(Radio Iowa) – Organizers say a majority of nurses at four hospitals in the Des Moines metro have signed cards indicating they want to join the Teamsters Union. Several nurses spoke at rally near one of the hospitals yesterday Wednesday.

Colin Russell, a nurse who works in the I-C-U at Iowa Methodist in downtown Des Moines, says too many nurses are leaving because managers aren’t listening to their concerns about staffing levels, pay and patient care.

Russell and others at the rally accused hospital management of trying to discourage nurses from forming a union.

United Nurses of Iowa sent a letter to UnityPoint yesterday (Wednesday), asking managers to voluntarily recognize the union and begin contract talks. UnityPoint responded, saying it deeply values each nurse and believes representative by an outside party is not in the best interest of the hospitals, nurses or patients. Hospital managers indicated they would only bargain with Teamsters representatives if UnityPoint nurses at the four central Iowa hospitals vote in a secret ballot election to form a union. About 15-hundred nurses work at Iowa Methodist, Iowa Lutheran, Blank Children’s Hospital and Methodist West Hospitals. The Service Employees International Union represents nurses at Finley Hospital in Dubuque and University of Iowa Health Care. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union represents nurses at MercyOne in Sioux City.

(Radio Iowa) – The executive director of the Midwest High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) is warning about a new packaging for the deadly drug fentanyl. Daniel Neil says it fentanyl mixed with lidocaine, and then colored purple.

Neil says the goal is to get more people hooked.

Neil says he wouldn’t be surprised to see this approach repeated.

Neil says you should be aware of the dangers of the purple fentanyl and be prepared to react.

Neil’s territory in Iowa covers Blackhawk, Linn, Marshall, Muscatine, Polk, Pottawattamie, Scott, and Woodbury counties.

(Radio Iowa) – A retired Navy Seal who’s a congressman is credited with helping rescue an 11-year-old boy who was severely injured in a wreck on Interstate-35, near Osceola last weekend. Wisconsin Congressman Derrick Van Orden saw a minivan crash into a semi on the side of the interstate. He’s been interviewed by national and Wisconsin media about the scene, which he has described as horrific and gruesome.

U.S. Representative Derrick Van Orten (R-Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin) (Officia Photo)

Van Orden — who was a combat medic in the Navy — pulled socks from his luggage and ran to the wreck. With help from others at the scene, the socks became tourniquets. Windshield wipers and car jacks became splits for the boy’s shattered leg.

The 11 year old, who’s from Leon, and his mother were airlifted to a Des Moines hospital. Van Orden visited the boy in the hospital on Monday.

(Radio Iowa) – County supervisors in Shelby and Story Counties have voted to seek U-S Supreme Court review of their ordinances for hazardous liquid pipelines, like the one Summit Carbon Solutions plans to build. Summit has argued both state and federal laws pre-empt local regulations and, in June, a federal appeals court ruled in Summit’s favor. Lisa Heddens is chair of the Story County Board of Supervisors.

Heddens and other officials in the two counties say their ordinances address safety issues by establishing no-go areas around homes, hospitals and other structures.

Property owners opposed to the Summit Carbon Solutions Pipeline rally at the Iowa Capitol in March. (RI file photo)

Former Shelby County Supervisor Steve Kenkel, who’s now the county’s liaison on pipeline issues, says economic development areas on the outskirts of Iowa towns for new homes and businesses need to be protected.

The ordinances set emergency response requirements if there’s a pipeline rupture.

And Kenkel says since the federal appeals court ruled a federal agency, not local governments, have jurisdiction over pipeline safety, the case could nullify state law.

The counties have hired a D-C law firm and Shelby County has capped its expenses at 60-thousand dollars. Shelby County’s insurance company is covering part of the costs and the rest is coming from what’s left in pandemic relief funds officials set aside three years ago to fight’s Summit’s legal challenge of Shelby County’s pipeline ordinance. Summit argues any county ordinance that attempts to control pipeline routes and regulate the construction or operation of the pipeline is pre-empted by state law.

(Audubon County, Iowa) – The Audubon County Secondary Roads Department reports effective today (August 20th, 2025), Yellowwood Road (along the Shelby/Audubon County Line), between 110th street and 120th street, is closed to thru traffic until further notice, for a bridge replacement project.

(Creston, Iowa) – Police in Creston, today (Wednesday), announced an investigation into a reported shooting last weekend turned out to be a “swatting” call. According to a press release, at around 11:43-p.m. on August 16th, it was reported to the Creston Police Department by Jackson Elkhorn, that he had shot his mother in the face with a revolver several times, after they had been in a fight, and [he] was planning on shooting law enforcement when they arrived, because he “had nothing else to live for.”

Creston Police officers, Union County and Adams County Sheriff’s Deputies assisted in blocking-off the area of 500 West Prairie. One of the officers on the scene knew the resident that lived at the address given, and several attempts were made to contact them by phone, but were unsuccessful.

Authorities say as officers approached the residence, a man stepped-out the front door and was given commands by officers, which he followed. The situation was explained to him and the other resident of the home, and according to police, it was confirmed that everyone in the residence was okay, not no one had called 911.

The incident is currently under investigation.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Officials with the Cass County Auditor’s Office this (Wednesday) afternoon, released the results of Tuesday’s Special Election to fill a vacancy on the Lewis City Council. The results show David J. Raymond was the winner, with 55 votes. His challenger, Russell Miller received 47 votes. Out of 241 registered voters, there were a total of 102 ballots cast. The results are unofficial until canvassed by the Cass County Board of Supervisors.

Voters will head back to the polls on November 4 for the regular election to fill the same council seat. The winner of that race will begin a new term in 2026.

While President Trump met in recent days with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine seeking a ceasefire, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says one key element in the long-running war demands more discussion. Grassley says Russian President Vladimir Putin has been ordering Ukrainian children captured and transported to holding facilities in Russia — for years.

Grassley is appealing for international attention to what he calls “Putin’s outrageous abduction of Ukrainian children.” Reports say only about 15-hundred children who were either deported or forcibly displaced by Russian forces have been returned to Ukraine since the war started in 2022.

During their Oval Office meeting on Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky gave President Trump a letter of gratitude from Ukraine’s First Lady that was addressed to the United States’ First Lady, who wrote her own letter.

Grassley says the war has lasted three-and-a-half years and is now the largest war in Europe since World War Two, causing the deaths of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.