(Des Moines, Iowa) – A Des Moines police officer and another driver were injured Wednesday night after a crash on the city’s east side.

The police department says just before 7:15 p.m., an officer was on the way to a report of a domestic fight when the patrol vehicle collided with another vehicle in the intersection of Delaware Avenue and East Euclid Avenue.

Both drivers are being treated for minor injuries at local hospitals. The crash is being investigated. Police say other officers were able to respond to the domestic fight call.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Red Oak school officials have formally taken the next step towards changing athletic conferences within the next two years.

During its regular meeting Wednesday evening, the Red Oak School Board unanimously approved accepting an invitation to join the Western Iowa Conference no later than the 2027-28 school year. WIC officials invited 10 schools earlier this year, including Red Oak and Shenandoah–both of which were founding members of the Hawkeye 10 Conference over 90 years ago. The move also comes after school officials held a community forum on the potential switch Sunday evening.

The next steps include the WIC Board of Control officially voting both schools in on August 21st. Additionally, the move would need to be approved by a state conference realignment committee established by House File 783. However, at Sunday’s forum, Lorenz said the committee had yet to receive any official guidance from the state’s department of education.

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa nonprofit that advocates for the state’s hundreds of thousands of care providers is launching a new feature on its website to honor those vital helpers by letting them tell their own stories. Di Findley, executive director of Iowa CareGivers, says the first-person testimonials and photos put a face on the compassion of these important people.

An A-A-R-P Iowa study finds the state has some 65-thousand direct care workers, in addition to a staggering 330-thousand unpaid family caregivers. Findley says they provide the majority of care to Iowans’ loved ones, friends, and neighbors.

Being a caregiver can be very demanding physically and mentally, and often comes with little thanks, yet it’s work to which many people dedicate their lives.

Iowa has one of the nation’s oldest populations and Findley says the demand in the state for caregivers will only continue to rise.

She says the work caregivers do helps older Iowans and people with disabilities to live independently, while reducing the likelihood for institutional care.
https://www.iowacaregivers.org/caregiver-stories
www.iowacaregivers.org

(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.