(Iowa News Service) – Stories are shortcuts, introducing people and places we might not otherwise encounter. They help us discover meaningful connections, even amid isolating circumstances. Curious people often turn to books because novels and memoirs open up on demand, but everyone has a story to tell. In Iowa, CultureALL’s Open Book program makes striking up a conversation with a stranger as simple as visiting the local library. Their catalog of personal narratives introduces real-life protagonists whose singular struggles touch broader topics like immigration, identity, grief, faith and more.

Since 2018, the Des Moines-based social impact organization has recruited more than 50 Iowans from diverse backgrounds to serve as human “Books.” They share short talks about a defining chapter of their lives with intimate audiences of “Readers.” From Charlie’s harrowing story of surviving a traumatic childhood abduction to Sylvia’s tale of defying society’s expectations as a blind woman to earn her PhD in soil chemistry, human “Books” prove why people shouldn’t be judged by their cover.  “Open Book can be a catalyst to speed up a relationship and introduce a conversation that maybe wouldn’t have naturally occurred,” says Karen Downing, a retired English teacher who brought the concept to CultureALL.

CultureALL supports human “Books” through the storytelling process. It compensates them for visits to retirement communities, libraries, businesses and other locations. Open Book’s story-sharing format was inspired by Human Library, a movement that began in Denmark in 2000 to address prejudice through personal connections. CultureALL’s version is reciprocal. “We realized that, yes, people want to hear other stories,” Downing says. “They also really wanted to share their own and get a sense of their lived experience in conversation with someone else.”

Two Open Book participants embrace after an Open Book event to connect their respective churches in Des Moines (Arts Midwest photo)

She and former CultureALL AmeriCorps Service member JJ Kapur collaborated to localize the Human Library concept and measure its empathy-building impact.

Humanizing Complex Issues

Initiatives like UpLift: The Central Iowa Basic Income Pilot have participated in Open Book to bring local voices to issues like poverty and homelessness. Congregations have also used the program to build relationships across racial divides. Funding from Humanities Iowa is helping the CultureALL program connect urban and rural populations, too.  “Hearing a personal story can change a lens on an issue or big, thorny topic that people maybe don’t have a nuanced understanding of,” Downing says.

The vulnerability Open Book encourages can be validating for participants like Yerliana Reyna, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who moved to Iowa by way of the Bronx, New York.  Reyna is a middle school counselor who connected with Open Book after participating in the Iowa Latinx Project’s Media Ambassador Program. She shared her story at a senior center in Pella, a community known for its deeply Dutch heritage.

“I remember one of the ladies kept looking at me and then when I was done [speaking], she said, ‘You know that you are more brave than you think,’” Reyna says. “Your story can be of encouragement for somebody else.”

Brianne Sanchez wrote this story for Arts Midwest.

(Radio Iowa) – The top Democrat in the Iowa House says cell phone policies for Iowa schools should be left up to school boards. Governor Kim Reynolds has introduced legislation that would require school boards to adopt a policy that bans cell phone use during class time. House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst says the legislature should require schools to have a cell phone policy for students, but not dictate what that policy should be. “I just don’t want us to be mandating what a tiny school district should do versus what a giant school district should do because they know best how to implement these policies and they know their students and their teachers,” Konfrst says.

Seventy-two percent of U-S high school teachers who participated in a Pew Research Center survey said cell phone use during class was a major distraction. “I don’t want distracted students in classrooms either,” Konfrst said, “but I really don’t want teachers to have one more thing to have to do and now they have to police cell phone usage in addition to the other things we’ve asked them to do. So, if we can allow local districts to make these decisions, they have proven to us that they can do it in a way that is best for their community and I think that is the best way to do it.”

Konfrst made her comments during a weekend appearance on “Iowa Press” on Iowa P-B-S. Governor Reynolds says cell phones are not only a distraction, but a deterrent to development in the classroom. She says if her bill becomes law, the Iowa Department of Education will provide sample policies with room for potential common-sense exemptions. The legislation also requires schools to provide students in 6th, 7th and 8th grade with social media training.

(Radio Iowa) – State health officials are seeing a significant jump in the number of schools reporting significant absences due to illness. Iowa Health and Human Services reports a boost statewide in respiratory virus infections like COVID-19, R-S-V, and the flu, as well as norovirus. Addie Olson, spokesperson for the Polk County Health Department, says at least 14 schools in the Des Moines metro area reported high absence rates this month.  “Some of those schools have reported sick absence rates greater than 10-percent for two or three consecutive days,” Olson says, “and those extended absentee rates are a good indicator that there is a significant amount of illness spreading within the school.”

Olson says parents should keep kids home when they’re sick. “We also are promoting things like practicing good hygiene, washing your hands really thoroughly before and after eating and using the restroom,” she says, “and staying up to date on vaccinations.”

State health officials reported last week that 73 schools statewide had absence rates of at least 10 percent for the prior week. That’s a significant jump from 11 schools in the week before.

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with the Creston Police Department report a Cass County man was arrested Friday afternoon on Forgery charges. 21-year-old Ethan Leroy Sheley, of Cumberland, was charged with two counts of Forgery. He was taken to the Union County Jail and later posted at $10,000 bond. Creston Police said also, 44-year-old Shauna Kay Mcclain, of Creston, was arrested Friday night for Driving Suspended. Mcclain was cited and released on a promise to appear.

Early Saturday morning, 32-year-old Misael De Leon, Jr., of Lenox, was arrested at the Creston/Union County Law Enforcement Center, for Public Intoxication. De Leon was taken to the Union County Jail and later released on his own cognizance.

And, a woman from Creston reported early Saturday morning, that someone had slashed the front tires on her car, sometime between 7-p.m. Friday and 1-a.m., Saturday. The incident happened in the 400 block of N. Pine Street, in Creston. The loss was estimated at $300.

(Radio Iowa) – A federally mandated survey finds a majority of the water lines serving Iowa homes do NOT contain lead. D-N-R Drinking Water Program coordinator Heidi Cline says there are still a small amount of lead lines in use. “Based on the data that we have so far, there are 51-thousand-918 lead service lines reported to us, which is just under four percent of the total service lines that were reported on the inventories,” she says. The inventories found 81 percent of the lines were not lead, almost 14 percent were undetermined and less than two percent were galvanized lines that need to be replaced. The survey is part of the federal effort to get rid of lead water pipes following the severe health and other problems caused by lead pipes in Michigan. Cline says a federal lead water pipes ban went into effect in 1988, so most of the homes with lead pipes tend to be older.

“And then there could be, you know, local ordinances in place, and communities that banned lead even earlier than that, or just as a standard practice,” Cline says. “For example, in Des Moines, I think most homes built after 1950 don’t have lead service lines.” Cline says Iowa water systems still need to figure out how many of the undetermined lines are lead. She says the E-P-A said this fall that the compliance date to identify all of the unknown pipes is November 1st of 2027, and systems have to find out that information withing seven years of the compliance date. Cline says the next step would be getting rid of the lead pipes. “Starting with the compliance date of November, 1 of 2027 systems have 10 years to remove all of those lead service lines. Cline says many of the lines inside homes are owned by the homeowner, and the federal rules don’t say who should pay for getting the lead out.

“It does not specify. It’s basically silent on who is responsible for the cost of this. It says that the system is required to remove any service line under their control,” she says. “But they also gone to say in a situation where you would need to gain access to get control of that line, you have to get, you know, permission from the home homeowner, and if the homeowner refuses a certain number of times, then the system is not responsible for replacing that line.” Cline says water systems have some funding available to help get rid of lead pipes, but there’s likely to be disagreements about who is going to pay. “Somebody is going to have to pay something to remove these pipes, then it’s kind of a decision that the systems are going to have to make on if they’re going to cover the costs of it, or if they’re going to assess costs back to the homeowner. And you know, obviously, as you can imagine, there, there could be some forthcoming legal challenges with that as well,” Cline says.

Cline says you should have received a notice from your utility about the types of pipes you have and if there needs to be changes made. You can find out more about the survey on the D-N-R’s website. https://www.iowadnr.gov/Environmental-Protection/Water-Quality/Drinking-Water-Compliance/Lead-Service-Line-Inventories Cline says the E-P-A is still compiling information from other states and doesn’t have that available to get a comparison to how Iowa compares to them when it comes to the number of lead service lines.

(Radio Iowa) – Alzheimer’s disease strikes about one in nine Iowa seniors, but studies show the rate is even higher for people in rural areas. A statewide virtual community forum is planned later this week focused on dementia care in rural Iowa. The online event will be moderated by Jim Feauto, administrator of Regency Park Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Carroll. He says rural Iowans face more challenges when it comes to diagnosis, long-term care options, and support for caregivers. “It’s really kind of a double whammy,” Feauto says. “They have less access and the percentages are a little higher in rural Iowa.”

Nearly seven-million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease, including more than 62-thousand in Iowa, while nearly 100-thousand Iowans are caregivers for family members and friends. The virtual forum is being hosted by the Alzheimer’s Association Iowa Chapter. The goal is to better understand the challenges in rural Iowa, to shed light on the need for more support, and to start finding solutions to decrease higher prevalence rates and increase access to medical and support services.

“Nationally and in Iowa, about one in nine over 65 is impacted by Alzheimer’s,” Feauto says. “In these rural areas, it’s less than one in eight, and they don’t have access to treatment, care, resources, so we want to see what they need and how we can help them.” A 2023 study found the average Alzheimer’s prevalence rate in Iowans 65 and older is 11%, though the rate was 12.5% in Osceola and Mitchell counties, 12.6% in Monona County, and the state’s highest rate of 12.9% was in Ringgold County. While Medicare recommends seniors get a cognitive test during their doctor’s checkups every year, studies show only about 25-percent of those who are eligible take the test.

“In rural areas, only seven-and-a-half percent of the eligible people over 65 get cognitive assessments in their annual wellness visits,” Feauto says, “and that’s something that we’re really trying to get the word out to do that.” Three other people will co-host the forum: Kari Bateman, administrator for Emmet County Public Health; Andrea Turnbull, home care nursing division manager for Cerro Gordo Public Health; and Coletta Weeda, a dementia caregiver from Denison.

The forum via Zoom is free and will be held starting at 11 A-M on Thursday. Register here:
https://tinyurl.com/RuralForumJan2025

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – The latest data from the CDC and USDA show the continued devastating effects of bird flu outbreaks across the United States – with Iowa, the nation’s leading egg producer, suffering substantial losses. Since November 2023, more than 12.1 million poultry birds have been affected in Sioux County, Iowa. Statewide, nearly 30-million birds have been affected.

On Jan. 17, health officials in Georgia, the nation’s leading state for chicken production, announced it was suspending poultry sales after detecting bird flu, for the first time, in flocks designated for commercial sale. This recent development is not yet reflected in the CDC and USDA databases used for this analysis.

Since federal and state government officials began tracking in February 2022, at least 1,400 outbreaks have been reported in more than 600 counties nationwide, affecting nearly 135 million birds. Other counties experiencing severe losses include Weld County, Colorado, with 9.95 million since April 2022, and Merced County, California, recording 8.35 million, according to the data.

Midwest states with the highest number of birds affected include Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, and Nebraska. Meanwhile, 67 human cases have been reported in the U.S. since the flu was first detected in humans in 2024, according to the CDC.

“While the current public health risk is low, CDC is watching the situation carefully and working with states to monitor people with animal exposures,” the agency stated on its website, which is regularly updated with the latest information.

(Storm Lake, Iowa) — The Storm Lake Police Department, Sunday afternoon, issued a community safety alert pertaining to an armed and barricaded person. According to the Storm Lake Police Department Facebook, at approximately 4:55 p.m. Storm Lake PD officers were at 3rd and Oneida Street dealing with an armed and barricaded individual.

According to SLPD, earlier in the day deputies were involved in a vehicle pursuit that ended at the current scene. Authorities say the individual was actively firing at responding officers. Their Facebook post said “This is an extremely dangerous situation, and for your safety, we strongly urge all residents in the immediate vicinity to evacuate the area if it is safe to do so. If evacuation is not possible, please shelter in place, remain indoors, and stay away from windows or doors. Lock your doors and secure your property. Avoid the area completely, as it remains an active and volatile scene.”

No other details, and no updates have been provided as of this report. (Photos from the SLPD Facebook page)

(Manning, Iowa) – Numerous fire departments were battling a blaze Sunday night at a pallet company owned by Gene Steffes, in Manning. The fire broke out at around 5-p.m. City officials say the building was unoccupied. No injuries have been reported. The City said Sunday residents in Manning will notice changes in water pressure or discolored water for the first part of the week, because of the water used to handle the incident. Additional details are currently not available.

(Photos are from our sister stations KNOD and KDSN)

KNOD photo

KDSN photo

DES MOINES, Iowa —[KCCI/KJAN] – Eight weeks into meteorological winter, Iowa continues to fall further behind on snowfall. In Des Moines, only 4.7 inches has accumulated since the first measurable snow arrived December 2. That puts the metro area nearly 14 inches behind normal at this point in the season. Snowfall in parts of northern Iowa is nearly 20 inches below average. The Iowa Drought Monitor released this past Thursday, shows a large part of southwest, northwest, northeast and east-central Iowa are in a D-1 (Moderate Drought), while other parts of southwest, central, northeast and southeast Iowa are Abormally Dry. Only south-central Iowa was listed as drought-free, due to a mid-December ice storm.

Here’s a look at snow accumulation so far this season around the state:

2024-2025 snowfall (through January 25)

• Algona — 2.7 inches
• Ames — 5.3 inches
• Audubon — 4.6 inches
• Atlantic — 1.9 inches
• Boone — 6.8 inches
• Carroll — 4.6 inches
• Chariton — 1.6 inches
• Corning — 0.8 inches
• Creston — 1.1 inches
• Fort Dodge — 5.8 inches
• Grinnell — 4.0 inches
• Guthrie Center — 5.8 inches
• Hampton — 2.6 inches
• Iowa Falls — 1.9 inches
• Jefferson — 2.1 inches
• Lamoni — 1.1 inches
• Marshalltown — 5.3 inches
• Osceola — 1.4 inches
• Ottumwa — 3.4 inches
• Perry — 6.6 inches
• Pocahontas — 3.4 inches
• Sac City — 4.1 inches
• Sigourney — 3.4 inches
• Sioux City — 6.3 inches
• Webster City — 4.6 inches
• Winterset — 3.1 inches