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Keep up-to-date with Fox News Radio, Radio Iowa, Brownfield & the Iowa Agribusiness Networks!
GREENFIELD, Iowa [KCCI-TV] — Volunteers with Habitat for Humanity have started a five-day building blitz in Greenfield to construct two new homes that are intended to replace rental homes lost in a tornado nearly a year ago.
Organizers said this is a special moment for the families who will eventually make these houses their homes. Danny Akright, director of communications for Habitat for Humanity says by the end of the week, the frames and roofs of the homes will be complete. The homes are being built at 406 and 408 SE 3rd Street, in Greenfield.
If everything goes as planned, the families will be walking through the doors of their new homes in September. Learn more about other tornado-related recovery updates at https://www.greenfieldiafoundation.org/tornado-relief/recovery-updates
(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Atlantic School District’s Board of Education will hold a regular, monthly session Wednesday (May 14th) beginning at 6:30-p.m. in the High School Media Center. The Board is slated to receive a Special Presentation from District Nutrition Director Natalie Ritter, and later on, act on approving milk and bread bids, along with Nutrition Meal Prices for the 2025-26 School Year. Other action items include several personnel matters:
Resignations
Transfers
Recommendation to Hire
View the complete agenda, here: Public AGENDA 05142025
(Radio Iowa) – A free webinar will be held next week to help Iowans navigate the complicated topic of long-term care insurance. Rayna Stoycheva, director for retirement security policy at the Harkin Institute, says they’ll have a panel of experts, including the director of the Washington Cares Fund, the nation’s first state-level, universal long-term care insurance program. “He is both an expert as the person who is managing this program, but he has also done a lot of research, especially in Europe, in other countries,” Stoycheva says,”so he brings two types of expertise to the panel.” Many people think long-term care insurance is only for the very old, but it could be of crucial importance to someone much younger if there’s an accident or a crisis with physical or mental health. The webinar will include a question-and-answer session, though the questions often boil down to just a few key points.
“The Center for Retirement Research has done a lot of research on long term care. Who will need it? How much does it cost?” Stoycheva says. “How short projections, these are not easy — but still, how short potentially people are in terms of their savings towards that.” The Harkin Institute, based at Drake University in Des Moines, says the cost of long-term care has nearly doubled since the early 2000s, both for at-home care and nursing home care, pushing costs out of reach for everyone except the very wealthy. Stoycheva says it’s important that Iowans become educated about the options for this type of insurance, especially, how soon you should buy. 
“Part of the reason why we are having these conversations, it is not universally available through employers, but to the extent that you do have access, it is cheaper to buy it earlier in your life,” Stoycheva says, “so if that’s an option, the answer would be, you should buy it as early as possible.”
The free webinar over Zoom is scheduled for next Thursday (May 22nd) at 2 p-m. Learn more HERE: https://harkininstitute.drake.edu/2025/04/29/12170/
(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak arrested a man Monday night on an assault charge. Authorities say 31-year-old Joshua Michael Lowe, of Red Oak, was arrested a little after 10-p.m., for Assault with a deadly weapon (an Aggravated Misdemeanor), and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia (A Simple Misdemeanor). Red Oak Police Officers were assisted by Montgomery County Sheriff’s Deputies in handling the arrest.
Lowe was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $2,000 bond.
IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) – A University of Iowa fraternity has been suspended until at least July 1, 2029, for a hazing incident that happened in November 2024. The incident was discovered when police and firefighters responded to a fire alarm at the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at 703 North Dubuque Street. While there was no fire found, police went to the basement and discovered 56 pledges in two separate rooms.
Some of them were blindfolded, some of them were shirtless, but all of them were covered in what police say was ketchup, mustard and alcohol. The court filings included several still images from police body camera footage. Joseph Gaya, of Riverdale, was arrested and charged with Interference With Official Acts for allegedly attempting to block officers’ view of what was going on in the two rooms.
According to the filing, Gaya wanted evidence gathered inside the house by law enforcement to be suppressed. He specifically wanted to have observations and statements he made suppressed.
A judge has denied that request.
DES MOINES, Iowa (IOWA CAPITAL DISPATCH) – Lawmakers advanced a proposal Monday to provide state funding for schools to stock free feminine hygiene products in women’s restrooms — but it may have a hard time making it to the finish line this session.
House File 883 would provide state funding for schools to have menstrual products like tampons and sanitary pads available in school women’s bathrooms for 6th through 12th grade students from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2028. The bill had received approval in March from the House Education Committee, but had not been discussed in the months since.
At a House appropriations subcommittee meeting Monday, Angela Caulk with the Family Planning Council of Iowa, thanked lawmakers for their work “behind the scenes” on the bill, ensuring that it was still in the discussion.
In earlier meetings on the bill, students and supporters said providing these products for free in school restrooms will help low-income students and help reduce chronic absenteeism at Iowa schools. The measure was brought up in part because of advocacy efforts by the nonprofit Love for Red, an organization focused on providing free sanitary products. Students who created the nonprofit alongside their school counselor said a pilot program providing these products for free led to a reduction in female student absences.
Rep. Amy Nielsen, D-North Liberty, questioned if the funding for the proposal was coming from State Supplemental Aid (SSA), the per-pupil funding for Iowa’s K-12 schools — but Rep. Devon Wood, R-New Market, said it was her understanding this proposal would provide new funding from fiscal years 2026 through 2028. The legislation states that after 2028, funding for the measure would come from SSA.
The legislation does not set an exact allocation for providing these products, but states “an amount necessary to fund the full cost of compliance” will come from the state’s general fund for the 2026-2028 time period.
As the House Appropriations Committee did not take up the bill at its meeting Monday, the funding proposal is unlikely to make it into the state’s final budget for fiscal year 2026. Rep. Gary Mohr, R-Bettendorf, the committee chair, said there’s only one bill outstanding for the committee to consider — the standing appropriations bill — before the committee is done for the year. While the money for feminine hygiene products could come up in this meeting, the bill would also need to pass on the House floor and then go through the committee process in the Senate, as the other chamber has not considered the measure or passed a companion bill this session.
The proposal could be added to another appropriations bill that will make it through the session, but the measure was not included in the budget agreement reached between Senate and House Republicans.
(Des Moines, Iowa/Iowa Capital Dispatch) – A bill passed by the House Monday limiting local government’s ability to restrict fireworks use will help the state participate in President Donald Trump’s plans for major celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the U.S.’s founding in 2026, according to Representative Bill Gustoff, a Republican from Des Moines.
The House passed Senate File 303 with a vote of 51-39, sending it to Gov. Kim Reynolds. The bill prohibits county boards of supervisors and city councils from prohibiting or limiting the use of fireworks on July 3, 4 and Dec. 31, outside of existing regulations in Iowa Code.
State law sets certain constraints on fireworks — which are legal to use from June 1 through July 8 and Dec. 10 through Jan. 3 of each year — that outlaws the sale of fireworks to minors and the use of “display” fireworks by people or organizations outside of local approval, as well as sets certain time restrictions on fireworks.
If signed into law, it would remove ordinances or other regulations set by several Iowa localities that ban or restrict the use of fireworks, including Des Moines, Ames and Iowa City. Gustoff, the bill’s floor manager, said lifting these local restrictions for three days a year will allow “the unwary, patriotic American in Iowa” to celebrate the nation’s founding without running the risk of breaking local law. He said this will be especially important as the country prepares to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary. Trump has floated bringing these celebrations to the Iowa State Fairgrounds. 
Trump has proposed a yearlong celebration that he said would begin at the Iowa State Fair for the “Great American State Fair” scheduled from Memorial Day 2025 to July 4, 2026. Democrats have repeatedly expressed concerns about limiting local government’s ability to set rules on fireworks use, particularly when different communities may set these regulations to address public safety hazards.
Rep. Eric Gjerde, D-Cedar Rapids, introduced an amendment Monday that would prohibit “consumer fireworks for personal use.” He said that in Cedar Rapids, which has a ban on fireworks within city limits, the Cedar Rapids Fire Department received 636 calls for service for fireworks between June 1 and July 8, 2024. These included some dumpster, grass and debris fires caused by fireworks, in addition to calls from people who think the sounds of fireworks are gunshots — calls that require multiple law enforcement officers to respond and investigate.
He also brought up issues people in Iowa communities have with fireworks, like veterans who suffer from PTSD having adverse responses to fireworks going off nearby. The amendment failed. The measure goes to Reynolds for final approval.
(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa House has sent the governor a bill that supporters say offers rural pharmacies financial relief by reigning in pharmacy benefit managers. P-B-Ms negotiate drug prices. The bill requires that small pharmacies be paid a dispensing fee and sets up restrictions on P-B-M strategies that steer patients to fill prescriptions at certain pharmacies. A group of pharmacists were in the House balcony, watching as the bill passed on a 75 to 15 vote.
Michael Schweitzer, a pharmacist in Bedford, says the bill will be a lifeline for Bedford Drug, the business his dad launched 60 years ago. “I was thinking of the time last year when I told him I was going to have to close the pharmacy and he looked at me and said: ‘If you can’t make it work, nobody can make it work. This has been a painful four years for us getting to this point,” he said. “…We’ve been ripped off, we’ve been treated poorly, we’ve been basically abused by the PBMs and this was a day I wasn’t sure we were going to see.”
Rep. Brett Barker (R-Nevada) (official photo)
During House debate, Republican Representative Brett Barker, a pharmacist from Nevada, said over 200 Iowa pharmacies have closed in the last decade.”For far too long Pharmacy Benefit Managers — powerful middlemen in the pharmaceutical supply chain — have manipulated a system full of perverse incentives,” Barker said, “and have stacked the deck against consumers, pharmacies, employers and taxpayers.”
Representative Shannon Lundgren, a Republican from Peosta, says pharmacies are access points for health care in Iowa. “When we start to lose those access points and people start getting their drugs by mail order, there is nobody in that town to talk to about whether there are interactions or contradictions in that drug,” Lundgren said. Representative Helena Hayes, a Republican from New Sharon, says Iowans have waited too long for these reforms. “No longer will PBMs be able to exploit the perks and the patients, manipulate the system and walk all over our local pharmacies,” Hayes said.
The bill prohibits P-B-Ms from forcing patients to use mail-order pharmacies.
(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Senate has passed a bill with new guardrails that would make it harder for companies to seize property for carbon pipelines and other energy-related infrastructure. Senator Jeff Taylor of Sioux Center is among 12 Republicans who boycotted votes on the state budget in order to force a vote on the bill, which also requires more insurance for carbon pipelines.
“We’ve heard a lot the last week or two, criticism of those of us who stepped forward after waiting four long sessions for leadership to do something and they were willing to do nothing in terms of a floor vote and open floor debate,” Taylor said. “…This isn’t just a fight about constitutional propriety and authority. It’s also a fight about justice and it’s a fight about truth and it’s a fight about good government and those things are worth fighting for.”
Senator Jeff Taylor (R-Sioux Center) (official photo)
Some of the Republicans who voted against the bill said they support private property rights, but they accused Republicans who voted for it of being stubborn, naive and inexperienced. Republican Senator Tim Kraayenbrink of Fort Dodge says the G-O-P group that pushed for the bill refused to compromise and ignored the rights of landowners who want the pipeline. “We’re stuck with this pile of crap,” Kraayenbrink said. “It’s going to cost Iowa…It’s going to cost us in economic growth.”
Senator Tony Bisignano of Des Moines defended the dozen Republicans AND fellow Democrats who struck a bipartisan deal to get the bill passed. “This bill, regardless of how bad you think it is, I don’t see one you drafted,” Bisignano said. “When you start criticizing people who dug the ditch because they didn’t dig it right, look at your clean hands. You didn’t help.”
Republican Senator Mike Klemish of Spillville predicts that if the bill becomes law, the State of Iowa will be sued by Summit and landowners who signed contracts to allow the pipeline on their properties. “I believe it puts at risk taxpayers’ money in the state of Iowa to pay damages because we are moving the goalposts after the fact,” Klemish said.
Senator Dan Zumbach, a Republican from Ryan, says the bill will kill the Summit pipeline project. “Where’s the joy in the room, folks? Nobody’s smiling. Look at each other. Look to your left, look to your right. Everybody’s sitting here just frustrated as can be that we have a horrible piece of legislation in front of us.”
Senator Mike Bousselot, a Republican from Ankeny, called the House bill a Trojan Horse. “It is an attact on infrastructure for environmental extremists in the facade of killing one project,” Bousselot said. Representative Steven Holt of Denison, one of the Republicans who crafted the bill, responded and notes Bousselot worked for the company that owns Summit Carbon Solutions, the pipeline developer. “The whole premise is ridiculous. This is not about environmental extremism at all. it’s about protecting landowners and the arrogance the senator is showing and the disrespect…to property owners is frankly breathtaking.”
The bill now goes to the governor, who has the power to sign or veto it.
(Glenwood, Iowa) – A man from Nebraska was arrested Sunday on drug charges, in Glenwood. According to the Glenwood Police Department, 28-year-old Lucas Pickle, of Omaha, was arrested for possession of marijuana/2nd offense, and poss. of drug paraphernalia. Pickle was released from custody after posting a$1,300 bond.
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