Iowa

Brooks, Penn State Wrestling Rolling Into Showdown With Iowa – FloWrestling

Published

2 years ago

February 6, 2024

Aaron Brooks had to pause on Tuesday to think about his favorite way to win a wrestling match.

After a few seconds passed, the three-time NCAA champion still couldn’t settle on an answer between two obvious options.

“I don’t know, actually,” Brooks said. “I mean, I don’t mind a tech (fall) because I’m getting more shots in and maybe a turn, but a pin’s like, ‘Alright!’ Go back, drink the Gatorade, whatever it is.”

Reading between the lines, Brooks just likes to dominate. He likes to do it with flair, too.

Brooks, who’s won 70 percent of his collegiate matches with bonus points, wishes more wrestlers across the country had the same, aggressive mindset as often as he and most of his teammates. But when the Nittany Lions watch other top teams around the country, they don’t see a lot of stylistic similarities.

The Nittany Lions will face off with the rival Iowa Hawkeyes in Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Friday where Penn State’s let-it-fly style will again be up against the Hawkeyes’ much stingier approach. But Iowa’s patient plodding didn’t work against Michigan, where the Hawkeyes lost the opening five bouts without a single takedown to show for them.

Michigan won the dual 24-11.

“I wouldn’t say that’s just Iowa, I think that’s a lot of folkstyle (teams),” Brooks said. “I think the way the rules are set up, you don’t have to really go get someone. I think for us, our team, we like to go score points. So I think the refs kind of look at it as ‘Oh, well these guys will score so I’m not gonna make the other guy wrestle.’ So I wouldn’t say that’s even just Iowa. I think that’s a lot of the NCAA.”

Brooks, like NCAA champs David Taylor, Ed Ruth, Jason Nolf, Zain Retherford and Bo Nickal before him, has only benefitted as Penn State’s staff has continued to cultivate bonus-point machines over the last decade-plus.

Fifty-six of Brooks’ 80 collegiate bouts have come with bonus points. That includes four majors, a tech and a pin in the NCAA Championships.

So far this year, his first at 197 pounds, Brooks has earned bonus points in every bout. He’s got three pins, a major and has made the most of the three-point takedown with six technical falls, none taking longer than 6:21.

He also leads the Big Ten with 40 dual-meet takedowns.

“We don’t have a style where we’re trying to figure out how we stop what our opponents do,” Penn State coach Cael Sanderson said. “You know, we’re just trying to do what we do and get better at it. And that’s more of a big-picture philosophy and just you know, how I was taught by my coaches.”

Stumbles At Home

Sanderson isn’t worried about first-year Nittany Lions Aaron Nagao and Bernie Truax after both suffered tough defeats on Friday against Ohio State.

Although Penn State won the dual 28-9, Nagao dropped a 13-7 decision to Buckeye freshman Nic Bouzakis at 133 before Truax was pinned by Ryder Rogotzke at 184.

Bouzakis jumped out to a 9-2 lead with three takedowns in the opening period. A Nagao takedown from neutral cut the deficit to 9-5 early in the second period, but a Bouzakis reversal moments later followed by a quiet third period from Bouzakis dashed Nagao’s comeback effort.

It was his second loss in three matches. Michigan’s Dylan Ragusin pinned Nagao on Jan. 19 as the two scrambled in sudden victory.

Sanderson doesn’t believe the recent hurdles will affect the steely 133-pounder. Furthermore, Sanderson would likely point to last year’s postseason as evidence that Nagao is, as Sanderson described him, “a gamer”.

After losing to Roman Bravo-Young in the Big Ten finals, Nagao — then with Minnesota — wrestled a seven-match NCAA Tournament slate in which he battled back in the consolation bracket to take fifth overall.

“He’s just missing angles and positions by just a tiny amount,” Sanderson said. “So I just see his potential and I think it’s really great. Obviously, he’s a guy, because he does all the right things, he’s gonna have his best performance as we get to the end. Just seems to be a pattern. We’ll see.”

Meanwhile, Truax’s loss came by mere inches to a red-hot Rogotzke, who entered on a three-match win streak with all three wins coming via fall or tech.

Initially, it looked like the Buckeye freshman had little for Truax as the snappy Nittany Lion cinched up a pair of quick takedowns in the opening period. He added another in the second before Rogotzke got control of one of Truax’s arms in a scramble and landed the pin at 3:59.

“Bernie’s fine too,” Sanderson said. “He’s got a lot of experience and he’s a well-rounded individual and you don’t get too high or too low. You just kind of keep hustling and plugging away and doing your best. Win or lose, we’re preparing for the next match, you know, that never really changes and these opportunities come and go really fast. So they’re all just learning experiences, and it’s all about getting ready for the end.”

Title Contender

The loss was Truax’s second this season and his teammates would note that he looked pretty good before that last scramble.

The former Cal Poly star is a four-time NCAA qualifier and has finished fourth at a different weight each of the last three years. Count Brooks among those who see Truax as a legit title contender at 184. Brooks has the background and experience to make that call. He’s worked hands-on with Truax a lot since the sixth-year senior transferred in before the season.

Brooks has also carved through the 184-pound field and feels like Truax is as good as anyone he wrestled in the tournament.

“He’s world-class. He can definitely be NCAA champion.” Brooks said. “He’s got some good leg defense, but his shots are so quick, and you don’t really see it coming. The first time I wrestled with him, I’m like, ‘Oh, snap, he’s on my leg!’ Because he’s so long, but he’s also real quick. That’s a skill he’s developed and he’s just got to put faith in it.”

Cruising Along

Having spent the last four seasons at 184, Brooks was ready to deal with everything bumping up to 197 pounds would entail this season.

So far, so good. Penn State’s star said he feels great and has had no trouble managing the added weight. The trick early on was to correctly gauge how hard he could push himself in practice and how many pounds he’d shed doing so.

Practicing in a T-shirt? Brooks says he can lose as much as six pounds in one session. If he’s wearing long sleeves or anything heavier in the practice room, he said it’s for added protection during the team’s usual dodgeball warm-up.

One To Watch

Sanderson said he expects to get Iowa’s best lineup inside what will be a raucous Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

There’s no doubt that would include the last year’s NCAA runner-up at 141, Real Woods who’ll likely face another 141-pound title hopeful, Beau Bartlett.

The two have met just once in college. Woods earned a 4-1 decision in a dual meet last season. That match was tightly contested with each wrestler looking for throws off their opening lockup. Woods eventually earned the first takedown with just over two minutes left in the first, but Bartlett couldn’t escape the Hawkeye’s ride.

Eventually, Woods outlasted him 4-1 with 1:35 in riding time, most of it compiled in the second period when Bartlett couldn’t break Woods’ control.

“You just have two of the best wrestlers in the country at the weight,” Sanderson said. “Obviously, Real Woods is a very good, very competitive. He’s very tough on his feet and on top. And I think that’s where we had a lot of problems last year was just getting off the bottom. I think we’ve improved in that area. We’ll find out you know, I mean, they’ve improved in the areas that they are working on also.”

Source link

Iowa

Iowa woman accused of pandering for prostitution and harassment after incidents at Casey’s and a daycare

Published

7 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Iowa woman accused of pandering for prostitution and harassment after incidents at Casey’s and a daycare

AURELIA, Iowa (KTIV) – A Northwest Iowa woman is facing charges of harassment and pandering for prostitution after two incidents took place in December 2025.

Forty-seven-year-old Kristal Miller of Odebolt was taken into custody on an arrest warrant and faces three charges: one count of pandering for prostitution and two counts of first-degree harassment, according to court documents.

Kristal Miller(Cherokee County Jail)

The charges stem from two separate incidents that took place on Thursday, Dec. 18. 2025.

According to court documents, at 6:15 a.m., Miller reportedly went to the Casey’s General Store, located at 100 Pearl St. in Aurelia. Documents state Miller approached an employee and customers, requesting money from them.

Authorities state Miller claimed she was wanted by the FBI and told people, if anyone called the police, “she would kill them.”

During this encounter, she also allegedly asked an employee to remove the string from her hooded sweatshirt. Documents state when the employee refused this request, she threatened to strangle them.

That same day at 7 a.m., Miller reportedly approached a female employee outside an Aurelia daycare and asked them for money.

Court documents stated Miller suggested the unnamed employee leave her boyfriend. Miller reportedly told the employee, if she did, then she and Miller would both be paid.

Authorities say when she was told no by the employee, Miller became upset and started yelling at them.

Miller also allegedly threatened to “steal her car” and ”take her away to her guys to start a new life.”

She was booked into the Cherokee County Jail on a cash-only bond of $5,000. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled in Cherokee for Friday, Jan. 9, at 10 a.m.

Want to get the latest news and weather from Siouxland’s News Source? Follow these links to download our KTIV News app and our First Alert Weather app.

Source link

Iowa

Iowa law on police appeals ‘constitutionally vacuous,’ prosecutor says

Published

19 hours ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Iowa law on police appeals ‘constitutionally vacuous,’ prosecutor says

The Iowa Supreme Court is reviewing a 2024 law that allows law enforcement officers to appeal their placement on a Brady-Giglio list.
A dispute between Jefferson County’s attorney and sheriff led to the sheriff being placed on the list, which identifies officers with credibility issues.
The county attorney argues the law is unconstitutional because it lets judges interfere with a prosecutor’s duty to disclose evidence to defendants.

A feud between two Jefferson County officials has landed before the Iowa Supreme Court, which must decide if a 2024 addition to Iowa’s Rights of Peace Officers law is unconstitutional.

Jefferson County Attorney Chauncey Moulding is asking the state’s high court to overturn what he calls the “constitutionally vacuous” law, which allows officers to petition the courts to be removed from their county’s Brady-Giglio list.

Named for two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the lists compiled by prosecutors identify law enforcement officers and others whose credibility is in question, and it can provide grounds for questioning their testimony in court.

After a dispute over a case involving a sheriff’s deputy’s use of force, Moulding in 2024 notified Jefferson County Sheriff Bart Richmond he was placing him on the Brady-Giglio list. Richmond petitioned a court to reverse Moulding’s decision, and a district judge did, finding Richmond’s actions in connection with the case, while unprofessional, did not bring his honesty or credibility into question.

In his appeal, Moulding argues that’s not up to the court to decide, and that the law lets judges improperly intrude on prosecutors’ professional judgment and, ultimately, defendants’ rights.

“The practical real application of (the 2024 law) is to create a Kafkaesque scenario where a criminal defendant could face the prospect of criminal charges involving a State witness who is so lacking in credibility that the State’s attorney has qualms about even calling him to testify, but is prevented from disclosure,” Moulding wrote. “Such a situation is unconscionable, and underlines the constitutional vacuousness of the statute itself.”

The court has not yet scheduled arguments for the case, which could have impacts far beyond Jefferson County. Attorney Charles Gribble, representing Richmond, said this is just one of three Iowa Brady-Giglio appeals he personally is involved in.

What is a Brady-Giglio list?

Under the Fifth Amendment, criminal defendants are entitled to due process of law. In Brady v. Maryland in 1963 and in subsequent cases the U.S. Supreme Court held that due process requires a prosecutor to disclose any known exculpatory evidence to the defense. That includes anything giving rise to doubts about the credibility of the prosecution’s witnesses, including law enforcement officers.

In 2022, Iowa formalized that process by mandating prosecuting agencies maintain a Brady-Giglio list of officers whose credibility can be questioned due to past dishonesty or other misconduct. The law requires agencies to notify officers when they are being put on a list and allows them to seek reconsideration.

Being placed on a list can damage or destroy an officer’s career, as prosecutors generally will decline to call them as witnesses or to bring charges that would depend on their testimony.

2024 law gives courts a role in Brady-Giglio lists

Iowa’s 2024 law went beyond requiring officers be notified of their placement on a Brady-Giglio list by giving them the right to appeal to a district court if their prosecuting agency refuses to take them off a list. The law requires judges to confidentially review evidence and allows them to affirm, modify or reverse an officer’s Brady-Giglio listing “as justice may require.”

In less than two years, courts have reversed local prosecutors on several Brady-Giglio placements, including a messy Henry County dispute in which prosecutors accused a sheriff’s deputy of making misleading statements on a search warrant application.

What happened in Jefferson County?

The lawsuit before the Iowa Supreme Court involves an April 2024 traffic stop by a Jefferson County deputy. As laid out in a subsequent memo by Moulding, video recordings show the deputy handling the driver roughly and, when the man complains, telling him “I can do whatever I want” and, “You’re not going to tell me what I can and can’t do. … You’re going to learn what respect is, young man.”

After learning about the incident, Moulding wrote, he repeatedly emailed Richmond, asking if the deputy’s actions had violated any county policies. Richmond did not respond. Concerned about possible litigation against the county, Moulding then asked another county to conduct an investigation. While the details are disputed, Moulding accuses Richmond of stonewalling both his office and the outside investigators and instructing his subordinates also not to cooperate.

“A county sheriff ordering deputies not to cooperate with an inquiry into a deputy’s use of force represents a fundamental lapse in judgment and raised serious concerns regarding the Sheriff’s honesty, candor and ethics as a law enforcement official,” Moulding wrote.

He scheduled a meeting that Richmond did not attend and then placed him on the county’s Brady-Giglio list. In an emailed statement, Moulding called the entire matter “unfortunate.”

“Frankly, I am shocked that instead of attempting to address this matter with my office cooperatively, the Sheriff instead decided to stonewall an investigation, stonewall the Brady-Giglio investigation, and then take this matter to court instead of sitting down and addressing the matter like an adult and an elected official,” he said.

In a letter, Moulding warned Richmond that he would no longer be called as a law enforcement witness and advised him to limit his involvement with criminal investigations, as “your engagement in such activities could likely negatively impact the outcomes in court.”

Judge disagrees with sheriff’s placement on list

After Moulding denied Richmond’s request for reconsideration, Richmond filed suit. In February 2025, Judge Jeffrey Farrell ruled Richmond should be removed from the list.

Farrell’s order criticized both parties, finding that Moulding had failed to comply with some procedural elements of the law but that Richmond could have avoided the whole situation with “basic and professional” responses to Moulding’s emails. Nonetheless, he found Richmond’s actions did not demonstrate dishonesty or deceit that would justify placement on a Brady list.

“This is not a case in which an officer lied to a court, was convicted of a crime, manufactured or destroyed evidence, or committed some other act that would serve as the basis for impeachment in any criminal case,” Farrell wrote. “Game-playing the county attorney is not the standard of professionalism that Iowans expect of our elected county sheriffs,” he added, but does not constitute grounds for a Brady-Giglio listing.

Prosecutor appeals, argues law is unconstitutional

In his appeal, Moulding does not address Farrell’s factual findings, instead asking the court only to decide whether the law is constitutional.

“The most glaring constitutional defect in (the 2024 law) is that it impedes a criminal Defendant’s substantive and procedural due processes of law, and right to a fair trial,” the appeal says. “These fundamental rights constitute the bedrock raisons d’être for the entire body of Brady-Giglio jurisprudence in the first place.”

Iowa appears to be the only state with a law allowing officers to sue to be removed from a Brad-Giglio list, but Moulding cites a recent federal lawsuit where a judge rejected a South Dakota officer’s attempt to get removed from a list, finding the request “in essence, asks this Court to require a State’s Attorney to violate the constitution.” He further argues that the law violates the constitutional separation of powers and is “so poorly drafted as to be unenforceable and void for vagueness.”

Sheriff’s attorney says single lapse of judgment is not grounds for listing

Gribble, Richmond’s attorney, argued in his Supreme Court brief that the law is constitutional and that the sheriff’s actions fall well short of Brady-Giglio standards.

“Under (the 2024 law), placement on the Brady-Giglio list results not from a single lapse of judgment but rather from repeated, sustained, intentional and egregious acts over a period of time,” he wrote. “Thus, while a singular act of bad judgement may undermine a police officer’s credibility in a particular case, placement on the Brady-Giglio list places a permanent and unreviewable scarlet letter on the officer that he/she is unlikely to be able to ever overcome.”

He also suggests that a court order removing an officer from a list “does not in any way alter the prosecuting attorney’s duty to provide exculpatory evidence in all cases.” In an interview, he argued there should be a legal distinction between prosecutors disclosing concerns about an officer’s conduct in the case in which it occurred, and doing so in every future case involving them.

“To me, that’s what Brady-Giglio is for, not for occasional or first-time wrongs, even if established of a police officer, but those that have a history of that sort of thing,” he said.

The Supreme Court has not yet set a date for arguments in the case.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.

Source link

Iowa

Univ. of Iowa students practice life-saving skills through realistic medical simulations

Published

1 day ago

January 7, 2026

Press Room

Univ. of Iowa students practice life-saving skills through realistic medical simulations

IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) – Some students at the University of Iowa are getting hands-on medical experience before the spring semester officially begins — and they’re doing it inside a mobile simulation lab.

Wednesday, Simulation in Motion-Iowa (SIM-IA) brought its high-tech training truck to the university’s main hospital campus during what’s known as “transitions week,” just days before physician assistant students head out on clinical rotations.

Instead of practicing on classmates, students worked through simulated emergency scenarios using lifelike mannequins designed to closely mimic real patients. The mannequins can breathe, blink, sweat, and even go into cardiac arrest — giving students a realistic first taste of what they’ll soon face in hospitals and clinics.

“So they have pulses like you and I, they have lung sounds, breath tones, so they get to practice their patient assessments — their head-to-toes, what they think is wrong with that patient, determine what treatments they’re going to offer and do,” said Lisa Lenz, a Simulation in Motion-Iowa instructor.

Lenz controls the mannequins’ movements and symptoms behind the scenes, adjusting each scenario based on how students respond in real time.

“We can kind of assess and watch and make sure they’re doing the skills that we would expect them to do, we then get to change and flow through our scenario,” Lenz said. “So we start out with a healthy patient, maybe something like chest pains and continue through states of either progression or decline.”

Faculty members say the goal is to help students bridge the gap between classroom learning and real patient care — especially with clinical rotations beginning soon.

“This is now putting book work to the clinical practice,” said Jeremy Nelson, a clinical assistant professor in the university’s Department of PA Studies and Services. “We’re getting them ready to go out to various scenarios.”

Nelson says repetition is key, especially since some medical emergencies are rare while others are unpredictable.

“They may see them 10 times on rotation, they may see them once,” Nelson said. “This gives them that ‘first touch’ so when they do see it they have a better chance of learning more and being engaged and practicing.”

The spring semester at the University of Iowa officially begins January 20 for those students. Faculty say experiences like this help boost confidence and reduce anxiety before students ever step into a real emergency situation.

Source link