EARLY FREEZE
For the second consecutive morning, a freeze warning was issued for northwest Iowa. Temperatures this morning were 21 in Le Mars, 24 in Sioux City, and 28 at Maurice in Sioux County. A freeze warning issued for central Iowa starting this morning is the earliest in 10 years. Freeze warnings are issued for the first freezes of the season during the fall. They are not issued during winter months. The last freeze in 2022 was April 27th.
PIPELINE INJUNCTION
A Woodbury County judge has denied a request for a temporary injunction to allow the Navigator pipeline to cross a woman’s property. Vicki Husler refused to allow surveyors onto her property near Moville. Navigator sued her for access. The ruling by District Court Judge Roger Sailer denies the company access to the property without express permission from Hulser.
CAMPAIGN DEBATE – UKRAINE
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and Democratic challenger Mike Franken agree U.S. military support of Ukraine is critical. Some of Grassley’s G-O-P peers have said U.S. assistance should be cut off.
Franken says if Ukraine falls, Russian president Vladamir Putin will order more invasions.
The candidates made their comments last Thursday night during a debate on Iowa P-B-S. At nearly the same time, President Biden told a crowd in New York that Putin is not joking about using tactical nuclear weapons. Franken, a retired Navy admiral, says if that happens, U.S. aide workers should be sent to assist burn victims — and some will be unarmed but specially trained American soldiers. Grassley says that’s unwise.
Thursday night’s hour-long forum was the only debate between the two candidates before the November 8th election.
VOTING MACHINES
Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate and Polk County Elections Director John Chiodo are allowing the public to view the testing that’s done on voting machines. Pate says they want to be sure everyone knows how the process works. He says testing goes on “for many weeks and months” ahead of time, that they don’t “wake up on Election Day and throw everything against a wall and hope it sticks.” Pate also says they’re testing different kinds of ballots, because each precinct might have a different ballot for the different offices that are up for election. Chiodo, meanwhile, ran a number of different ballots through a machine as reporters watched. He says the machines are not connected to the internet DURING voting, only afterwards when the results are uploaded from precincts to each county’s election office.
