LONG GROVE, Iowa (AP) – Authorities say a driver and a student were injured in a collision of two school buses in eastern Iowa’s Scott County. The accident occurred around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, about two miles northwest of Long Grove. The Scott County Sheriff’s Office says a northbound bus halted at a stop sign and then proceeded into the rural intersection, colliding with a westbound bus.

The driver of the northbound bus, 67-year-old Stanley Ray, was taken to Trinity Bettendorf hospital for treatment of injuries believed to be non-life-threatening. One child was treated at the scene.  It’s unclear how many children were on the two buses. The Sheriff’s Office says both were carrying children from the North School Community Schools district. The collision is being investigated.

Red Oak Police, Wednesday afternoon, arrested 25-year old Robert James Adams, of Red Oak, for Driving While License Suspended. Adams was taken into custody at around 4:20-p.m. in the 400 block of E. Linden Street, and transported to the Montgomery County Jail, where his bond was set at $300.

Officials with the Senior Alumni Scholarship Foundation (SASF) report the Foundation will award three, $1,750 scholarships to Atlantic High School seniors. Applications are due Monday, April 3rd. Application forms are available on the Atlantic Community Schools website. Follow the links to Atlantic High School, Guidance, Local Scholarships and then scroll down to SASF Scholarship.

SASF Chair Leslie Bullock Goldsmith says many students meet the criteria for SASF scholarships, which are broad-based and require: Financial need; A character reference; A GPA of 2.5 or higher, and acceptance to a two- or four-year college or vocational/technical school.

SASF encourages high school seniors and their parents to check out all of the local scholarships on the school’s website. Students may be eligible for several of the scholarships on the list.

OSKALOOSA, Iowa (AP) – Another Iowa hospital is closing its inpatient psychiatric care unit. Mahaska Health Partnership Chief Executive Officer Jay Christensen said Wednesday that the Oskaloosa hospital discharged its last psychiatric inpatient Monday.

He says the unit has been losing about $500,000 a year, in large part because many psychiatric patients have to stay in the hospital for weeks or months after they’re ready to leave, because nursing homes or other residential facilities won’t take them. He says many of the patients are physically aggressive.

The Oskaloosa psychiatric unit is the latest of several closed over about the past several years in Iowa. The state closed its Clarinda and Mount Pleasant psychiatric hospitals in 2015. Community hospitals in Creston, Fort Dodge, Iowa Falls, Keokuk and West Union also closed their inpatient psychiatric units.

Should they stay or should they go? Iowa Senators debated the fate of traffic enforcement cameras for nearly an hour last (Wednesday) night, dramatically ditching a proposal to ban the cameras. Instead, senators voted to let the cameras remain, with the fines used exclusively for public safety or roads. Senator Dan Zumbach, a Republican from Ryan, touted the traffic cameras along Interstate-380 in Cedar Rapids. “Those traffic cameras have changed people’s habits,” Zumbach said. “…The road is safer because of those cameras.”

Senator Kevin Kinney, a Democrat from Oxford, is a Johnson County Deputy Sheriff. He says the cameras are helpful on congested highways where law enforcement cannot safely pull drivers over for speeding. “I’ve had to tackle a state trooper to get him out of the way of vehicles coming at us,” Kinney says.

Traffic cameras have passionate critics, too. Senator David Johnson, an independent from Ocheyedan, ridiculed colleagues who voted to keep the cameras going. “This group hug for Big Brother.” Senator Brad Zaun, a Republican from Urbandale, has tried for years to pass a bill to outlaw traffic cameras.  “I am very disappointed, but that does happen,” Zaun said. “…I call these ‘gotcha cams.'”

The first automated enforcement cameras were installed in Iowa about a dozen years ago. Since then, legislators have debated bills that would limit fines as well as legislation to completely ban the cams, but there’s never been a final resolution. Critics say out-of-state companies that review the video and mail out the citations are making too much money from the cameras. In late January, the chiefs of police in Iowa’s two largest cities told senators the cameras in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids had been placed on interstates where it’s not safe for police to pull drivers over and ticket them for speeding.

(Radio Iowa)