The Iowa State Patrol reports two people died and three others were injured in two separate Iowa crashes, Thursday. An accident at around 4:10-p.m. in Appanoose County resulted in the death of a man from Milo. The Patrol says a 2003 Buick LeSabre driven by 59-year-old Wesley Laverne Devore, of Milo, was traveling north on Highway T-30, at the same time a 2002 Chevy Express van driven by 55-year-old Jonathan Wayne Dorman, of Exline, was traveling southbound. The Buick crossed the center-line of the road and struck the van head-on.

Devore died in the crash. His passengers, 78-year-old Wortha May Devore, and 81-year-old Robert Wesley Devore, both of Promise City, were injured, along with the driver of the van. The passengers in the Buick were not wearing seat-belts. Wortha Devore was flown by AirEvac to a hospital in Des Moines. Robert DeVore and Jonathan Dorman were taken by ambulance to the hospital in Centerville.

And, at around 2:15-p.m., Thursday, one-person died when a semi tractor-trailer hit the rear of a car, in Cedar County. The Iowa State Patrol reports the semi, driven by 27-year-old Adam Weise, of Lowden (IA) was traveling east on Highway 30. A 2015 Chevy Malibu driven by *59-year-old Loretta J. Frana, of Lowden (IA) was turning onto Taylor Avenue from eastbound Highway 30, when it was struck by the semi. The semi came to rest on the shoulder of the road. The car came to rest in the southeast ditch. The Loretta Frana died at the scene.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports a man from Red Oak was arrested Thursday evening on two active Montgomery County warrants. Mason Franzen was arrested at around 6-p.m. on the warrants for Violation of Probation, Driving While Barred, and Theft in the 5th Degree. His bond at the Montgomery County Jail was set at $4,000.

(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Glenwood Police Department reports the arrest on Wednesday (April 16th), of 35-year-old William Vogl, of Neola. Vogl was arrested for Driving Under Suspension. He posted a $300 bond and was released.

The G-PD said also, there were two reported incidents of theft. On April 13th, the Mills County Storehouse of Glenwood reported a theft, and on the 17th, a Glenwood woman reported an incident of burglary and theft. Additional details concerning those incidents were not provided.

(Radio Iowa) – A former Iowa Public Safety Commissioner announced he is running for the Democrat nomination in Iowa’s Second Congressional District. Kevin Techau is a sixth generation Iowan, and an Air Force veteran. Techau says he’s running for the seat now held by Republican Ashley Hinson in part because he believes the congresswoman has been a divisive presence.

“There’s just no reason we can’t work together for the benefit of Iowa, and right now, that’s not happening with Ashley Hinson. I’m dedicated to making Iowa safer and bringing economic opportunities back to Iowa,” he says. Hinson was reelected last year with nearly 60 percent of the vote. Techau says Hinson isn’t living up to her campaign promises. “Washington is full of broken promises, and Ashley Hinson is right at the front of that line. She ran the most recent campaign on economic issues, bringing prices down, fighting inflation, and she’s done nothing of the sort,” he says.

Hinson’s campaign released a statement saying that Techau is “a radical leftist who wants to return to (President) Biden’s open border agenda and push the woke policies that Iowans rejected in November.” The statement says Techau is out of touch with Iowa values and would be a rubber stamp for A-O-C’s squad of radicals in Congress. It also says Techau is a Hillary Clinton supporter, Barrack Obama appointee, and Joe Biden donor.

(Creston, Iowa) – The Union County Sheriff’s Office says no injuries were reported following an accident that occurred today (Thursday) at around 7:24-a.m., on Ringgold-Union Street. Authorities say a 16-year-old male was driving a 2005 Chevy pickup truck westbound, when, according to the teen, his vehicle was forced off the road by a semi that was traveling in the middle of the gravel road. The driver of the semi did not stop after the pickup went into the north ditch.

In the ditch, the pickup struck a culvert that went under the roadway. The semi was never located. The teen was wearing his seat belt when the accident occurred. Damage to the pickup was estimated at $2,500. The Union County Secondary Roads culvert sustained an estimated $100 damage.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowans with disabilities have a new spokesperson. Lisa Campbell of Tama is the new Ms. Wheelchair Iowa and she’ll spend the next year traveling the state, making public appearances at parades, county fairs and sporting events to advocate for people with disabilities. Campbell says winning the state crown was a real thrill. “Oh, my gosh, it was amazing,” Campbell says. “It was something that I have wanted for a while now and I’m just really, really glad that I got it.”

Campbell was born with spina bifida, a condition where the spine and spinal cord didn’t form properly, and she got her first wheelchair around age five. “I just take life one day at a time,” Campbell says. “I try not to get too down on myself. If I can’t do something, I know my limits, so I try to stick within those limits, but I do try to eventually push myself and see what more I can do.”

The Ms. Wheelchair Iowa program aims to focus -not- on disabilities but on the -abilities- of people who use wheelchairs. Campbell says people shouldn’t be shy about asking her questions about her disability. “I’m able to actually do a lot actually. When I was a preteen, my mother got me private swimming lessons so I am able to swim without any assistive devices,” Campbell says. “I can do pretty much everything, just in a different way.”

Ms. Wheelchair Iowa Lisa Campbell (MWI photo)

Each titleholder in the Ms. Wheelchair Iowa program focuses on a key issue during their year in the sash and crown, and Campbell explains her platform. “I’m trying to get amusement parks a little bit more wheelchair accessible. Just because we’re in a wheelchair doesn’t mean we don’t like those things,” Campbell says. “I absolutely love roller coasters. I love amusement parks and it’s really hard for a wheelchair user to get around in them because a lot of the rides are not equipped for wheelchair users.”

Campbell will represent Iowa at the Ms. Wheelchair America National Competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan in August.

To support the program, contact the state coordinator:

Samantha Edwards
202 North 2nd Avenue, Apartment 13
Marshalltown, Iowa 50158

(Radio Iowa) – Security camera footage from the Iowa Capitol would only be available by court order under a proposal that’s cleared the Iowa Senate. The list of people who swipe a security card badge to gain access to the building would also be kept private. Senator Scott Webster, a Republican from Bettendorf, says the information could be used to track state officials and other people who work in the building and shouldn’t be subject to open records requests.

“People who threaten the lives of legislators and staff members should not have access to the comings and goings of the people they’re threatening,” Webster says. Republican senators supported the proposal. Democrats voted against it. Senator Janet Petersen of Des Moines says taxpayers should be able to find out what transpires in the Capitol. “If the public wants to know if their lawmaker is showing up for work every day by checking a key pad, that doesn’t impact our security,” Petersen said. “…If some shenanigans happen out there in the rotunda at a protest, shouldn’t the public be able to request those videos?”

Webster says body worn camera footage from state troopers and police would be available if a crime is committed in the Capitol, but the video from stationary cameras in the building shouldn’t be available to the public. “If they, the people wanted to cause this harm to the Capitol building — the people’s building, wanted to find out and go through all the camera footage to figure out where the blind spots might be in this Capitol, they could do it through an open record (request),” Webster said.

“We are eliminating that availability right now, which makes everyone in this building safer.” This proposal on access to Iowa Capitol security videos was added to a bill that significantly raises the penalties for government officials in Iowa who deny access to public records. The bill is championed by Republican Representative Gary Mohr of Bettendorf. He says the bill’s needed because Davenport officials delayed answering important questions from the media and citizens after the collapse of a six-story Davenport apartment building nearly two years ago.

Mohr says the Davenport city council also failed to vote in a public meeting about paying three Davenport city officials two million dollars to settle their allegations of workplace harassment.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend says the March unemployment rate increased by one-tenth of a percent to three-point-four percent.  “Which is consistent with what we saw on the national level, because it also went up basically a tenth of a point in March as well. The good news was we had 17-hundred new folks in our workforce,” she says. Townsend says the additional workers kept the workforce participation rate the same in March. The construction, education and health services, trade, transportation and utilities areas added 15-hundred jobs. Townsend says Iowa firms lost 15-hundred jobs in March, mostly in private service industries.

“The temporary agencies probably, you know, that loss is an indication that there’s not as great a need. Employers are not in a crisis mode anymore in terms of finding help, probably not a need for short term surging with employers, you know, they have sufficient staff already,” Townsend says. Townsend says the turnover in the job market has slowed. “You know overall the job market has been tightening the past few months and we know that a lot of the low-skilled jobs that you would normally see a lot of turnover those jobs are no longer available meaning people are already in them and are not giving them up so we’re not seeing the churn that we were post pandemic,” she says. Townsend says things have continued to even out when it comes to job loses and additions.

“So even though we’ve lost around eight-thousand manufacturing jobs in the past 12 months, we’re seeing some increases in healthcare. So that’s a good sign. It’s gained 39-hundred jobs in the last six months in healthcare,” Townsend says. “So I think what we’re seeing, and I was very consistent with what we’re seeing around the country. There was a lot of uncertainty pending the outcome of the election.” Townsend says the new administration didn’t take over until mid January, so new policies have not yet started to impact the labor market. There have been several announcements of layoffs in manufacturing, but Townsend says the number of weeks of unemployment paid out is still around nine.

“If that number were going up and increasing pretty rapidly, that would mean that it’s taking longer to find the next job. And the fact that it’s remained relatively consistent at about nine weeks for the last, you know, almost probably since last July, we’ve been at the nine week point. That’s a good indication that we’re still able to help people get to the next job in the same amount of time as we were maybe when we had more jobs available last year,” Townsend says. Iowa allows a maximum of 16 weeks of unemployment. The U-S unemployment rate increased to four-point-two percent in March.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says she spent a whole lot of time praying as she weighed whether to run for reelection.”This was an internal battle and sometimes those can be the most challenging to overcome,” Reynolds said. “…God knows what we need before we even ask for it and his answers are always right, even when they mean leaving what you love behind for the promise of something greater.” Reynolds spoke this (Thursday) morning at the annual Iowa Prayer Breakfast. Reynolds thanked the crowd for praying for her husband, Kevin, after he was diagnosed with lung cancer in the fall of 2023. The governor announced nearly a year later that her husband’s cancer was in remission. Kevin Reynolds delivered the opening prayer at today’s (Thursday) event.

“Dear Heavenly Father, you are good and holy,” Kevin Reynolds said. “Thank you for bringing us together today to celebrte the power of prayer.” The governor got a standing ovation from the crowd when she was introduced. Reynolds spoke for less than five minutes and her remarks were centered on the topic of prayer. “Prayer anchors us. It slows us down in a fast world,” she said. “It softens our hearts in hard moments and it reminds us that we’re never alone.” The event’s keynote speaker was Ervin Lutzer, a retired minister from the Chicago area who’s the host of two syndicated radio programs — “Running to Win” and “Songs in the Night.”

“Not all the governors of the various states would be comfortable at a prayer time like this…Give her a hand, OK?” Lutzer said, and he led the crowd in applause. Several legislators, state agency directors, Lieutenant Governor Chris Cournoyer and State Auditor Rob Sand attended the event.