(Atlantic, Iowa) – Bicyclists on RAGBRAI leave Red Oak today (Monday) on their slightly more than 40-mile trip to Atlantic as their next stop-over community. The ride features an elevation of 1,702-feet, 3.7-miles of gravel road options, and a concert tonight in Atlantic, from “The Pork Tornadoes.”

As they make their way from Red Oak on Day 2 of the excursion to across Iowa, RAGBRAI riders will pass through the towns of Elliott, Griswold – which serves as a meeting town – and Lewis, where they might want to check out the Hitchcock House, a national landmark known for its role in the Underground Railroad as a safe house for enslaved people traveling to Canada for freedom.

In Atlantic, they’ll come to know the Coca-Cola Capital of Iowa, the city that hosts the second-largest Coca-Cola Convention in the U.S. every fall, second-only to Atlanta, GA. Atlantic once had a Coca-Cola museum, but that closed during Covid, in the Spring of 2021.

On Tuesday, the RAGBRAI riders will make their way 82-miles to their next stop-over town: Winterset. Along the way they will pass through Wiota, Cumberland, Massena, Fontanelle, Greenfield – Meeting Town, Orient  and Macksburg.

(Radio Iowa) – Nearly 50 Iowans who’re Democratic National Convention delegates will soon be called upon to pick a new nominee after President Biden’s exit from the 2024 race. Iowa Democratic Party Rita Hart says she’s sad Biden has stepped aside. “But I recognize that this action means Joe is telling us it’s up to us to finish the job,” Hart said. Hart said it’s unclear when the party will pick a nominee. “I think this is kind of uncharted territory,” Hart told reporters. “…We don’t know what the process will be.”

A panel of national Democrats will meet Friday and is expected to set the guidelines. Scott Brennan, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairman, is one of Iowa’s representatives on the Democratic National Committee. He says it’s unlikely the party would pick someone other than Vice President Kamala Harris.”I think it’s probably at least an 80% chance she will be our nominee,” Brennan says. “…Mechanically I don’t know how else it works, particularly this late in the process.”

Brennan says there’s a huge campaign finance issue that presents itself if Harris isn’t the nominee. “A presidential campaign is like a big ship and so now we’re going to turn a giant ship from having President Biden be on the top of the ticket to likely Vice President Harris, although who knows?” Brennan said. “I’m surprised we are where we are right now.”

Connie Gronstal of Council Bluffs is one of the delegates who’ll be asked to make the decision. She and her husband Mike Gronstal, the former Iowa Senate Majority Leader, hosted an event for Biden in 2007 and she was planning to back Biden in 2024. She says it’s now time to rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris. “She has my full support,” Gronstal said. “Hopefully all this drama is over with now.”

Then-candidate Joe Biden spoke to Radio Iowa on January 25, 2020 before the Iowa Caucuses. (RI file photo)

The Iowa Democratic Party’s chairwoman says she needs to talk with Iowa’s national convention delegates before making any public statement about having Harris as the party’s nominee. “President Biden’s endorsement really matters…She has the experience and he would not endorse her otherwise,” Hart says. “…Our delegates will respond, but it’s so early.” Derek Muller is a national election law expert who left the University of Iowa a year ago to join the law school faculty at Notre Dame.

Muller says because of a ballot deadline in Ohio, Democrats had already been planning for an electronic roll call of delegates to nominate Biden in early August and Muller says the most likely outcome now is a virtual nomination of Harris in the next couple of weeks. “She’ll have to announce a vice presidential nominee by then, I suppose, and then they’ll move forward in business as usual,” Muller says, “except trying to fundraiser and introduce your candidate to the nation in a much shorter time frame.”

Shortly after Biden announced he would no longer seek reelection, several Iowa Republicans in state and federal office said Biden is unfit to continue serving as president. The chairman of the Iowa G-O-P said it was dangerous for Biden to remain in office. Senator Grassley said voters won’t be fooled by Democrats changing horses in midstream, but he did not call on Biden to resign.

(Radio Iowa) – The largest employer in Cedar Rapids has a new leader. Troy Brunk has been named president of Collins Aerospace. Brunk has led three of the six business units at Collins in Cedar Rapids. He will report directly to the C-E-O of R-T-X — formerly known as Raytheon.

It’s the company that acquired Collins Aerospace in a merger back in 2020. Brunk replaces Stephen Timm, who is retiring after a 28 year career with Collins. About seven-thousand people work at Collins Aerospace in Cedar Rapids.

(Radio Iowa) – There’s an unresolved legal challenge to the law that would ban most abortions in Iowa — and Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa will continue to provide abortions up to the 20th week of a pregnancy until further action from the courts.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled on June 28th that a six-week abortion ban is legal under Iowa’s constitution, but the A-C-L-U of Iowa has filed a petition asking the justices to rehear the case. The district court judge who would lift the injunction that’s blocked the law from taking effect cannot act until that matter is resolved. Ruth Richardson is the president and C-E-O of Planned Parenthood of North Central States.

She says the situation is temporary relief and once the nearly total ban on abortions in Iowa goes into effect, Planned Parenthood has developed plans to help patients get out of state abortions if their pregnancy is beyond that early window. Francesca Turner is an OB-GYN in Des Moines and a member of Iowans for Health Liberty. She says there are many complications during pregnancy and they might not be considered life threatening under the law’s exception for life of the mother.

“It’s not our jobs as physicians to tell women what to do,” she said, “but we need to give them the options and allow them to take the risks that they choose for themselves and their family.”

The law has other exceptions for fetal abnormalities and for victims of rape and incest who quickly report the assaults to police.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak report a Red Oak man who was arrested late Friday night on an OWI charge, was arrested again this (Sunday) afternoon, on an Assault charge. Authorities say 34-year-old Kristopher Carl Friesenhahn was taken into custody at around 2:35-p.m. on the simple misdemeanor offense. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $300 bond.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Board of Supervisors will meet in a brief, Special Session beginning at 9-a.m. on Tuesday, July 23rd, in the Cass County Courthouse Board Room. The only action item on their agenda, is approval of a Special Class-C Retail Alcohol License.

The Board’s next Regular meeting is on August 6th.

Join the meeting electronically at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2899195216?pwd=R0hSa2FOOTh0NUdra1ZSdVhVW
HpMUT09
Meeting ID: 289 919 5216
Passcode: 012064
Call In 312-626-6799, press *9 to indicate you wish to speak.