Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
The Iowa Supreme Court said Friday that the wife of a man who died two years ago has the right to have him dug up and moved even though his first wife and three children are opposed to it.
The state Supreme Court’s ruling overturns a decision by District Court Judge Michael Mullins with permanently barred Alita Stark from moving the remains Joseph Stark to a cemetery where his parents are buried. Joseph Stark, who died two years ago, was originally buried in a cemetery plot owned by his ex-wife the children from his first marriage.
Alita Stark followed the standard procedure to have her deceased husband’s remains disinterred when she applied to the Iowa Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Vital Records for a permit. The permit was granted but his children filed suit acting for a permanent injunction to prevent the body from being moved. Mullins ruled that state law requires that a substantial public benefit must be shown before permission for reburial is granted.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously, however, that the law only requires permission from the surviving spouse and ordered the district court to dismiss the lawsuit.The ruling, written by Justice Jerry Larson, states the Iowa legislature never wanted to limit the ability of a surviving spouse to have a body moved to a new location. The Stark children argued in their application for a permanent injunction that statute does not give the surviving spouse an exclusive right to disinter, but instead gives the surviving spouse a veto power when someone else requests disinterment.
Larson wrote: “It is clear that, when the legislature wanted to limit the ability to disinter, it knew how to do so. The legislature clearly delineated the purposes for which disinterment could be granted (only for reburial or autopsy) and the requirements that must be met for a court-ordered disinterment over the objection of the surviving spouse. The legislature’s lack of specific requirements for a surviving spouse to apply for, and receive, a state-issued permit is evidence, in itself, that the legislature did not intend for a surviving spouse to have to show anything other than that the disinterment is for the purpose of reburial or autopsy.”
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