ELDON, Iowa (AP) – Tiny Eldon in southeast Iowa has been losing population, jobs and business for nearly five decades, but one woman is trying to turn things around with a focus on tourism centered around the community’s famous landmark: the house that served as the backdrop for Grant Wood’s famous “American Gothic” painting.

Donna Jeffrey has lived in Eldon her entire life. The Des Moines Register reports that she is leading a downtown Eldon redevelopment nonprofit that seeks to reinvigorate the town by giving visitors a reason to spend more time and money there.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A 14-year-old boy is dead after a shooting just hours into the new year in Des Moines. Police say the shooting happened about 3:50 a.m. Wednesday.  Arriving officers found the body of Josiah Woods along 17th Street. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police Sgt. Paul Parizek told KCCI-TV that the shooting happened after a dispute at a gathering. Parizek said police sought information from people at the scene but the lack of cooperation was “frustrating.” No arrests have been made.

(Radio Iowa) — Officials at Des Moines University are seeking continued state funding for a class that’s helping doctors-in-training feel more comfortable caring for patients with a mental illness. Dr. Lisa Streyffeler is a professor at the osteopathic school. She says in the spring of 2018, D-M-U became the first medical school in the country to offer the course.

“We have always taught how do you diagnose mental illnesses, how do you treat them — so does every other medical school in the country,” she says, “but that doesn’t necessarily make our students emotionally comfortable with sitting with someone who’s in the middle of an acute psychiatric crisis and feel like they really know what that patient will want in that situation or what that patient’s family members’ needs are.”

Forty-two students completed the course in 2018. Dr. Streyffeler says surveys of those students found their approach to caring for patients was more collaborative with both the patient and the patient’s family. “In particular, we found that students who did this 15-hour course felt less anxious about interacting with folks with mental illnesses,” she says.

“They felt more comfortable about being around them, in general. They had more positive attitudes towards folks with mental illnesses.” Dr. Streyffeler says people with severe mental illnesses have a significantly reduced life expectancy due to untreated conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure that are unrelated.

“We’re trying to get physicians more comfortable engaging with patients who might have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, even if they’re not psychiatrists, to say: ‘Ok, I understand really what this patient and this family’s needs are,” Streyffeler says, “that it’s really an unbelievably stressful experience.” And she says that kind of interaction will make the patient more likely to show up for regular check-ups, so their overall health is better monitored.”

The class is now required for all third-year students at Des Moines University. Iowa lawmakers provided 250-thousand dollars to the medical school to finance the class this spring. D-M-U officials were in the governor’s office earlier this month, asking Governor Reynolds to support continuing that state funding for the next academic year.

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) — A Dubuque man has been arrested in connection with a car crash in November that killed a pregnant woman and injured a child. The Dubuque County Sheriff’s Office says 69-year-old John E. Hoffman was charged Tuesday with homicide by vehicle-operating under the influence, non-consensual termination of a pregnancy and serious injury by vehicle.

The charges stem from a Nov. 9 crash on Highway 52 southeast of Key West that killed 20-year-old Hannah Ruggeberg and injured a 3-year-old child. Ruggeberg was pregnant at the time of the crash. Hoffman is being held on a $250,000 cash bond.