As Iowa children go back to school, some want the governor to issue an executive order overriding a new state law barring individual schools from issuing mask mandates…including the president, who has urged the federal department of education to challenge those laws. But on Fox News Channel, Gov. Kim Reynolds says she’s received encouragement to stand up to the administration.
One person was shot early yesterday morning at a Waterloo bar. Police say the person sustained non-life threatening injuries at Club Legacy in Waterloo around 2 a.m. Multiple shell casings were found outside the bar at 120 Sumner Street. No arrests have been made.
An overnight apartment fire in Waterloo yesterday morning…firefighters used ladders to evacuate residents of the five-unit building in the 1300 block of West Donald Street. The fire broke out around 4 a.m.
Two people were hurt, one seriously, after a train hit a car in Black Hawk County, It happened just after 2:30 Saturday afternoon in the 1000 block of South Canfield Road. The car became stuck on the tracks as the train approached. The passenger was taken to UnityPoint-Allen Hospital with life-threatening injuries. The driver was also taken to Allen with non-life threatening injuries. The incident remains under investigation.
A rock band has canceled an Iowa concert because of the state’s vaccine passport ban. The band Spoon cancelled its Sept. 9 show. The band posted on Instagram that it wanted Des Moines’ Hoyt Sherman Place to require concertgoers to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test. But a new Iowa law bans businesses from requiring proof of vaccination. Spoon instead will pay a show at Omaha’s Slowdown music hall.
A man who killed a Fort Dodge pastor outside a church has been sentenced to life in prison. Joshua Pendleton was sentenced Friday after being convicted in April of first-degree murder in the death of Rev. Al Henderson. The pastor was found unresponsive outside St. Paul Lutheran Church in Fort Dodge in October 2019. Police said Pendleton attacked Henderson after the 64-year-old pastor tried to stop him from entering the building. Court proceedings in the case were delayed several times to address Pendleton’s mental health issues. Authorities and Pendleton’s family have said he is schizophrenic.
Recreational vehicle and boat manufacturer Winnebago Industries is moving its corporate headquarters from Iowa to Minnesota. The company has been based in Forest City since its founding in 1958. The official shift to Eden Prairie, Minnesota will be effective Dec. 1. The company’s executive offices have been in Minnesota since 2016. That’s when CEO Michael Happe became president and CEO of Winnebago. He’s the former head of Eden Prairie-based lawnmower maker Toro Co. and did not move to Iowa. Winnebago Industries employs about 6,500 employees with 100 based out of that Eden Prairie office. The company says manufacturing locations will remain the same.
You heard combat veteran and U.S. senator from Iowa Joni Ernst on KXEL last week call for answers on how the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was mishandled. She told Fox Friday things could have gone much smoother had the withdrawal happened before the Taliban took over. And Ernst expressed concern that under Taliban rule, women’s rights would again be taken away. You can hear our full interview with the senator by going to the podcast page of KXEL.com.
Lottery players will get more chances to win giant jackpots as the Powerball game shifts to three drawings a week in an effort to build larger prizes and boost sales. The expansion begins today, and is the first time the game will expand beyond two weekly drawings since it was launched 29 years ago. The change is intended to create consistently larger prizes. Although plenty of people play Powerball when prizes are lower, officials say sales typically take off when jackpots reach $400 million or more. MegaMillions, the other lottery game offered throughout the country, doesn’t plan to add more drawings.
An investigation has found that sheriff’s deputies made a mistake when they did not investigate a neighboring county prosecutor for drunken driving after encountering her intoxicated in her car on the side of a highway one night in 2019. Critics have questioned whether assistant Jackson County Attorney Amanda Lassance received special treatment in the incident, which began when her then-boyfriend called 911 to report she had fought with him on the drive home from a casino and was in a car parked along Highway 61. An inquiry by the Office of the State Ombudsman found Clinton County deputies ended their OWI investigation prematurely because of a misunderstanding of the law, due to inadequate training and supervision.
A prosecutor says an Iowa man seen in a videotaped confrontation with a police officer during the Capitol disturbance should be returned to jail until trial because he violated terms of his release by watching anti-government internet videos about the Jan. 6 attack. Douglas Jensen was released in July after spending six months in jail while awaiting trial. At the time, Jensen told a judge that he had been duped by QAnon conspiracy theories and had since experienced a “wake-up call.” A court filing Thursday says that 30 days later, on Aug. 13, a pretrial services officer found Jensen in his garage in Des Moines listening to the news on a website that features anti-vaccine and anti-government content.
