ANKENY, Iowa — [KCCI] – An Ankeny man has been arrested after being accused of neglecting a resident at his own health care facility. Vern Tandia is the owner of First Vision Health Care. Ankeny police say he was caring for a non-verbal, non-mobile man from March 2022 to August 2023. Throughout that time, police say he failed to update the victim’s feeding orders and falsely documented what nutrition the man was getting.

Court documents show the man was hospitalized with severe malnutrition, after losing more than 10 pounds. Tandia is expected to be in court next week.

DES MOINES, Iowa — The City of Des Moines has reached a settlement agreement with a man who was tied up by police and arrested in 2019. Officers thought Nick Templeton was on drugs, but he was actually having a seizure while driving. After officers got Templeton out of his vehicle, police body camera footage shows them holding him face down on the ground and tying constraints to his hands and feet behind his back with a device called a hobble. The man told officers several times he couldn’t breathe, when one officer’s knee was on his back, while Templeton was face down on the concrete.

Police reports say Templeton was kicking and struggling with officers as they tried to constrain him. He was originally charged with a drug offense because of the pills found in his vehicle, but that charge was later dropped. The medication was legally prescribed to him.

KCCI reports Templeton and the city of Des Moines came to a settlement agreement of $12,500. City officials say they support the settlement.

DES MOINES, Iowa [KCCI] — A 66-year old Des Moines woman was killed in a crash that happened early Thanksgiving morning. Des Moines police say it happened just after 1:30 a.m. Thursday at Southeast 8th Street and Emma Avenue. Police say an officer tried to pull over a driver with suspected fraudulent license plates near SE 5th Street and Hughes Avenue. The 46-year-old driver then took off along Southeast 8th Street. According to investigators, about 36 seconds after the chase started, the crash happened as the driver was trying to make a turn before crashing into a ditch on Emma Avenue.

The driver and a female passenger were taken to the hospital. The man is in serious condition and the woman, identified as 66-year-old Connie Allison, of Des Moines, died. Police also say the driver has an active felony arrest warrant that’s unrelated to this incident.

The accident marked the city’s 17th traffic-related fatality so far in 2023.

DES MOINES, Iowa — Cases of a mysterious dog illness are showing up in Des Moines. One central Iowa veterinarian says she first saw it in September. Sick dogs exhibit symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, nasal or eye discharge and lethargy. It can also cause a respiratory illness and pneumonia that does not respond to antibiotics, perpetuating the dog’s symptoms and, in a few severe cases, leading to death.

To keep your pet safe, veterinarians recommend making sure your dog’s immunizations are up to date and avoiding contact with other dogs, especially if they are exhibiting symptoms. If your pet is exhibiting symptoms, contact your vet “sooner rather than later” to ensure the issue doesn’t worsen.

(Radio Iowa) – The Board of Regents recently approved an increase of 32 percent in the budget for the CY-Town development on the Iowa State University campus. I-S-U’s Heather Paris presented the details of the project. “Phase one and two combined would build extensive underground infrastructure, completely replace all parking services, and raise the project site so future development would be five feet above Ioway Creeks’ 100 year floodplain,” she says. The project covers 40 acres of land between the Iowa State Center and Jack Trice Stadium and includes thousands of parking spots. “These lots are heavily used by students and visitors to Iowa State University. The existing parking lots have multiple maintenance issues and need replacement,” Paris says.

The athletic department and private giving would fund the nine-point-two million dollar increase, bringing the total budget to nearly 38 million dollars. The University of Northern Iowa was given permission to tear down the West Gym, which has been the home of several sports teams since it was built. U-N-I vice president Michael Hager, says they’ve determined it is not cost effective to renovate the structure. “The West Gym has served the university since 1925 and has served us quite well. However, the building is clearly telling us that it is at the end of its life cycle,” Hager says. He says the east and west exterior walls are bowing and separating from the structure.

” One has an intriguing S curve that seems to get the urgent attention of architects and structural engineers when they come and look at it,” he says. “Inside one can see those walls separating by as much as two inches from the flooring system, which is well outside the established standards of wall movement.” The building was shored up and all services moved out of it after the bowing walls were discovered. He says they don’t know yet what might go into its place on campus. “For now the basement will be taken out, the utilities we patched, and then it’ll become a green space,” Hager says. “It’s a critical building location, we’d want to be cautious about what we put in in the future. It’s on a an axis with the campanile, and so it would remain a high value building location at some point.”

It will cost between one-point-three and one-point-five million dollars to demolished the building. The wresting program had taken up a majority of the space in the West Gym in the last several years, and a new wrestling practice facility is planned.

(Radio Iowa) – While retailers nationwide are bracing for a shopping extravaganza on this Black Friday, locally-owned merchants across Iowa are hoping for a bigger boost tomorrow. Jayne Armstrong, director of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Iowa District Office, says Small Business Saturday is a crucial day for the state’s consumers to “Be Loyal, Buy Local.” “It’s just a special day where we get to put the spotlight on small business and say we recognize how important you are,” Armstrong says. “We really want to encourage people to get out and support you this holiday season but really every day is Small Business Saturday.”

Armstrong says 97-percent of Iowa’s businesses are small businesses and embracing them improves the backbone of our state. Armstrong says, “If we really want to get out there and support our economy, we need to be supporting small businesses 24/7, 365 days of the year.”

If you’d like to support Iowa’s wealth of merchants who are outside of your immediate area, dozens of businesses are now offering their wares at shop iowa dot com, which Armstrong says makes it easy to patronize even more hometown heroes in -other- Iowa towns. “ShopIowa has become very popular,” Armstrong says. “A lot of retailers have really put themselves out there online through ShopIowa.com. With the excellent customer service and everything that they provide, we see a lot of people going through that to buy Iowa-made products.”

The website covers a wide array of goods, including artwork, furniture, food, toys, t-shirts, beauty care products, jewelry and more, all crafted in the Hawkeye State.

https://www.shopiowa.com/

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks says research is showing psychedelic drugs have the potential to be a mental health treatment option for veterans. Miller-Meeks, a Republican who represents Iowa’s first congressional district, is chair of the U-S House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Health. She led a recent congressional hearing about psychedelics — drugs that cause hallucinations.

We are not advocating for the legalization or the casual use of psychedelics,” Miller-Meeks said. “What we are discussing is the clinically administered dosage of these substances, in combination with targeted therapy sessions in a clinical setting.”

The hearing focused on clinical trials being conducted in Veterans Administration hospitals and clinics — using psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, or M-D-M-A drugs like ecstasy as treatment for mental health conditions like post traumatic stress disorder. “Psychedelic-assisted therapy is a ground breaking clinical procedure that has the potential to transform the way we look at health care,” she said.

Miller-Meeks, an eye doctor, is a 24 year Army veteran. “As a physician who practices traditional medicine, I never thought I would enter congress to then be advocating for emerging, breakthrough therapy,” Miller-Meeks said, “but I think the science is leading the way.”

Miller-Meeks says if the F-D-A approves the use of psychedelics, the Veterans Administration should move quickly to make appointments for veterans who would benefit from the therapy. “For many veterans, this treatment is life saving, but more work needs to be done,” Miller-Meeks said. “It is a sad reality that 17 veterans a day will lose their lives to suicide. One life lost to suicide is one life too many and our fight must continue.”

Miller-Meeks describes psychedelic-assisted therapy as a long process. “A licensed clinician carefully examines a veteran prior to administering a dose…A veteran must go through two or three sessions, during which intense psychotherapy is overseen by a licensed medial professional assisting the veteran throughout the experience. These sessions last about eight hours, the full duration of the drug’s effects,” Miller-Meeks says. “…Based on the most recent clinical trials, patients experienced positive therapeutic responses, resulting in a reduction of their symptoms if not remission altogether.”

V-A officials say there is still much to be learned and understood about the benefits of psychedelic compounds. Advocates say traditional medications for moderate to severe P-T-S-D have significant side effects, prompting some people to quit treatment.