(Radio Iowa/IAPR) — Republican Congressman Steve King last debated a DEMOCRATIC challenger in 2014, but King faces three REPUBLICAN competitors in the 2020 Primary.  “If there are debates, I’m ready. I spend every day getting ready of them. I don’t have to go prep for them and read up,” King says. “It’s what I do every day.” King says he hasn’t given much thought to the idea of debating the three men who’ve emerged as challengers to his bid for a tenth term in the U.S. House. King says he made a promise to voters during his first congressional campaign in 2002.

“If you elect me to this job, I will use this seat to move the political center to the right,” King said. “There isn’t anybody that will disagree that I have done that and whether they’re Democrats, Republicans or no-party they all know that I’ve kept my word and I’ve moved the political center to the right.”

Congressman King has raised far less than his most prominent Republican challenger, State Senator Randy Feenstra from Hull. Former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad donated to Feenstra’s campaign and the top Republican in the state senator spoke a Feenstra fundraiser this weekend. Republican leaders in congress stripped King of his committee assignments in January. It came after comments published in The New York Times where King questioned why the phrases “white nationalist, white supremacist and Western civilization” had become offensive. King says he was misquoted.

(Reporting by Iowa Public Radio’s Clay Masters, additional reporting by Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson.)

(Radio Iowa) — The high heat is causing the concrete to buckle on some stretches of northwest Iowa roads. Troy Clouse, with the Iowa Department of Transportation, says he and his crews responded to five reports of pavement blowouts during the weekend in Plymouth, Sioux and Woodbury counties. Clouse says they’re making temporary repairs. “What we’ll do in the short-term is, we’ll take a jackhammer and relieve the pressure and try to flatten out the pavement buckle,” and put in a filler, Clouse says. “At a later time, we’ll come back in and saw-cut everything out and replace the joint with concrete.”

With temperatures in the mid 90s for the first time this year, Clouse says the pavement needs to swell. “There’s moisture underneath the pavement and it’s gotta’ find a spot to release and it usually goes toward the joint,” he says. “That’s where we get our pavement buckles.” Clouse warns motorists to keep a close eye out for pavement buckles. “If they come across one, don’t drive over it. There is sharp concrete. It can puncture a tire or ruin a rim or even more extensive damage underneath the vehicle,” Clouse says. “If you can, just take the shoulder and slowly proceed around it.”

The Iowa D-O-T expects to see additional instances of pavement buckling, as long as the heat wave continues, which may be several more days.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Police officers say they have found a body in a creek near downtown Iowa City. The Iowa City Police Department said that the unidentified deceased person was located at 6:45 a.m. today (Monday) in the water of Ralston Creek near Gilbert Street. The creek is near several large apartment complexes that house many University of Iowa students.
Many homeless people are also known to frequent the creek area. Police say the circumstances surrounding the death are unknown and that they are investigating.

The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office reports numerous arrests from the past week. Sunday evening, 45-year old Donald Christopher Van Gieson, of Council Bluffs, was arrested in Crescent for Violation of a No Contact/Protective Order – Contempt of Court. Friday night, 51-year old Ricky Allen Jershin was arrested for OWI/1st offense, following an investigation into a dispatched, single-vehicle unknown injury accident near Minden. Jershin was examined by medical personnel for minor injuries, but refused treatment. He was then taken into custody.

Late Friday evening, 36-year old Michael Matthew Underwood was arrested for OWI/1st offense, following a traffic stop near Oakland. Early Friday morning, 28-year old Sonnie Bradley, of Omaha, was arrested on Interstate 80 near Council Bluffs, following a reported rolling disturbance. Underwood was taken into custody for False Imprisonment with regard to a 23-year old female, and OWI/1st offense. His bond was set at $2,000.

Thursday afternoon, an inmate at the Pott. County Jail, 61-year old Daniel Bruce Liston, of Council Bluffs, was presented with a warrant for Failure to Appear on a citation for Non-support of a child. His bond was set at $5,000. That same afternoon, a jail inmate, 60-year old Phillip Eugene Cooper, Jr., of Council Bluffs, was presented with a warrant for Violation of Probation. His bond was set at $2,000. And, late Thursday morning, 34-year old Jeremy James Fisher, of Council Bluffs, another inmate at the Pott. County Jail, was presented with a warrant for Dominion or Control of a Firearm/offensive weapon by a felon, and Theft in the 2nd degree.

ANKENY, Iowa – July 1, 2019 – There’s a cool new specialty license plate available to Iowans today (Monday). The latest addition to the Iowa Department of Transportation’s options is the “blackout” plate — an all-black plate with white lettering authorized last legislative session.

You can order the new plate starting today. It’s offered as both a standard alpha-numeric plate and a personalized plate, and you can order both online, or by completing this form and mailing it to the Iowa DOT’s Vehicle & Motor Carrier Services Bureau. Iowa Prison Industries will make the plates and ship them to your county treasurer’s office, who will let you know when they are ready to pick up. Please remember to bring the plates you are replacing into your county treasurer’s office to turn them in when you pick up your new plates.

The new plate will cost $35 for a standard alpha-numeric plate and an additional $25 (for a total of $60) for a personalized plate. Funds collected for the blackout plate will go to the Road Use Tax Fund, which funds state, county, and city road and bridge projects throughout Iowa.

License plates are an important tool used by law enforcement and others to help identify a vehicle. This identification has many practical purposes and can be life-saving in the case of criminal activity or a situation like an Amber Alert. As a reminder, you should never use a license plate frame that obscures or blocks the numbers and letters on the plate.  It can hinder this identification and violates state law.