed like whatever Brian set his mind to, he was going to excel.” Police in New York say it appears the slaying was a “brazen, targeted attack” that was not random.

Security video shows the masked man using a gun with a silencer, repeatedly shooting Thompson from behind as he left the hotel. Coy says everyone is stunned by the news. “It’s shocking, I feel for his family,” Coy says. “I’ve only probably had conversations with Brian two or three times since he graduated, but it was just like old times when he came back, very personable, built great relationships with people.” Investigators say the gunman fled the scene on foot, then on an e-bike, but they lost his trail in Central Park a few blocks away. Reports say a cell phone and a water bottle were found that may have been dropped by the shooter, along with shell casings.

Reports say also, UnitedHealthcare was aware of threats against its high-level executives. Thompson had been at the company since 2004 and was named chief executive in 2021.

(Council Bluffs, Iowa) – A western Iowa woman died Wednesday, from injuries she suffered in a house fire. Council Bluffs Fire Department officials say 70-year-old Peggy Lee Rayner was one of four people in a home (at 2007 7th Avenue) that caught fire at around 11:20-p.m. Another resident (Fayth Rayner) was treated for smoke inhalation at the hospital, and was said to be in stable condition. Two other occupants were not injured.

The blaze was initially reported to have started in the basement, but when firefighters arrived, they encountered smoke coming from the back of the residence. Crews entered the home and found Peggy Rayner in a basement bedroom. She was transported to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation by the Council Bluffs Fire Marshal’s Office.

(Radio Iowa) – A popular program that’s being used by patrons of 80 Iowa libraries is being suspended, temporarily, starting January 1st. The Iowa Adventure Pass gives library card holders free admission to all sorts of attractions statewide, like museums and zoos. The program was started in 2017 at the Grimes Public Library, where assistant director Karalee Kerr says the program’s software is ending operations for libraries across the country at year’s end. “It’s been very, very popular, so we were a little bit surprised to get the notification that the software company wasn’t going to continue,” Kerr says, “but it’s never been in doubt that we would look for ways to make it continue.”

Kerr says the Massachusetts-based provider that’s been facilitating the service is closing at the end of the month. “I think there will be a short gap where we don’t have passes available,” she says, “but it’s my hope that very soon, after the new year, we would be able to have it open again for people to start making reservations.”

Grimes is seeking a new vendor to facilitate the program and hopes to bring back the Iowa Adventure Pass sometime in 2025.

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – A group of nonprofit advocacy organizations is seeking to intervene in a lawsuit that challenges new, federally mandated staffing levels in nursing homes. The National Association of Local Long-Term Care Ombudsmen is among seven organizations hoping to ask a federal judge to deny a request made by the nursing home industry and 20 state attorneys general – including Iowa’s Brenna Bird — for an injunction that would block implementation of the new staffing requirements. The organizations have not yet been authorized to file their “friend of the court” brief, but approval in such circumstances is normally granted.

The injunction is being sought in a lawsuit filed eight weeks ago in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, and seeks to block implementation of the Biden administration’s new staffing requirements. The lawsuit was filed by Bird and the attorneys general of 19 other states along with 19 industry organizations who argue the new requirements are cost prohibitive and will result in nursing homes closing down.

Joining NALTCO in the fight against the attorneys general are the nonprofit organizations known as the Center for Medicare Advocacy, the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, the Long-Term Care Community Coalition, California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, Justice in Aging, and the Michigan Elder Justice Initiative. NALTCO’s role in the case is particularly noteworthy in that the organization is comprised of members of each state’s Long Term Care Ombudsman’s Office, which were created by Congress in 1978 to serve as independent advocates for nursing home residents. Typically, each office, including that of Iowa’s Long-Term Care Ombudsman, operates within an arm of their respective state government. The result is that the ombudsmen’s national organization is now opposing the legal efforts of Republican attorneys general in states where many of those ombudsmen now work.

Photo from bettercareplaybook.org.

In October, Bird said she was leading the court challenge of the staffing mandates to ward off a “mass shutdown of nursing homes” and to “stop the Biden-Harris attack on senior care that will force nursing homes out of business.” In November 2023, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds publicly announced her opposition to the new staffing rule, joining 14 other Republican governors in signing a letter to President Joe Biden in which they argued the rule was “unrealistic” and would “harm the seniors, elderly and disabled it’s designed to help.”

According to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 14% of Iowa’s 422 nursing facilities were cited for insufficient staffing in fiscal year 2023, before the new requirements were enacted. That’s more than double the national average, which was 5.9%. Only five other states – Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico and Oregon — had a worse record of compliance with the staffing requirements in place at that time.

The Iowa-led lawsuit is one of two currently working their way through the federal court system. The other lawsuit, filed in Texas, was initiated by the American Health Care Association, a lobbying organization that primarily represents for-profit nursing homes. Some observers say the litigation will have little impact on the fate of the staffing mandates since the Trump administration is expected to do away with the requirements once the president-elect take office in January 2025.