(Radio Iowa) – Following last week’s brutal cold and severe winter storms, gasoline prices have jumped up to 20-cents a gallon — or more — in some Iowa cities. Nick Jarmusz, a spokesman for Triple-A Iowa, says the price you pay at the pump depends on where you live. “For the state we’re seeing an average increase that is about 15 cents,” Jarmusz says, “but in some places it is more than that.” He adds, refinery shutdowns in Texas are typically not a major factor in Iowa’s gasoline prices.

“Our refining is all done here in the Midwest,” Jarmusz says. “There’s refineries in the Chicago area, there’s refineries up in Superior (Wisconsin) and that’s mostly refining oil that’s coming down from Canada.” The sizable winter blast that brought Iowa snow and prolonged subzero temperatures also dumped flakes on parts of the U-S that rarely see snow, spinning off a deadly tornado in North Carolina and knocking out the power to four-million homes in Texas. The largest refineries in North America were idled because severe cold cut electricity, water and fuel supplies across Texas.

“There is an indirect effect, because of the commodity nature of gas,” he says. “There’s less of it out in the national market, and that does push prices up, even in places that aren’t directly impacted by that capacity.” Triple-A says the average gas price in Iowa is two-61 a gallon. The state’s most expensive gas is selling in Des Moines at two-67, while Sioux City has the cheapest gas at two-49.

(Radio Iowa) – After students in Des Moines Public School spent much of the fall semester in online classes, a bill in the Iowa Senate is designed to make it easier to eject members from a school board. Emily Piper, a lobbyist for the Iowa Association of School Boards, is raising concerns about giving just five registered voters the power to petition a judge to remove school board members.

“Let’s say the court did determine that the entire board or half the board had violated the law and agreed with their removal, without the ability to hold an immediate special election, school boards would be unable to function,” Piper said. “They would not have a quorum, they could not do their business.” Bill sponsors also want a state agency to speed up the process for disciplining or removing superintendents who knowingly and intentionally violate state law. Dave Wilkerson of the School Administrators of Iowa says there’s already a process for pursuing ethics complaints against superintendents and the bill isn’t necessary.

“It just seems a little petty,” Wilkerson said, “and would hope that we wouldn’t go down that road.” Senator Brad Zaun, a Republican from Urbandale, says to dismiss the bill as petty misses the point. “Tell that to the students having mental problems because of the actions of several school boards and administrators in the state of Iowa,” Zaun says. Two members of the Des Moines School Board testified during a Senate subcommittee hearing — saying they’d done the best they could in a district with 60 buildings, 31-thousand students and five-thousand teachers and staff.

Des Moines School Board chair Dwana Bradley says there was no playbook for a pandemic.  “As a school board, our focus was fundamental: do everything we can to educate our children and to keep the people from getting sick and even dying,” she says. Rob Barron, vice chair of the Des Moines School Board, says they had to make tough calls — and they are listening to complaints from legislators.

“I hope this is the first step in finding common ground so we can all be public servants,” he said, “the public servants our 31,000 kids in Des Moines Public Schools and their families need.” Senate Education Committee chair Amy Sinclair says something must be done to speed up sanctions for school officials who willfully flout state law. Sinclair points to the years it took the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners to address decisions made by Davenport school leaders that put the district in financial jeopardy.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The FBI have identified an Iowa woman and her adult son as participants in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol after a tip from a longtime family acquaintance. An FBI agent says in a court document that videos posted to social media and surveillance video at the Capitol also confirmed that Deborah Sandoval and Salvador Sandoval Jr. were part of the mob.

The affidavit describes surveillance video showing 23-year-old Salvador Sandoval pushing two officers with the Metropolitan Police Department and trying to grab the shield of a third. The mother and son were arrested on Friday in Des Moines and have been released from custody pending further proceedings.