(Radio Iowa) – About half the Iowa delegates at this week’s Democratic National Convention made the trip to Chicago aboard Amtrak. Gregory Christensen, vice chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, is temporarily being called “the conductor” by his colleagues because it was his idea.

Since they bought the tickets together and got a group rate, the cost of one ticket is about what it costs to park a vehicle in Chicago for a single day.

The infrastructure bill Biden signed into law in 2021 is providing millions to upgrade Amtrak, which Biden used to commute between D.C. and Delaware when he was a U-S Senator. Christensen also notes the Iowa Democrats rode the California Zephyr and the line starts at San Francisco Bay.

A couple of Iowa Democrats in western Iowa boarded the California Zephyr in Omaha. Others got aboard at stations in Osceola, Ottumwa and Mount Pleasant. Christensen says they had some strategy sessions and phone time during the trip.

Christensen says he helped one Iowan re-register to vote. The person had been purged from the rolls because they hadn’t voted in recent elections. The Democratic National Convention is being staged at the United Center in Chicago, the same venue used when Bill Clinton and Al Gore were renominated in 1996.

(Afton, Iowa) – A boat loaded onto a trailer that was parked in a ditch, somehow managed to roll down the ditch and into a pickup truck Saturday night, in Afton. According to the Union County Sheriff’s Office, the owner of the boat/trailer had chocked the tires of the trailer, which struck the driver’s side of his parked, 2016 Chevy pickup truck located in the man’s driveway.

The boat’s propeller went into the side of the pickup. The mishap resulted in a police-estimated $3,000 damage to the pickup, and $300 damage to the lower portion of the boat, owned by Derrick Ellsworth, of Afton. No one was injured in the accident, that happened at around 11:30-p.m., Saturday.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says she’s undeterred by criticism of her proposed alternative to providing food next summer to low income households with children who qualify for a free or reduced price lunch during the school year. The U-S-D-A will provide 120 dollars in electronic benefits for each child in the summer. Reynolds rejected the 29 million dollars in benefits for Iowa families for THIS summer AND next — and is proposing the state provide food boxes to families next summer.

Last week, a U-S-D-A spokesperson said the governor is asserting the State knows better than its own families do about what their needs are. Reynolds says the state’s Summer Food Service Program — which she would expand — has been providing meals and snacks to children in low-income areas of the state. And Reynolds stresses that having the state rather than families buy the food is key.

Iowa was one of 13 states which did not accept the additional food benefits this summer.

(Statewide News) – Authorities in Iowa say (as of late Sunday afternoon), five people died in separate crashes over the past three days. Sunday morning, a man from Minnesota died in a single-vehicle rollover accident in northern Iowa’s Winnebago County. The Iowa State Patrol says 63-year-old Mark Claassen, from Albert Lea, MN, died, when his pickup left the road and rolled several times, after he failed to negotiate a curve on 200th Avenue near 485th Street near Lake Mills. Claassen, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected and died at the scene.

(also reported in a separate posting on the kjan.com News page) – A collision on a curve early this (Sunday) morning in Webster County, claimed the life of a woman from Rockwell City. The Iowa State Patrol reports the accident happened at around 3:15-a.m. near Moorland, on D-20, on the curve near Hayes Avenue. A 2010 GMC Acadia SUV driven by 30-year-old Sasha Brown, of Rockwell City, was traveling west on D-20, when the vehicle crossed the center-line of the road and collided with an eastbound semi driven by 47-year-old Wyatt Lundberg, of Fort Dodge. Brown died at the scene. She was not wearing a seat belt. Lundberg was checked-out by medics and released. The Patrol was assisted by the Webster County Sheriff’s Office and Moorland Fire Department.

Saturday night, a collision in northwest Iowa’s Plymouth County resulted in two deaths and two people injured. The State Patrol says a pickup truck driven by 43-year-old Julio Cesar Pena, of LeMars, was traveling east on Plymouth County Road C-12 at around 10:30-p.m., when Pena failed to stop at the intersection with Highway K-22. His vehicle was struck by an ambulance  driven by 21-year-old Courtney Nicole Johnson, of Sioux City (IA). The private ambulance was southbound on K-22 and transporting a patient in a non-emergency status (no lights/siren), when the collision occurred.

Pena and the ambulance patient, 94-year-old Ernest John Petty, of Elk Point, SD, died at the scene. Courtney Johnson suffered minor injuries. A passenger/medic in the ambulance – 54-year-old Lisa Marie Wise, of Sioux City (IA) – suffered serious injuries. The injured were transported to the hospital in Hawarden. The Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office, Ireton, Lemars and Hawarden Ambulance services assisted at the scene.

And, a 23-year-old man from Altoona died he was critically injured in a Friday night motorcycle crash in Des Moines. According to the Des Moines Police Department, 23-year-old Trever Ray Vinzant was riding a 2008 Kawasaki motorcycle eastbound on East Euclid Avenue around 11:40 p.m. Friday. A 2019 Lexus SUV driven by a 44-year-old Des Moines man was heading westbound on East Euclid when it turned left onto Wright Street, directly in the path of Vinzant’s motorcycle. Both vehicles crashed in the intersection.

Medics began lifesaving efforts on Vinzant and transported him to a local hospital, where he died from his injuries on Saturday. According to DMPD, this is the 12th crash fatality of 2024 in the city, the sixth involving a motorcycle. The investigation into the crash remains active.