The Iowa presidential campaign has kicked into high gear at the start of weekend. Democratic candidates are launching a final, frenetic weekend of campaigning ahead of the Iowa caucuses, kick-starting the battle to take on President Donald Trump in November. The Senate pushed back voting on Trump’s impeachment trial until Wednesday, which allowed the senators who had been stuck in Washington to begin returning to the campaign trail. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren flew to Iowa late Friday night and headed straight to a Des Moines brewery.

(Radio Iowa) — Woodbury County supervisor Jeremy Taylor is resigning after his residency was canceled last week when the county auditor ruled Taylor now lives in a new home outside the county district he was elected to serve.  He says he plans to continue to be a candidate for the 4th District Congressional seat. Taylor did not attend the supervisor meeting Tuesday. Taylor a Republican, says he doesn’t agree with the decision on his residency.

“We did all that we could to balance the needs of the county supervisors district and the residency requirement where I was elected to serve with a home that was suited to our large family of eight,” Taylor says. “I want to make clear that I sought legal counsel early on in the decision process — and was given some assurance that I had met the legal requirements” He had announced he was going to fight the decision in court — but says he does not to subject his family to a long legal battle.

d)”And while I believe that there may be a better verdict for us on appeal — I have also come to know that that is going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars. And I think that my family has gone through enough in this,” according to Taylor. Woodbury County Auditor Pat Gill and County Attorney Patrick Jennings will meet Monday to determine a time frame for a special election to replace Taylor.

In an update to our earlier report, Council Bluffs Police Friday afternoon identified a suspect who had fled from Police during a traffic stop Thursday night. Authorities say 57-year-old Jerry Dean Phipps, of Council Bluffs was charged with OWI 1st Offense, Eluding, Disobedience to Police Officer, Reckless Driving, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

(Original story w/name now added):

A traffic stop at around 9-p.m. Thursday in Council Bluffs resulted in a brief pursuit and the driver being taken into custody. Authorities say after an officer stopped a vehicle for a simple traffic violation, the officer suspected the driver – later identified as 57-year old Jerry Dean Phipps – to be intoxicated, and called for a back-up officer. Before the second officer could arrive, Phipps fled in the vehicle westbound on 2nd Avenue and hit “stop-sticks” that were deployed at 28th Street. The vehicle continued to elude officers, heading southbound on 28th St and eastbound on 9th Ave.

In the 1300 block of 9th Ave officers performed a P.I.T. maneuver on the vehicle, causing it to slide off the road into a business parking lot. When Phipps refused to exit the vehicle, a less than lethal bean-bag shotgun was deployed, and the vehicle window was shot out. A Police K-9 was on scene but Phipps became cooperative and exited the vehicle on his own power. He was taken into custody without further incident.

(Radio Iowa) — Officials in the Iowa Department of Public Safety want to analyze blood samples from drivers who die in SINGLE-VEHICLE accidents, to determine if drug or alcohol-use contributed to the crash. Chandlor Collins, a policy advisor in the agency, says Nebraska, Minnesota and Michigan are already collecting this data.

“As more states continue to either legalize medical marijuana or recreational marijuana, just having the data regardless of where you fall on those issues is just going to allow for better decisions to be made,” Collins says. About 70 fatal wrecks in Iowa last year involved a single driver. Collins says blood samples in those instances are rarely, if ever, collected to determine if the driver was impaired because there’s no liability issue since no one else was injured or killed in the accident.

“Data out there is saying there’s more drug-impaired driving than I think a lot of us as lay citizens think that is currently is occurring,” Collins says. A senate subcommittee is working on a bill that would require county medical examiners to draw blood from drivers killed in a single-vehicle wreck. Senators say there are issues, like proper training, to address.