(Corning, Iowa) – The Adams County Sheriff’s Office, today (Friday), reported the arrest on March 28th, of a man from Clarke County. Authorities say 52-year-old Nolan Maurice McClarty, of Osceola, was arrested for Violation of a No Contact Order (A Simple Misdemeanor). McClarty was booked into the Adams County Jail, posted a $500 bond, and is scheduled to make an initial court appearance on May 8th.

(Radio Iowa) – A bill that’s cleared an Iowa House subcommittee would set up a “prison infrastructure fund” and launch a study of the nine state-run prisons. Representative Brian Lohse, a Republican from Bondurant, cited the latest data showing Iowa prisons are holding 24% more inmates than they were designed to house — and he said the bill would spark a conversation about how the state should respond. “If we’re going to build a new one or if there’s ways we can make improvements in the current ones to deal with any overcrowding through technology,” Lohse said. “All of those things are conversations that we need to have on the table.”

There are over 8600 inmates in the general prison population today. A thousand others are either held in isolation, in segregated areas or in medical units. The prison infrastructure fund outlined in the bill would be filled with the yearly installments that have been paying off state-issued bonds for construction of the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison, after those bonds are paid off in 2027.

(Photo via ACLU of Iowa)

Construction of a new maximum security prison began in 2010 and inmates moved into the Fort Madison facility in 2015. “Do we need another prison to deal with the overcapacity issue? Certainly there are other infrastructure needs that prisons may need as far as improvements, such as Anamosa.”

The Anamosa State Penitentiary was built in 1899. Two Anamosa staff members were killed in 2021 by two inmates who were attempting to escape through the prison’s infirmary.

• On Thursday, April 24th, Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies arrested 51-year old James Victor Ayers, of Macedonia, for Violation of Probation.
• On Sunday, April 27th, 27-year old Derek Matthew James, of Harlan, was arrested for Driving While Barred.
• Monday, April 28th, 36-year old Jacob Brady Scheffler was arrested for possession of 5 grams of methamphetamine.
• And on Tuesday, April 29th, 33-year old Travis Dean Blair, of Shelby, was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance.

(Radio Iowa) – The lone movie theater in Webster City reopened last (Thursday) night with a showing of “Thunderbolts” after being forced to close following a fire in November of 2023. Tyler Abens, of the HERO organization for the Webster Theater, says it’s taken a lot of time, fundraising and effort to restore the movie-house. “To get rid of the smoke smell and all that tar that covered everything in the theater, we basically had to gut the entire theater back down to the bones,” Abens says, “and so it’s all brand new. It’s very impressive.”

Jeff Pingel also helped to bring about the return of the Webster Theater, a process which was complicated by there being needed repairs that weren’t covered by insurance. “We had to scramble to come up with some pretty significant funds to save the marquee and all the limestone decorative on the front was in jeopardy of falling onto the sidewalk,” Pingel says, “so the community stepped forward, and through the grace of everybody being generous, we were able to raise enough money and get that taken care of.”

Webster Theater (Photo provided by KQWC)

Insurance coverage on the building alone was one-point-two million dollars, with another 300-thousand for the contents. A street party for the Webster Theater is scheduled for May 23rd to celebrate the reopening.

(Wiota, Iowa) – Members of the Cass County Cattlemen’s organization have selected 2025 Royalty. Officials report their selection was made April 22nd, at the Wiota Steak House, after a personal and dinner interview was conducted. Royalty for the year are:

• Princess –  Addi Masker (of Atlantic)
• Queen  – Jacquie Freund (of Lewis), and
• Ambassador – Hayden Kleen (of Atlantic).
  

  Cass County Cattlemen Royalty for the year are: (from Left) Princess Addi Masker (Atlantic), Queen Jacquie Freund (Lewis), and Ambassador Hayden Kleen (Atlantic).

The group of young people will represent Cass County Cattlemen in parades, promote beef at various speaking events, and help at the Beef Quarters at the Iowa State Fair.

The Princess, Queen and Ambassador presented officials with Cass Health in Atlantic, a “Happy First Baby” May Day Basket. The basket of beef products will be given to the first baby born at Cass Health, in May. Each baby born during the month will receive a bib “When I get teeth, feed me beef”. May is beef month. (Photos & info submitted to KJAN)

Princess Addi Masker, Nurse Brooke Dreager, Queen Jacquie Freund, Nurse Britini Olson, and Ambassador Hayden Kleen show the basket of beef products given to the first baby born at Cass Health in May.

(Creston, Iowa) – A Union  County woman was arrested Thursday evening on an assault charge. According to the Creston Police Department, 56-year-old Samantha Kay Booth, of Creston, was arrested at her home at around 6:15-p.m.  Booth was taken into custody for Domestic Abuse Assault. She was transported to the Adams County Jail and held without bond until seen by a Judge.

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – After being temporarily barred from deporting four international students at the University of Iowa who are suing the Department of Homeland Security for revoking their status as students, the agency is now contesting the students’ wish to remain anonymous. The students’ lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, identifies the plaintiffs only as John Doe No. 1 through 4. According to the lawsuit, each of the plaintiffs was admitted to the United States on an F-1 student visa. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has violated their due process rights by terminating their student status without legal justification or explanation. Named as defendants in the case are Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, of which Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is a part. Also named as a defendant is Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons.

On April 25, U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger granted the students’ request for a temporary restraining order, blocking any efforts at deportation. Ebinger concluded the students had “demonstrated a likelihood of success” as to their legal claims and had also shown they could otherwise be subjected to irreparable harm. The judge noted there had been no suggestion that any of the recognized, lawful reasons for terminating the plaintiffs’ status as students — such as providing false information to the government, engaging in unauthorized employment, or failing to engage in an approved course of study — appeared to exist or were even argued by Homeland Security as a justification for its actions.

In granting the order before the federal government had a chance to argue against it, Ebinger stated the students had been notified that their deportation “could occur at any moment without time permitted to secure possessions or conclude affairs.” The judge’s April 25 order instructs Noem and Lyons to restore the plaintiffs’ status as students and further instructs them that they “shall not arrest, detain, or transfer plaintiffs John Doe No. 1, John Doe No. 2, John Doe No. 3, or John Doe No. 4 out of this court’s jurisdiction, or order the arrest, detention or transfer of plaintiffs out of this court’s jurisdiction, without first providing adequate notice to both this court and the plaintiffs’ counsel.” In a motion filed April 28, U.S. Department of Justice lawyers for Homeland Security argued the case should not be allowed to proceed with the student plaintiffs identified only by pseudonyms — in part because, as a practical matter, the government needed the identifying information not only to defend the case but to comply with the court’s temporary restraining order blocking deportation of the four students.

According to the response filed two days later by the students’ attorneys, the government was informed on April 29 of the students’ identities. However, they argued, the names of the students should not be disclosed to the general public. Such disclosure, they say, would put the students “at risk for harassment, retaliation, detention, and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” They are now asking the court to let the case proceed under pseudonyms and to also issue a protective order regarding Homeland Security’s use of the students’ personal information.

A hearing on the students’ motion for a preliminary injunction is now scheduled for Monday, May 5.

(Radio Iowa) – A contract botanist from northeast Iowa who says he’s eaten more than a hundred species of wild Iowa mushrooms says he wants to set the record straight about what some mushroom hunters call “false” morels. Ben Hoksch, of Elkader, describes himself as a longtime forager of wild plants and mushrooms, who has a master’s degree in biology from U-N-I. “The term false morel is a common name that actually encompasses a large group of mushrooms, of which the most commonly identified mushrooms as false morels,” Hoksch says, “which in Iowa can be seven or eight or nine species, none of them are poisonous.” Though he notes, if you go to other parts of the country, there are mushrooms called false morels, some of which are poisonous. Hoksch has spent years learning the characteristics of various plants to distinguish between things that might be hazardous and those that are nutritious and delicious.

“To the lay person, two mushrooms can look superficially similar,” Hoksch says. “They can say, ‘I can’t tell the difference between those two,’ but an individual that spends any amount of time in the woods studying the features of these can easily tell the difference between something that’s called a false morel — which there aren’t any poisonous ones in Iowa — and a morel.” The key to mushroom hunting, he says, is to learn from others who are well-trained and knowledgeable.”The Prairies States Mushroom Club, they’re based out of Cedar Rapids,” Hoksch says. “They’re a great organization and honestly, a lot of the identification groups on social media do a good job, if you can rifle through the lay people who comment and look to the group experts and moderators of the well-recognized pages.”

Common morel mushroom (Photo by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach)

Hoksch says wild food is everywhere around us and his breakfast most mornings is as local as it gets. “I walked down to the river. I picked three different types of wild greens. I picked cutleaf coneflower, nettles and wild mustard. I cooked that up with eggs from the backyard and a steak of venison that I harvested last winter,” Hoksch says. “Food didn’t always come from a grocery store, and I still think today it’s a great way to connect with the land and have a deeper connection with community.”

DES MOINES, Iowa (IOWA CAPITAL DISPATCH) – Iowa Republican lawmakers are trying again to pass a ban on Medicaid funding going to gender-affirming care for transgender Iowans, this time by including language in the proposed budget for health and human services programs. A Senate subcommittee advanced Senate Study Bill 1237 Wednesday, the HHS appropriations bill for fiscal year 2026. The measure included language that the funding allocated for Iowa’s Medicaid program “shall not be used for sex reassignment surgery or treatment related to an individual’s gender dysphoria diagnosis.”

Iowa has attempted to ban Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care law before, but these laws were struck down by the courts for violating the Iowa Constitution and the Iowa Civil Rights Act. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the state’s denial of two transgender women’s transition-related care through Medicaid violated the Iowa Civil Rights Act. A Polk County District Court judge also ruled in 2021 that a law passed after that state Supreme Court decision, which amended the Iowa Civil Rights Act to allow for the exclusion of Medicaid coverage for transition-related health care,  violated the Iowa Constitution.

Earlier this year, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law a measure that removed gender identity as a protected class in the Iowa Civil Rights Act. As activists rallied against the measure for potentially allowing for the legal discrimination against transgender Iowans, one of the arguments posed by lawmakers was the fact that previous laws attempting to deny Medicaid coverage for transition-related health care were blocked through the state Civil Rights Act.

Keenan Crow, policy and advocacy director at One Iowa, said Thursday that one of the major differences between the language in this year’s Senate appropriations bill and previous attempts to ban Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care was the reference to all “treatment related to an individual’s gender dysphoria diagnosis,” not just sex reassignment surgery. This could impact transgender Iowans’ ability to access mental health care and other services, Crow said.

Even with the removal of gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, denying transgender Iowans gender-affirming care could still be unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. The 2021 district court ruling found the law prohibiting Medicaid coverage of transition care violated both state civil rights laws and the state constitution. The Iowa Supreme Court declined to rule on the constitutionality of the law in 2023.

The House Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee met Thursday to discuss its version of the HHS budget bill, House Study Bill 342, which passed unanimously. The House legislation, in its current form, does not include the Senate’s language. But House Speaker Pat Grassley told reporters Thursday that the House supports restricting Medicaid funds going toward transition-related health care.

The chair of the House HHS appropriations subcommittee Rep. Ann Meyer, R-Fort Dodge, said she has spoken with Grassley about the provision, and that there will be discussions with the full House Republican caucus. However, she said that the House would likely consider different language on the measure that would not impact Medicaid coverage for mental and behavioral health care for transgender Iowans.

“If this were to come before the House, we would just be talking about surgery and hormone therapy,” Meyer said.

DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) – Governor Kim Reynolds has signed a bill allowing dental assistants to work without state registration. The bill is meant to address the dental assistant shortage in Iowa. Dental assistants perform many jobs, including giving the dentist the correct tools, taking x-rays of patients’ mouths, and sanitizing. The bill, HF 805, creates a separate tier of dental assistants. Some dentists have expressed concerns over the bill, claiming it may mean less accountability for those doing the work. The bill was signed into law Thursday.