(Radio Iowa) – Republican Zach Lahn of Belle Plaine — a candidate for governor — has submitted petition signatures from over 61-hundred Iowans to qualify for the June 2nd Primary ballot.  “We were the last people to get into the race and so spinning up a field team like that that can handle crossing the whole state was a feat,” Lahn said. “I’m just really thankful for the people on the team.” Lahn, a businessman and farmer who worked for Americans for Prosperity in other states, has run campaigns, too, but this is the first time he’s put his own name on the ballot. “What I see is that Iowans are maybe getting tired of the typical politics and, as a matter of fact, I’m tired of the typical politics,” Lahn said. “I think that throughout this campaign we’ve been doing things a little bit differently.”

Campaign finance records from 2025 indicate Congressman Randy Feenstra is the fundraising leader in the G-O-P race for governor and Feenstra is now spending at least a million dollars on campaign ads. Lahn says he has an outsider message that he’ll soon deliver in ads on radio, T-V and other media. “We fully intend to compete on both the grassroots level and on the media level,” Lahn said. “To me this is about the different vision for the state of Iowa moving forward that keeps our kids here, that saves our family farms, that makes education — including public education — number one in the nation and helps stop the cancer crisis in our state.” Lahn has been endorsed by the Make America Healthy Again PAC and he says the Republican Party’s nominee for governor has to be willing to address the systemic issues in agriculture.

“We have to be willing to confront the elephant in the room and that is that we’ve been lied to for a long time by large agricultural companies about the safety of their products,” Lahn said. “I think this is a bipartisan issue, I truly do, but also I am a conservative. I’m not ashamed to be a conservative. I’m proud to be a conservative, but I also think these issues are so important that we can’t ignore them anymore.” Lahn is the fourth of the five G-O-P candidates who’ve been campaigning for governor to submit his nominating paperwork for the June Primary.

The Republican and Democratic Party Primary Elections coming-up June 2nd.

(Radio Iowa) – The Story County Sheriff’s Office has made an arrest in an animal neglect case. Sixty-nine-year-old Joseph Keller of rural Roland has been charged with five counts of animal neglect including three serious misdemeanors and two simple misdemeanors. The investigation by Story County sheriffs deputies, Story County Animal Control and the Animal Rescue League started last month. During the investigation, authorities observed multiple Samoyed dogs being housed outdoors without adequate shelter, bedding or access to water.

Due to the outdoor temperatures at the time, water bowls were found to be frozen. A total of 33 Samoyed dogs were removed from the property on February 12th and transported to the Animal Rescue League where they underwent veterinary evaluations and are currently receiving care. Keller was booked into the Story County Jail in Nevada on the charges filed this week.

(Corning, IA) – Sheriff’s officials in Adams County today (Friday), reported five recent arrests:

• On March 11th:
  • 48-year-old Starr Cure, of Afton, was arrested on an Adams County warrant for Operating While Intoxicated – Drug related.
  • 23-year-old Drake Donahoe, of Omaha, Nebraska, was arrested following a traffic stop. He was charged with Person Ineligible to Carry Weapons and transported to the Adams County Jail. The Sheriff’s Office says potential additional charges are pending.
• On March 10th:
  • 48-year-old Terry Weeks, of Council Bluffs, was arrested on a Probation Violation Warrant.

On March 9th: 19-year-old Arabella Ives, of Council Bluffs, was cited for Driving While Suspended, following a traffic stop in Adams County.

On March 6th, Adams County Deputies arrested 55-year-old William Rehmeyer, of Prescott. Rehmeyer was taken into custody on active Adams County warrant. He was charged with Sexual Abuse 2nd and Invasion of Privacy. The Adams County Sheriff’s Office was assisted by the Union County Sheriff’s Office in conducting the arrest. And, March 5th, a 12-year-old juvenile from Corning was charged with Harassment 1st Degree (Threats). The juvenile was transported by Adams County Deputies to the Juvenile Detention Center in Council Bluffs.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s cancer rate is the second worst in the nation for three years running, and a comprehensive study being released today (Friday) offers little optimism. The 2026 Cancer in Iowa Report predicts some 21-thousand-700 Iowans will be diagnosed with invasive cancers this year, and 64-hundred Iowans will die from cancer. Both figures are up from last year’s report. Mary Charlton is an epidemiology professor at the University of Iowa and director of the Iowa Cancer Registry. While many states are seeing cancer rates fall, Charlton couldn’t pinpoint why Iowa’s numbers are rising. “It’s hard to say because the risk factors that are causing the cancers now are things that could have happened 10, 15, 20 years ago,” Charlton says. “So it’s going to take a while to really turn things around and it’ll probably take some really strong new policies and new approaches in Iowa to turn things around.”

A symposium on cancer prevention and treatment this week at Drake University, featured an expert on nitrate poisoning in waterways, which has been a years-long battle in Iowa. Charlton says nitrates may be one cancer culprit. “It certainly could be a contributing factor. I think there’s a lot of things at play. Cancer is really complicated. It’s just a complex interplay of genetic, lifestyle, and environmental risk factors working all together,” Charlton says. “There’s not one thing causing it, but there’s probably lots of things contributing to it. Nitrate could certainly be one of those things.” One bright spot in the report deals with farm families. Iowa farmers in a recent study had 13-percent fewer cancers overall than expected compared to Iowa’s general population, and their spouses had ten-percent fewer.

“The farmers in the Agricultural Health Study had lower smoking and drinking rates compared to the rest of the general population in Iowa,” Charlton says. “They also talk about something called the healthy worker effect. So to be in their study, to be a farmer that was enrolled in the Agricultural Health Study, you have to be healthy enough to be a farmer — so those are a couple of things.” The report found the rate of new cancers in young adults in Iowa for 2018-2022 is higher than the rate for 2008-2012, and is the second highest in the nation. Also, compared to the 2025 edition of the report, Charlton says Iowa’s most common types of cancer haven’t changed.

“Same story, different year,” she says. “We still have breast, prostate, lung and colorectal cancers, followed by melanoma. They make up over half of our cancer cases in Iowa. Unfortunately, lung cancer continues to be the most common cause of cancer deaths, accounting for nearly one out of every four cancer deaths in Iowa, followed by colorectal and pancreatic cancers.” The report says the state’s number of cancer survivors is increasing, with an estimated 175,290 survivors now living in Iowa.

https://shri.public-health.uiowa.edu/cancer-data/iowa-cancer-reports/