(Harlan, Iowa) – Officials with the Shelby County Auditor’s Office say they have been made aware of a recent letter sent by The Center For Voter Information to some residents, suggesting that the recipient may not be registered to vote. The Auditor’s Office says emphatically, that those letters were not issued by the Shelby County Auditor’s Office or the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office. The information contained in these letters is based on outdated voter data and may not accurately reflect your current voter registration status.

To ensure your voter registration is up to date, the Shelby County Auditor’s Office strongly encourages you to verify your status directly on the Iowa Secretary of State’s website at https://apps.sos.iowa.gov/elections/voterreg/regtovote/search.aspx.

For any questions or concerns regarding your voter registration, please contact the Shelby County Auditor’s Office at 712-755-3831.

(Radio Iowa) – While the University of Iowa’s football team opens its season on Saturday, all 18 of the Big Ten conference schools are entering a competition today to see which campus can collect the most blood donations. Mandy McClenahan, with the DeGowin Blood Center on the Iowa City campus, tells KCRG-TV the goal is to encourage people to donate for the first time, with the hope some of them will become consistent donors.

“The need is constant. Holidays? We still need blood,” McClenahan says. “People still get into accidents. There’s always going to be a need for blood. Someone gives birth and they have a hemorrhage, they’re going to need blood. That can happen at any time.”

The grand prize is one-million dollars for the contest which runs through the end of the football season. The money is to be used toward community and student health projects on campus. People can also donate blood at any ImpactLife Blood Center and they can choose which Big Ten school should get the credit for their donation. Alex Burkamper, at ImpactLife, says the contest is an opportunity to bridge community service and competition.

LifeServe photo

“There is no substitute for human blood, and that blood needs to be on hospital shelves for when patients need it,” Burkamper says. “It’s not something that we can create in a lab, so we rely on the generosity of our blood donors to keep our communities healthy.” ImpactLife has Iowa facilities in: Burlington, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Dubuque, Iowa City/Coralville, Muscatine and Ottumwa. It provides blood products and services to more than 120 hospitals in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin.

LifeServe Blood Center also issued an appeal for Iowa donors today, saying its blood supply has dropped to critically low levels heading into the busy end-of-summer holiday weekend. LifeServe provides blood products to 175 hospitals primarily in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Illinois.

The UI placed sixth in last year’s competition, with more than 1,200 blood donations. The contest is being sponsored by the health care company Abbott Laboratories.

(Radio Iowa) – Jim Carlin — running for the U-S Senate seat currently held by fellow Republican Joni Ernst — says he’d sponsor a bill to ensure law-abiding gun owners with a state-issued permit to carry concealed weapons can carry their firearms across state lines, without worrying about conflicting state gun laws.

“In America, your rights don’t stop at a state line,” Carlin said. “If you can drive in all 50 states, you should be able to defend yourself in all 50 states.” Carlin, a former state legislator from Sergeant Bluff, is critical of Ernst’s support for a bipartisan gun safety bill President Biden signed in 2022.

Former State Senator Jim Carlin (R-Sergeant Bluff) is running for the U.S. Senate. (Carlin campaign photo)

The bill provided money to states with red flag laws that let law enforcement or others seek a court order to temporarily prevent someone from buying or possessing guns. Carlin opposes red flag laws.

“which means the government can take away your guns with no trial, no due process and your gun rights are gone.” Ernst said the bill did not take away any person’s Second Amendment rights and was designed in the wake of a mass shooting at a Texas school to keep kids and schools safe and provide access to mental health treatment.

Carlin has campaigned in four counties over the past week. He’ll be the featured speaker Tuesday at a meeting of a new group called MAGA Nation Iowa. The group, co-founded by the former chair of Dallas County Republicans, meets monthly at a bar in West Des Moines.

(Radio Iowa) – NextEra energy has cleared another procedural hurdle in restarting Iowa’s only nuclear power plant with federal regulatory approval to connect to the power grid. NextEra’s director of nuclear development Garrett Goldfinger spoke at a Linn County board of supervisors meeting before the federal request was approved.  “This project will build upon NextEra’s history of major energy investments in the state, which total more than three billion dollars since 1999,” he says. “We’re looking forward to continued collaboration with the county, the state and this administration as we continue to advance critical milestones on the project.”

Linn County Planning and Development Director Charlie Nichols recently told county supervisors the power supply is facing growing demand.  “This demand is straining the grid and promoting utilities to look for more power sources, including nuclear power. So, we’re seeing a demand for more electricity from data centers, from electrification of vehicles and just the general electrification of things,” Nichols says. The plant in Palo operated from 1975 until it was shut down after the 2020 derecho.

Next Era plans to invest between 50 and 100 million dollars in the recommissioning the plant. The Linn County supervisors have approved the first reading of new land-use standards for operating nuclear-power generating facilities.

• Barriers that prevent people from volunteering.
• Ways to encourage more people to get involved.
• Opportunities available through resources like Volunteer Iowa’s “Volunteer Job Board.”