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KXEL Morning News for Wed. Mar. 29, 2023

By Jeff Stein Mar 29, 2023 | 5:55 AM

From the KCRG-TV9 Newsroom:

Iowa Wesleyan University leadership says the school will close its doors at the end of this school year. The school’s president says it’s closing due to a variety of issues: low enrollment, a decrease in donations, and not being accepted for Federal American Rescue Plan money they applied for through the state. Iowa Wesleyan has been in Mount Pleasant for 181 years. The school is trying to help its 850 students transition to other schools to complete their education.

Restrictions to Iowa’s SNAP eligibility have advanced out of a subcommittee in the Iowa House. It would mean Iowans who received SNAP benefits or food stamps would have to go through an assets test. The bill would create a new system for the Iowa Health and Human Services Department to verify family income, asset and identities in order to apply and remain eligible for these benefits. It now moves on to a full committee.

Iowa’s Secretary of State is recommending the state leave an organization it once praised as a solution to voter fraud. It’s called the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC for short. County Auditors say it allows them to create more accurate voter rolls because it cross-checks with other states to see if someone moved or died. Two Democrat Auditors are frustrated because the Secretary of State was praising the tool on Twitter as recently as last month.

Two teenagers are facing charges, months after investigators say they shot at an RV in rural Solon. Investigators say the two teens were targeting a woman and her baby, who they believed were inside. Investigators say 19-year-old Bryant Wallace and a 17-year-old drove by the RV and shot at it five times, hitting it three times. Deputies arrested Wallace and the 17-year-old yesterday. They’re charged with intimidation with a dangerous weapon. The Johnson County Sheriff says Wallace’s Department of Corrections GPS ankle monitor shows he was in the area at the time of the shooting.