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House speaker transfers abortion bill to new committee

February 24, 2011 By

House Speaker Kraig Paulsen has used his authority to transfer a bill that would ban so-called “late term” abortions to another committee after key Republicans on the House Human Resources Committee refused to support the bill. Paulsen, a Republican from Hiawatha, downplays the idea this is an unusual move.

“I don’t think it’s a particularly extraordinary step. That’s something that happens on a semi-regular basis, at least in years past,” Paulsen says. “I guess it’s extraordinary in that it’s the first time I’ve done it this year.”

The bill was drafted in response to a Nebraska doctor’s vow to open a clinic in Council Bluffs after Nebraska’s new law which forbids abortions after the 20th week of a pregnancy, unless the mother’s life or health is at risk. The bill pending in the Iowa legislature mirrors that new Nebraska law.

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Author of popular “Hollows” series to visit Iowa

February 24, 2011 By

Kim Harrison

The best-selling author who created the popular “Hollows” series about a woman who experiments with black magic is making her first visit to Iowa next week. The novel “Pale Demon” is the ninth book in the series that’s especially popular with women between the ages of 25 and 45.

In an interview with Radio Iowa from her home in Michigan, Kim Harrison says she created the outlandish mix of characters, centered around Rachel Morgan. “She’s a 20-something witch living in modern-day Cincinnati and she lives in a church with a vampire and a pixie, solving paranormal crimes, trying to make rent and get a solid boyfriend,” Harrison says.

In this tale, Morgan is facing a potential death sentence so she and her supernatural roommates make a cross-country road trip. “She finds herself in the precarious position of being shunned by her witchkind and the only way to get that taken care of is to travel out to the West Coast for the witches’ annual business meeting,” Harrison says. “She she packs up her stuff and off she goes,” taking the vampire and the pixie along for the adventure.

Harrison says she read a lot of fairy tales in her younger years and enjoys creating her own yarns that meld urban fantasy with popular culture. “The beginnings of the Rachel Morgan story started with me trying to put the most oddball characters I could think of, a vampire, a pixie and a witch, put them in a bar and see what happens and still try to keep Rachel the girl next door, with the same charm and the same issues and the same problems,” Harrison says.

“It’s worked out wonderfully.” The Hollows series of books have sold more than two-and-a-half million copies. While her main character is a witch who “dabbles” in black magic, Harrison says she’s not a witch herself, not even close. “I’m asked that quite a lot and I always say I do not practice Wiccan,” Harrison says. “To be quite honest, it scares me. I don’t even do much research on the magic. I just make it up as I go based on common stuff that anyone might hear in the movies and in fairy tales.”

Still, she gets a lot of mail from people who do practice Wiccan and she says they appreciate the way Rachel Morgan is portrayed. Like her main character, Harrison is on a road trip of her own and will stop at the Des Moines Public Library’s eastside branch next week. She’s scheduled for a book signing and reading at 6:30 P.M. on Monday, March 1st.

Learn more at “www.kimharrison.net“.

Filed Under: Recreation & Entertainment

Agela Johnson will get hearing on her death sentence

February 24, 2011 By

The first woman given a federal death sentence since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment 35 years ago has a hearing set for next month in federal court. Angela Johnson of Forest City has challenged her conviction and sentence in the 1993 drug-related slayings of three adults and two children in north-central Iowa.

Johnson’s attorneys claim that she was incompetent at the time of the trial and had ineffective lawyers. U.S. District Court documents show Judge Mark Bennett has scheduled an evidentiary hearing for March 7th in Sioux City. Johnson, who was convicted in 2005, was sentenced to death in four of the killings and given a life sentence for the fifth.

Johnson’s boyfriend Dustin Honken also was convicted and received a federal death sentence.

By Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

Storm could dump new snow on southern Iowa

February 24, 2011 By

A week ago today, Iowans were basking in warm weather that topped off at 70-degrees in some cities. Today’s high temperatures will be less than half that. Meteorologist Jacob Beitlich, at the National Weather Service, says a massive winter storm system is moving across the central United States and it’ll bring snow to much of Iowa’s southern half late this afternoon and tonight.

“It’s going to spread a band of snow across Missouri and Illinois and clip parts of central and southern Iowa,” Beitlich says. “There are Winter Weather Advisories out for three-to-five inches of snow across southern Iowa and in extreme southeast Iowa, we have a Winter Storm Warning where they’ll see heavier amounts.” He says the current forecast calls for cities like Keokuk, Fort Madison and Burlington to get the worst of the snow.

“Anywhere from five to seven inches and then locally, there could be higher amounts,” Beitlich says. “It’ll depend on if we’ll get some convection, or thunder snow, where you have more instability and you could have heavier snowfall rates.” The snow won’t likely be melting anytime soon, so he says Iowans will have to do some shoveling and snowblowing to get rid of what falls today.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to melt it off too quickly,” he says. “Once this storm comes through, there’s a lot of arctic air behind it. We’ll see highs around the seasonal average, upper 20s and mid 30s. That won’t melt the snow too quickly but the sun is getting more powerful so maybe in the long term, say a week out or a week plus, we’ll see a warm-up then.”

See the full forecast at www.weather.gov.

Filed Under: Weather

Bill that would force school consolidation doesn’t get far

February 24, 2011 By

A bill that would have forced some small Iowa schools to close down and merge with a neighboring district has failed to clear even an initial hearing in the Iowa Senate. The legislation called for closing any district with fewer than 750 students.

Senator Brian Schoenjahn, a Democrat from Arlington who is a retired school teacher, was on a three-member panel that killed the bill. “If you have several rural districts that are in declining enrollment, which 90 percent of our schools are, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to combine and then you have a large district with declining enrollment,” Schoenjahn says. “What have we solved?’ According to Schoenjahn, it’s up to local school boards to make consolidation decisions, not the state legislature.

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Filed Under: Education Tagged With:

Iowa Senate jumps into dispute over raccoon hunting

February 24, 2011 By

The Iowa Senate has jumped into a dispute over raccoon hunting. Senate Republican Leader Paul McKinley says he got a complaint from a constituent after a boy tagging along on a raccoon hunt got ticketed by a state D.N.R. officer.

“And I remember as a Boy Scout I used to go out with Harvey Hull and walk through the woods and listen to the dogs and just have a thoroughly engaging evening, but I didn’t carry a gun,” McKinley says. “This young guy wasn’t carrying a gun. D.N.R. caught him and fined him because he didn’t have a fur-bearing license.”

So, McKinley authored a bill which says un-armed kids under the age of 16 can tag-along with an adult who’s hunting for raccoons. The Senate passed the bill on Wednesday — after Senator Dick Dearden, a Democrat from Des Moines, ribbed the Republican leader a bit about the subject matter.

“Must be something to do with job creation,” Dearden said, laughing. McKinley has complained Democrats who control the Senate’s debate agenda have taken a “go slow” approach to priority issues like job creation. McKinley, in turn, jokes this may be the only bill he’s authored that passes the Democratically-led senate.

“Well, I’ve got all these substantive things to improve student achievement, to cut spending, to deal with taxes, and what do I do? I get a raccoon hunting bill passed,” McKinley says, with a laugh. “But it will serve people well.” The proposal must also pass the House before it would go to Governor Branstad for his approval.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Democratic legislators threaten boycott of Iowa City schoolboard

February 24, 2011 By

Johnson County’s all-Democratic state legislative delegation is questioning Iowa City school board’s implied support of legislation proposing to study changing in the state’s collective bargaining law. Iowa City school board president Patti Fields says the board isn’t on record either for or against the legislation that would study possible collective bargaining changes.

She says the Iowa Association of School Boards has signed onto the bill, and the Iowa City board is a member of that group, so “we have received a communication of concern from our local legislators.” Fields says some Johnson County legislators are threatening to boycott a conference with Johnson County school boards this Saturday because of I.A.S.B. is supporting the study legislation…

She says the legislators expressed concern with the I.A.S.B.’s stance and said they might not meet with the Iowa City board. I.A.S.B. interim executive director, Veronica Stalker, says concern over I.A.S.B.’s support of the collective bargain study bill seems confined to Johnson County.

Stalker says they heard “strong comments” from one of the member districts, they heard from one board member from another district, but haven’t heard anything else over their decision to sign onto the bill. Iowa City’s school board is asking I.A.S.B. why decisions were made on supporting the bill without consulting school districts.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , ,
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