DES MOINES, Iowa – Gov. Kim Reynolds today (Thursday) signed HF 2416 into law protecting girls’ sports programs at all school levels, including high school and collegiate levels in Iowa. The bill allows participation in sports based upon the biological sex listed on the athlete’s birth certificate.   “This is a victory for girls’ sports in Iowa. No amount of talent, training or effort can make up for the natural physical advantages males have over females. It’s simply a reality of human biology,” said Gov. Reynolds. “Forcing females to compete against males is the opposite of inclusivity and it’s absolutely unfair.”

This bill requires schools at all levels to designate sporting events as male, female, or co-ed. Only students who are female according to their birth certificate will be eligible to compete in girls sports. No student will be prevented from playing a sport that matches his or her biological sex, or a sport designated as co-ed.

Senate Minority Leader Zach Wahls, a Democrat from Coralville, said the bill violates the Iowa value of inclusion. “Iowa politicians have decided to pour gasoline on the culture war fires and embrace the worst form of identity politics, pitting Iowans against each other,” Wahls said. “…Why does this legislature have to police the lives of some of the most marginalized people in our society?” Senator Pam Jochum, a Democrat from Dubuque, said the bill will isolate trans youth and is discriminatory, just like previous policies that forbid participation based on other characteristics, like race.

Eleven states have passed similar trans athlete bans and lawsuits challenging those bans have been filed in four of them.

(Radio Iowa) – In hopes of luring in more educators, the Sioux City school district will be rewarding new teachers with a five-thousand dollar bonus. Permanent substitute teachers, food service workers and bus drivers will also qualify for a recruitment stipend. School board president Dan Greenwell says they’re focusing on positions where recruitment has been failing. “We need new employees,” Greenwell says, “and doing what we were doing and had been doing probably isn’t going to work in this market, so we have to try something differently.”

School board members say they need to take urgent action on staffing shortages. There are more than 50 unfilled teaching positions within the district. Representatives from the local teachers’ union say they’re happy to see new hires rewarded, but also say the district needs to focus on retention. Brenda Zahner is the union’s director. “You have so many employees who have gone above and beyond in the last couple of years dealing with all these staff shortages,” Zahner says, “and I hope that somehow somewhere you find something to give those people as well.”

New teachers will receive their stipend over the course of two years. They can expect the first installment at the end of September.

(by Kendall Crawford, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – By a nearly unanimous vote, the Iowa House has passed a bill that would put new restrictions on food delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash. If the bill becomes law, the companies would face fines if driver are caught eating some of the food they’re supposed to be delivering. Representative Brian Meyers of Des Moines cites a 2019 study that found one in four delivery drivers sample the food.  “That is a pretty alarming number of people stealing fries,” Meyer said, “so I think that it’s important that we have those provisions in there on the food safety.” Restaurants would be required to put food in tamper resistant containers. Delivery drivers would be prohibited from smoking and they could not have kids or pets in the vehicle when food is being delivered.

The bill also would force delivery companies to have an agreement with a restaurant before they could advertise and deliver the restaurant’s food. Republican Representative Shannon Lundgren of Peosta owns a restaurant. “What really isn’t fair is when a national company privates our menus and places them on their website and acts as though they are us,” Lundgren says. “…In January of this year, my menu was pirated and we had to go through some very interesting steps to try to get removed from that website.” The bill passed the House on a 97 to two vote.

A similar bill is eligible for debate in the Senate…………

(Radio Iowa) – Authorities in northwest Iowa are investigating a possible drowning. An ice fisherman was reported missing at a Cherokee County rural farm pond on Wednesday afternoon. The report of the missing individual was received by the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office at about 1:30 p.m. Approximately 45 minutes later, a body was recovered from the water and pronounced dead at the scene. The identity of the individual will be released at a later time due to pending family notifications.

(Bloomfield, Iowa) – A crash Wednesday evening in southeast Iowa’s Davis County resulted in the death of a man from Montezuma. The Iowa State Patrol reports a 1999 Chevy pickup driven by 79-year-old Michael Floyd Talbert, was pulling a recreational camper and traveling south on U-S Highway 63 near 230^th Street at around 7:22-p.m., when for reasons unknown, the pickup/trailer crossed the center line of the road into the northbound lanes.

The driver of a northbound Volvo semi tractor-trailer, 47-year-old Steve Charles Roloson, of Central City, swerved onto the shoulder to avoid the oncoming pickup/trailer, but the left side of the pickup hit the left side of the semi. The impact caused the camper to be destroyed. Talbert, who was wearing a seat belt, died at the scene.

The pickup came to rest on the southbound shoulder of the road, while the semi crossed over the southbound lanes and came to rest. The driver of the semi was not injured. The accident remains under investigation.