DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Gov. Terry Branstad has signed into law the Iowa Legislature’s plan to eliminate a shortfall in the state’s current $7.2 billion budget. Branstad signed a bill Wednesday that cuts about $117 million in spending from the budget that began last July. Various Iowa agencies will collectively cut about $88 million. An additional $25 million will be taken from other funds used for programs ranging from economic development to the arts. About $4 million was saved from unused tax credits.

Some affected Iowa departments — including corrections, higher education and public safety — will determine where those cuts will be made. Branstad says he is pleased the GOP-controlled Legislature exempted K-12 education, Medicaid and certain property taxes cuts from the reductions. Democrats have said the cuts will hurt state government.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa lawmaker has asked the state’s top lawyer to review the legislative procedures surrounding Gov. Terry Branstad’s plans to resign and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynold’s expected ascension to governor. Sen. David Johnson, an independent from Ocheyedan, sent a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Tom Miller seeking an opinion on language in the Iowa Constitution that explains what happens when a governor steps down.

Johnson’s letter asks several questions, including whether the Iowa Legislature must approve a change in executive office. Branstad has said he will resign from his job pending a U.S. Senate confirmation to become the next ambassador to China.

Ben Hammes, a spokesman for the governor’s office, says Miller has already stated that Reynolds will become governor and has the power to appoint a new lieutenant governor.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – Hundreds of volunteer fire departments in nearly every pocket of Iowa have members who were improperly awarded nationally-recognized certifications by the state fire academy. The Fire Service Training Bureau has sent letters to 560 mostly volunteer agencies notifying them that “one or more firefighters on your department may have been” improperly granted one or more certificates, despite failing their exams.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety announced last week that 1,706 firefighters and emergency responders were improperly granted 2,278 certifications between 2012 and 2016. Those individuals will be required to retake the tests before June 30 or be faced with starting the certification process from scratch. The bureau is offering free refresher courses and retests across the state starting Feb. 11.

The bureau’s former accreditation manager, John McPhee, was arrested last week and charged with misconduct and tampering with records. A complaint accuses McPhee of failing to grade tests and simply assigning random scores. He pleaded not guilty last week.

Bureau officials identified the improper certifications after rescoring tests for which the exams and answer keys were still available. An undetermined number of other tests could not be rescored.

Firefighters from Atlantic were called to a gas-line incident this (Wednesday) morning in the vicinity of Redwood Drive and Aspen Drive. Officials say they were dispatched just before nine-a.m., after a company’s boring machine accidentally clipped the Alliant Energy gas line. Alliant also responded and was in the process late this morning of repairing the leak. Fire crews remained on stand-by at the scene for about 45-minutes. No evacuations were needed and no injuries were reported.

Legislators have tabled a bill that would have required minors to have parental permission to pierce anything BUT their ears. Representative Ashley Hinson, a Republican from Marion, says the bill isn’t specific enough in describing what actually would be covered as a forbidden-for-teens piercing. “One of our fellow representatives brought up gauging as covered in this because it involves your earlobe,” Hinson says.

Gauging is the process of stretching the earlobe. It widens the hole in a pierced ear. Hinson says other states regulate businesses that pierce other parts of the body, but it’s unclear whether this bill is needed in Iowa. “A lot of the regulation has surrounded what are tattoo artists held to for their standards and I think a lot of people are good practitioners and they are double-checking before they…do something like that, making sure that it’s the right decision and that maybe the parents are involved,” Hinson says.

But Hinson says legislators will continue to investigate the issue, since that may not be standard practice for all body-piercing businesses. It is illegal for tattoo shops in Iowa to give tattoos to minors. Supporters of the bill say body piercing needs to be policed, like tattoo parlors, for health and safety. Critics say the bill infringes on freedom of expression.

“These are decisions that can impact your body for a long time and I also respect the idea that you own your body,” Hinson says, “so I think we need to be mindful of all those concerns going forward and that’s why we decided to just indefinitely postpone the bill.”

Hinson says the bill, as currently written, doesn’t make it clear whether the minor or the person who did the body piercing would be fined if a parent hadn’t given permission for piercing.

(Radio Iowa)

Umbrellas got more use than shovels or snowblowers in January across Iowa. State climatologist Harry Hillaker saysthe average snowfall for the month was just a little more than half the normal amount we get for the first month of the year. “Very little snow except — one big except in this case– the big storm that we had the 24th and 25th across northern Iowa. But other than that one big event,very little snow. Only averaging about a half inch of snow outside that one single storm,” Hillaker says.

The statewide snow total for the month was four-and-a-half inches. There wasn’t much snow, but there was a lot of precipitation in other forms. “Overall precipitation averaged one-point-six-four inches — which is not quite double the usual amount for January,” according to Hillaker. “But it would be our wettest January since 1996, so you’d have to go back 21 years to find a wetter beginning to the year than this year.”

And when it rained it poured. We had several big rain events. On the 10th, rain over just about all of the state and then an ice storm on the 15th and 16th across much of Iowa as well. And we had fairly unseasonably heavy precipitation with both of those events,” Hillaker says.

In Atlantic, rain and melted snowfall for the month amounted to 1.27-inches, which was more than .4″ above average. Snowfall for January amounted to 5.4-inches. Warmer temperatures were behind the abundance of rain and lack of snow in January. “If you average out the whole month together statewide — about four-and-a-half degrees warmer than a typical January. Averaging about 24 (degrees), four-point-six degrees above normal,” Hillaker says. “It would be our warmest January in five years, going back to 2012,” Hillaker explains.

In Atlantic, the average High for January was 33 degrees (4 degrees warmer than normal), while the average Low was 19 (9 degrees warmer than normal). The warmest day was Jan. 30th, when we hit 49 degrees. The coldest mornings were Jan. 5th and 6th, when the thermometer bottomed out at -6. Hillake says while there were a few days of sub-zero temperatures in the first half of the month, we enjoyed warm days to finish out the month.

“Didn’t’ have any temperatures zero degrees or lower the second half of the month. Nothing after the 15th,” he says. “So, a very mild end of the month and the next to last day on the 30th, down in Shenandoah it got all the way up to 58 degrees.”

The warmer weather in January continues the trend from 2016 which ended up being the fifth warmest year on record.

(Radio Iowa)

A new service is being launched in Iowa this Super Bowl weekend that offers to give anyone who’s had too much to drink a free ride home in a tow truck as their vehicle is carted along behind. Kevin Bakewell, vice president of Triple-A, says the Tow To Go program will be available to Iowans anytime from Friday through 6 A-M on Monday by calling a toll-free number. “It is a confidential phone call,” Bakewell says. “We do not take information on your name. We simply take your location, the location of your vehicle. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re a AAA member. We will come out and pick up you and your car and take you safely home within a 10-mile radius.”

Before this weekend, the program was only available in Georgia, Florida and Tennessee, as well as in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. It’s now being rolled out for all of Iowa and Nebraska. “It’s an opportunity for a safe ride home for those who may not have planned ahead with a designated driver, recognizing that Super Bowl is one of those big, celebratory holidays where there tends to be a lot of drinking,” Bakewell says. “This is a way people can ensure a safe ride home for themselves, for their friends, and ensure safer highways for all of us.”

Super Bowl weekend is the first of nine weekends when the service will be offered in Iowa. Since the program was first launched in 1998, the motor club says Tow to Go has safely removed more than 24-thousand impaired drivers from roads across the Southeast and the Midwest. Bakewell isn’t putting a dollar figure on each tow.

“It’s really something we’re measuring in lives saved or potential lives saved,” Bakewell says. “If you think about those 24,000 individuals who have been removed from the highways, literally, every single one of those could have been a traffic fatality, either themselves or by causing a crash and killing somebody else on the highway.”

Iowa reported 403 traffic deaths last year and authorities say more than 100 of those were alcohol-related. Tow trucks can usually carry up to two people in the cab. If there are more people in the party, you will need to make other arrangements to get home safely. The number to call is: (855) 2-TOW-2-GO or (855) 286-9246.

(Radio Iowa)

Police in Red Oak are investigating incidents of theft from two vehicles and vehicle vandalism. Authorities were called to the Red Coach Inn parking lot at around 8:15-a.m. today (Wednesday). On the scene, officers met with a man from Williamsburg, who reported that sometime after 7:30-p.m. Tuesday, someone broke the passenger side window out of his 2005 Chevy Tahoe, and stole a Dell laptop computer belonging to the University of Iowa. The victim said there was nothing of importance in the laptop or hard drive that would be of use to anyone.

While speaking with the victim, a man from Wellsburg approached officers and advised a blue tie down on his 2016 Ford pickup had been cut, and a Stanley roll-away toolbox containing a power strip, 50- and 25-foot extension cords, brochures, pens and paper were stolen. The pickup was in the stall adjacent to the Tahoe.

The loss from the break-in, vandalism and thefts amounted to about $4,400. The incidents remain under investigation.

The Union County Sheriff’s Office says an Afton man reported early Tuesday morning that someone had stolen items from his property valued at about $21,450. The theft happened sometime between 5-and 6-a.m., Tuesday. Taken from the property in the 2700 block of Rose Drive in Afton, was a 2003 camo-colored Yamaha Grizzley, a 2004 black Harley Davidson, a Stevens 12-gauge shotgun, and a Ruger 1022.

(9-a.m. News)

STORM LAKE, Iowa (AP) – A Storm Lake man accused of keeping Iowa authorities from taking custody of his children has agreed to deal with prosecutors. Online court records show 33-year-old Scott Banks pleaded guilty Monday to misdemeanor child endangerment after prosecutors dropped kidnapping and perjury counts. The agreement includes a recommendation for a two-year suspended prison sentence and two years of probation. The judge is not bound by the agreement, however.

Court documents say Banks hid the two children from child welfare employees on Dec. 14, 2015, and lied while under oath at a court hearing that same day. The children were found later at the home of a relative who wasn’t aware of a court order regarding the children.