Iowa

Iowa 25, Penn State 24: BREATHE

Published

3 months ago

October 19, 2025

My turn to take a swing at a post game. Boy I wish I hadn’t volunteered.

Iowa mostly outplayed Penn State over 60 minutes and, despite some truly insane twists and turns, Iowa emerged a 25-24 winner after a late Kaden Wetjen touchdown plus a stop gave Iowa the win. Iowa improved to 5-2 and 3-1 with the win, while Penn State somehow dropped to 3-4 and a staggering 0-4 in league play.

From the get go this looked like one of those games. Iowa took the first possession of the game but couldn’t catch a slant on third down. The deflection was intercepted with one hand by Penn State’s Zakee Wheatley at the Iowa 35. Uh oh.

10 plays later, after Iowa missed not one, not two, but three attempts at a tackle for loss on fourth down and after Iowa stopped Penn State on fourth and goal from the 1 but was offsides, the Nittany Lions found the end zone through Kaytron Allen to take a 7-0 lead. Seriously, how is Iowa trailing?

Iowa responded with a solid drive, moving to the Penn State 21. But Iowa failed to convert a third down pass to Reece Vander Zee and had to settle for a 39-yard field goal from Drew Stevens. It wouldn’t be Stevens’s last involvement in the half.

Penn State was forced to punt on their next drive and the dynamic Wetjen returned the kick 25 yards to the Penn State 35. It sure looked like he was hit late out of bounds but the call was not given. Iowa was forced into a 46-yard field goal attempt, but Stevens pushed the kick wide. Ugh. Points left on the field.

The teams traded punts before Penn State put together a nice drive into Iowa territory. On third down from the Iowa 38, a pass that looked like a throwaway, Deshaun Lee hauled in a diving interception at the 4 for the first Penn State turnover of the night.

Iowa made it out of the shadows of their goalposts but were forced to punt from their 39 after Mark Gronowski started to slide short of the line to gain instead of diving head first which would’ve been a first down. It turned out to be no big deal, as Xavier Nwankpa – playing in his natural position at free safety and playing what is his best game in an Iowa uniform to date – picked off a tipped pass and returned it to the Penn State 1. Gronowski found the end zone on a tush push to put Iowa in the lead, finally, at 10-7.

The Nittany Lions seemed intent on giving Iowa the early first quarter miscues back with a brutal late half drive, punting back to Iowa with 47 seconds left and Iowa still in possession of a timeout. Iowa picked up a first down and drove to the Penn State 48. Instead of attempting a hail mary or simply punting, Iowa – get this – attempted a 66-yard field goal. Before the first kick, Penn State called a timeout. The first attempt was a solid 10 yards short. Instead of seeing that and attempting the deep ball or just punting, or even taking a knee, Iowa tried the 66-yarder again. The Iowa line was blown up – Penn State nearly blocked Iowa’s PAT attempt just a few minutes prior – and Xavier Gilliam blocked the kick. The block ricocheted directly to Elliot Washington II, who returned the block 35 yards for a 14-10 halftime lead.

Of course, Penn State received the ball to start the second half. Penn State drove to Iowa territory and seemed ready to stall, but a pass interference on Koen Entringer kept the drive alive, and eventually Penn State found the end zone. Somehow, someway, Penn State led 21-10. Danger zone for Iowa. Season on the line.

Iowa responded with possibly their best drive of the year, highlighted by a 38-yard rumble from Gronowski. Iowa drove inside the Penn State 5, and on third and goal, Gronowski faked the Penn State defense out on an RPO to cut the lead to 21-16. Iowa attempted a 2-point conversion, for some reason, and failed, so trailed by 5. I could be wrong, but I believe Iowa hasn’t converted a 2-point attempt since Wisconsin 2020 (of course it’s Wisconsin; kudos to CBS today for all the wide, panning shots of an empty Camp Randall in the afternoon slot. Reminder that they stink.)

Penn State’s next drive was stopped on downs, a Penn State 4th and 1 at their own 40. Penn State attempted to have the motion man take a quick snap, but Iowa was wise to the play and stopped it for no gain. Iowa took possession and immediately ripped off a 21-yard run from Kamari Moulton. The Hawks drove to Penn State’s 13 but had to settle for a field goal. 21-19, Penn State.

Penn State again dodged trouble with a fumble near midfield, a fumble bouncing directly to their tight end. On the next play, Penn State fumbled a snap but again recovered on first down. Dodging and weaving, this Penn State team. They did it again on 3rd and 11, dodging another sack for a huge conversion. The Nittany Lions continued to burn clock – this game zoomed by – but Iowa held and forced a field goal. 24-19.

Mark Gronowski took the next play 67 yards to the Penn State 8, then Kaden Wetjen scored on an end around to put Iowa in the lead, 25-24. Iowa attempted another two-pointer and failed again – don’t chase points – but Iowa led, 25-24, with 3:54 remaining.

Penn State drove to their 49, but a 4th down was stopped with a heave incomplete. It was an amazing call Phil Parker – a blitz dialed at the best possible time, with Nwankpa again blowing the play up – and Iowa clung to their 1-point advantage. Penn State still had time and two timeouts, but Tim Lester channeled Iowa versus Michigan State, 1985, and called a bootleg for Gronowski. The whole Penn State defense bit, and Gronowski easily picked up the first down to ice the game. He finished with 130 yards rushing and two touchdowns.

I’ll be back for The Morning After. Somehow. I’ll be a few beers in. LET’S FREAKING GOOOOOOOO.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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