Gazette Daily News Podcast, November 23

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This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Tuesday, November 23.

We’re riding the temperature roller coaster back to warmer weather on Tuesday. According to the National Weather Service it will be sunny with a high near 50 degrees. On Tuesday night there will be increasing clouds, with a low around 40. It could be a bit windy, with a south wind blowing at 5 to 15 mph and gusting as high as 25 mph, with the wind picking up as the day goes on.

An Illinois man was arrested on Sunday after being accused by police of shooting a Marion woman in the leg last June.

Authorities allege Jeremy Sneed, 33, of Joliet, Ill., grabbed a gun from his vehicle and threatened several people at a home on Chapelridge Circle on June 26 in Marion.

According to the criminal complaint, Sneed pointed the weapon at a man with the intent to kill him. Sneed missed and the bullet struck a woman in the leg.

Authorities have charged Sneed with attempted murder, a Class B felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison. He is in the Linn County Jail on $50,000 bond.

University of Iowa Health Care has spotted an alarming spike in new influenza cases in recent weeks, establishing a real possibility that hospitals statewide will be grappling with a “twindemic” of widespread flu and COVID-19 cases this winter.

UIHC has begun to see a rapid increase in influenza cases, rising from just one laboratory-confirmed case two weeks ago to over 150 cases in the last week, UIHC chief medical officer Dr. Theresa Brennan told reporters Monday.

The health care system’s announcement follows a warning the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had issued to Americans earlier this fall that the country could be in for an “early and possibly severe flu season” this year.

And with a low flu vaccination rate among Iowans ahead of this week’s Thanksgiving celebrations, Brennan warned an elevated level of influenza cases — coupled with the ongoing surge of COVID-19 infections — “could really impact our community and our health care resources.”

According to reporting from the Associated Press a judge has ruled that an Iowa measure that prohibits Medicaid coverage for sex reassignment surgeries for transgender residents violates state law and the state constitution.

In a decision made public Monday, Polk County District Court Judge William Kelly ordered the Iowa Department of Human Services to provide coverage for sex reassignment surgeries when ordered to treat gender dysphoria, a psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one's sex assigned at birth and one's gender identity. It often begins in childhood, and some people may not experience it until after puberty or much later, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

About 12 states, including Iowa, exclude the surgeries from Medicaid coverage.

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