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Weekend coronavirus update

Three people from Jasper County and one from Wapello County have died over the weekend from coronavirus.  They are among 66 COVID-19 deaths reported in Iowa over the weekend, bringing the state’s death total for the pandemic to 4323.  There have also been another 2063 new positive tests for COVID-19 reported, bringing the state total as of Sunday (1/17) to 304,852.  36 new positive coronavirus tests have been reported in Jasper County, 33 in Wapello County, 23 in Marion County, 12 in Poweshiek County, seven new cases in Mahaska County, six in Monroe County and none in Keokuk County.

Oskaloosa City Council special meeting

Monday afternoon (1/18), the Oskaloosa City Council will hold a special meeting to discuss the budget for fiscal year 2022.  This special meeting begins at 1:00 and the public can only attend via Zoom.  Here’s the link:

  Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81984498695?pwd=b3JDQ0c2OUpNMEdYSE1iSlMwN0RyUT09 Meeting ID: 819 8449 8695 Passcode: 142733 Call in: 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)

Blake Shelton Wants To Lose 20 Pounds Before His Wedding

Now that Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani are engaged, Blake admits he’s got a lot of work to do before they actually get married. During an interview with Luke Bryan for his Apple Music show, Blake admits he has to focus on getting into shape.

When Luke asked him, “Scale of 1 to 10, Blake Shelton, [will you] you lose 20 pounds for your wedding?,” Blake replied, “I feel like if I say 10 I have to do it, so 10. It’s out there now so I can’t let people down.”

And Blake admitted he’s not at all happy with himself for packing on the pounds during quarantine. “I’ve readjusted all the mirrors in the house so they look like when you’re taking a selfie from up above because I can’t even stand to look at myself in the mirror,” he joked. “So I’ve rearranged them where they’re kind of angled down looking down at me and it’s not so bad.”

Source: Entertainment Tonight

This day in Country Music History

  • Today in 1986, Dan Seals’ nostalgic “Bop” goes to #1 on the Billboard country singles chart.
  • Today in 2001, inaugural celebrations for president George W. Bush in Washington, D.C., included performances by Lorrie Morgan, Sammy Kershaw, Lee Ann Womack and Brooks & Dunn, who sang “Only In America.”
  • Today in 2006, Keith Urban’s “Be Here” album went triple-platinum.
  • Today in 2007, Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby taped a new edition of “CMT Crossroads” in Nashville. The set list included “Mandolin Rain” and “Don’t Get Above Your Raising.” They were also joined by John Anderson for a surprise rendition of “Super Freak.”
  • Today in 2009, Garth Brooks sang “We Shall Be Free” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during an inaugural event for Barack Obama. Also appearing: James Taylor, Jennifer Nettles, Bono, Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Sheryl Crow.
  • Today in 2013, George Strait launched the “Cowboy Rides Away Tour,” his last official concert trek, at the United Spirit Arena in Lubbock, Texas, with opener Martina McBride. Strait’s set included “Here For A Good Time,” “The Chair” and “Folsom Prison Blues.”
  • Today in 2014, Jerrod Niemann joined The Oak Ridge Boys on “Elvira” during a benefit concert for the Make-A-Wish Foundation at the Omni Nashville Hotel. Journey keyboard player Jonathan Cain also took part in the event, which raised $200,000.
  • Today in 2016, Glenn Frey died in New York with multiple ailments, including colitis. He was 67.

Thomas Rhett Will Have To Learn To Adapt To The Road Again

Like most musicians, Thomas Rhett spent more time at home last year than he has in a long time, and while he’s ready to get back on the road, he realizes he’s going to have to learn to get used to it again.

“I’ve learned through all this that it takes me 50 days to get into a new routine,” Thomas shares. “And so, now I’m really used to being at home.” He adds, “I can’t imagine what it’s gonna feel like to finally get on the bus and go play three shows in a weekend, cause I’m so used to this.”

But Thomas suspects he’ll be able to deal with it once touring starts again. He notes, “Things change and you adapt, and that’s definitely what we’ve done over this time.”

This day in Country Music History

  • Today in 1969, Elvis Presley recorded “Don’t Cry Daddy” at the American Studios in Memphis.
  • Today in 1982, Ronnie Milsap recorded “Any Day Now” at the Groundstar Laboratory in Nashville.
  • Today in 1988, Vern Gosdin’s “Chiseled in Stone” album is released.
  • Today in 1992, Johnny Cash was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Cash was alongside with Booker T. & The MGs, Jimi Hendrix, Sam & Dave, Bobby “Blue” Bland and others.
  • Today in 1992, Garth Brooks’ self-titled set went triple-platinum and “No Fences” and “Ropin’ the Wind” became the first country albums certified for shipments of six million.
  • Today in 2000, Patty Loveless introduced Ralph as the new member of Grand Ole Opry.
  • Today in 2002, Alan Jackson’s “Drive” album was released.
  • Today in 2007, Taylor Swift appoints actor Tyler Hilton as she films the video for “Teardrops On My Guitar” at Nashville’s Hume-Fogg Magnet School.
  • Today in 2013, Jason Aldean’s “Take A Little Ride” is awarded a platinum single.
  • Today in 2014, Trace Adkins was admitted to a treatment facility for alcohol rehab after getting into a fight with a Trace Adkins impersonator. Weeks later, he left treatment – to be at his father’s side as he passed.
  • Today in 2015, Florida Georgia Line kicked off their first arena headlining tour in Toledo, Ohio. Also on the bill – Thomas Rhett and Frankie Ballard.
  • Today in 2016, Brothers Osborne’s debut album, “Pawn Shop,” was released. Hank Williams Jr. album, “It’s About Time,” also hit shelves.
  • Today in 2016, Willie Nelson was honored with the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in a special aired by PBS. Rosanne Cash performed “Pancho And Lefty,” while Alison Krauss and Jamey Johnson covered “Seven Spanish Angels.” Neil Young, Raul Malo, Paul Simon and Cyndi Lauper also appeared.
  • Today in 2017, A Thousand Horses bass player Graham DeLoach got engaged to girlfriend Andrea Evans in Aspen, Colorado…and they got hitched on July 7th.
  • Today in 2020, Dwight Yoakam closed Sean Penn’s CORE Gala, raising $5-million for a relief agency, at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles. Present for the event were Leonard DiCaprio, Connie Britton, Jason Derulo, Jimmy Iovine and Julia Roberts.

MEET THE H & S FEED & COUNTRY STORE PET OF THE WEEK: “GRIZZLY”

This week’s H & S Feed & Country Store Pet of the Week is “Grizzly”, a one and a half year old German Shepherd/Rottweiler mix who gets along great with people and other pets. He’s affectionate, and though he’s young, he doesn’t have too much “pup” in him, so we won’t be too rambunctious. Grizzly is looking for his forever home and would love to meet you!

If you’d like to set up an appointment to meet Grizzly or any of the pets at Stephen Memorial Animal Shelter, visit https://www.stephenmemorial.org/ and fill out an adoption application.

Check out our visit about with Terry Gott from Stephen Memorial Animal Shelter here:

Trump impeached after Capitol riot in historic second charge

By LISA MASCARO, MARY CLARE JALONICK, JONATHAN LEMIRE and ALAN FRAM

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was impeached by the U.S. House for a historic second time, charged with “incitement of insurrection” over the deadly mob siege of the U.S. Capitol in a swift and stunning collapse of his final days in office.

With the Capitol secured by armed National Guard troops inside and out, the House voted 232-197 on Wednesday to impeach Trump. The proceedings moved at lightning speed, with lawmakers voting just one week after violent pro-Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol, egged on by the president’s calls for them to “fight like hell” against the election results.

Ten Republicans fled Trump, joining Democrats who said he needed to be held accountable and warned ominously of a “clear and present danger” if Congress should leave him unchecked before Democrat Joe Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20.

Trump is the only U.S. president to be twice impeached. It was the most bipartisan presidential impeachment in modern times, more so than against Bill Clinton in 1998.

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The Capitol insurrection stunned and angered lawmakers, who were sent scrambling for safety as the mob descended, and it revealed the fragility of the nation’s history of peaceful transfers of power. The riot also forced a reckoning among some Republicans, who have stood by Trump throughout his presidency and largely allowed him to spread false attacks against the integrity of the 2020 election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invoked Abraham Lincoln and the Bible, imploring lawmakers to uphold their oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign “and domestic.”

She said of Trump: “He must go, he is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love.”

Holed up at the White House, watching the proceedings on TV, Trump later released a video statement in which he made no mention at all of the impeachment but appealed to his supporters to refrain from any further violence or disruption of Biden’s inauguration.

“Like all of you, I was shocked and deeply saddened by the calamity at the Capitol last week,” he said, his first condemnation of the attack. He appealed for unity “to move forward” and said, “Mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for. … No true supporter of mine could ever disrespect law enforcement.”

Trump was first impeached by the House in 2019 over his dealings with Ukraine, but the Senate voted in 2020 acquit. He is the first president to be impeached twice. None has been convicted by the Senate, but Republicans said Wednesday that could change in the rapidly shifting political environment as officeholders, donors, big business and others peel away from the defeated president.

Biden said in a statement after the vote that it was his hope the Senate leadership “will find a way to deal with their Constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation.”

The soonest Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell would start an impeachment trial is next Tuesday, the day before Trump is already set to leave the White House, McConnell’s office said. The legislation is also intended to prevent Trump from ever running again.

McConnell believes Trump committed impeachable offenses and considers the Democrats’ impeachment drive an opportunity to reduce the divisive, chaotic president’s hold on the GOP, a Republican strategist told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

McConnell told major donors over the weekend that he was through with Trump, said the strategist, who demanded anonymity to describe McConnell’s conversations.

In a note to colleagues Wednesday, McConnell said he had “not made a final decision on how I will vote” in a Senate impeachment trial.

Unlike his first time, Trump faces this impeachment as a weakened leader, having lost his own reelection as well as the Senate Republican majority.

Even Trump ally Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, shifted his position and said Wednesday the president bears responsibility for the horrifying day at the Capitol.

In making a case for the “high crimes and misdemeanors” demanded in the Constitution, the four-page impeachment resolution relies on Trump’s own incendiary rhetoric and the falsehoods he spread about Biden’s election victory, including at a rally near the White House on the day of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

A Capitol Police officer died from injuries suffered in the riot, and police shot and killed a woman during the siege. Three other people died in what authorities said were medical emergencies. The riot delayed the tally of Electoral College votes that was the last step in finalizing Biden’s victory.

Ten Republican lawmakers, including third-ranking House GOP leader Liz Cheney of Wyoming, voted to impeach Trump, cleaving the Republican leadership, and the party itself.

Cheney, whose father is the former Republican vice president, said of Trump’s actions summoning the mob that “there has never been a greater betrayal by a President” of his office.

Trump was said to be livid with perceived disloyalty from McConnell and Cheney.

With the team around Trump hollowed out and his Twitter account silenced by the social media company, the president was deeply frustrated that he could not hit back, according to White House officials and Republicans close to the West Wing who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

From the White House, Trump leaned on Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to push Republican senators to resist, while chief of staff Mark Meadows called some of his former colleagues on Capitol Hill.

The president’s sturdy popularity with the GOP lawmakers’ constituents still had some sway, and most House Republicans voted not to impeach.

Security was exceptionally tight at the Capitol, with tall fences around the complex. Metal-detector screenings were required for lawmakers entering the House chamber, where a week earlier lawmakers huddled inside as police, guns drawn, barricaded the door from rioters.

“We are debating this historic measure at a crime scene,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.

During the debate, some Republicans repeated the falsehoods spread by Trump about the election and argued that the president has been treated unfairly by Democrats from the day he took office.

Other Republicans argued the impeachment was a rushed sham and complained about a double standard applied to his supporters but not to the liberal left. Some simply appealed for the nation to move on.

Republican Rep. Tom McClintock of California said, “Every movement has a lunatic fringe.”

Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. and others recounted the harrowing day as rioters pounded on the chamber door trying to break in. Some called it a “coup” attempt.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., contended that Trump was “capable of starting a civil war.”

Conviction and removal of Trump would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, which will be evenly divided between the parties.

Fending off concerns that an impeachment trial would bog down his first days in office, Biden is encouraging senators to divide their time between taking taking up his priorities of confirming his nominees and approving COVID-19 relief while also conducting the trial.

The impeachment bill draws from Trump’s own false statements about his election defeat to Biden. Judges across the country, including some nominated by Trump, have repeatedly dismissed cases challenging the election results, and former Attorney General William Barr, a Trump ally, has said there was no sign of widespread fraud.

The House had first tried to persuade Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to invoke their authority under the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. Pence declined to do so, but the House passed the resolution anyway.

While some have questioned impeaching the president so close to the end of his term, there is precedent. In 1876, during the Ulysses Grant administration, War Secretary William Belknap was impeached by the House the day he resigned, and the Senate convened a trial months later. He was acquitted.

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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Andrew Taylor and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

Democrats warn Iowa legislature may be ‘super spreader’

BY 

Democrats are warning about the potential spread of Covid-19 in the Iowa Statehouse this week as the 2021 legislative session gets underway.

Senator Joe Bolkcom, a Democrat from Iowa City, is accusing Republican leaders of acting like Covid is “no big deal.”

“Your lame reasoning about not being able to require legislators to wear masks is a joke,” Bolkcom said. “I’m mandated to wear this tie and this jacket to be able to stand at this microphone and speak.”

The top GOP leaders in the legislature are “strongly encouraging” lawmakers to wear masks when they can’t socially distance, but they say the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to force elected officials to cover their faces.

Democrats have tried, but failed this week to get their Republican colleagues to agree to mask mandates in committee rooms. And Bolkcom singled out GOP leadership for allowing a few hundred people who were not wearing face coverings to protest inside the statehouse Monday.

“You’re making the Tyson managers look like they had their act together,” Bolkcom said.

Bolkcom also blasted President Trump and Governor Reynolds during a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday. A spokesman for Governor Reynolds said the governor has taken “a balanced approach” to the pandemic that “has protected the lives and livelihoods of Iowans.”

No Powerball winner Wednesday; Jackpot continues to grow

There’s still a chance for you to become a multi-millionaire this weekend.  No one won Wednesday night’s (1/13) Powerball jackpot, so the prize for the next drawing on Saturday (1/16) will be an estimated $640 million. Numbers for Wednesday night’s Powerball were: 4-19-23-25-49 and a Powerball of 14.  The Powerball prize drawing was only a day after no one won the $625 million Mega Millions jackpot, causing that prize to grow to $750 million ahead of the next drawing on Friday night (1/15).  The odds of winning jackpots are 1 in 292.2 million for Powerball and one in 302.5 million for Mega Millions.

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