(Red Oak, Iowa)  – Fire Oak firefighters were called to a residential structure fire early this (Tuesday) morning. According to Fire Chief John Bruce, the page went out at around 12:46-a.m. for the residence at 101 W. Reed Street, where a resident awoke to the smell of smoke, and located the front porch on fire. The home’s occupants used a fire extinguisher to diminish the fire until Red Oak Fire personnel could arrive on scene.

Chief Bruce said the Elliott and Stanton Fire Departments were also paged, but they were soon told to disregard, as first arriving Fire Dept personnel located a small fire contained to the front porch area. Firefighters verified that all occupants had been evacuated and the fire was quickly extinguished.

Fire damage, according to the Chief, was contained to the front porch area. He said that area is also where the occupants smoke. Discarded smoking materials were located in the immediate area, and the suspected cause of the fire is discarded smoking materials igniting dried vegetation under the front porch. The fire officially remains under investigation at this time. There were no injuries reported during the incident.

Photo from the Red Oak FD Facebook page.

Assisting Red Oak Fire at the scene, was: The Red Oak Police Department; The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office; and Montgomery County Communications Center. The property owner(s) were identified as: McIntyre Properties,LLC – Council Bluffs; M.D. Consier, Trustees – Portland, Oregon.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – Lambda Legal and American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa have filed a new request for the courts to block Iowa’s law that bars certain books from school libraries. The two organizations are again challenging Senate File 496, the 2023 Iowa law that prohibits school libraries from having books containing sexually explicit material and limits instruction and materials involving gender and sexuality for K-6 students. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports the organizations also filed suit last year against a law that requires schools to inform parents or guardians if a student requests the use of a different name or pronouns than what they were assigned at birth.

In January 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher blocked the law from enforcement. But that injunction was lifted in August, when a three-person panel of federal appeals court judges ruled that the previous decision was made using a “flawed analysis of the law.” The new court filing made Friday requests that the law be once again blocked from enforcement through a new, separate preliminary injunction. The basis for the renewed request cites a new U.S. Supreme Court case challenging the law using the “overbreadth doctrine.”

Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” was among more than two dozen books removed last month from a school library at Goddard, Kansas, following a challenge by a parent. The books have since been returned to the shelves. Max McCoy/Kansas Reflector (via the Iowa Capital Dispatch)

According to an analysis from the Des Moines Register, more than 1,000 books have been taken off of school shelves due to the law. However, there is ambiguity about whether some of the pulled books could remain at schools. Iowa Department of Education did not grant requests from educators in 2023 to clarify which materials would be considered “age-appropriate” under the law, saying instead the department would address allegations of noncompliance on a case-by-case basis. Classic literature including “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut and “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee have been removed from some Iowa school districts.

There were also changes made to the plaintiffs as part of the new injunction request. Two Iowa teachers affected by the bans were added to the lawsuit, while two students — one who graduated from high school, and another who transferred to a private school, left the case as they were no longer impacted by the law. Iowa Safe Schools remains a plaintiff in the case.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird made an appearance at the Cass County Republican Party Headquarters, Monday evening. Bird spoke about some of the issues she and her team have been working on, that she says concern Iowans. One of the topics was with regard to immigration and human trafficking. Bird claimed the Biden-Harris Administration lost track of about 300,000 children that came across the border.

Bird spoke also about Title 9 in the schools.

Brenna Bird speaks in Atlantic, Oct. 21, 2024 (Jim Field/photo)

Many of the nation’s Attorney’s General, she said, took the Administration to court and won, enabling those provisions of Title 9 to be stopped. She spoke also of the lawsuit against the EPA with regard to E-15 ethanol, and, regulation against pork producers in states like California and Massachusetts

Brenna Bird said she was “Glad to do [her] job,” and “uphold the ‘Heartbeat Law’ in [the[ Supreme Court.” She said her office also supports law enforcement and victims of crime, and prison time for persons who deal in illegal drugs that leads to a death. Bird said some of the candidates running for office claim to “Back the Blue,” but don’t, in reality.

She also touched on EV’s (electric vehicles). Bird said she’s one of several Attorney’s General who are suing the EPA’s mandated purchase of electric vehicles. The mandate, Energy and Commerce Republicans claim, effectively requires at least two-thirds of all new cars in the United States to be electric by 2032.

Bird formerly served as the Guthrie County Attorney before being elected to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office in Nov., 2022. She assumed the post January 1^st, 2023.

(Radio Iowa) – We’re now in one of the peak times of the year for deer-vehicle collisions. Trooper Paul Gardner, with the Iowa State Patrol in Fort Dodge, reminds Iowans to stay especially vigilant for the creatures that may try to dash in front of your car. “We have a lot of deer on the move because farmers are out harvesting and that leads to deer wandering around a lot more,” Gardner says. “Typically, they’re very active between sunset and sunrise, during the night, but they can still be observed during daytime hours as well.” Deer can appear on practically any Iowa road, even in densely populated metro areas, and Gardner says motorists should be especially wary in certain environments.

“They’re usually going to be maintaining habitat in wooded and grassy areas, so when you’re driving through those areas, making sure that you’re driving the speed limit, keeping an eye out for any deer that may be crossing,” Gardner says “Just keep in mind, too, that if you see one, there’s likely going to be more, because they tend to travel in packs.” If you hit a deer, pull over, assess the damage, and if necessary, call law enforcement, as he says insurance companies may not cover the repairs without a police report. Gardner repeats the mantra “Don’t veer for deer,” as doing so could have deadly results.

“If you do encounter a deer crossing the roadway, it’s best not to try to take evasive action where you’re going to swerve the steering wheel, because if you go to the right, you can go into the ditch,” Gardner says. “Definitely risk rolling your vehicle or hitting something else, or if you swerve to the left, you can take on oncoming traffic, so there’s definitely some dangers in that.”

A recent State Farm study found Iowa is one of the top states for deer collisions. It shows Iowa drivers have a 1-in-69 chance of hitting a deer, based on insurance claims. Each year, around 7,000 crashes between vehicles and deer are reported to Iowa law enforcement.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak, Monday night, arrested 44-year-old Luke Rinehart, on a charge of Assault – Displaying a Dangerous Weapon. Rinehart was taken into custody at around 9:20-p.m., and transported to the Montgomery County Jail. His bond was set at $2,000.

(Radio Iowa) – First district Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks, a Republican, and Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan met in an Iowa P-B-S debate last (Monday) night and each accused the other of modifying their views on key issues to win votes. Bohannan, who supports the Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion, pointed to a bill Miller-Meeks co-sponsored that declares human life should be protected at the moment of conception.

“She has now tried to backtrack from that, saying she supports exceptions and things,” Bohannan says. “It’s election time, so she’s trying to moderate that position.” Miller-Meeks accused Bohannan of distortions. “You want to confuse people, you want to divide people,” Miller-Meeks. “That’s a tactic you’ve used all throughout the campaign when you started attacking me.”

During a discussion of immigration, Miller-Meeks said the situation at the southern border is out of control. “My opponent didn’t mention the border, didn’t say anything about the border, didn’t say the border should be secure until it became a political liability for her and her party.” Bohannan says both political parties in congress have kicked the can down the road rather than address flaws the immigration system. “And I have stood up to the Biden Administration multiple times,” Bohannan says. “I did it in 2022 and I’m doing it now and I’ve said President Biden was too slow to act on the border.”

Both candidates expressed concerns for homeowners who are finding it difficult to afford or even acquire insurance. Miller-Meeks says natural disasters in Iowa are leading to increased insurance rates and some insurance companies are not longer insuring residential property in Iowa. “There is talk about if there should be more federal government involvement in the insurance marketplace and how to do that in the best way that doesn’t create undue pressure and doesn’t create increased costs,” Miller-Meeks said.

Bohannan says Iowa homeowners are struggling with the price of insurance. “We are seeing now the economic effects of climate,” Bohannan says. “We are not going to have an economy if we have to spend half of our GDP cleaning up from natural disasters that we could have prevented in the first place.”

Last (Monday) night’s debate on Iowa P-B-S was the only debate between the two first congressional district candidates.