(Radio Iowa) –  It may be the dead of winter, but Iowans are looking ahead to spring when they can do some pedal-powered two wheeling. This weekend is the Iowa Bike Expo where all things cycling will be on display and for sale through dozens of exhibitors at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines. Mark Wyatt, executive director of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition, says the Saturday event has become a wintertime beacon for bike riders, a glimmer of hope for the warm weather to come.

“It’s bikes, gear, destinations and events,” Wyatt says, “so if you’re shopping for some recreational activities, this is the place that you want to be this weekend.” For Iowans who are in the market for a new bike, Wyatt says this is a great place to test ride some new options without having to worry about the weather. “We have a large demo area where you can take a bike over from one of the retailers and give it a go,” Wyatt says. “A lot of people like the recumbent trikes or the electric bikes or just trying out what that new bike feels like inside and kind of a temperature-controlled area.”

This is the 10th year for the expo in Des Moines, which Wyatt says has continued to gain momentum each year. “We’ve grown from just to kind of a hallway expo up to filling up Hy-Vee Hall A,” Wyatt says. “Usually, we see somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 people that come to this event so it’s really popular. We’ve kind of gone over the hump for winter and people are starting to look for spring and summer in planning their recreational activities.” The expo runs Saturday from 10 AM to 4:30 PM. It coincides with the route announcement party for RAGBRAI that night, also at the Iowa Events Center.

https://www.iowabikeexpo.com/

(Radio Iowa) – Backers of a bill that would require drivers to keep their hands off of their smart phones are hoping this is the year the bill becomes law. Iowa State Patrol Captain Todd Bailey says one out of five traffic deaths in the past five years can be linked to a distracted driver.

“It’s extremely scary when you consider the speed issues that we’re dealing with, the following too close and you take all those factors into consideration, we have a reduction in response time by that driver in that vehicle and any type of added distraction or divided attention that you put in that car is basically going to create a recipe for disaster,” Bailey says.

A senate subcommittee has advanced a bill that would require any smart phone use inside a vehicle to be in hands-free or voice activated mode. It’s currently illegal to text while driving in Iowa, but there’s no ban on downloading music, watching videos or playing games. Senator Mark Lofgren of Muscatine said as a runner, he’s dealt with distracted drivers for years.

“Twenty years ago it wasn’t so bad. It’s got worse all the time,” Lofgren said. “Any cyclist or pedestrian or anybody that’s know that (drivers) just aren’t paying attention, so that’s why I support the bill.”

Larry Loss of Clive told lawmakers he was criticalky injured while bicycling last May.

“A young man looking down at his phone cut me off from the bike lane, forced me to hit the curb, propelled me into a concrete barrier,” Loss said during the subcommittee hearing. “I spent 17 days in the hospital, had two surgeries, was off work for two months. By the way, the driver never stopped. I’m in support of this bill.”

According to an insurance industry lobbyists, states that ban motorists from using electronic devices while driving have experienced a 15% reduction in traffic fatalities.

(Radio Iowa) – An Arizona murder suspect is being held in a northern Iowa jail after his arrest following a brief standoff in Charles City. Police in Tucson, Arizona issued a warrant last year for
24-year-old Trevontea Tyron Howard-Brown, a suspect in a fatal shooting near the University of Arizona campus. A 23-year-old man was killed and another man critically injured in the shooting on April 22nd.

According to a news release from Tucson Police, the U.S. Marshals Service tracked the suspect to a home in Charles City and Howard-Brown briefly barricaded himself inside the house Friday morning before being taken into custody.

Howard-Brown is being held as a fugitive in the Floyd County Jail and will be transferred to Tucson to face charges of first degree murder and attempted murder. His bond has been set at $1 million.

(Radio Iowa) – What’s billed as a global anti-human trafficking symposium will be held in eastern Iowa tomorrow (Tuesday). The event is being organized by Teresa Davidson, co-founder and CEO of Chains Interrupted, an Iowa-based non-profit that fights human trafficking. Davidson says the conference will be carried live on Zoom and in-person at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids.

“The title is, Barriers Faced By Sex Trafficking Survivors,” Davidson says, “and there will be multiple people there that have experienced human trafficking, speaking about the barriers that they faced in getting out of the life of trafficking, as well as barriers that they continue to face once they’re trying to seek restoration out of the life.”

Davidson calls human trafficking an “underground crime” that’s widely underreported. “Many times people that are victimized by human trafficking don’t even realize that they’re being victimized by it because traffickers use fraudulent relationships to groom them in and keep them in,” Davidson says. “So, someone pretending to be a boyfriend, acting like the mother that someone never had, the father they longed for, the best friend, and people don’t realize that they’re being manipulated.”

Davidson is the anti-human trafficking coordinator at Mercy, the first Iowa hospital to create a hospital-based position to address human trafficking. Advocates say there are indications Iowa is an attractive state for traffickers, given the wide open spaces and the intersection of major interstates.

“It’s hard to know how many people are being victimized,” she says, “but since the inception of Mercy’s anti-human trafficking program in 2018, we’ve helped over 300 survivors.” Davidson encourages Iowans to look within their circle for people who may be vulnerable to this crime.

“My message to people would be to reach out to them, to be the people that support them, that encourage them, that provide resources for them, because the traffickers are looking for those people and they’re going to reach out first if we don’t,” Davidson says. “We have an opportunity to prevent this from happening to people in our own circle if we only just do it.” The Tuesday event is free and runs from 9 a.m. to noon. It’s being co-hosted by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. It’s open to the public but registration is encouraged.

The Zoom call will be capped at 1,000 participants.

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa House subcommittee has again advanced a bill to ban what’s been called the “gay panic defense.” It would prevent defendants charged with a violent crime from claiming temporary insanity because they discovered the victim was gay, lesbian or transgender. The bill has never been considered in the Iowa Senate, but it has passed the House unanimously twice before. Representative Bobby Kaufmann of Wilton said he’s hoping persistence pays off this year. “Nothing’s changed in my mind,” said Kaufmann, chair of the three-member subcommittee. “I find the use of this defense preposterous and heinous and it does not pass the common sense test that this should be a defense.”

Keenan Crow of One Iowa, a group that advocates for lesbian, gay and transgender Iowans, addressed the House subcommittee that advanced the bill. “Thank you for bringing this forward again. I appreciate the tenacity of the House on this matter. I do think it’s important enough to merit a third vote,” Crow said. “What this bill does is it outlaws a discriminatory defense tactic that is based on excusing or minimizing the actions of a perpetrator based on the characteristics of their victim.”

Defendants in a few other states have been able to use a “panic defense” to reduce their sentences. Supporters of the bill cite the 2016 murder in Burlington. During House debate of the proposal last year, a state representative asked for a moment of silence for Kedarie Johnson, a 16-year-old who was wearing women’s clothing the night he was killed by two men.