(Glenwood, Iowa) – The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports two people were arrested Tuesday. 44-year-old Helen Elaine Tupper, of Malvern, was arrested Tuesday afternoon, for Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor. Her bond was set at $300. And, 45-year-old Eric John Rehfredlt, of Red Oak, was arrested Tuesday morning, for OWI/2nd offense. Bond was set at $2,000.

(Sac City, Iowa) – Authorities in the western Iowa town of Sac City report four people have been arrested in connection with the November 27th spray painting of several trees at the Riverview (Lions) Park, in Sac City. Those charged in the incident were identified by authorities, as: Kali Huegerich; Rylee Pearl; Tarissa Shull and Damien Briner, all of Sac City. They were charged with Criminal Mischief in the 2nd Degree, a Class-D Felony.

Authorities say the accussed allegedly defaced multiple trees with red and black spray paint, resulting in about $3,500 worth of damage. An investigation into the vandalism is ongoing, and police say additional charges may be filed.

Anyone with information about the incident is urged to come forward, and contact the Sac City Police Department.

“All individuals charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”

(Iowa County, Iowa) – A collision Tuesday afternoon southwest of Marengo, in eastern Iowa, resulted in a fatality. The Iowa State Patrol reports an SUV driven by 52-year-old William F. Myers, of Marengo, was traveling south on 210th Street and entering a curve, when for reasons unknown, the vehicle crossed the center line of the road and collided in an offset fashion, with a northbound semi tractor-trailer. Myers died in the crash which occurred at around 2:35-p.m. He was not wearing a seatbelt.

The driver of the semi was not injured.

WASHINGTON, D-C (KCCI) – An Iowa man convicted in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has been re-sentenced after he was mistakenly released from prison early. According to new court documents, Leo Kelly, of Cedar Rapids, was given a new sentence of time served and one year of supervised release. He is also required to pay $500 restitution and a $5,000 fine.

Kelly was originally sentenced to 30 months in prison for the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He served 11 months of that sentence when an appeals court threw out one of his convictions. The Bureau of Prisons says the release happened because of a “misinterpretation of a court order.”

(Radio Iowa) – The Ankeny-based Casey’s convenience store chain reported an increase of 14 percent in net income for the second quarter despite a drop in gas sales. Casey’s Chief financial officer Steve Bramlage talked about the results in a conference call for investors. “Total revenue for the quarter was three-point-nine (3.9) billion dollars, a decrease of 118 million dollars or two-point-nine percent from the prior year. And that’s due primarily to a 14-point-one percent decline in the retail price of fuel,” Bramlage says. He says fuel gallons sold were down just under one percent compared to the second quarter last year. “Retail fuel sales were down 232 million dollars in the quarter, driven primarily by a 51 cent decline in the retail price of fuel from three-dollars and 62 cents per gallon in the prior year to three-dollars and eleven center per gallon in the second quarter,” he says.

(Casey’s photo)

Casey’s C-E-O Darren Rebelez says total inside sales were up nine percent compared to the same quarter last year. He says customers were purchasing more expensive items, including beer. “The fastest growing part of that is imports and super premiums, which tend to come with higher margins. If you go to the other subcategories, liquor and wine, those are both growing at about a ten percent clip, and those have higher margins as well,” Rebelez says. He says cigarettes are another area where they benefit from the sale of products that generate more revenue. “Combustible cigarettes are the lowest margin subcategory within that category, and they’re declining and have been declining for a number of years,” He says. “On the flip side, you have nicotine alternatives and vapor, which are growing at the fastest pace. In fact, nicotine alternatives are almost triple-digit increases, and those tend to come with a much higher margin rate. So we’re actually seeing margin rate expansion in tobacco.”

He says prepared foods and beverages led the way overall for inside sales, up more than five percent. Some of that was due to an increased number of stores. Casey’s closed the acquisition of the Fikes stores and is staying with its projection of an increase of approximately 270 stores for the fiscal year.

(Radio Iowa) – As we approach New Year’s Eve, a common resolution is to get in better shape, and an Iowa State University psychology professor is studying ways to help make exercise a habit we enjoy. Dr. Alison Phillips, a social and health psychologist at I-S-U, says they tried out a variety of strategies with an online exercise program to see what was most effective at making participants, including some who were new to the practice, stick with it. “We tested eight different groups, so just a combination of three different strategies, and they all worked,” Phillips says. “Even the control group got basic goal setting, which is, we treated it like the standard advice that not everybody does, but that helped them to form habits and stick with their exercise more frequently and for a longer amount of time. We followed them for a whole year.”

Phillips says exercise preparation habits proved to be the best method. She says they guided participants to form habits around getting ready to exercise, essentially making sure they had everything they needed. “If you want your exercise routine to be going to the gym every day after work, your preparation habit might be making sure your gym bag is packed the night before,” she says, “maybe even loaded into your car so that it’s ready to go and you have fewer barriers when it’s time to exercise.” By getting one’s gym clothes — or whatever gear is necessary — organized ahead of time helped to cement the plan to exercise in a person’s mental schedule.

Dr. Alison Phillips (ISU photo)

“It depends on the person, of course, but maybe it’s doing laundry right when you get home from work, to make sure your clothes are clean, putting your shoes by the door so that you see them and they’re ready to go,” Phillips says, “really dependent by the person, but it was around getting stuff ready, rather than an exercise habit itself.” The popularity of pickleball has skyrocketed in recent years, and Phillips says enthusiastic participants in a sport often create an identity for themselves around that activity. “That’s part of what motivates us to do something, is how we see ourselves, and those pickleball players? That is a big part of their identity, and it’s become something they’re competitive about, it’s their social circle, it’s their exercise,” Phillips says. “But the fact that it’s exercise is probably far down the list of the reasons why they’re doing it.”

That sense of identity can also be a strong motivator in a host of sports, she says, from running to racquetball.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports a man from Cass County (IA) was cited Tuesday evening, following an accident in the 1700 block of Highway 48. The sheriff’s department says a 2020 Freightliner semi driven by Robert Zollinger, of Ellinwood, KS, was pulling a 2016 Timpte grain trailer, when the trailer was rear-ended by a 2021 Nissan Rogue SUV, driven by Robert Leslie, of Atlantic. The SUV sustained disabling damage in the collision, which occurred at around 5:40-p.m., Tuesday.  Deputies cited Leslie for following too close.

No injuries were reported. Red Oak Rescue and Red Oak Police assisted at the scene.

(Guthrie Center, Iowa) – Sheriff’s officials in Guthrie County, Tuesday, released information with regard to four separate, non-injury accidents that occurred over the past five days. Three of the collisions involved deer on the roads.

Authorities say at around 1:30-p.m. Monday, a rear-end collision happened on Highway 141 out of Bayard, when an SUV driven by 63-year-old Robert Adams, of Breda, slowed down and was stopping for a vehicle that was stopped and waiting to make a left turn. An SUV driven by 31-year-old Rayne Worthington, of Coon Rapids, experienced brake trouble, according to the report, and was unable to stop before it struck the rear of Adams’ SUV. Damage from the collision amounted to $11,000. No citations were issued, but the sheriff’s report noted Worthington was following too closely and failed to yield the right-of-way.

An accident Sunday evening in Guthrie County resulted in $12,000 damage to a pickup driven by 41-year-old Bradley Vonnahme, of Coon Rapids. Authorities say he was traveling in the 1500 block of Highway 25, when his pickup struck a deer on the road. The vehicle was able to be driven away from the scene of the collision.

Saturday evening, an SUV driven by 27-year-old Jamie Daggett, of Des Moines, struck a deer on Highway 25 north near 160th Road. The vehicle sustained an estimated $5,000 damage and was towed from the scene.

And, Friday night, a pickup driven by 56-year-old Michelle Clark, of Yale, struck a deer on Wagon Road. The vehicle sustained front-end damage amounting to an estimated $4,000.

(Radio Iowa) – American Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall is warning there may be collateral damage in rural America if President-elect Trump follows through on mass deportations and increases tariffs. Duvall is in Des Moines for the Iowa Farm Bureau’s annual meeting. “We really need this new administration focused on trade,” Duvall says. “I know that the new administration’s talking about tariffs. We don’t support tariffs. We know that when tariffs are put on that other countries take it out on agriculture and we’re real fearful of what might happen in that area.”

The first Trump Administration paid American farmers 28 BILLION dollars in so-called trade disruption payments to compensate for China’s retaliation to Trump’s tariffs. Duvall says expanding ag exports would help farmers get past the financial strain of inflation. Duvall, who spoke to reporters in Des Moines for nearly half an hour, says the Farm Bureau is very interested in learning the details of Trump’s plan to deport people who entered the country illegally.

“A lot of workers across this country are undocumented that’s working on farms, because there’s no other people who want to do that work,” Duvall says, “and so we’ll be working with the administration to try to make sure that we don’t harm the food system in our country and harm our rural communities and our farmers and ranchers as we move forward.”

A recent U-S Labor Department survey found about 44 percent of American farm workers are undocumented immigrants. Duvall says no one wants criminals from other countries here, harming U-S citizens, but he says the Farm Bureau will argue against deporting migrants who are critical to the ag economy. “What we’re planning on doing is making sure that we take that seat with the president and making sure he understands how valuable this workforce is to our farmers and ranchers,” Duvall says, “and make sure that we try to minimize the collateral damage that might go on in that area.”

American Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall spoke to reporters at the Iowa Farm Bureau’s annual convention on Dec. 10, 2024. (Photo by Brent Barnett/Brownfield)

Duvall says there may be an opportunity reduce regulations on farmers once Trump takes office and the Farm Bureau is lobbying for the total elimination of the federal inheritance tax. Duvall says he’s extremely disappointed a new Farm Bill has stalled, again, in congress. “We right now are focused on not just pushing for a modernized Farm Bill, but pushing for disaster and economic payments,” Duvall says, “to try to bind our farmers over until we can get a new Farm Bill passed.”

Duvall is a farmer from northern Georgia. On Monday, he drove through areas of his state that were hit by Hurricane Helene in late September. “It looks like a bomb went off for 100 miles,” Duvall says. “I mean it’s really, really bad and the crops that were destroyed, the barns that were destroyed, homes and lives that were lost — it really was difficult to look at when you ride up through there.”

Duvall says just about every part of the country has seen some form of natural disaster this year and congress needs to provide disaster assistance to farmers A-S-A-P. Duvall has been the American Farm Bureau’s president since 2016. He’s the keynote speaker at this week’s Iowa Farm Bureau convention.

(Iowa News Service) – A small turtle made popular in the “Kung Fu Panda” movies could soon be added to the endangered species list. Iowa wildlife advocates are working to restore it to its native habitat and give the turtle a better chance for survival. The Blanding’s turtle is popularized in the long-running, lighthearted animated movies but its fate is anything but funny. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide in coming months whether to list it on the endangered species list. Officially, fewer than 3,000 Blanding’s turtles are left in Iowa.

Karen Kinkead, Wildlife diversity program coordinator for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said they are a cryptic species and hard to count but are easy to identify when you spot one. “They’re kind of this drab, olive green-grey color. Their shell is shaped kind of like a helmet. They are sort of nondescript,” Kinkead outlined. “But then you see this bright yellow chin and the way that their lower jaw is formed it makes it look like this is an animal that is always smiling.”

Decades of habitat loss and predation have already put the Blanding’s turtle on the threatened list in Iowa. A partnership between the state DNR, Iowa State University and the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines just hatched nearly five dozen baby Blanding’s turtles researchers will raise until adulthood, then tag with telemetry gear to track them in the wild.

Endangered Blandings Turtle in the wild

Kinkead pointed out the zoo is “head-starting” the turtles by hatching and keeping them in the zoo over the winter, instead of allowing them to hibernate. “They keep them awake and keep feeding them so they grow larger,” Kinkead explained. “Then when they’re released into the wild the next summer, they’re a bigger size.”

Kinkead added being bigger and more mature makes the turtles less vulnerable to predators once they are released.