From the Associated Press:
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Senate Republicans have approved a bill that prohibits transgender females from participating in girls high school sports and women’s college athletics, sending a divisive bill likely to draw legal challenges to the governor. Gov. Kim Reynolds last year lobbied lawmakers to pass a similar measure but it failed to advance. It passed the House last week and the Senate on Wednesday with only Republican votes. Reynolds supports the idea. Iowa will join 10 other Republican-run state legislatures in passing the controversial measure if she signs it. Opponents say the measure is state-sanctioned bullying of transgender children while supporters say it’s the only way to protect women and girls from being dominated in sports competition by males who identify as females.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Federal officials say bird flu has been detected in a backyard flock of chickens and ducks in western Iowa. It’s an especially troubling development for a state that is home to the nation’s largest number of egg-laying hens. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says it confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza in the flock in Pottawattamie County. State officials have quarantined the affected location and the birds were killed to prevent the spread of the disease. Cases have been discovered in noncommercial flocks and farms across the nation in the past month. The first infection was identified at a turkey farm in Indiana on Feb. 9. In a 2015 outbreak, egg farmers in Iowa had to kill 33 million hens.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Police in the Des Moines suburb of Clive say five juveniles face hate crime charges after using racial slurs against another child at a sleepover. Clive police Lt. Mark Rehberg says six juveniles ages 12 and 13 had a sleepover on Friday. Five of the children allegedly used racial slurs and threw footballs and other objects at one of the children. The Polk County Attorney’s Office determined harassment and simple assault charges were appropriate. But Rehberg said the assault charges were upgraded to hate crime charges because racial slurs were allegedly used.
YETTER, Iowa (AP) — The partial collapse of a grain elevator in west-central Iowa left a mess of corn and chunks of concrete littering the railroad tracks next to the structure. The Fort Dodge Messenger reports the collapse happened early Tuesday morning at the Landus Cooperative elevator in Yetter. Officials say a structural failure caused the side of one silo-like receiving pit to blow out around 4:30 a.m., sending a sea of corn to the ground below. Mary Harrington, a spokeswoman for Landus, said the damage was not caused by an explosion and that there was no fire risk. No one was injured in the collapse.
BETTENDORF, Iowa (AP) — Police have identified two people killed in a crash that happened in Bettendorf hours before the wreckage was discovered. The Quad-City Times reports that the crash likely happened around 2:30 a.m. Saturday along the east side of Interstate 74 . But the wreckage wasn’t discovered until 6:30 a.m. by an Iowa state trooper who was patrolling the area. Bettendorf Police Chief Keith Kimball says the car crashed into a grove of trees and would not have been visible from the road at night. Investigators found the bodies of 37-year-old Brooke Neff, of Bettendorf, and 28-year-old Archie Britcher, of Davenport, who had been thrown from the car in the crash.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota’s biggest oil driller says it will commit $250 million to help fund a proposed pipeline that would gather carbon dioxide produced by ethanol plants across the Midwest and pump it underground for permanent storage. Billionaire oil tycoon Harold Hamm’s Continental Resources said Wednesday it’s making the investment into Summit Carbon Solutions’ $4.5 billion pipeline. There are 31 ethanol facilities across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and the Dakotas where emissions would be captured and piped to North Dakota to be buried. Continental officials say they have no plans to use the gas for enhanced oil recovery.
