(Atlantic, IA)— Cass Health in Atlantic, will host a public meeting focused on cancer data specific to Cass County, on Wednesday, December 3, 2025. Ann McCurdy, Director of Marketing and Communications and Chair of the Cass Health Cancer Action Plan Team, says “The Iowa Cancer Registry’s newest data puts Cass County at the top of the list for the highest cancer incidence rate in the state. This presentation dives into the data for our county, and it gives us an opportunity as a community to come together to talk about cancer, share resources and ideas, and it’s a call to action for all of us to tackle this complex issue.”.

Launched by the Iowa Cancer Registry, Cancer in Iowa: 99 Counties Project is an initiative to make sure every county in Iowa has access to the latest cancer data and information. The goal of each presentation is to give local leaders, healthcare providers, and residents the tools they need to act—whether that means boosting cancer screening rates, supporting caregivers, or advocating for better access to care.

The Iowa Cancer Registry has tracked cancer cases, survival rates, and deaths across the state since 1973. Over the years, their data has revealed critical patterns—like higher rates of certain cancers in specific parts of the state—and helped public health teams and hospitals better serve their communities.

To bring this information to every corner of Iowa, the Registry has teamed up with local health departments and statewide partners, including the University of Iowa College of Public Health, the Iowa Cancer Consortium, University of Iowa Health Care Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the Iowa Rural Health Association.

The presentation for Cass County will be held at the Cass County Community Center on Wednesday, December 3. Doors open and dinner will begin at 5:30 pm, with the presentation to begin at 6 pm followed by Q&A time. Registration for both in-person or virtual attendance is required. To register, visit canceriowa.news/cass.

(Radio Iowa) – A non-profit is launched a mobile clinic, dubbed a suitcase clinic, in central Iowa that’s designed to fill in maternal care gaps for under- and uninsured people. EveryStep sends a nurse to community spaces like human services agencies, food banks and faith-based centers to provide free care. Becky Borgman is the maternal and reproductive health director at EveryStep. She says the clinic was developed in response to a growing need for care.

“Especially as we see more and more clinics and hospital and OB units closing,” Borgman says, “but clinics are also struggling, as well as there’s shortages.” She says the nurse can provide birth control and sexually-transmitted infection support, but the options go beyond just direct care.  Borgman says, “It’s connecting them to a doula, connecting them to a nurse or a case manager who can come to that house regularly, or connecting them to Medicaid when they didn’t know they qualified.” She says they can also do other services like lead testing in children and referrals to dentists and primary care physicians.

The suitcase clinic operates in Polk, Dallas, Madison and Warren counties.

Pictured: Congresswoman Miller-Meeks answered audience question reads by KILJ General Manager Kadie Johannson, who moderated the forum. (KILJ photo)

(Radio Iowa) – Republican Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks faced a vocal crowd in a sometimes tense town hall forum in Keosauqua and defended her votes on a variety of issues. “We passed a Continuing Resolution that included funding for SNAP,” Miller-Meeks said at one point and people in the crowd began shouting. Miller-Meeks, who represents Iowa’s first congressional district, responded to questions submitted on slips of paper and read by the general manager of K-I-L-J Radio, who moderated the event. The crowd applauded questions that challenged Miller-Meeks. Many focused on the looming expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.

Two people were escorted out of the room after making loud statements, including Taylor Wettach, a Democrat who is running in the same district Miller-Meeks represents. He chanted, “vote her out,” as he was removed. Miller-Meeks drew scattered applause from the crowd when she announced she had not been paid during the shutdown. It was the first town hall Miller-Meeks has held this year.

C-N-N reported in October that Miller-Meeks had told a gathering of Johnson County Republicans that she was not holding town halls just so people could yell at her. Miller-Meeks staff says she was followed to car yesterday (Monday) and a brief meeting with reporters after the event was cancelled.

(Radio Iowa) – After a two-hour closed session meeting that ended last (Monday) night, Sioux City’s school board voted to place the district’s superintendent on paid administrative leave. That leave for Juan Cordova is effective November 6th. During a brief open session prior to closing the doors, the board’s Dan Greenwell asked a question of the school district’s attorney. Greenwell asked if the person who was the subject of the closed session had to be present, and the attorney said it was up to the board.

After the private meeting, the board issued a statement saying in part that Iowa law prohibits disclosure of personnel information, adding, the board’s action was consistent with district policy. There will not be an interim superintendent named as Cordova is still employed by the district. Angela Bemus is the associate superintendent.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic School Board will hold their regular monthly meeting this Wednesday evening in the High School Media Center. Their session begins at 6:30-p.m., and includes action on personnel matters, including: The resignation of Benjamin Cordova, ELL Paraeducator; And Contract Recommendations to hire:

• Aidan Wendt, Industrial Arts Teacher (Starting with the 2nd Semester, and replacing Dexter Dodson).
• Emma Webb, ELL Para (Replacing Benjamin Cordova).
• Anna Wieser, Junior Class and Prom Sponsor.
• Skyler Handlos, 9th Grade Basketball Coach.

The Board will discuss: the 2022-23 Audit, with an overview; Staff BEDS (Basic Education Data Survey) report results; and the Unofficial results of the General Obligation Bond vote from Nov. 4th.  The Atlantic School Board will act on approving the Second Reading of various Board Policies covering: Board Committees; Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO); Student Substance Use; Emergency Plans and Drills; and the Care, Maintenance and Disposal of District Records. They will also act on Snow Removal Bids for some district parking lots.

Wednesday’s Regular School Board meeting can be viewed live at https://www.youtube.com/live/xzS6PcIvs4M

A Special, Organizational Meeting of the Atlantic School Board will be held 6:30-p.m. Nov. 18th, and will include the selection of Board President/Vice President, SBO/Treasurer, and the swearing-in of new At-Large Board Member Chet Meneely, as well as re-elected At-Large Board Member Josh McLaren.

(Radio Iowa) –  There’s no U-S-D-A weekly crop report due to the government shutdown, but the state’s top ag official says the end of the harvest close. Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig says his travels around the state and conversations with farmers indicates the corn and bean harvest is nearly complete. That would fit with the five-year average that shows 98 percent of soybeans and 91 of the corn is usually harvest by mid-November. Naig says the weekend drop of temperatures into the teens and low 20s marked the official end of the growing season.

State Climatologist Justin Glisan wrote in his weekly weather summary that temperatures took a “nose-dive” late into the Nov. 3 through Nov. 9 reporting period.  Several towns in northwest Iowa reported the weekly low temperature of 13 degrees Fahrenheit, which Glisan said was 14 degrees below normal. Despite the drop in temperatures toward the end of the week, the overall average temperature for the period was 47.2 degrees. The statewide average was 3.4 degrees above the climatological normal.

According to Glisan, more than 50 weather stations reported measurable snowfall during the reporting period. Pocahontas reported just slightly more than 5 inches of snow. The weekly precipitation average across the state was slightly under three-tenths of an inch, while the normal is 0.52 inch.  The latest report from the U.S. Drought Monitor showed 81% of Iowa was in abnormally dry or drought conditions. About 15% of the state, mostly on the eastern edge, was in moderate drought conditions.

(Radio Iowa) – The Board of Regents will interview the two finalists today (Tuesday) and then choose one to be the next Iowa State University president. Benjamin Houlton, the dean of the College of Agriculture at Cornell University, was the first finalist to visit campus last week. He says one of his goals is to make I-S-U a global leader in A-I. He says China is moving fast, and the U-S needs to do the same North Dakota State president David Cook is an Ames native and I-S-U graduate. He says the current educational climate requires colleges to have grads better prepared. He says they have to have critical thinking skills.

The new president will replace Wendy Wintersteen, who is retiring. The Regents will begin their meeting at 9 a-m and are expected to announced the new president by early afternoon.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – One person was treated by medics following a collision Monday morning, in Red Oak. According to Red Oak Police, the accident happened at around 8-a.m. at the intersection of Highway 34 and N. 4th Street. Authorities said they were told by the driver of a 2016 Peterbilt semi tractor-trailer – 45-year-old Tyson Means, of Villisca – that he was eastbound on Highway 34, and as he approached the intersection with N. 4th Street, a 2017 Buick Enclave pulled away from the intersection and struck the rear drive dual wheels of the semi’s tractor, before the van went down the side of the trailer and was struck by the rear dual wheels of the trailer.

The driver of the van – 89-year-old James Black, of Red Oak – told police he looked, but did not see the tractor-trailer before he pulled away from the stop sign. Black suffered suspected minor/non-incapacitating injuries, and was treated at the scene by Red Oak Rescue. His van was totaled in the collision, with the damage estimated at $20,000. The semi sustained a police-estimated $10,000 damage. James Black was cited by Red Oak Police for Failure to Obey a Stop Sign, and Yield the Right-Of-Way.

DES MOINES, Iowa (IOWA CAPITAL DISPATCH) – A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government to follow due process and provide bond hearings for two individuals being detained in Iowa county jails by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Both people have sought asylum in the United States, claiming they are fleeing persecution in their home country.

In recent months, hundreds of people alleged to have entered the country illegally have been jailed by Homeland Security. Immigration judges, citing a new Trump administration interpretation of a longstanding federal law, have then denied those detainees hearings at which they could have argued for their release on bond while their deportation case was pending.

That has resulted in dozens of detainees suing the federal government, as well as the county jails where they’re held, in U.S. District Court, arguing their due process rights are being violated. In the vast majority of those cases, district court judges have sided with the detainees, ordering immigration judges to schedule bond hearings for the detainees. Two such cases were recently decided by U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher of the Southern District of Iowa.

One of the two cases involves Maria Enriquez Reyes, who entered the United States from Mexico near Sasabe, Arizona, on Sept. 23, 2023, with her son, now 10 years old, and her husband. At the time, the family claimed they were fleeing persecution. They were detained briefly by the U.S. Border Patrol before being released on their own recognizance. Reyes and her family subsequently filed formal applications for asylum to escape what they called persecution by Mexican drug cartels that are now recognized as terrorists by the U.S. government.

On Sept. 2, 2025, with that application still pending, the Reyes family went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Cedar Rapids for a prescheduled “check in” appointment. According to court records, ICE agents accosted Reyes at the office and then sent her to the Muscatine County Jail to be detained at least until a hearing that is scheduled for Dec. 19, 2025. An immigration judge then denied her request for a bond hearing, citing the Trump administration’s new interpretation of laws related to the detention of individuals for possible deportation.

Reyes took the matter to U.S. District Court, suing Muscatine County Jail Administrator Matt McCleary, as well as DHS, ICE, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Director Kristi Noem. On Nov. 3, 2025, Locher ruled in favor of Reyes, noting that the overwhelming majority of courts around the nation have rejected the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law as somehow requiring mandatory detention without the opportunity to argue for bond. Locher noted that Reyes has lived in the United States with her family for two years and has no record of any criminal activity or dangerous conduct.

In ordering the immigration court to provide Reyes with a hearing on her request for pretrial release on bond, Locher noted he “would not be ordering any particular outcome on bond or detention. Rather, (Reyes) simply would be entitled to her statutory and due process right to a hearing.

In a separate case, Locher sided with Saider Santiago Helbrum, 26, who came to the United States in May 2024, alleging he was fleeing persecution in Colombia. After entering the country, he was detained briefly by U.S. Border Patrol and then released on his own recognizance, eventually settling in Des Moines.

In January 2025, he filed an application for asylum. In July 2025, with that application still pending, he was arrested and jailed on a simple-misdemeanor charge of fifth degree theft after being accused of stealing groceries at a WalMart store. Santiago Helbrum argued his store receipt, as well as bank records tied to the card he claimed was used to pay for the groceries, show the items were paid for.

Within three weeks, the theft charge was dropped, with the Polk County Attorney’s Office stating that “after examining the records, talking to the witnesses, and taking all other factors into consideration,” it was declining to prosecute the case in the interest of justice.

In the meantime, however, Homeland Security had taken custody of Santiago Helbrum and, after the theft charge was dropped, DHS continued to have him held at the Polk County Jail under a detention order. An immigration judge then denied Santiago Helbrum’s request for a bond hearing. After Santiago Helbrum took DHS and Polk County Jail Administrator Cory Williams to federal court, he explained to a judge the effect that three months of detention had on him.

In court filings, lawyers for the DOJ cited a provision of the Laken Riley Act that calls for detention in cases where a person “is charged” with a crime. The DOJ argued that an arrest on a theft charge triggers the requirement for mandatory detention — and that the subsequent dismissal of the charge had no effect on that requirement. Locher disagreed and ordered the immigration court to provide Santiago Helbrum with a bond hearing, stating in his ruling that “after charges are dismissed it is no longer accurate to say that a person ‘is charged’ with theft.”

Prior to the judge’s ruling in the case, Williams, the Polk County jail administrator, had filed papers with the court indicating his office took no position in the matter.

(Iowa Falls, IA) – The Iowa Falls Police Department, late Monday, issued an update with regard to a shooting Sunday inside an Iowa Falls home that left three people dead and another injured. In their press release, authorities said that at approximately 3:58 a.m. Sunday, authorities received a report of multiple people unresponsive at a home in Iowa Falls. Upon arrival, authorities found three individuals dead from gunshot wounds.

Police say 45-year-old Shawn Bean, of Iowa Falls, shot two individuals and then died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The two victims who died were identified as 42-year-old Jessica Bennett, of Iowa Falls, and 51-year-old Alan Karalius, of Garner.

Police say one person was taken to the hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound. The survivor has not been identified at this time. The shooting was the result of a domestic incident, according to police.

The investigation is ongoing.