(Radio Iowa) – West Des Moines Police have arrested a man who they say made a threat against the city’s Independence Day Parade. Police say a man called the department around 7 p-m on July 3rd while the parade was going on and was upset about the traffic.

Police say he threatened to “plow into” the parade and officers helping with traffic control with his motorcycle. The investigation led to 23-year-old Ascher Urquhart-McDonald, who police say was arrested without any problems, and is charged with making a threat of terrorism.

(Radio Iowa) – A group known as the Siouxland Miracle Riders took off today (Monday) from Sioux City on a motorcycle benefit ride to Novia Scotia Canada. Lead rider Matt Thompson says the kids they are riding for with the UnityPoint Health Children’s Miracle Network will tell them which route to take.

“Every day the kids are going to tell us where we’re going that day, so it’s a new twist for us,” he says. “We love it because it makes the kids that we’re writing for. We get to interact with them on the ride. It makes it an interactive experience for them and they get to be a part of what we’re doing. So it’s pretty cool.” The kids will also have input on other aspects of the trip.

“They’re gonna give us some challenges, things to find Scavenger hunt. Like I want a photo with the moose or something like that. So we’re gonna try to do as much of that as we can and it’ll be interesting to see what the kids want to see,” Thompson says.Thompson says this year’s goal is to raise money to provided pediatric cardiac and ventilation equipment for the UnityPoint St. Luke’s ambulance.

“It’s our tenth annual ride, so we wanted to kind of do something special. So this year we upped our goal 50 percent actually. So usually we’re riding around that 50-thousand (dollars), this year we bumped it to 75,” he says. The Siouxland Miracle Riders have raised more than 400-thousand dollars so far. Thompson and six other riders are headed to Duluth, Minnesota on the first leg of the ride.

You can donate online at: www.miracleriders.com.

(Radio Iowa) – J.D. Scholten, one of the Democrats running for U-S Senate, says it’s time to bust up the monopolies that control America’s food supply and are driving small and medium farmers out of business. “They say if…just a few companies companies control 40% of the market share, that’s considered a monopoly,” Scholten says. “Well, we’re far beyond that. We are living in the second ‘Gilded Age.'”

Scholten says 90 percent of Iowa hog farms have gone out of business in the past 40 years — while farmers only get about 14 percent of every dollar Americans spend on food. Scholten is also calling for more federal support of on-farm conservation practices and locally grown food. “Agriculture is the heartbeat of Iowa. It’s an over $16 billion industry,” Scholten says. “…We haven’t had a real Farm Bill since 2018 and they just continue to kick the can down the road and the status quo isn’t working for most Iowa farmers.”

Scholten visited a central Iowa farm and released a wide-ranging farm policy platform today (Monday). He says 10 percent of the wealthiest farm operations get 70 percent of U-S-D-A commodity payments and that system must be reformed. Scholten’s also skeptical of farm check-off programs that require farmers pay a portion of their profits from the sale of commodities.

“They’re paying so the meatpackers and the corporations can hurt them even more and that just doesn’t make sense,” Scholten says. “…I think we need to have massive reform when it comes to checkoffs.” Scholten says the federal government should have never allowed pork producer Smithfield to be purchased by a Chinese company or allowed Brazil-based J-B-S to buy Swift and other meatpacking companies. He’s also calling for rejection of Union Pacific’s acquisition of the Norfolk Southern railroad and changes that would make it easier for farmers to get a commercial trucking license.

“There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to all of this,” Scholten says. “If there was, I think it’d be done already.” Scholten says he’s frustrated the Obama Administration didn’t do more to address monopolies in the agricultural sector. And he objects to the first Trump Administration’s decision to move the country’s main anti-monopoly enforcers into the agency they’re supposed to police.

(Radio Iowa) – While the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is closed for a 20-million dollar renovation, officials at the West Branch facility hope to keep the topic of Iowa’s only native president top of mind with a comprehensive exhibit at the Iowa State Fair. Greta Bierman, a spokeswoman for the Hoover Presidential Foundation, says one feature will give fairgoers the chance to work off those corndogs by playing a round of Hooverball.

“This was a game that was developed when Herbert Hoover was the president, and he played Hooverball every day except for Sunday with his cabinet members,” Bierman says. “It’s kind of a cross between volleyball and tennis, and since you’re throwing a medicine ball over a really high net, it keeps you in shape.” The display will include a photo booth where fairgoers can dress up as the 31st president and the first lady and stand behind a podium as if giving a campaign speech. Bierman says it will be packed with interactive exhibits.

“Our whole display booth is going to show the history of Herbert Hoover himself,” Bierman says, “but it also gives you images of what the museum looked like before the renovation and what it’s going to look like after.” While some only associate Hoover with the Great Depression, Bierman says there’s much more to learn about his career as an engineer, a world traveler, his deep Iowa roots, and how his legacy of integrity, service, and innovation still inspires generations.

“‘Ask me about the great humanitarian,’ is one of our mottos,” she says. “All of the humanitarian work that he had done from the Belgian food relief after the First World War, again after World War II, when the Mississippi flooded, how he headed up helping that food relief in the United States.” The fair opens Thursday and the exhibit will be located west of the D-N-R building and north of Grand Avenue on Monday and Tuesday. The library and museum is expected to reopen in the summer of 2026 with fresh exhibits and immersive storytelling.

(Greenfield, Iowa) – The Adair County Sheriff’s Office reports a Madison County man was arrested July 30th on an Adair County warrant for Theft in the 4th Degree. 39-year-old Justin Carl Bush, of Winterset, was arrested following an incident at a Greenfield hardware store. The items he allegedly took were valued at nearly $725. Bush was released from the Adair Jail July 31st, on a $1,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – One of the Democrats running for the U-S Senate seat Republican Joni Ernst holds plans to visit 99 counties in 99 days. Nathan Sage launched the tour this weekend with stops in nine counties.  “The only way you’re going to be able to listen to everybody is by going to them, so 99 in 99 is to get out there and have these conversations with everybody and if we can do it by working a little bit harder, showing that we’re the working class candidate that’s willing to do this and drive across the state and have these conversations that’s what we need to do,” he says, “because at the end of the day a lot of these people can’t drive to Des Moines, they can’t drive to Mason City to see me, so I need to be where they’re at.”

U.S. Senate candidate Nathan Sage

Sage, a veteran and Mason City native, is the executive director of the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce. Sage began his U-S Senate campaign in mid-April and by the end of June he had raised over 700-thousand dollars. It was just 14-thousand less than Ernst raised during the quarter and more than the other competitors for the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2026 U-S Senate nomination collected for their campaigns. “I’ve never been a candidate before, so I don’t know what to expect, so the fact that we have over $547,000 of that money is $200 donations or less our average — our average donation is $25 — that is cool,” Sage says. “People are the grassroots, understand that I’m here to represent them.”

Sage spoke with Radio Iowa after an event in Warren County. He will campaign in Boone County tomorrow (Tuesday). Sage plans to end his 99 county tour on November 4th by hosting a town hall in central Iowa. The 2026 Iowa Primary Election is on June 2nd. Sage’s other stops this weekend were in Mitchell, Polk, Bremer, Hardin, Audubon, Monona, Harrison and Shelby Counties.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says it’s shameful for Democrats to criticize Trump’s pick to lead the U-S Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C. Grassley and 49 other Republican senators voted to confirm former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro to the post this weekend. “You may hear my Democrat colleagues criticize Ms. Pirro for some of her colorful remarks during her time as a TV personality,” Grassley says. “…She has a larger-than-life personality, but she has decades of distinguished record as a prosecutor and judge.”

Grassley says Pirro was a trailblazer in the legal profession. “She spent 27 years prosecuting criminals and another three as a judge,” Grassley says. “In those three decades Ms. Pirro gained a reputation for fierce advocacy against domestic abuse and crime against children.” Grassley says Pirro set up one of the first sting operations against sexual predators on the internet.

Grassley made his remarks during a speech on the Senate floor. Iowa’s other U-S Senate, Republican Joni Ernst, also voted for Pirro but has not commented on Pirro’s confirmation.

(Radio Iowa) – More than 13-thousand people used a new Iowa website to search for child care in its first nine months of operation. Iowa Child Care Connect lets Iowans search for child care openings specific to their kid’s age, and policymakers can use it to see which parts of the state have a higher need for more child care options. Ryan Page is director of child care at the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. She says the website’s succeeding and other states want to replicate it. “There are a lot of states that have a search function, most do, however, they don’t have the near real-time availability,” Page says. “They also don’t have that supply-and-demand data in real time to help navigate policy decision making.”

Paige Smothers is the owner and director of Sprouts Early Learning Academy in Carlisle. She says it’s easy and quick to submit her center’s availability to be displayed on the state website.  “I was surprised that, as a center, I’ve been able to use that information too, like when we were trying to explain some differences in our enrollment numbers,” Smothers says. “It’s just been very, very attainable, very accessible, and very user-friendly, for both the family and the centers.”

Smothers says since the website launched, she’s noticed more families that drive through Carlisle to get to work each day are reaching out to her child care center. The website was built with about five-million dollars in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act.

(Glenwood, Iowa) – A man from Glenwood was arrested Sunday night on a drug-related charge. According to the Glenwood Police Department, 18-year-old Alex Carter Burnison was arrested at around 11:10-p.m. in Glenwood. He was charged with Possession of Marijuana/1st offense. Bond was set at $1,000.