Home News Friday Afternoon News, June 15th

Friday Afternoon News, June 15th

YMCA Parking Lot Proves To Be Good Location For 3 on 3 Tournament

(Le Mars) — Day Three of Ice Cream Days is in progress with one of the major events taking place is the popular YMCA 3 on 3 basketball tournament, which this year was moved to the YMCA parking lot. YMCA Executive Director Todd Lancaster believes the new venue is working out well for the tournament.

Lancaster noted another advantage to having the tournament at the YMCA facilities, as opposed to being downtown is the participants can seek shelter in the cool comforts of the facilities.

The YMCA executive says this year’s tournament attracted 21 teams from the immediate region.

Lancaster says the Le Mars YMCA 3 on 3 youth basketball tournament is celebrating its 23rd year.

 

 

Good Samaritan Society To Host “Smile Contest”

(Le Mars) — Another popular Ice Cream Days event is the annual Smile Contest which is scheduled for this afternoon at the Good Samaritan Society of Le Mars. Darci Athens serves as the Resource Director with the Good Samaritan Society and says registration begins at 2:00 p.m. with the judging of the
smiles to start at 2:30 p.m. for youth ages four to seven.

Athens says the residents of Good Samaritan enjoy seeing the children who participate in the annual smile contest.

Athens says prizes will be awarded to the top contestants in each category.
Following the smile contest, residents, participants, staff, and family members enjoy an ice cream social.

The Good Samaritan Society official says the annual smile contest has attracted as many as 100 contestants.

 

 

Dordt College Wins Lawsuit 

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – A federal judge has ruled in favor of Christian colleges in Michigan and Iowa that sued the government to avoid paying for abortion- and contraception-related health care under an Obama-era requirement.
U.S. District Judge Mark Bennett issued a permanent injunction
Tuesday, blocking the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing the 2011 mandate. It required employers, regardless of their religious or moral beliefs, to provide health insurance coverage for contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization.
Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa, and Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, sued in October 2013. They argued that the requirement to provide coverage for morning-after or week-after pills violated their religious freedoms. They said many Christians consider the pills to be abortion drugs.
Interim Department of Health and Human Services rules abandoned the mandate last year.

 

 

Onawa Starts Up Drag Racing

ONAWA, Iowa (AP) – Drag racing has begun at a former western Iowa airport following the site’s $2 million transformation.
Nearly 200 racers and 600 spectators gathered at the Onawa Racing and Events Complex last weekend for its opening.
The city closed the seldom-used Onawa Municipal Airport two years ago and transformed it into a racing complex. The facility’s concrete strip can host races of 1,000 feet (300 meters), one-eighth mile (200 meters) and one- quarter mile (400 meters).
Races on Saturday and Sunday will include a testing portion, where racers can run the track multiple times to get calibrated.
Ron Conner manages the site’s racing. He says junior drag racers are welcome this weekend and the facility will also host old-style drags, where cars have flag starts.

 

 

Iowa Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Union Workers 

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled for the first time that workers under union contract with the state may sue for wrongful discharge if they’re fired for retaliation or other improper reasons.
The decision came Friday in a lawsuit filed in 2015 by former Iowa Workforce Development judge Susan Ackerman. Her claims included that former IWD Director Teresa Wahlert and other agency leaders defamed her, caused her emotional distress and breached her contract.
The court’s ruling filed Friday overturns a judge’s dismissal of the
wrongful discharge portion of her case and allows her lawsuit to go forward in district court.
The supreme court, in a separate case, also says former Workforce Development judge Joseph Walsh, who led the agency’s unemployment appeals bureau, can proceed with his whistleblower and wrongful discharge lawsuit filed in April 2014.
A third IWD judge, Marlon Mormann, had sued for age discrimination but the court upheld his lawsuit dismissal.

 

 

Mason City’s Globe-Gazzette Gets New Editor

MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) – A Minnesota publisher has been named publisher for Lee Enterprises’ Globe Gazette in Mason City.
The Globe Gazette reports that Sam Gett begins his work in Mason City on June 25. He replaces Roy Biondi, who’s been serving as publisher of both the Globe Gazette and the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. Biondi will remain with the Courier.
Gett is a western Pennsylvania native with about 35 years in the
newspaper business. He’s been publisher for the Faribault Daily News in southern Minnesota since April 2014.

 

 

Iowa’s Own Astronaut, Peggy Whitson To Retire From NASA

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA’s record-breaking astronaut, Peggy Whitson, is retiring.
The space agency announced her retirement Friday, her last day on the job.
Whitson has spent more time off the planet than any other American: 665 days over three missions. She was the first woman to command the International Space Station, holding the position twice, and the oldest woman ever to fly in space. She was also the world’s most experienced female spacewalker and the first woman to serve as NASA’s chief astronaut.
The 58-year-old biochemist joined NASA as a researcher in 1986 and became an astronaut in 1996. Her last spaceflight was last year.
NASA officials say Whitson set the highest standards for human
spaceflight and was an outstanding role model across the globe.