(Radio Iowa) – Starting Tuesday, July 1st, it will be illegal for Iowa motorists to hold a cell phone, scroll through it or watch videos on it while driving. Sergeant Alex Dinkla is the spokesman for the Iowa State Patrol. “This new ‘hands free’ law says exactly that. Get that phone out of that hand. Find another place for it,” Dinkla says. “From July 1 to December 31 the Iowa State Patrol and many other law enforcement folks throughout the state of Iowa will be using that as a six-month educational period to educate both drivers and the public of what this new law means.”

A 2017 Iowa law has banned texting while driving, but Dinkla says it’s been hard to enforce because drivers were allowed to handle their phones to make calls or fiddle with digital maps for navigation. That changes July 1st.  “We know that there’s a rising trend with people using technology and these devices going down the road rather than paying attention and focusing,” Dinkla says. “We need to all remember we’ve got to get back to the basics. We need to retrain our mind to put that phone down and eliminate those distractions.” If a vehicle doesn’t have “hands-free” techology, Dinkla says there are ways to adapt.

“We don’t need people to run out and buy the latest, greatest, most expensive vehicle just so that they can comply with this law,” Dinkla says. “There are simple low cost or even no cost ways to comply with this.” There are small Bluetooth transmitters that can be installed in vehicles that don’t have the technology. The law allows for one-touch activation, so Dinkla says you could buy a cell phone holder and answer calls in speaker mode. However, Dinkla says the best option is having the phone in “do not disturb” mode while driving.

“Take away that distraction, take away that temptation,” Dinkla says, “so that when you get to your safe location and you’re able to pull over, out of the way of traffic, check those notifications and respond at that time.” Starting January 1st, the fine for handling a cell phone while driving will be 100 dollars.

Fines escalate if there’s an accident causing serious injury or death. There are some exemptions in the bill for people like bus drivers, emergency responders and people driving farm machinery.

Atlantic, IA – Cass Health is paying the tab for all admissions to Sunnyside Pool every Friday in July.

Free swim days will be held on July 4, 11, 18, and 25. The pool is located at 1000 Sunnyside Lane in Atlantic. Open swimming is from 11 am to 6 pm Monday through Saturday, and 1 to 6 pm on Sundays. Free sunscreen will be available during free swim days as well, while supplies last.

The sunscreen is made possible by the Iowa Cancer Consortium, the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, and the Melanoma Program at the University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The number of lifeguards available each day may impact the pool capacity. Make sure to follow Sunnyside Pool to stay up to date on pool hours or closures.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – An Iowa lawmaker who pushed for the passage of a bill to create a state program allowing the medicinal use of psilocybin said Gov. Kim Reynolds’ decision to veto a bill pertaining to the psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms was a “great decision.” The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports Rep. Jeff Shipley, R-Fairfield, said rather than focus on rescheduling a synthetic version of the drug, the state should instead prioritize creating a state program legalizing the psychiatric use of naturally occurring psilocybin.

House File 383 would have allowed for the prescription and distribution of synthetic psilocybin immediately following federal approval of the drug, and mirrored a similar bill, which was signed into law, in Colorado. The bill dealt with crystalline polymorph psilocybin, a compound commonly known as COMP360, which is a treatment developed by the biotechnology company Compass Pathways to help patients with treatment of resistant depression, post traumatic stress disorder and anorexia nervosa.

State Rep. Jeff Shipley is a Republican from Birmingham. (Photo courtesy of the Iowa Legislature)

Shipley said he “condemns Compass Pathways” for its approach at creating, and patenting, a synthetic version of the “natural psilocybin that God has given us that everyone knows and loves.” Compass Pathways declined to comment on the veto of the bill, which it lobbied in support of, and on Shipley’s comment.

Shipley’s emailed statement also apologized for his vote in favor of the bill, which passed unanimously in both the House and Senate.  “The proper legal framework is to reschedule psilocybin to schedule IV or III, and allow the relevant state regulatory boards to make it available as medicine,” Shipley said. Reynolds, in her explanation of the veto, similarly said the state should have time to review any federal action on the synthetic version of the drug before it legalizes it at the state level.

Shipley was a vocal supporter of House File 978, which would have legalized the use of psilocybin for psychiatric treatment through a state program. The proposed program would have operated similarly to the state’s medical cannabis program.

The bill passed the House with an overwhelming majority in late April, but was not taken up by the Senate.  “It’s my hope and prayer that the Governor’s office and the Iowa Senate will agree to take up … HF978 as an immediate priority next January,” Shipley said.

(Des Moines, Iowa) – A Monroe County woman is suing a drug-testing company that she alleges falsely reported she tested positive for cocaine when giving birth at a Des Moines hospital. According to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, Emily Donlin is suing United States Drug Testing Laboratories, a private, for-profit Illinois company, in U.S, District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

Donlin alleges she that in 2023, she and her husband Michael Donlin were “happily expecting” their second child and that on the evening of March 29, 2023, she delivered a son at a hospital identified in other court records as Des Moines’ Broadlawns Medical Center.

According to the lawsuit, a hospital nurse then collected part of the umbilical cord and sent it to USDTL for testing. The documentation that accompanied the cord included “errors and omissions,” the lawsuit claims, and did not provide any reason or justification for the testing.

USDTL allegedly “returned a false positive result for cocaine,” the lawsuit claims, and no additional testing was performed to confirm the results. USDTL then reported the results to the hospital, but “never contacted Emily to inform her of the positive result.”

Broadlawns Medical Center of Des Moines. (Photo via Google Earth)

The lawsuit claims Donlin “did not learn of the false positive until a social worker with the Department of Health and Human Services came knocking on her door” and later issued a founded report of child abuse based solely on the false positive test.

As a result, the lawsuit alleges, Donlin was incorrectly placed on the state’s Central Abuse Registry. The Donlins were then “dragged into expensive and stressful Child in Need of Assistance proceedings based on the single positive test,” the lawsuit claims. When the umbilical cord was later retested by another laboratory, the results confirmed the first test had resulted in a false positive, the lawsuit claims.The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for alleged negligence, defamation and false light invasion of privacy.

In its response to the allegations, USDTL admits testing the umbilical cord, but denies its results were a “false positive” for cocaine. The company admits that it did not inform Donlin of the test results, but says the results were relayed to Broadlawns Medical Center, “its customer who requested the testing.”

(Radio Iowa) – Red Haw State Park is reopening its campground next week, more than three years after a powerful tornado tore through the southern Iowa park near Chariton.

Chad Kelchen, a district supervisor with the Iowa DNR’s Parks, Forests, and Preserves Bureau, says it’s been a challenging process to make repairs, and clean up and haul away the many hundreds of downed trees. Kelchen says campers and picnickers will notice some changes at the park.

“With the tornado coming through the campground like that, we were forced to rearrange the campground,” Kelchen says. “We’ve actually subtracted sites, making the sites a little larger and a little easier to get into. We have a few pull-through sites that overlook the lake now, and we have 52 sites in total, with the majority being electric sites.”

Red Haw State Park in 2025 (DNR photo)

The tornado struck on March 5th of 2022 and it was a whopper, rating as an EF-3 — with winds approaching 165 miles an hour — reducing wide sections of dense forest to an absolute mess.

“The tree damage was so severe that some of those trees were not safe to take down. We had to bring in specialized equipment, specialized labor forces to do that,” Kelchen says. “Then things like underground cables were ripped up by tree roots being pulled out of the ground by the winds. There was a lot of unforeseen damage that we found. The further we got into cleaning it up, the more that we found.”

Over the past three years, several events at the park have rallied dozens of volunteers to help remove debris and restore order.

“They were crucial,” he says. “That’s a small park with a single staff person in it, so bringing in those extra hands really helped us bring the debris out of the timbers and plant the new trees and all that we’ve done to bring the park back up and ready to go.”

While an untold number of trees were lost in the twister, Kelchen says they’ve planted many hundreds more since 2022, and they’ll continue doing so.

“I think we planted 1,000 trees in the timber, and then 50 or 60 in the campground to get us started,” Kelchen says. “Tree planting will be something that will occur each year in a smaller scale, just so we get a diverse year class and a diverse species we expect in the campground and in the area surrounding.”

The park features a 70-acre lake and more than four miles of grassy trails. The campground is slated to reopen July 1st.

(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Lottery is increasing its budget projection slightly for the next fiscal as it is on pace to finish this fiscal year around four percent above its projection. Lottery C-E-O Matt Strawn says they saw the a slight increase in sales this year despite a lack of large lotto jackpots.

“We’re projecting to largely be in line with where we’ve been with this year’s current budget. So we’re not banking on those big billion dollar jackpots. So we’re going to take a conservative approach,” Strawn says. The next fiscal year budget of around 418 million dollars includes a small increase in projected sales. Strawn says with the uncertainty of the large jackpots, they have to look at historical averages.

Iowa Lottery Headquarters. (RI photo)

“Because when we put a budget projection out there to the legislature and the governor and to the state, we want to make sure that’s a projection that we’re fairly confident we can hit.” While some business have been concerned about the impact of tariffs on costs, he says the impact on the Lottery is not big. “Nominal cost as it relates to the cost of printing, just like any manufacturer product, when it comes to the printing of scratch tickets, we’ve seen a slight increase,” he says. “Of course, those are contracts that that are bided out. And one thing that we are actually currently in a request for proposal process for the future of printing the Iowa Lottery Scratch ticket. So we’ve got to let that process unfold and then we’ll have a better idea as to what the economics are going to be of those products going forward.”

The new fiscal year begins on July 1st.

(Radio Iowa) – Hormel Foods has named a long time manager at its Algona plant in a lawsuit accusing a competitor of trying to steal trade secrets.

The lawsuit claims that in 2023 Wisconsin-based Johnsonville hired Brett Sims, Hormel’s director of operations, and Sims began reaching out to several Hormel managers, inviting them to join Johnsonville. The suit alleges that Sims contacted Jeremy Rummel, the manager at Hormel’s Algona plant, soliciting information related to Hormel’s product formulas, processing procedures, acquisition targets, and marketing strategies. Hormel contends that Rummel accepted a job offer to work with Johnsonville and, before he left Hormel, the lawsuit alleges Rummel began to forward company information to his personal email account.

Hormel is seeking a judgement that will award damages from the breached agreements with its former employees, as well as a requirement that all disclosed trade secrets be retrieved, returned and/or destroyed.

Johnsonville has not released a statement on the lawsuit.

(Radio Iowa) – The latest Drought Monitor shows continued improvement in the state following more rain. The monitor shows 45 percent of the state has no drought conditions, that’s up from 31 percent last week. Just 20 percent of the state was without drought at the start of this year.

Around nine percent of the state has moderate drought, down from around 12 percent. Nearly 55 percent of the state is listed as abnormally dry, which is down from nearly 69 percent last week. The driest conditions are on the east and western edges of the state, with the southeast and south-central areas with the most counties with moderate or abnormally dry conditions.

The data for the report is taken through Tuesday, and does not show the impact of the most recent rains.

AMES, Iowa –– “Usually lunch is my favorite part of camp,” said Colt, a six-year-old camper with the Nishna Valley YMCA summer program in Atlantic. “But today, we got to put our handprints on the wall, so I think that’s my favorite!” Colt’s tiny orange handprint joins dozens of purple and orange prints decorating the exterior of the city’s former YMCA building.

Located along Bull Creek, the structure was once a bustling hub for recreation, connection and community. With the help of 11 Iowa State University students and many Atlantic community members, the façade is being transformed into a stunning 3,000-sq.-ft. mural for all to enjoy.

Murals in Community

The mural is a product of the “Murals in Community” summer course taught by Anna Segner, assistant teaching professor of art and visual culture. The eight-week course called upon an interdisciplinary group of undergraduate and graduate students to collaborate with the city to develop a two-wall mural that honors the rural town while also highlighting the region’s ecosystem.

“A main focal point in the mural’s design is Bull Creek and the East Nishnabotna River,” said graphic design graduate student Karly White. “The creek and river are almost like characters in this city, and we made sure to include them on both walls of the mural.”

“We’ve also added pops of yellow, orange and green for birds, butterflies, frogs and wildflowers to show the richness of Atlantic’s environment,” said White, from Columbus, Ohio.

Painted in bold white letters, the phrase “It’s Good to Bloom Here” — a play on the city’s slogan, “It’s Good to Be Here” — adorns the west side of the building. Quilt patterns and the city’s name are the final details located at the top of either side of the mural.

A key of objective of the course was to engage community members in the creation of the mural. Students created two opportunities for community involvement including inviting YMCA campers to help paint and hosting a community painting night.

The course allowed students majoring in art and design, integrated studio arts, integrated visual arts, graphic design, interior design and scientific illustration and visualization to explore a new medium while building new connections.

“The best part about this mural is knowing the community will have that personal connection to it,” said Jeffrey McAllister, a junior in art and design from West Des Moines. “We are all so passionate about this mural and seeing that same energy in the community really excites me.”

“As someone who is interested in experiential design and public art, this project was perfect for me to explore these mediums,” said White. “I think having the community engaged just overall creates a better end product.”

The Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce will host an open house celebrating the mural at noon Wednesday, July 2, with a ribbon cutting at 12:30 p.m., at 703 E. 14th Street in Atlantic.

Art and innovation

Last summer, Segner also led a mural class where students gave a lunchroom in Iowa State’s Ross Hall a new look. She has also created murals through her own professional practice and is currently working on a project in Altoona.

As one of nine College of Design Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellows, Segner’s efforts focus on civic entrepreneurship. Murals provide an avenue to bring art to people and doing that with alongside students has been special, she said.

“These types of interactions are meaningful for community pride,” Segner said. “Working in Atlantic has been amazing; the community has shown us a lot of love by donating their time, food, water and housing for us to stay in as we paint. We are so happy to share this moment with them.”

Building bonds in Atlantic

The “Murals in Community” project builds upon the relationship the College of Design has been cultivating with Atlantic over the last year. Mayor Grace Garrett was invited to participate in the college’s inaugural Iowa Mayors’ Design Workshop that took place on campus in July 2024. At the two-day workshop, six mayors presented on a specific design issue their community was facing. These mayors worked with Iowa State faculty and staff along with design professionals to explore potential solutions and resources.

Mayor Garrett’s focus was restoring the Bull Creek corridor. Conversations from the workshop led to the development of the spring 2025 Civic Hydrology studio, in which students from design and engineering disciplines were tasked with identifying opportunities to remediate the creek, both functionally and aesthetically.

“The Civic Hydrology class heavily focused on that functionality aspect of the creek, looking closely at opportunities to reduce flooding and erosion along the banks,” said Garrett. “I’m thrilled we get to continue working with Iowa State through this mural. These students have brought fresh ideas and perspectives we really appreciate.”

ATLANTIC, IOWA — Southwest Iowa Transit Agency (SWITA) welcomes Jacque Howell as a Transit Scheduler. Jacque joins the team of four schedulers that connect area residents to the transportation they need. Howell comes to SWITA following extensive experience in childcare. She has spent time running in-home care and was the very first director of the Red Oak Child Development Center.

She said when this position came open it seemed like a good fit, “I wanted a job where I could focus better on my family. This seemed like a great place to work and allows me the time I need at home.” Howell resides in Elliott with her husband and three children. She values the ability that she will have to stay involved with her kids’ activities. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, hunting and fishing, and enjoying her kids’ sporting events.

Jacque Howell

Howell has already seen the value in SWITA’s work, “I know how important SWITA’s work is to people around the area, a lot of people really appreciate it. I have enjoyed the work so far, I like the people I work with, and the days go by fast with how busy we are” SWITA serves eight counties in Southwest Iowa with a fleet of 100 vehicles. Transportation provided includes work routes, student transportation, day habilitation routes for disabled individuals, medical transport, and a range of other services.

To find out more about the job opportunities or transportation services provided by SWITA you can call 1-800-842-8065 or get more information at www.swita.com. SWIPCO is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender