COLD WEATHER ADVISORY – UPDATED
A Cold Weather Advisory remains in effect until noon Tuesday in KLEM-land. Temperatures this afternoon will stay in the single digits below zero, falling before sunset. Temperatures will fall to -15 overnight, with winds gusting up to 30 miles per hour this evening. This will produce wind chills down to -28. Winds will remain strong into Tuesday, but temperatures will rise into the teens, and remain steady if not rise overnight into Wednesday. High temperatures Wednesday will be around 32 degrees.
WATER MAIN BREAK
The Le Mars Water Department responded to a water main break Sunday afternoon at 444 South Greenwood Drive, a block east of 4th Ave SE. Water Superintendent Rich Sudtelgte said they were called to the site around 1:30 p.m. Water flow was reduced in a one-block area of South Greenwood in order to repair it. Sudtelgte says cold weather was a primary factor which contributed to the leak.
The repair took about five hours. Street repair at that location will take place later this week when the weather improves.
— photos courtesy Le Mars Water Department —
LE MARS POLICE ACTIVITY REPORT
The Le Mars Police Activity Report for December indicated officers responded to over 800 calls last month. These calls included a wide range of items, from alarms, to house watches to parking to welfare checks. There were eight accidents in the city, one of them an injury accident. There were 45 incidents in December, including investigations and reported crimes. There were 32 arrests and 229 citations and warnings.
IOWA GOVERNOR TO ATTEND TRUMP INAUGURATION
Governor Kim Reynolds is planning to meet with key Trump Administration officials after she attends Monday’s presidential inauguration ceremony in the U-S Capitol.
Reynolds was Iowa’s lieutenant governor in 2017 when she attended Trump’s first inauguration. Next week, while she’s in Washington, Governor Reynolds is scheduling a meeting with Trump’s choice to lead the U-S-D-A — to discuss the bird flu outbreak. Reynolds says in all her meetings with Trump’s cabinet secretaries, she’ll make a pitch to send more federal funds to states in the form of block grants, so state officials have more authority in how the money’s spent within their borders.
Reynolds says relocating the headquarters of federal agencies in states around the country would be another way to shrink the federal workforce, as some D-C based employees would quit rather than move. Today’s inauguration will be held inside the Capitol, due to the frigid forecast for Washington on Monday.
Trump announced on Trump Social that Capitol One Arena in Washington will be open for live viewing of the inaugural ceremony, which will be held indoors for the first time since 1985. The temperature was in single digits the day of Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration — but the wind chill was minus 25. Forecasters expect strong winds today in Washington will make the feels like temperature to hover around 10 degrees at noon, when Trump takes the oath of office.
U OF IOWA STUDY: DRUG PRICES FALL AFTER BIG PHARFMA MERGERS
When big pharmaceutical companies merge, the perception is that drug prices rise, but a University of Iowa study finds that’s not always the case. Study co-author Amrita Nain, a professor of finance at the U-I’s Tippie College of Business, says in select situations, merging firms cut costs — and prices — as they may have overlapping products that treat the same medical conditions.
If a company has developed a new drug therapy and placed a patent on it, creating a multi-year monopoly on that drug, prices tend to go up if there’s a merger, but Nain says that’s not always true for others that focus on generics.
Nain says prices may fall after a merger that brings reduced overhead in areas like staffing, marketing, research and development, and distribution networks. Still, it depends on the type of company and the type of drug being made.
Nain says the U-I study has important implications for policy, especially for anti-trust authorities like the Federal Trade Commission.
One downside to mergers, Amrita says, is that there’s a risk of reducing innovation in the pharmaceutical industry. The study finds merged companies that lowered prices saved money by cutting research and development, while also trimming back on the creation of new therapies.
IOWA GUARD SOLDIERS ON DUTY INAUGURATION, 1800 TO DEPLOY TO MIDDLE EAST
More than 700 Iowa National Guard soldiers were called to active duty during 2024 and Iowa National Guard Adjutant General Steve Osborn says 63 are on duty in the nation’s Capitol for the presidential inauguration. Eighteen hundred soldiers in the Iowa Guard’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team will have 21-days of intensive training this summer at Fort Johnson, in Louisiana, before a scheduled deployment to the Middle East. The adjutant general says soldiers from Kosovo will train alongside the Iowa Guard unit and then 38 soldiers from the Kosovo Security Force’s Infantry Platoon will deploy for the same mission in the Middle East.
HOOVER MUSEUM TO CLOSE SUNDAY FOR 18-MONTH RENOVATION
Work will begin this week on a 20-million dollar make-over, inside and out, for the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch. Director Tom Schwartz says the doors were locked Sunday evening, and won’t open to the public again until mid-2026.
Schwartz says the facility is due for a top-to-bottom renovation, which will include building a new 22-hundred square foot addition. The museum first opened in 1962 and hasn’t had a full remodel since the early 1990s, so every gallery will be gutted. When it reopens, First Lady Lou Hoover will be featured more prominently.
Hoover is the only U.S. president who was born Iowa. He lived a fascinating life and the museum’s current exhibits tell the story — from his birth, to his life as an engineer, the Secretary of Commerce, the 31st President of the United States, and his continued philanthropic work after leaving the White House. Schwartz says the re-envisioned museum will tell those same stories, but with more artifacts and updated, user-friendly technology.
Also, the new display cases will be lit with brighter, more energy-efficient L-E-Ds. Anyone who’s ever overseen a renovation project on their house knows it may take longer than expected, as unforeseen challenges tend to arise. The goal is to reopen the museum in about 18 months, but that’s flexible.
The full price tag on the renovation project is $20.3-million dollars, a large portion of which has already been raised by the Hoover Presidential Foundation. To learn more or contribute, visit: timelessvaluescampaign.org. https://hoover.archives.gov/