DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa State Patrol reports Trooper issued six-times more citations for texting while driving in the past year, after a new law allows law enforcement officers to stop drivers who are texting. This past year, Troopers issued 1,131 citations for texting while driving.  That is up from 182 citations the year before. John Gaspar, a research scientist with the National Advanced Driving Simulator, found that it takes two seconds to impair a driver’s safety.  It usually takes 5 seconds to send or read a text.  At 55mph, that is the same as driving the length of a football field with your eyes closed. The Center for Disease Control says that every day an average of 9 people are killed and more than 1,000 people are injured because of a distracted driver.  Teens are affected most by texting while driving.

Troopers in the Iowa State Patrol have developed innovative methods for finding drivers who are texting.  They take these violations seriously because it puts the texting driver at risk, along with everyone else on the road who may be affected by the distracted driver. The Patrol’s Sgt. Nathan Ludwig says “Put down your phone and focus on your driving. Every day and every night, Troopers are on the lookout for drivers who are texting when they should be focused on their driving.”

A new texting-while-driving law that took effect one year ago made texting while driving a “primary” offense.  That means an officer can stop a driver and issue a citation for texting while driving.  Before last July, it was a “secondary” offense, meaning that officers could only issue a citation for texting while driving if the officer stopped the driver for some other offense.

July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017:     182 citations issued by Iowa State Patrol
July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018:  1,131 citations issued by Iowa State Patrol

Creston Police report 61-year old Martin Eugene Baker, of Creston, was arrested Thursday afternoon in the 200 block of W Montgomery Street. Baker was charged with Operating While Intoxicated, and was transported to the Union County Jail, where his bond was set at $1,000.

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say an eastern Iowa man set his apartment on fire in hopes of getting arrested. The Telegraph Herald in Dubuque reports that 33-year-old Matthew R. Voseberg was arrested Wednesday evening on a first-degree arson charge. Authorities say Voseberg was sitting on his apartment’s front porch when they arrived. They say he told them he was in his apartment when he started thinking about where he could get “three hots and a cot.”

Another resident in the building told authorities that Voseberg came to her apartment, said he had started a fire in his apartment and told her to get out. Authorities say the fire caused about $7,800 in damage.
Voseberg faces up to 25 years in prison.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say one man is dead after the motorcycle he was riding collided with a jeep in eastern Iowa. The Quad-City Times reports that the crash happened shortly after 7 p.m. Thursday in Davenport. Davenport police say the motorcyclist was riding through an intersection when his bike struck the side of a Jeep Wrangler that was also traveling through the intersection.

The motorcyclist was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Authorities say they were not releasing the man’s name until his family was notified. No one in the jeep was injured. Police are still investigating the crash.

ORANGE CITY, Iowa (AP) — A man serving life in prison for killing a northwest Iowa woman when he was 14 years old is now eligible for parole after he was re-sentenced in accordance with a recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling. The Sioux City Journal reports that John Mulder was re-sentenced Thursday to life in prison, but with no mandatory minimum number of years to serve before he can ask the Iowa Board of Parole to release him. The board will still decide whether Mulder will ever be released.

The Supreme Court in April ruled that Mulder’s previous sentence failed to meet juvenile sentencing standards established by a court decision last year. Mulder was originally sentenced a mandatory life in prison without parole for the 1976 shooting death of 55-year-old Jean Homan, of Alton.

A man is being treated for suspected head injuries after the jet ski he was riding collided with a boat on a river in northeast Iowa. It happened Wednesday afternoon on the Shell Rock River, about two miles north of Greene. Authorities say Tad Schneider, of Allison, got too close to a boat that was pulling someone on an inner tube and his jet ski struck the boat. Schneider was wearing a life jacket and was briefly unconscious in the water before he was rescued by others on the river. A third boat took Schneider to a park in Greene, then an ambulance took him to the hospital in Waverly for treatment. Officials say the jet ski AND the boat involved in the accident are owned by Brian Cole, of Nashua.

(Radio Iowa)

Iowa Congressman Steve King says he’s getting signals from the White House on the president’s preferred path on immigration policy. “I talked to the White House about three or four days ago. They said: ‘We’re done with amnesty,’ but they’re interested in going forward with rifle-shots of immigration reform, which is what I’ve always been for,” King says. “Let’s set ’em up one bill at a time. Let’s not crowd them all together and confuse the American people. Let everybody see what we’re doing.”

King suggests with a “rifle-shot” approach, there would be bills that address just one topic, like border wall funding in one bill and another that addresses so-called “DACA” recipients who were illegally brought into the country by their parents when they were children. “If we can’t move anything because all of the oxygen is sucked out of the political atmosphere by the upcoming announcement of an appointment to the impending vacancy on the US Supreme Court, I guess that’s alright because that’s the most important thing right now,” King says, “to get a constitutionalist seated on the court who will rule on the text and the original understanding of the Constitution and the text of the law rather than legislate from the bench.”

President Trump is scheduled to reveal his nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy on Monday night. Last month, Congressman King was among the Republicans who helped defeat two immigration bills advanced by House G-O-P leaders. King says the failure of those bills improves the chances future proposals will be in line with his views. “I think they are better than I expected they would be at this point,” King says. “My major concern on immigration, the thing that has animated me on the immigration issue — and I don’t think anyone out there would question whether I am animated on that issue or not — it has aways been for restoring respect for the rule of law.”

J.D. Scholten of Sioux City, King’s Democratic opponent, says it’s time to “modernize” the country’s immigration policies. “We absolutely have to have secure borders, but then beyond that we’ve got to have an immigration court that is functional and not months and even years behind,” Scholten says. “And then we need to have a visa program that matches our economy and then a pathway to residency and a pathway to citizenship that should be earned.”  Scholten says it’s frustrating to watch the D.C. debate on this topic. “I mean what isn’t happening is something being done,” Scholten says.

Trump tweeted Thursday that Congress should “FIX OUR INSANE IMMIGRATION LAWS NOW.”

(Radio Iowa)

A survey of 22 of the state’s largest employers indicates most of them should be growing between now and the end of the year. Georgia Van Gundy is executive director of the Iowa Business Council (IBC), which released its second quarter Economic Outlook Survey, Thursday. “Sixty-eight of our members are anticipating adding employees over the next six months,” Van Gundy says.

The positive economic outlook is tempered by a familiar concern among the state’s top employers. Eight-four-percent of I-B-C members cite “attracting, developing and retaining a quality workforce” as their primary business challenge. Van Gundy says the organization is launching an initiative, called Vision to Vitality, in hopes of addressing those workforce needs.  “And that (involves) going out to our communities and actually getting a community viewpoint on what are your barriers to growth? What are the best practices you have?”

The first Vision to Vitality forum is scheduled for July 17 in Boone. “We’ll be highlighting a partnership between business and education, Boone EDGE and Fareway, in which the businesses are partnering with the Boone School District to have work-based learning opportunities for students, so they can learn about some of the job opportunities early on in high school and hopefully will move into them after they graduate,” Van Gundy said.

Two more Vision to Vitality forums are scheduled for September 11 in Muscatine and October 9 in Le Mars. In addition to the expectation of adding employees, the new IBC survey shows 90-percent of the members anticipate higher sales and 63-percent project an increase in capital spending in the next six months.

(Radio Iowa)