DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The Iowa Supreme Court says law students in Iowa should continue to take the bar exam before being admitted to practice law in the state. Chief Justice Mark Cady issued an order Friday saying the court will take no further action on the recommendation from the Iowa State Bar Association, which had suggested changes in admission procedures for lawyers.

The association, whose membership includes about 90 percent of the state’s lawyers, suggested Iowa do away with the bar exam for graduates of the University of Iowa and Drake University law schools who wish to practice in Iowa.

Currently Wisconsin is the only other state that offers the so-called diploma privilege.

Sheriff’s officials in Union County say the driver of a pickup truck was injured when the vehicle went out of control Thursday night and rolled into a ditch. 49-year old Paul Burdett Pals, of Orient, was transported to the Greater Regional Hospital in Creston following the accident, which occurred at around 9:15-p.m. on Highway 25.
Authorities say Pals’ 2006 northbound Chevy Silverado pickup went off the road onto the shoulder and the veered across the southbound lane of Highway 25 before entering the west ditch, hitting a fence and ending up in a soybean field.

Officials with the State of Nebraska and the University of Nebraska say treating a doctor who contracted Ebola in Africa at an Omaha hospital poses no health risk to the public. Dr. Joseph Acierno  is director of the Nebraska Department of Health.  “Considering the way the facility has been designed, considering the expertise we have with that facility, considering our partners, we believe any risk is minimal and we think there shouldn’t be fear, but we understand there will be fear,” Acierno says. “We stand ready to answer those questions.”

Dr. Rick Sacra, the patient, went on a mission trip to Liberia in August to work in a hospital there. He got a fever last Friday and was diagnosed with Ebola early this week. Sacra was driven by ambulance to the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha after landing a little after 6 a.m. today (Friday) at Offutt Air Force Base, just south of Omaha.

Dr. Phil Smith is director of the “biocontainment” unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center where Sacra is being treated. “It’s likely that we’re going to continue to see people like this,” Smith  says. “They want to test the capacity of different places and have more than one facility on call.” Jeffery Gold, chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, says staff at the hospital have been preparing for this type of situation for “a very long time.”   “Not only will this patient receive world-class care,” Gold says, ” but all of our patients, students, faculty and staff will be completely protected during this entire episode of care.”

During this Ebola outbreak in west Africa, 36-hundred people have fallen ill and more than half of them have died. Sacra is a family practice doctor who was volunteering in the obstetrics unit of a hospital in Liberia. Two other American medical missionaries were flown back to the U.S. and treated at an Atlanta hospital’s isolation unit. They have both been released. The unit at Emory University in Atlanta, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland and the Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana operate containment units that are similar to the one in Omaha.

(Radio Iowa)

Police in Lenox arrested a man Thursday night who was wanted on a warrant for Failure to Appear in Court. Officers took 21-year old German Phillip Rodriguez, of Lenox, into custody at around 11-p.m. at his place of employment.

German P. Rodriguez.

Rodriguez was wanted for failure to appear on an original charge of assault causing injury. He was transported to the Taylor County Jail where he was being held without bond, pending an appearance before the magistrate.

A Creston man was arrested Thursday evening on drug charges, following a traffic stop. According to Creston Police, 21-year old Ely Will was taken into custody at around 5:30-p.m. in the 900 block of N. Lincoln Street.

Will faces charges that include Driving While Revoked, Possession of Paraphernalia, and Possession of Methamphetamine. He was released from the Union County Jail after posting $1,000 bond.

(8-a.m. News)