Iowa

Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State basketball’s 71-52 win over Iowa

Published

1 month ago

December 3, 2025

Couch: 3 quick takes on Michigan State basketball’s 71-52 win over Iowa

1. MSU showed its style can match up with any style and any pace

EAST LANSING — That was a really good win for Michigan State’s basketball team, believe it or not. That Iowa team is going to wind up being trouble a lot of nights in the Big Ten. And this could have been a thorny night for the Spartans, if they’d let it.

Things didn’t start easy. They were playing against a different style and more deliberate pace than anything they’d faced yet this season. They didn’t have their best freshman, Cam Ward, who missed the game with a sprained wrist. He would have been useful in this matchup. They had to figure out how to control the game without a fast break.

But they did, turning a prickly first 10 minutes into an emphatic home win, 71-52, imposing their will on team a that didn’t have the big men to match up in the paint and on the glass. Their energy was only matched by Pat Fitzgerald’s energy, as MSU’s new football coach introduced himself to the Breslin Center crowd Tuesday night during a first-half timeout. He told the fans they were the difference in MSU’s run just before that break. They might have been.

But one thing we’ve learned about this MSU team is that to have a chance to beat it, you’ve got to match its toughness and be able to handle its physicality. The Hawkeyes could do neither. Iowa would have to shoot the daylights out of the ball from beyond the arc — which the Hawkeyes are capable of doing — to have any chance.

This game looked dangerous on the calendar because the Hawkeyes are better than MSU made them look and because human nature says this was a little bit of a look-ahead spot, if a Big Ten opener can ever be that. Getting Duke at Breslin Center this coming Saturday is an event. Something to look forward to. This MSU team, though, hasn’t looked distracted all season. We should begin to trust they won’t be. Especially not to open conference play, at home, the beginning of a title defense, and for a core group that looks out to prove something.

The rebounding numbers and points in the paint told the story of the difference between the teams. The Spartans out-rebounded the Hawkeyes, 37-18, including 24-12 on the offensive end (MSU rebounded 52% of its missed shots), outscored them in the paint, 34-18, and hit 22 of 25 free throws.

“That takes care of a lot of things,” Izzo said of MSU’s work on the glass especially.

MSU created a lot of contact in the first half, getting to the line to loosen up its offense and spur an 11-0 run in a game that was 9-9 at the midway point of the first half.

Neither team shot well from the perimeter. The problem for the Hawkeyes is that they live by the 3 much more and took many more.

Now MSU can focus on the fourth and final of its marquee non-conference matchups, likely the biggest test of its ceiling and also of its improvement since the exhibition at Connecticut. At 8-0, and with how they’ve played, the Spartans have earned the hype this game will come with.

2. An impressive night for Coen Carr

There were several impressive performances by MSU on Tuesday night. Jaxon Kohler’s dominance early on the glass set a tone in the paint (He finished with 12 points and 11 rebonds). Jeremy Fears Jr. got to the line repeatedly and didn’t miss there (going 10-for-10), and made Iowa star Bennett Stirtz’s life difficult.

But Coen Carr, perhaps, deserves as much credit as anyone. This wasn’t a matchup built for him. Because Iowa doesn’t play a game that allows for transition offense. Carr had to work his way into this and figure out how to impact the game. And he did, with 15 points and five rebounds, almost all of his production coming in the final couple minutes of the first half and in the second half.

That was a good sign for Carr. He didn’t force things, but he also didn’t accept that this wasn’t going to be his night. He got on the glass and started attacking the lane on the drive. Iowa didn’t have an answer for him.

3. Freshman thoughts — the Iowa edition

Jesse McCulloch played a season-high 17 minutes, in part because Cam Ward missed the game with a sprained wrist. MSU will and has faced teams with better front lines, but McCulloch made the most of his opportunity, with nine points and two rebounds. The redshirt freshman big man sometimes has been overmatched this season. But he played well in a short spurt against North Carolina and then in a longer stint Tuesday.

He’s got a skilled offensive game and we saw it against Iowa, especially with a couple buckets late. The more he holds his own on the glass and defensively, the more we’ll see him.

The other MSU freshman that played, Jordan Scott, had another Jordan Scott-like game. They ought to just name the plus-minus stat after him. At halftime, he had six points and was plus-18 in 10 minutes. Nobody else was better than plus-10. He finished with those six points and five rebounds. He’s a gritty player who makes MSU better when he’s on the court. He also hit one of MSU’s three 3s. If he starts making more, he’ll be a 20-minute per game player every night. You could argue he already should be.

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on X @Graham_Couch and BlueSky @GrahamCouch.

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Iowa

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

Published

4 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.

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Iowa

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

Published

17 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.

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Iowa

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

Published

1 day ago

January 7, 2026

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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.

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