(Radio Iowa) – Iowa is hosting its first-ever National Senior Games as competition gets underway today (Thursday), with the formal opening ceremony tomorrow night, including the arrival of the flaming torch on the Iowa State Capitol Grounds. Games spokeswoman Mary Johns says this national sporting event is held every other year. “We’re thrilled to have over 12,500 athletes registered to compete in the games coming from all 50 states and multiple countries,” Johns says. “This will be our second-largest National Senior Games in history, so we’re super-excited about that, and predicting over $32-million in economic impact.” One goal of the games is to showcase a new perspective on aging, as the competition is open only to people 50 and older.

“We have 25 sports so it’s a multi-sport, Olympic-style event and for most sports, athletes have to qualify in the year before at their state Senior Games,” Johns says, “so that’s something that makes it a bit unique, that these people have qualified and now they’re coming to compete on the national level.” While many of the athletes are in their 50s, there are quite a few who are over 90, and even a couple of centenarians. The oldest athlete set to compete is 101-year-old Irma Bond from North Carolina. “We have everything from pickleball to swimming, shuffleboard, track and field,” Johns says. “We have some new sports that we’re introducing this year that we’re really excited about like power lifting, billiards, disc golf. It’s something for everyone and a lot for the community to come see and watch.” The events will be underway in venues all around the Des Moines metro and as far away as Ames. All are free for spectators.

“There’s also the opportunity for community members to volunteer. We have shifts available at all different kinds of sports, and all different kinds of tasks,” Johns says. “It could be helping with athlete check-in or scorekeeping, or whatever you may be interested in, so anyone who’s interested in that can visit our website nsga.com and learn all about volunteering.”

This is considered the world’s largest qualified multi-sport event. The games run through August 4th.

(This story was written by the Iowa Capital Dispatch) – A northwest Iowa school district has agreed to prohibit religious organizations from holding events at schools after receiving a complaint about a Christian group holding National Day of Prayer celebrations on school grounds. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a nonprofit organization advocating for the separation of church and state and for nonreligious people, sent a letter to the Le Mars Community School District in June about a local religious group holding events on public school grounds on May 1st.

May 1^st is celebrated as the “National Day of Prayer” by some Christians – in Iowa, several religious organizations as well as officials like Gov. Kim Reynolds have hosted and participated in National Day of Prayer celebrations throughout the state.

One of those celebrations in 2025 in Le Mars took place at the Le Mars Community Middle and High Schools. On May 1, the “National Day of Prayer” Facebook page for Le Mars made a post saying that their members “had the joy of partnering with the Le Mars Youth Network” for the celebration at the Le Mars schools.The social media post featured images showing adults with the religious organization on school grounds.

Sammi Lawrence, an attorney with the FFRF, said a person alerted their organization about the post. The FFRF contacted the school district with a complaint letter after receiving the information, she said, to notify the school asking them to cease allowing religious organizations to hold events and proselytize students on school grounds.

In the letter to Le Mars Community School District, Lawrence wrote it is “well-settled law that public schools may not show favoritism toward, nor promote or coerce belief in religion” – and that a public school allowing outside religious representatives onto school grounds for the purpose of promoting their religious beliefs violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution. The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from establishing or giving preferential treatment to any religion.

In response to the complaint from FFRF, Rachel Fritz, an attorney representing the Le Mars district, responded with a letter stating that the school district communicated with members of the local National Day of Prayer group, instructing them “not to facilitate or lead in any prayer or devotional activities involving students on District property.”

The letter also stated the district has taken “appropriate steps to ensure that any prayer activities occurring on school grounds are entirely student-led or student-initiated, in full compliance with applicable legal standards, including the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”

(Radio Iowa) – A highway bridge over Interstate 29 near Onawa is being closed today (Thursday) for emergency repairs and is currently scheduled to reopen August 5th. Sarah Tracy, an Iowa D-O-T transportation planner based in Sioux City, says the Highway 175 bridge has been hit three times since April.

“It’s been vehicles that are too high and they’re hitting underneath the bridge,” Tracy says. There may be some lane closures on I-29 as crews work on the bridge over the interstate and there’s a work zone on I-29 in the Onawa area that requires drivers to reduce their speed to 55 miles an hour.

The D-O-T has set up a marked detour route for drivers who would otherwise use the Highway 175 bridge.

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowa baby now holds the Guinness World’s Record for the most premature baby. Nash Keen was born last year at just 21 weeks — so early that most hospitals couldn’t deliver him, but doctors at University of Iowa Health Care resuscitated the baby at birth and supported him using advanced ultrasound technology to measure the blood supply to his heart and lungs. Mollie Keen is Nash’s mother.

“We don’t really know…We don’t have any research on babies this young and so we just held on to hope,” she said. “That was kind of what we did for the first month until Nash started to show us that he was really fighting.” In the beginning, doctors told the family the baby boy had a zero percent chance of survival, but Dr. Patrick McNamara — the U-I-H-C’s director of neonatology, says this case opens a new frontier in his field.

Nash Keen’s family celebrated his first birthday on July 5, 2025 and this week he was named Guinness World Record’s most premature baby. (Photo provided by the University of Iowa)

“Nash is resilient,” he said. “What we have learned, and not just necessarily with Nash, is that survival is possible at 21 weeks gestation, but not just survival — meaningful survival.” Nash, who lives with his parents in Ankeny, turned one on July 5th. He was born at 21 weeks and weighed 10 ounces.

The previous Guinness World Record for most premature baby was a boy born in Alabama five years ago — at 21 weeks and one day.

(Guthrie Center, Iowa) – The Guthrie Center School District Board of Education will hold a Special Meeting Friday at the AC-GC High School Superintendent’s Office. The meeting begins at 7:30-a.m.  On the agenda are two personnel matters:

• Approval of an Interim High School Principal Contract for Mr. Cody Matthewson, and,
• Approving the resignation of Mrs. Sarah Sheeder – School Business Official (SBO/Board Secretary.

During the regular, joint AC/GC Board meeting on July 16th, the Board accepted the resignation of High School Principal Brian Sauser. The Board began interviewing candidates for his successor last week. Sauser had submitted his resignation at the beginning of the month, so he can move to Texas and be closer to family..

Sarah Sheeder was formally the SBO/Board Secretary for the Atlantic School District. She accepted the same position with the Adair-Casey/Guthrie Center School District following her resignation from the Atlantic District in April, 2023, and has served in that capacity since that time.

(Carroll County, Iowa) – A head-on collision at around 9:20-a.m. Wednesday (July 23) south of Dedham, in Carroll County, resulted in the driver’s of both vehicle being flown to hospitals in Des Moines. The Iowa State Patrol says the accident happened as a 2007 Chevy pickup driven by 34-year-old Joel Maloney, of Coon Rapids, was traveling east on Highway 141, west of Olympic Avenue. The pickup crossed the center line of the highway and struck a westbound 2017 Toyota Camry in the westbound lane near the north shoulder of the road. The driver of the Camry was identified as 26-year-old Haeleigh Busse, of Guthrie Center.

Both drivers suffered serious injuries. Both were flown by LifeFlight helicopter. Maloney was transported to Methodist Hospital in Des Moines. Busse was flown to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines. The crash remained under investigation by the Iowa State Patrol and Carroll County Sheriff’s Office.

(Mitchell County, Iowa) – The driver of an SUV died this (Wednesday) morning, after the vehicle was struck by a train in northeast Iowa. The Iowa State Patrol reports 62-year-old Kenneth Warrington, of St. Ansgar died in the crash that happened at around 10:15-a.m., southeast of Mitchell.

The Patrol says Warrington was driving a 1997 Ford Explorer north on Indigo Avenue, when he failed to yield to an eastbound train. His SUV was struck broadside on the driver’s side by the locomotive. Warrington died at the scene.  Osage First Responders and EMS assisted the Patrol at the crash site.

(Story from the Iowa Capital Dispatch) – The state auditor’s office has released a new report detailing almost two dozen deficiencies in Iowa Workforce Development’s policies and practices. The report faults IWD for failing to comply with its own policies and procedures to ensure the timely filing of reports; failing to properly review and approve quarterly reports; and failing to properly check the accuracy of information generated for financial reporting.

Auditor of State Rob Sand has recommended the department revise its policies and procedures to better identify ineligible claims for payment and to ensure background investigations are routinely performed as part of the hiring process. Sand is also recommending the department ensure that financial reconciliations are independently reviewed and that the agency either comply with current state law or seek to have outdated laws repealed. The report notes that 19 of the 22 deficiencies are issues cited in previous years’ audits.

IWD officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report, but the state agency’s written responses to individual findings indicate that IWD attributes many of the cited deficiencies to staff turnover within the department.

Among the issues cited by the state auditor:

Detection of fraud: Earlier this year, Jodi Spargur-Tate, a former program director at Children and Families of Iowa, was alleged to have improperly spent $427,000 in taxpayer money that originated with a U.S. Department of Labor job training grant that passed through IWD.  Court records indicate Spargur-Tate has not been criminally charged in the case. According to the auditor’s office, it has repeatedly pointed out that since 2015, IWD has failed to oversee subrecipients of grant money such as CFI. In response to the new report raising the issue, IWD suggested CFI and others were also to blame, noting that “effective oversight requires reciprocal diligence by all stakeholders” and “at all levels.”

Internal oversight of federal funding: IWD is required to maintain effective internal controls over the award of federal money to ensure it is spent according to federal requirements. Part of the process involves the creation of financial reports, although auditors found that the total expenditures in those reports did not always agree with the state’s own accounting system. In total, the IWD reports “overstated $503,067,” the auditor found, adding that due to staff turnover IWD didn’t have adequate resources to ensure the reconciliation of financial records or ensure the records were properly reviewed and filed on a timely basis.

Cash management: Generally, a maximum of three days is considered acceptable between the receipt of federal funds and IWD’s disbursement of those funds. The auditor’s review of IWD records identified “excessive” cash balances in the millions of dollars. The auditor found that although procedures had been established to draw federal funds only in amounts sufficient to cover current needs, IWD did not review or update its procedures to account for federal draws associated with pandemic-related administrative programs and unemployment benefits.

Federal and state cost sharing: Some state expenses related to IWD work are funded through the federal government. IWD has a process for separately allocating certain costs to either federal or state programs based on a combination of the square footage and time devoted to the separate programs. Although IWD policies require certain elements of that cost-allocation process to be reviewed and updated quarterly, that work wasn’t always performed in 2024, affecting $892,043 in cost allocations, the auditor found. In response, IWD said that going forward, the quarterly review updates will instead be done annually unless there are significant changes that necessitate quarterly reviews.

Worker compensation: IWD failed to properly report “short time compensation” — payments to workers whose hours had been reduced to avoid layoffs — and other payouts throughout the fiscal year. “General ledgers were not maintained properly throughout fiscal year 2024,” the auditor found, and one account balance was overstated by $5.2 million while another was overstated by $5.1 million. The situation resulted in “undetected reporting errors and misstatements,” and increased the risk for further undetected reporting errors, the auditor concluded.

Accuracy of benefits: A program designed to determine the accuracy of paid and denied unemployment benefits calls for IWD to complete a financial review within 120 days of the end of a fiscal year. IWD management “decided to close cases if they were over 150 days old so that the Quality Control Department could focus on current cases,” the auditor found. However, Iowa Workforce Development did not have written instruction from the U.S. Department of Labor to close the cases and it was denied that relief by the DOL when it was requested, the auditor added. In its written response to that finding, IWD explained that after the pandemic the department had a complete turnover in benefit-accuracy management staff.

(Corning, Iowa) – A woman from Adams County has pleaded guilty in connection with an October 2023 shooting incident.

According to Iowa District Court records, 39-year-old Lisa Inman, of Corning, entered her written guilty plea on Tuesday (July 22nd). Inman was initially charged with conspiracy to commit a forcible felony, two counts of child endangerment, and obstructing prosecution or defense.

And, while it is currently unclear what specific charges Inman has pled guilty to, her sentencing hearing will take place on August 5th, at 9:30 a.m.

Lisa’s husband Cole Inman was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison for one count of Intimidation with a Dangerous Weapon. Several other charges against him, including Attempted Murder, Child Endangerment, Reckless Use of a Firearm, and Obstruction of Prosecution or Defense, were dismissed by the court.

The charges stem from an incident in October, 2023, when Cole Inman allegedly chased a truck carrying several teenagers he thought were on his property and fired multiple rounds at the vehicle. Lisa and their children were in the car with him during the incident.

(Radio Iowa) – A heat advisory covers 97 of Iowa’s 99 counties through tonight (Wednesday) as heat indices may reach 105 degrees. The heat can be harmful to people — and pets. Sybil Soukup, with the Humane Society of North Iowa, says having your window cracked in your vehicle does absolutely nothing to help animals left inside. She says they’ve experimented with a thermometer in a car in the Humane Society’s parking lot.

“With the windows closed, the car got up to almost 140 degrees in a matter of 20 minutes. That will kill your pet. Your pet will die in that kind of environment,” Soukup says. “Cracking the windows lowered that temperature by about two degrees, so it does not matter. On a day like today when it’s just humidity, I don’t know if it makes much difference, because that humidity is just so hot.”

Radio Iowa photo

Soukup says if you see a pet in a vehicle, don’t immediately take matters into your own hands. See if the vehicle is running, and if it’s not, don’t try to break the window out to rescue the pet, call law enforcement to help assess the situation. “It’s illegal, and you could get charged with destruction of property. What I would do is call the police department in my community,” she says. “They will send out an officer who can then determine if a window needs to be broken or not, and they will take over and they will find the owner in the store or restaurant or whatever.”

Soukup says pets that are kept outside or left in parked cars are very susceptible to heat stroke, injury and even death in extreme conditions.