(Radio Iowa) — A University of Iowa doctor who developed a painless, non-surgical technique for curing the world’s most common skeletal birth defect is subject of a book being released today (Friday). Doctor Ignacio Ponseti discovered that using plaster casts and braces could cure clubfoot, which strikes 200-thousand newborns globally every year. U-I professor emeritus Tom Cook is the author of “Clubfoot: The Quest for a Better Life for Millions of Children.” “It manifests itself as a foot that is severely pointed down and tilted inward,” Cook says. “It’s a more or less random genetic variation. There’s no real cause related to the mother’s nutrition or any of those sorts of things.”

Ponseti died in 2009 at age 95. A native of Spain, Ponseti moved to Iowa in 1941 and first started working on what became known as the Ponseti Method in the late 1940s. His technique didn’t become widely known until the 1990s and the advent of the internet, as parents searched for a non-surgical cure for clubfoot. Cook says Ponseti’s technique was “revolutionary.” “A surgeon can rearrange the bones in the foot, lengthen tendons and sever ligaments and make a foot look like a foot,” Cook says, “but the problem is, by the time these young children become adults, there’s been enough insult to the structures in the foot and ankle that they become very arthritic, very painful.”

Ponseti’s non-invasive alternative to surgery can correct the crippling deformity. The U-I-based Ponseti International Association is working with medical professionals in training programs in at least 70 countries around the world. “You can imagine a week- or ten-day-old foot of an infant is a small, little thing and to be able to properly manipulate it and apply a cast in a very precise way to put the pressure where you need to put it is a skill that takes some time to develop,” Cook says.

The Iowa City area is home to the non-profit organization Clubfoot Solutions and MD Orthopedics, which are the world’s largest producers and distributors of high-quality clubfoot braces. Cook, who first worked with Ponseti in 1992 at the U-I, says it was a “real pleasure” researching and writing this book about the man who has helped tens of thousands of children to walk normally. “His life story before he got to Iowa is every bit as fascinating as the story of what he did once he got here,” Cook says. “He was in the Spanish Civil War, he was a refugee in France and Mexico, he did some amazing things before he even got here to do some amazing thing for the kids with clubfoot.”

Cook is a physical therapist, biomedical engineer and a global health specialist. He’s published many papers and written a textbook, but this is his first book for the general public. The book is being published by Ice Cube Press, based in North Liberty.

(Radio Iowa) — A member of the Iowa Federation of Labor’s board of directors says union workers are “tuned in” to politics like never before. Jesse Case is secretary-treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 2-38 in Cedar Rapids. “People are fed up. We know that when fear turns to anger, people start to organize,” Case says. “We’re mobilizing like we’ve never mobilized before. We’re move militant than we’ve ever been before.”

On Saturday, the Teamsters will host five Democratic presidential candidates at a forum in Cedar Rapids. Case says the candidates will be asked about issues that are critical to union workers. “Like retirement security and the right of workers to organize and form a union,” Case said. “These are issues that are easily avoidable on the campaign trail, but they’re issues that are important not only to Teamsters, but to workers across the country.”

Case, who began working in the union movement when he helped organize a local union at a packing plant in Storm Lake, does not expect the Teamsters to endorse a candidate before the Iowa Caucuses. “We’re going to let the process roll out,” Case says. “We also represent several of the campaigns and we want to make sure we’re not putting on thumb on the scale for a Teamster-represented candidate or anyone else.”

Three of the candidates who’ll speak at the Teamsters event — Joe Biden, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar — have campaign workers who are represented by the union. The two other candidates who’ll speak Saturday are Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders. Sanders’ staffers signed a contract negotiated by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Buttigieg staff are represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The Teamsters also represent employees of the Iowa Democratic Party.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal an outside group founded by top political aides to Sen. Joni Ernst is working closely with the Iowa Republican to raise money and boost her reelection prospects. Some legal experts say the degree of overlap between her campaign and the nonprofit Iowa Values could violate the law. Emails show Ernst fundraiser Claire Holloway Avella asked a donor for $50,000 for the group following an introduction by the senator.

Ernst’s attorney says they followed the law. But some attorneys say Holloway Avella’s request could cross a legal line because she was working on Ernst’s behalf.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:35 a.m. CST

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A review by The Associated Press has found that Iowa’s list of ineligible felon voters remains riddled with errors, omissions and wrongful additions that make it an unreliable indicator of who can and cannot vote and hold public office. The Des Moines Police Department, the State of Iowa and others are mistakenly included on the list due to data entry errors, along with dozens of people who were not convicted of felonies. Similar errors have caused dozens of lawful voters to be disenfranchised in elections since 2012. They’re resurfacing as civil rights advocates lobby lawmakers to end Iowa’s lifetime voting ban for felons.

LU VERNE, Iowa (AP) — A violent Iowa convict who was on parole is charged with driving across the state in a rental car, and fatally shooting a small-town female bank employee during a robbery. Valentino Williams, 35, of Coralville, is charged with first-degree murder and robbery in Wednesday’s killing of 43-year-old Jessica Weisharr, of Algona. Williams is charged with shooting Weisharr multiple times outside of the Security State Bank in Lu Verne, a northern Iowa town of about 250 people where she was working. Weisharr died at the scene. Investigators said surveillance video and witnesses tied Williams to the crime.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The amount of water being released into the lower Missouri River is being reduced ahead of winter, so flooded areas along the river will see some relief. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the amount of water being released from the Gavins Point dam on the Nebraska-South Dakota border has been reduced to 57,000 cubic feet per second, and it will be cut further to about 27,000 cubic feet per second by mid-December. The reductions will allow the river to fall below flood stage in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri by the end of this month.

NEW HAMPTON, Iowa (AP) — Joe Biden is trying to capitalize on President Donald Trump’s icy reception from world leaders by portraying himself as someone who is well versed in foreign affairs and can restore American prestige abroad. But his moves risk being overshadowed by a testy confrontation with a voter in Iowa. John Kerry, the former secretary of state and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, endorsed Biden Thursday. Yet before Biden could celebrate Kerry’s backing, Biden grew angry at a town hall in Iowa when a retired farmer pressed him about his son Hunter Biden’s work on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.