DES MOINES, IA – The More Options for Maternal Support, or MOMs, program was created in 2022, but the state couldn’t find an organization qualified to run it. Wednesday, Iowa House lawmakers passed a bill allowing the Department of Health and Human Services to administer it directly.
State Rep. Michael Bergan of Winneshiek County says the More Options for Maternal Support, or MOMs, program is designed to help promote healthy pregnancies. “Helping with prenatal nutrition, improving family economic self-sufficiency, housing, childcare assistance, purchasing cribs, car seats, formulas, and many more,” Bergan said.
Bergan says the program is a good thing. “These entities provide necessary safety nets to women in need who want to bring their child into this world,” Bergan said.
But Democrats take issue with state money being sent to crisis pregnancy centers, who they say discourage women from getting abortions.
State Rep. Heather Matson of Ankeny says one potential organization currently in negotiations with the state offers abortion pill reversal. Matson says doctors in 2022 tried to run a trial of the treatment but had to stop early due to safety concerns. “They could not estimate the efficacy of the treatment because they had to stop after 12 patients due to safety concerns including severe hemorrhaging in three patients,” Matson said.
45 minutes before debate on the bill began, State Rep. Austin Baeth of Des Moines says he called one of the prospective organizations and asked what training staff had for giving ultrasounds. “And I spoke with Kathy, and she said, ‘uh, well we’ve had some training’. I said, ‘Kathy, do you guys have certification? Are you registered diagnostic ultrasonographers?’. She said, ‘no we’re nurses but we have some training. They’ve showed us how to do it’,” Baeth said.
But Bergan says there’s oversight of medical services provided under the program. “They operate under the Board of Nursing and their own protocols as trained medical professionals and I’m personally confident that, you know, this standard of care that’s put out will be incorporated in any contract for any services and will be monitored,” Bergan said.
The bill has already passed out of the senate, so it now goes to Governor Kim Reynolds’ desk.
PIERRE, S.D. – The South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (DANR) has confirmed emerald ash borer (EAB) in Lennox, South Dakota.
The community of Lennox is in the existing quarantine area, which includes all of Minnehaha, Lincoln, Turner, and Union Counties. The quarantine is designed to slow the spread of EAB.
“Our team was alerted to a suspected infestation by an arborist”, said Marcus Warnke, State Forester, “After inspection, EAB was confirmed in the wood of an infested ash tree.”
EAB has been positively identified in three counties, Lincoln, Minnehaha, and Union and seven communities including Baltic, Brandon, Canton, Crooks, Dakota Dunes, Lennox, Sioux Falls, and Worthing.
The quarantine, which is in place year-round, prohibits the movement of firewood and ash materials out of the quarantined counties. Movement of firewood from any hardwood species, whether intended for commercial or private use, is also restricted. DANR has also established an external embargo on untreated firewood entering South Dakota from all states east of the eastern border of South Dakota and all counties where EAB is known to exist in other states.
“We all need to work together to slow the spread of EAB,” said DANR Secretary Hunter Roberts. “With the summer camping season here, firewood is the most common way EAB is moved from one location to another. Please follow the quarantine and embargo restrictions and buy it where you burn it!”
If an ash tree is infested before it is cut, the wood may still contain EAB larvae. An individual split piece of ash firewood can have five or more adults emerge in the summer.
EAB is a boring beetle that feeds on all species of North American ash. It was first detected in the United States in 2002, and in South Dakota in 2018.
SIOUX CITY, IA – The Sioux City Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in locating 30-year-old, Wesley Louis Staten.
Authorities say Staten is wanted on two counts of Vehicular Homicide.
Staten was the driver in a crash that happened in Sioux City in October 2023, after he ran a red light at the intersection of West 6th and Wesley Parkway which resulted in the accident. The crash ended in the death of 51-year-old Terry Frisbie of Sioux City and 50-year-old, Judith Jordan of Le Mars. Staten had initially fled the scene but eventually turned himself in, but he was not charged with any crime at that time according to police.
If anyone knows the whereabouts of Wesley Louis Staten, please contact the Sioux City Police Department at 712-279-6960 or Siouxland Crime Stoppers at 712-258-8477.
LINCOLN, NE – Nebraska lawmakers advanced a bill that would raise the state’s sales tax by 1 cent to 6.5% on every taxable dollar spent — which would make it among the highest in the country…and they did it with absolutely no votes to spare.
The bill is key to Republican Gov. Jim Pillen’s plan to slash soaring property taxes, which reached a high of $5.3 billion in 2023.
According to Pillen and others, the valuation of houses has skyrocketed in recent years because local assessors are required to assess residential property at around 100% of market value. This has caused some people — particularly the elderly who are on fixed incomes — to be priced out homes they’ve owned for years because they can’t afford the tax bill.
The bill garnered the 33 votes needed Tuesday to end a filibuster and advance to the second of three rounds of debate in Nebraska’s unique one-chamber legislature. In addition to raising the state’s current 5.5% sales tax and expanding it to include more services — such as digital advertising costs — it would add new taxes to candy and soda pop and would tax hemp and CBD products at 100%.
