(Radio Iowa) – State officials have issued a statewide Air Quality Alert due to thick smoke from Canadian wildfires that’s been pushed into Iowa. Air quality levels in northwest Iowa have been in the unhealthy category today (Tuesday). Todd Russell is an environmental specialist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

“The National Weather Service has an air quality model and Canada has the ‘Blue Skies’ model,” Russell said. “Both of those show a lot of particulate matter in Iowa through Wednesday night.” According to the D-N-R, a band of wildfire smoke is moving into Iowa from the north, with the heaviest smoke stretching from southwest through the northeast. Officials recommend that Iowans limit intensive physical activities outdoors and take more breaks until air quality conditions improve.

Smoky air is of greatest risk to older adults and young children as well as people with heart or lung disease. Minnesota officials issued a statewide air quality alert yesterday (Monday). Jesse Carr, an epidemiologist with Minnesota’s Department of Health, says air pollution can affect anyone.  “Folks that do not have asthma can still experience symptoms,” she says, “shortness of breath, burning in your lungs.”

In late April, the U-S Environmental Protection Agency advised that during periods of heavy smoke, Americans should to consider replacing the filters in air purifiers and H-VAC systems more often than is advised by manufacturers.

(Radio Iowa) – The woman who yelled, “People will die,” last week as U.S. Senator Joni Ernst answered a question about Medicaid funding cuts is now running for a seat in the Iowa House of Representatives. India May is director of the Ionia Public Library, a registered nurse and a death investigator for Chickasaw County. May says her intention is to run as a progressive Democrat for Iowa House District 58, to undo the damage caused by the incumbent, Charley Thomson.

In a Facebook post, May says she attended Ernst’s town hall at Aplington-Parkersburg High School on Friday, when she was quote “overwhelmed by the repeated lies and dismissals of the real concerns about food insecurity and losing healthcare,” unquote and she yelled, “People will die!”

Ernst responded to May’s shout by saying: ‘We all are going to die.” On Saturday, Ernst said she was in the process of answering a question from another member of the audience when an extremely distraught women in the back of the auditorium screamed.

On Monday, Ernst told C-B-S News she is very compassionate and people need to listen to the entire conversation she had with the audience in Parkersburg.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Cass County Engineer Trent Wolken, Tuesday (June 3rd), discussed with the Board of Supervisors, current and planned Secondary Roads Department projects and maintenance activities. Wolken said they’ve been busy with construction projects, but the rain last week gave crews a bit a a breather. One of their main projects is near Cumberland.

There is also a bridge replacement project on 660^th Street, south of the Cass County Landfill, where work on pier piling is moving along.

Other projects will move forward as weather allows.

The Iowa DNR has issued an Air Quality Alert for all of Iowa through 6 AM Thursday. Intermittent heavy smoke is expected to impact most of Iowa over the next few days at levels considered unhealthy for sensitive groups or even unhealthy for healthy individuals. Sensitive groups include people with respiratory illness or heart disease, children, teenagers, the elderly, and outdoor workers.

Air Quality Alert for all of Iowa

The DNR recommends that people avoid long or intense outdoor activities and take frequent breaks until the air quality improves.

(Radio Iowa) – Vietnamese officials visiting Iowa have signed agreements to buy more agricultural products from the Midwest, including Iowa. Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig says the five agreements represent 800 MILLION dollars worth of soybeans, corn, dried distillers grain and pork. “I would definitely categorize it as historic,” Naig said, “and what we need to be seeing even more of.” The agreements, which are non-binding, were signed yesterday (Monday) during a ceremony at the Iowa Capitol. Naig led a trade mission to Vietnam in 2023 and plans to return to the country this fall.

“We’ve seen Vietnam as an attractive market, a market that’s got a real upside,” Naig said. “It’s a young population. It’s a growing economy.” Under one of the agreements, Vietnam is to purchase of 400 MILLION dollars worth of soybeans and soybean meal from A-G-P, a farmer owned cooperative that has five processing plants in Iowa. Randy Miller, a farmer from Lacona, is on the U-S Soybean Export Council’s board of directors. “Vietnam has grown to one of the most valued partners,” Miller said, “and we don’t take that for granted.”

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds hosted a delegation of Vietnamese officials on June 2, 2025. (Governor’s office photo)

Commodity groups see Vietnam and other Asian countries as opportunities to diversify supply chains, especially with escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

(Radio Iowa) A Democrat who has worked behind the scenes on many campaigns has launched her own campaign for governor. Julie Stauch of West Des Moines says Iowans are disgusted by the state’s elected leaders.  “Everything’s really broken and it needs to be fixed and I’m a problem solver. It’s what I’ve done in everything I do,” Stauch told Radio Iowa. “…We have a governor and a legislature that for the last at least seven years and maybe 15 think their jobs is to create problems for the people of Iowa and I want to come in and solve problems for the people of Iowa.” Stauch was the Iowa political director for Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 Iowa Caucus campaign and the campaign manager for Mike Franken’s U-S Senate campaign in 2022. She has posted a resume and cover letter online to mark the start of her own campaign. Stauch says voters do not trust either party right now and she’s promising to be a careful listener.

“They want the candidate to hear them and that’s what’s not going on,” Staunch said. “and so I’m planning to be on the road a lot, to be out there to hear the people of Iowa and my motivation is to understand what they want and to then go to work, just like any of the clients that I’ve had, and help solve the problems that are most important to them.” Stauch says she’s drawn on her past experience as an elementary school teacher to think about the kind of meetings she’ll host over the next several months. She plans to hand out worksheets and have audiences break out into discussion groups to review the state’s top issues. Stauch will be competing against State Auditor Rob Sand for the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor.

Democrat candidate for IA Governor, Julie Stauch

Sand, who launched his campaign three weeks ago, raised eight million dollars last year and over two-million dollars from donors in all 99 counties during the first day he was officially a candidate for governor. Stauch says that’s not an obstacle for her campaign. “Right now, I think his money is his message,” Staunch told Radio Iowa. Sand’s wife and her parents donated about seven MILLION to his campaign in the past year. “Let me be clear, there are no millionaires in my family, so I can’t raise money quickly, but I’m going to raise money and I’m going use it in a different way than campaigns have been traditionally been using it,” Stauch says. “…Stay tuned America or stay tuned Iowa and see how that all turns out.”

Stauch says as governor, she’d lead Iowa to address Iowa’s cancer crisis and water quality issues, repeal Iowa’s Education Savings Account program that provides state funding for private school tuition and focus on women’s reproductive health. Over a decade ago Stauch was chief public affairs officer for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. Stauch says the state should ban the use of eminent domain to seize private land for a private company like Summit Carbon Solutions.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Cass County Board of Supervisors held their regularly scheduled meeting this (Tuesday) morning in Atlantic, during which Board Chair Steve Baier announced an agenda item pertaining to a Vision Atlantic funding request, was be stricken from the agenda in order for the Board to obtain more information they need to make a proper decision. During their meeting on May 20th, Vision Atlantic Board President Christina Bateman made a request for $2.5-million from the County, to be paid for over a short period of years, and to be used for the non-profit organization’s fund-raising goal of $39-million, which, if met, would allow Vision Atlantic to receive $8.2-million in grant funds from the Charles E. Lakin Foundation. During the May 20th meeting, the Cass County Supervisors considered using LOST (Local Option Sales Tax) and Service Tax revenue toward the project, but no final decision was made at that time.

In other business, the Cass County Supervisors today (Tuesday) passed three resolutions pertaining to the abatement of taxes, penalty and interest on two properties in Atlantic, a parcel in the City of Wiota, and two State of Iowa-owned parcels. It was explained the latter was a formality that is handled every couple of years. They also passed a resolution increasing the appropriation for the transfer of LOST funds to the Rural Services fund (not to exceed $415,000), for FY 2024-25. Cass County Auditor Kathy Somers….

The Board tabled action on a resolution adjusting the Medical Examiner Fees. They approved the installation of a fire hydrant in the vicinity of Quiet Creek Pond in the 69-thousand block of Lyman Street. Board Chair Steve Baier explains…

Baier said Kevin and Aaron Sindt have offered to do the work with their equipment, with the county paying for the PVC pipe and the attaching hydrant that would enable fire departments to pump out of the nearby pond, and serve businesses such as Lyman Ag and local residences. And, the Cass County Board of Supervisors approved a partnership agreement between the County, Cass Health, Cass County Extension and the Nishna Valley Family YMCA, for Fiscal Years 2025-26, and 2026-27.

The Board approved the re-appointment of Dawn Walton to the County Veterans Affairs Commission, and the appointment of Peter Smith to the Cass County Zoning Board of Adjustment – to fill a vacancy.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley was called “the father of the modern wind industry” in his 2016 campaign ad which featured him in a hard hat atop an Iowa wind turbine. Now, the U-S House version of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill would significantly scale back or sunset tax credits on renewable energies, including wind and solar. In a conference call with Iowa reporters today (Tuesday), Grassley was asked if he’s comfortable with those changes that could kill future wind projects. Grassley says, “The reason that everybody has to be comfortable with almost anything in the bill is, we can’t let one issue stand in the way of preventing the highest tax increase in the history of the country without a vote of Congress.”

Frame from 2016 Grassley TV ad

Without the extension of earlier tax cuts, Grassley says taxes could rise by some four-and-a-half trillion dollars. As for the portion of the spending bill dealing with wind energy, Grassley says those incentives were doomed a decade ago and he managed to get them extended. He recalls several of his colleagues wanted to eliminate the wind energy tax credits in 2015. “So I worked with the wind energy people for a five-year phase out,” Grassley says. “That five-year phase out ended in 2021. Biden was elected president. Then we have the Green Energy Bill that passed and consequently, they went along with wind for a long, long period of time.” Grassley suggests he will again work to defend the wind energy industry and will seek out a compromise in the Republican megabill.

“Whatever we can compromise on wind, it’ll be similar to the compromise that I had in 2015,” Grassley says, “only by the end of the next compromise that would have gone on another 15 years beyond what I originally intended in 2015.”

Grassley says he’s proud that Iowa gets almost 60-percent of its power from wind energy. He’s hopeful the Senate can pass the spending bill before the July 4th recess.

(Radio Iowa) – A documentary is now available about the 2011 Hot Lotto scam in Iowa that led to the uncovering of other rigged games across the country. Former Iowa Lottery C-E-O Terry Rich wrote a book about the scam, as did former Assistant Attorney General Rob Sand, and Rich says there were a lot of requests to do a movie. “So we decided to offer it free and it’ll be 50 minutes with a lot of things that no one has ever heard or knew about the big lottery caper that happened right here in Iowa,” Rich says. The documentary was made by A-M-S pictures of Dallas, Texas and is available today (Tuesday).

“You’ll actually hear from some of the people who were directly involved that haven’t spoken before, including the boss of the person who did it. We also have some of the D-C-I folks who were involved, and of course the prosecutors who really knew all the things that happened behind the scenes that have unveiled what’s going on,” he says. The investigation led to Eddie Tipton, the former security director for the Multi-State Lottery Association, who set up the rigged drawings.

“You’ll actually find out how long the perpetrator actually spent in prison in the state of Iowa, along with his accomplices, and hear a little bit about from the individuals who were involved why this was such a unique case, and why it garnered international attention,” Rich says. The investigation went on to find others who had won jackpots in Wisconsin, Kansas and Oklahoma from tickets rigged by Eddie Tipton. Rich says he still gets questions about the rigged jackpots.”It seems to continue to be covered all across the United States. So there’s still a lot of interest in people remembered as one classic. The case where the guy did something he shouldn’t have done and he got busted,” Rich says.

The documentary is called “Jackpot America’s biggest lotto scam”, and it’s available on YouTube, or lottodoc.com.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Red Oak Police Department reports six juvenile males were arrested Monday, following an investigation into a report of harassing phone calls. The victim, a local teacher, reported receiving multiple calls from various phone numbers. Authorities said the callers appeared to be young males attempting to disguise their voices, with audible laughter heard in the background.

Officers were able to trace the phone numbers to a group of juvenile males, on Monday evening, the suspects were arrested for Harassment in the 3rd Degree, a simple misdemeanor. All juveniles were subsequently released to the custody of their parents.

Red Oak Police say the incident “Should serve as a reminder that prank calls are not harmless – they are considered harassment under the law. Individuals engaging in this type of behavior can and will face legal consequences.”