From the Associated Press (11:20 a.m.)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Police are investigating after a woman was killed at a Des Moines home. Police say in a news release that someone called police around 8:30 p.m. Sunday to report a disturbance at the home and expressed concerns about a woman at the residence. Arriving officers found a 42-year-old woman already dead and say she had been killed. Police did not give the woman’s name or say how she died. Detectives interviewed witnesses and gathered evidence, but police did not immediately report any arrests in the case. The woman’s death marked Des Moines’ seventh homicide this year.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Congressional Democrats have set out to pass ambitious bills with historic expansions of the social safety net and long-sought new programs. But that’s not how many politically vulnerable Democrats are selling them at home. For them, Washington’s spending boom has become a chance to deliver the goods, and win headlines and perhaps bipartisan support in their districts. Iowa rep. Cindy Axne was slow to get behind a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and was unhappy none of the money was targeted for a home state industry, ethanol and biodiesel. In the weeks since, she’s won assurances from congressional leaders that a separate multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint will include money for the renewable fuels. And now she’s on board.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – Hospitals in Iowa’s second-largest city are limiting elective procedures because of increased numbers of patients driven partly by a surge in COVID-19 admissions. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that both UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s Hospital and Mercy Medical Center confirmed Friday their facilities are preserving capacity because of high patient counts in recent weeks. Cedar Rapids hospitals had not delayed or postponed elective surgeries and procedures since last fall. St. Luke’s is limiting surgeries that require a hospital stay to 10 per day. Mercy officials confirmed that it also is temporarily reducing the number of elective procedures that require hospital stays after surgery.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A state court judge has declined to halt enforcement of an Iowa law that prohibits school boards from enacting mask requirements, saying there is no evidence that any school board would immediately impose a mask mandate if the law wasn’t in effect. The ruling came Friday in a lawsuit filed by Frances Parr of Council Bluffs. She is the mother of twin boys. She sued the state, Gov. Kim Reynolds and several state officials last month in Polk County District Court. She sought an order halting enforcement of the law, arguing the law Reynolds signed in May violates her constitutional rights..
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – Thousands of people lined the procession route along Omaha streets to pay tribute to a local man and Marine who died in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan. The body of 23-year-old Cpl. Daegan Page was transported Friday afternoon from Eppley Airfield to Braman Mortuary in southwest Omaha. Page was one of 13 U.S. service members killed Aug. 26 in the bombing at the Kabul airport, which also killed at least 169 Afghans. Page was born in Omaha and lived his first five years in Red Oak, Iowa, before moving back to Omaha with his family. He graduated from Millard South High School in 2016 and enlisted the following year. A memorial service will be held Sept. 17.
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) – Kansas’s state animal – the buffalo – is being celebrated at the State Fair this year with a 700-pound butter sculpture. The Hutchinson News reports that a sculptor from Iowa, Sarah Pratt, had to do some research on buffaloes before she designed this year’s butter statue. Pratt said that if she winds up with any extra butter she may add a buffalo calf or some sunflowers. Pratt, who teaches school by day, lives in West Des Moines with her husband and three children, all of whom help her out with sculpting – from the Kansas State Fair to fairs in Iowa or Illinois.
