(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak say there was minor damage to two pickup trucks, but no injuries were reported, following a collision Friday morning at 4th Street and Senate Avenue. According to the report, a 2013 Chevy Silverado pickup driven by 84-year-old Fred Benedict, of Villisca, was traveling west on Senate Avenue. Benedict stopped at the intersection with 4th Street, but didn’t see an oncoming pickup driven by 51-year-old Gary Clear, Jr., of Red Oak.

When Benedict proceeded into the intersection, his pickup was struck on the passenger side by Clear’s 2016 Chevy Silverado pickup. The accident happened at around 10:25-a.m. Damage from the collision amounted to $4,000. Both vehicles were able to be driven away from the scene.

No citations were issued, but the Police report stated a contributing factor to the collision was Benedict’s failure to yield.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak arrested a woman Friday evening, on an assault charge. 52-year-old Charity Ann Boulton, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 5:20-p.m. in the 2400 block of N. 8th Street, for Assault with a dangerous weapon. Boulton was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $2,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – While the H-P-V vaccine is often marketed in Iowa toward women, a health care professional says it’s important that young people of -both- sexes get inoculated against the potentially-deadly virus. Dr. Ben Parsons, a hematologist-oncologist at Gundersen Health, says human papillomavirus is an equal opportunity threat.

“HPV is a virus that affects all humans, and it’s actually relatively ubiquitous. Lots and lots of people are exposed to it,” Parsons says. “Men and women are at risk for contracting HPV, and the vaccine is exceedingly effective at preventing the most harmful strains of HPV, which are very much carcinogenic.” A state report shows the H-P-V vaccination rate among adolescent Iowans in 2022 was at 57-percent, though the rate fell below 30-percent in parts of southeast and eastern Iowa.

Health officials recommend the vaccine for those between the ages of 11 and 13. That’s before they’d typically become sexually active. “When it came out in 2006, a focus was on preventing genital warts and cervical cancer, and really, both men and women benefit from this,” Parsons says. “When you think about, how do you limit an infection in our society? It takes everyone. It takes a high level of herd immunity to prevent these things from really becoming as big of a problem as they are.” Parsons says getting vaccinated can help to protect you from all sorts of cancers, including head and neck cancer.

“You can imagine the sensitive areas of your tongue and your cheek, and the treatments for people who develop those cancers are really quite rigorous, including removal of those very, very sensitive organs, or treatment with radiation that can be damaging,” Parsons says. “While those oftentimes lead to cures, it’s still a road that we would much rather prevent than have to travel.”

Parsons says his 13-year-old son has already received the vaccine, adding, it’s for his son’s best interest and for the community. Gundersen Health System has clinics in Calmar, Decorah, Fayette, Lansing, Postville and Waukon, and a hospital in West Union.

(Radio Iowa) – The most recent federal data shows the number of stalking reports connected to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University campuses increased last year, but officials say the statistics are misleading. For the University of Iowa, there were over 100 separate reports classified as stalking, but Mark Bullock — the university’s assistant vice president for public safety — says only 45 police reports were filed.

“And 32 of those occurred at our hospital,” Bullock says. “That includes a significant amount of violations of no-contact orders. These families that we’re bringing into our children’s hospital sometimes don’t have the greatest family dynamic, they have histories of domestic violence — things that have happened away from our campus — and they bring with them no-contact orders and they’re at the hospital together, violating those no-contact orders. That counts as a stalking case.”

The six other University of Iowa cases classified as stalking in the annual federal report on campus crime statistics were actually extortion cases according to Bullock. “A trend that we call ‘sextortion’ where somebody will reach out to somebody on social media, start a conversation, they share inappropriate pictures,” Bullock says, “and then it’s ‘I’m going to send these pictures to your family if you don’t send me an Apple gift card.'”

Michael Newton, I-S-U’s vice president for public safety, is also chief of campus police. He says most of the I-S-U cases identified as stalking in the federal report are things that happen online.  “It’s something we’re seeing not just at Iowa State, but nationally we’re seeing this trend,” he says. Newton says most stalking reports at Iowa State are about unwanted messages rather than in-person behavior. “What I’ve found with these cases, though, involving our students generally if they get authorities involved, if they get police involved we tell the person to knock it off, they stop,” Newton says. “…I’ve had a lot of conversation with my student advisory board and others about what can we do to get people to have better interpersonal skills and be able to tell people themselves that ‘Hey, I don’t want to have contact anymore,’ or ‘I don’t want to be involved with you,’ instead of a text message.”

Newton says it’s worth noting the annual federal report on crime data from all U-S college campuses defines stalking as not just engaging in conduct that would cause a reasonable person to fear for their safety or the safety of others — which can be lead to criminal charges. It also defines stalking as activity which can cause emotional distress. “You will see things that appear in our statistics that aren’t state law violations. They’re more of an annoyance. They’re more of a harassment issue,” he said. “…One we had recently was just unwanted email, text after text.”

University of NORTHERN Iowa officials report there were 16 reports of stalking and harassment on the Cedar Falls campus last year.