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Weekend coronavirus update

Twelve people in Iowa have died over the weekend from coronavirus, including two from the No Coast Network listening area.  One person from Marion County and one from Monroe County passed away from COVID-19, as the state’s death total from the pandemic is 1315 as of Sunday (9/27).  Also, another 1796 new positive COVID-19 tests were reported Saturday (9/26) and Sunday, bringing the total from the pandemic to 86,229.  20 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Jasper County, 19 in both Wapello and Mahaska Counties, 12 new cases in Poweshiek County, nine in Marion County and two in both Monroe and Keokuk Counties.

2nd Congressional District race

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The race in Iowa’s second congressional district to replace retiring Democratic Congressman Dave Loebsack is considered one of the country’s most competitive.

Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Ottumwa, an eye doctor, is making her fourth try for a seat in the U.S. House. On a recent Saturday morning, Miller-Meeks was at a Jasper County GOP fundraiser that featured a trap shooting competition. Miller-Meeks is not quite five foot tall and used a youth shotgun.

“It’s shorter. It has less of a kick,” Miller-Meeks said. “…This one’s easier for me to handle.”

Miller-Meeks told the crowd at the fundraiser that as one of eight kids, her parents scoffed at her dream of becoming a doctor.

“My rebellion was to leave home at 16, get a job, enroll in San Antonio Community College, enlist in the Army at age 18, work and go to school until I got a degree in nursing so I could work at night. Kept going to school, got a masters in education. Ultimately was able to…graduate from medical school, then I came in Iowa to do my residency,” Miller-Meeks said, to applause. “…And now I’m a state senator.”

Like other Republicans, Miller-Meeks has been actively campaigning since this spring, once businesses reopened after being closed due to the pandemic.

“I really missed being able to interact with people and just listening, being there, being attentive,” Miller-Meeks said. “…You can do that and be at a respectful distance.”

“I certainly don’t want to be in a situation where I’m regretting that we had a public event of any kind,” Hart said.Democratic candidate Rita Hart of Wheatland has mainly held online events.

On September 19, Hart began holding “backyard talks” in the district. Her first was in Ottumwa, Hart stood in the middle of a dozen people spread out in a circle. Hart, a former teacher and one-term state senator, was the Iowa Democratic Party’s 2018 nominee for lieutenant governor. She told the group in Ottumwa about growing up as one of nine kids on a dairy farm.

“I tell people I had the great advantage growing up of being raised by a strong Democratic father and strong Republican mother and that was such an advantage in my life because I learned how to stand up for what I believe in,” Hart said, “but I also learned to listen to the other side.”

Barack Obama won Iowa’s second congressional district in 2008 and 2012. Donald Trump won the district in 2016. The latest voter registration data shows there are about 26,000 more Democrats than Republicans in the second district, which covers the southeast quadrant of the state.

Osky schools COVID-19 update

There has been a confirmed case of COVID-19 at Oskaloosa Middle School and one at Oskaloosa High School.  The Oskaloosa School District has released a statement saying that contact tracing has begun and all staff and students believed to be in close contact with the people involved will be notified if they have to be quarantined.  Face to face learning will continue at both Oskaloosa Middle School and High School.

Man who killed Oskaloosa couple is executed

The man convicted of killing an Oskaloosa couple in 1999 was executed Thursday (9/24).  40-year-old Christopher Vialva was executed at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.  In June of 1999, Vialva and four others kidnapped Todd and Stacie Bagley, who were youth ministers at an Oskaloosa church.  They were visiting relatives in Killeen, Texas when the couple was held at gunpoint and then forced into the trunk of their car.  After driving for several hours, the kidnappers stopped at an isolated area on the Fort Hood military reservation.  The Bagley’s car was doused with gasoline, before Vialva shot Todd and Stacie in the head…and then the car was set on fire.  In 2000, a jury convicted Vialva and co-defendant Brandon Bernard of first degree murder, carjacking and conspiracy to commit murder and both were sentenced to death.  Bernard’s execution date has not been set.

Coronavirus update

There’s been a big jump in the number of coronavirus cases in Iowa.  1341 new positive COVID-19 tests were reported Thursday (9/24), bringing the total from the pandemic to 83,347.  25 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Mahaska County, 23 in Wapello County, 17 in Marion County, 13 in Jasper County, seven in Poweshiek County, five new cases in Keokuk County and three in Monroe County. Also, six more people in Iowa have died from coronavirus, bringing the pandemic total in Iowa to 1299.  None of those deaths were in the No Coast Network listening area.

Tama beef plant fined after COVID-19 outbreak

Iowa regulators have issued their first citation to a meatpacking plant with a large coronavirus outbreak that sickened its workforce — a $957 fine for a minor record-keeping violation.

The outbreak at the Iowa Premium Beef Plant in Tama in April resulted in 338 of the plant’s 850 workers testing positive for the virus, 80 more than the state previously acknowledged, according to inspection records released Thursday.

The Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Administration said on June 1 that it had launched inspections at the Tama plant and four other meatpacking plants where thousands of workers had tested positive.

Records show that the inspections did not lead to any citations at the other four plants, where at least nine workers have died after contracting the COVID-19 virus. Those included Tyson Foods plants in WaterlooColumbus Junction and Perry and the JBS plant in Marshalltown.

The agency cited Iowa Premium Beef in August for failing to keep a required log of workplace-related injuries and illnesses, and for failing to provide the document within four hours after inspectors requested it.

Both violations were labeled “other-than-serious,” according to documents obtained by The Associated Press under the open records law.

On Sept. 2, Iowa OSHA administrator Russell Perry approved a settlement with the company that reduced the proposed penalties from $1,914 to a $957 fine. The company also agreed to correct the violations. It had already turned over the log the day after the inspection, although it was initially missing information about several workers’ illnesses.

Democrats and labor activists have blasted the Iowa agency for a lax approach to worker safety during the pandemic. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds has defended the state’s approach, saying it has helped keep a critical industry operating while protecting workers.

The outbreak in Tama produced one of the first hot spots in the state.

The beef plant suspended production for two weeks in April after scores of workers became ill. A two-day mass testing conducted by the Iowa Department of Public Health found that 338 workers were infected by then, the records show.

The health department’s deputy director, Sarah Reisetter, nonetheless announced at a news conference May 5 that only 258 workers had tested positive. The department has blamed record-keeping problems for erroneously announcing artificially low numbers of positive tests at another meatpacking plant the same day.

Facing criticism for its response, Iowa OSHA decided to inspect the Tama plant May 21 based on news reports of the 6-week-old outbreak.

Inspectors found that four workers were still hospitalized with COVID-19 and saw some employees working close to one another on the floor with no barriers between them.

Inspectors noted that employees were wearing surgical-style masks that were issued by the company and required when the plant reopened April 20. The company had allowed workers to begin wearing their own face coverings April 2, four days before the plant shut down, records show.

The plant has taken steps to prevent the virus’ spread by installing plastic barriers where possible, staggering breaks, adding seating, providing hand sanitizer and checking temperatures before entry.

The plant was purchased last year by National Beef, which is based in Kansas City and supplies grocery stores and restaurants with meat products.

CEO Tim Klein praised his company in an open letter published Wednesday for “rapidly adjusting our processes and protocols to improve safety” during the pandemic.

“Our industry was in the local and national news for the wrong reasons during a time when we were all learning how to combat COVID-19 and keep our people safe,” he wrote. “And yet our employees continued to deliver — safe, quality beef products, ideas for improved safety, and time and talents to help their families and communities thrive in challenging situations.”

In despair, protesters take to streets for Breonna Taylor

By CLAIRE GALOFARO, DYLAN LOVAN and ANGIE WANG

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Some of them raised their fists and called out “Black lives matter!” Others tended to the letters, flowers and signs grouped together in a square in downtown Louisville. All of them said her name: Breonna Taylor.

People dismayed that the officers who shot the Black woman in her apartment during a drug raid last March wouldn’t be charged with her death vowed to persist in their fight for justice. The big question for a town torn apart by Taylor’s death and the larger issue of racism in America was how to move forward.

Many turned to the streets — as they did in several U.S. cities — to call for reforms to combat racist policing.

“We’ve got to take it lying down that the law won’t protect us, that they can get away with killing us,” said Lavel White, a regular protester in downtown Louisville who is Black. He was drawn to a march Thursday night because he was devastated by a grand jury’s decision a day earlier not to charge the officers. “If we can’t get justice for Breonna Taylor, can we get justice for anybody?”

He was angry that police in riot gear were out in force when protesters had been peaceful as they streamed through the streets of downtown Louisville past a nighttime curfew. Demonstrators also gathered in places like Los Angeles where a vehicle ran through a crowd of protesters, injuring one person. In Portland, Oregon — a city that has seen many protests since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis — a fire was set at a police union building.

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Taylor, a Black woman who was an emergency medical worker, was shot multiple times by white officers after Taylor’s boyfriend fired at them, authorities said. He said he didn’t know who was coming in and opened fire in self-defense, wounding one officer. Police entered on a warrant connected to a suspect who did not live there, and no drugs were found inside.

State Attorney General Daniel Cameron said Wednesday that the investigation showed officers acted in self-defense. One officer who has already been fired was charged with firing into a neighboring apartment.

The FBI is still investigating whether Taylor’s civil rights were violated. But the burden of proof for such cases is very high, with prosecutors having to prove officers knew they were acting illegally and made a willful decision to cause someone’s death.

While there was despair after the decision in Taylor’s case, others saw reasons to hope.

Reginique Jones said she’ll keep pressing for increased police accountability and for a statewide ban on “no knock” warrants — the kind issued in the Taylor case, though the state attorney general said the investigation showed police announced themselves before busting into her apartment.

“I believe that we are going to get past this,” Jones said as she returned Thursday to the park in downtown Louisville that has been at the center of the protests. “We can still get some justice.”

Taylor’s family planned to speak Friday in the park that’s become known as Injustice Square.

The case has exposed the divide in the U.S. over bringing justice for Black Americans killed by authorities and the laws that allow officers to be charged, which regularly favor police.

Since Taylor’s killing, Louisville has taken some steps to address protesters’ concerns. In addition to the officer who was fired and later charged, three others were put on desk duty. Officials have banned no-knock warrants and hired a Black woman as the permanent police chief — a first for the city.

Louisville also agreed to more police reforms as it settled a lawsuit that included $12 million for Taylor’s family. But many have expressed frustration that more has not been done.

And so they took to the streets.

Louisville police in riot gear barricaded roads and cars honked as the crowd marched past a nighttime curfew. Officers blocked the exits of a church where protesters gathered to avoid arrest for violating the curfew.

Several people were detained, including state Rep. Attica Scott, a Louisville Democrat. Scott unveiled legislation recently that would ban the use of no-knock search warrants in Kentucky. The measure, called Breonna’s Law in honor of Taylor, also would require drug and alcohol testing of officers involving in shootings and deadly incidents and require that body cameras be worn during the execution of all search warrants.

Police eventually pulled back late Thursday after negotiating with demonstrators to end the protest.

At least 24 people were arrested as of 1 a.m. Friday, police said. Authorities alleged the protesters broke windows at a restaurant, damaged city buses, tried to set a fire and threw a flare into the street.

Earlier, it got heated between some protesters and a group of 12 to 15 armed white people wearing military-style uniforms, but it didn’t turn physical.

The curfew will last through the weekend, and Gov. Andy Beshear called up the National Guard for “limited missions.”

Peaceful protests a night earlier gave way to some destruction and violence. Two officers were shot and were expected to recover.

Larynzo D. Johnson, 26, was charged and he’s scheduled to be in court Friday. Court records did not list a lawyer for him.

In the Louisville square where protesters often gather, Rose Henderson has been looking after the flowers, signs and letters placed at a memorial for Taylor and hopes officials won’t try to remove them.

“We’re going to stay out here and hold this place,” Henderson said.

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Associated Press writers Rebecca Reynolds Yonker, Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Bruce Schreiner and John Minchillo in Louisville, Kentucky; Kevin Freking and Michael Balsamo in Washington; Aaron Morrison in New York; and Haleluya Hadero in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, contributed.

Two candidates competing for Iowa’s 2nd district seat debate on TV

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The two major party candidates in Iowa’s second congressional district discussed their differences on Social Security, the federal minimum wage and several health-related issues during an hour-long “Iowa Press” debate tonight on Iowa PBS.

Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Ottumwa said while she’d be willing to consider raising the federal minimum wage, states are best positioned to set the wage floor.

“A minimum wage is an entry level (wage). It was not….meant to be a wage that is to support a family,” Miller-Meeks said. “…It doesn’t look at states at individual states. It doesn’t look at employers, the cost of living in places.”

Democrat Rita Hart of Wheatland said if she’s elected to congress, she’d vote to raise the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour today.

“We’ve got to make sure that we’re keeping up with inflation,” Hart said, “that we’re setting a wage that is actually going to help families continue to survive as they try to pay their bills.”

Miller-Meeks criticized Hart for a vote she took in 2018, when Hart was a state senator, that authorized Farm Bureau plans which offer coverage of health care expenses.

“I think it’s so hypocritical and funny that I’m being attacked for that vote,” Hart said. “….It was the only thing on the table, ..Every single Republican…voted for it. It makes me wonder, what would Marianette Miller-Meeks do?”

Miller-Meeks responded: “I don’t know the bill. I haven’t researched the bill, but nonetheless you heard my opponent say that she was concerned it would not cover pre-existing conditions, but yet she voted for it.”

Two other Republican congressional candidates — Ashley Hinson of Cedar Rapids and Randy Feenstra of Hull — voted along with Hart to create the Farm Bureau “health benefit plans.”

As President Trump prepares to appoint another U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the prospects for overturning the court decision that legalized abortion rise. Hart, the Democrat in the second district race, supports the Roe v. Wade decision.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re still having this conversation when we know that women have a right to privacy,” Hart said.

Republican Miller-Meeks describes herself as “pro-life” but she also mentioned her support for making oral contraceptives an over-the-counter medication for adult women.

“The goal is to try to get access to birth control, to make it easier for women and try to prevent pregnancy,” Miller-Meeks said.

During tonight’s debate, the second district candidates expressed support for a bipartisan fix to ensure the Social Security system remains solvent. Republican Miller-Meeks said a variety of options should be considered and she wouldn’t rule out raising the retirement age or ending Social Security benefits for wealthy Americans.

“I’m willing to listen to people, to talk with them, so we can build a consensus and we can navigate through this,” Miller-Meeks said.

Democrat Hart opposes raising the retirement age, but she expressed support for starting to charge Social Security taxes on all earnings, as Americans aren’t taxed on annual income above $138,000.

“We have got to be willing to make sure that we’ve keeping this promise to our seniors and prioritize it accordingly,” Hart said.

Both candidates said science shows Earth’s climate is changing and both said the federal government needs to find ways to improve the U.S. transportation system and extend broadband service to every household within five years.

Ruth Ginsburg’s flag-draped casket arrives at Supreme Court

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands of people are expected to pay their respects at the Supreme Court to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the women’s rights champion, leader of the court’s liberal bloc and feminist icon who died last week.

Even with the court closed to the public because of the coronavirus pandemic and Washington already consumed with talk of Ginsburg’s replacement, the justice’s former colleagues, family, close friends and the public will have the chance Wednesday and Thursday to pass by the casket of the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Ginsburg’s flag-draped casket arrived at the court at 9:30 a.m. and was carried into the court’s Great Hall, past her former law clerks who lined the steps.

Inside, the court’s remaining eight justices were together for the first time since the building was closed in March and they resorted to meetings by telephone.

Ginsburg will lie in repose for two days at the court where she served for 27 years and, before that, argued six cases for gender equality in the 1970s.

Nearly 200 members of the public had gathered to pay their respects by early morning, intermingling with dog walkers and joggers who cut through the crowd. At the front of the crowd were attorneys Cara Stewart and Jenny Beene-Skuban, who drove overnight from the Cincinnati area to be there.

“I felt like I couldn’t not be here,” said Stewart, a public-interest lawyer from Martin, Kentucky.

Stewart said she particularly identified with Ginsburg’s early career as a civil rights advocate.

“What moves me more is her career before the court,” she said. “Using the courts for justice and being successful — that’s not easy to do.”

Beene-Skuban, of Cincinnati, said Ginsburg’s career blazed trails for women who came after her.

“We’re here to recognize the shoulders we’re standing on,” she said.

Outside the building, chairs and monitors were set up.

Following a private ceremony Wednesday in the court’s Great Hall, her casket will be moved outside the building to the top of the court’s front steps so that public mourners can pay their respects in line with public health guidance for the pandemic.

Since her death Friday evening, people have been leaving flowers, notes, placards and all manner of Ginsburg paraphernalia outside the court in tribute to the woman who became known in her final years as the “Notorious RBG.” Court workers cleared away the items and cleaned the court plaza and sidewalk in advance of Wednesday’s ceremony.

Following past practice at the tradition-laden court, Ginsburg’s casket is expected to arrive just before 9:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday, the court said. Supreme Court police will carry it up the court steps, which will be lined by former Ginsburg law clerks serving as honorary pallbearers.

Chief Justice John Roberts and the other justices will be in the Great Hall when the casket arrives and is placed on the Lincoln Catafalque, the platform on which President Abraham Lincoln’s coffin rested in the Capitol rotunda in 1865. A 2016 portrait of Ginsburg by artist Constance P. Beaty will be displayed nearby.

It’s unclear whether President Donald Trump would visit the court before he leaves town Wednesday afternoon, though he did pay respects when Justice John Paul Stevens died last year and President Barack Obama visited the court after Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in 2016.

The entrance to the courtroom, along with Ginsburg’s chair and place on the bench next to Roberts, have been draped in black, a longstanding court custom. These visual signs of mourning, which in years past have reinforced the sense of loss, will largely go unseen this year. The court begins its new term Oct. 5, but the justices will not be in the courtroom and instead will hear arguments by phone.

After the private ceremony inside the court, Ginsburg’s casket will be on public view from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday.

Heather Setzler, a physician’s assistant from Raleigh, North Carolina, started her drive at 1 a.m. to be at the court.

Setzler said on annual trips to Washington she always set aside an hour or so to tour the Supreme Court and hang out in the cafeteria, hoping for an impromptu chance to meet.

She appreciated not only the serious legacy she left behind but was also a fan of the pop culture phenomenon that surrounded the Notorious RBG, naming her two cats Hillary Ruth and Kiki, in honor of Ginsburg’s childhood nickname.

“There was just something about her. She was so diminutive yet turned out to be such a giant,” Setzler said, wearing a face mask adorned with small portraits of Ginsburg.

Setzler said she’s frightened by the prospect that Ginsburg’s replacement could lock the court into a solid conservative majority.

“It pains me to think that everything she worked so hard for could be turned around in a couple of years,” she said.

On Friday, Ginsburg will lie in state at the Capitol, the first woman to do so and only the second Supreme Court justice after William Howard Taft. Taft had also been president. Rosa Parks, a private citizen as opposed to a government official, is the only woman who has lain in honor at the Capitol.

Ginsburg will be buried beside her husband, Martin, in a private ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery next week. Martin Ginsburg died in 2010. She is survived by a son and a daughter, four grandchildren, two step-grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

Ginsburg’s death from cancer at age 87 has added another layer of tumult to an already chaotic election year. Trump and Senate Republicans are plowing ahead with plans to have a new justice on the bench, perhaps before the Nov. 3 election.

Only Chief Justice Roger Taney, who died in October 1864, died closer to a presidential election. Lincoln waited until December to nominate his replacement, Salmon Chase, who was confirmed the same day.

When Scalia, Ginsburg’s closest friend on the court, died unexpectedly in 2016, Republicans refused to act on President Barack Obama’s high-court nomination of Judge Merrick Garland.

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Associated Press Writer Matthew Barakat contributed to this report.

Coronavirus update

Nineteen more Iowans have died from coronavirus, bringing the total from the pandemic to 1285.  None of the deaths reported Tuesday (9/22) are from the No Coast Network listening area.  Another 517 people in the state have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing that total to 81,150.  13 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Mahaska County, eight in Wapello County, six in both Jasper and Marion Counties, five in Poweshiek County and one each in Keokuk and Monroe Counties.

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