16
Mar
2004
• Northwest Airlines has announced that beginning on May 1, it will be offering daily nonstop jet service between Moline and Memphis, Tennessee. Northwest will start with one flight daily and add a second daily flight on June 10. The route, previously served with a turboprop aircraft, was suspended in June 2003. It will now be reinstated with the larger Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ). With these flights, Northwest and its Northwest Airlink partners will offer 215 daily nonstop flights from Memphis to 89 destinations. The service will be operated with Northwest Airlink partner Pinnacle Airlines Corporation's 44- or 50-passenger CRJ. The daily flights are now open for sale at (http://www.nwa.com), at (800)225-2525, or through travel agencies.
• Trinity Regional Health System's parent organization, Iowa Health System (IHS), has placed 70th in a national ranking of the top 100 integrated-health-care networks in the country. As a member of Iowa Health System, Trinity is part of the highest-ranking system providing health-care services in the Quad Cities. Verispan, a Chicago-based health-care research firm, selects the honorees from 568 non-specialty regional health-care networks in the United States that meet the necessary critical success factors.
• The Iowa House has passed a bill, House File 2341, that allows off-duty and out-of-state peace officers to carry concealed weapons in Iowa. Currently, a permit to carry a weapon is issued by and at the discretion of the sheriff or public-safety commissioner after a determination that all code requirements have been met. An out-of-state peace officer is defined as someone who is authorized to carry a firearm in the performance of his or her duties and who is certified or licensed as a regular peace officer in the appropriate out-of-state jurisdiction. In addition, the definition includes a federal law-enforcement officer.
• On Saturday, March 20, the beginning of spring and the anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, more than 40 organizations in Iowa, including environmental, peace, and social-justice groups, will participate in a day of Global Action, including a family parade (costumes, signs, etc. welcome) and a rally on the Drake University campus in Des Moines. Festivities will begin at 12:30 p.m. and end about 6 p.m. For more information, visit the Web site of Physicians for Social Responsibility (http://www.iowa-psr.org). If you are from the Quad Cities and are interested in going to Des Moines by bus, you can contact Len Adams at (lencon2@mchsi.com) or (563)322-4524. (A $20-per-rider donation is suggested.) Participants will meet in the parking lot of the Unitarian Church, 3707 Eastern Avenue in Davenport, at 9 a.m. and return mid-evening. Local participation in this event is sponsored by QCAction.org, a new organization based on the model of Moveon.org.
• The 2003 yearly report of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Quad Cities affiliate shows that there is a high demand for mammography, prosthesis, and compression-garment vouchers for medically underserved and underinsured women. Since 2001, the number of mammogram vouchers the affiliate has granted in its bi-state service area has grown by approximately 32 percent. The affiliate announced in January that it will allocate $234,626 for the 2004 voucher program - a $21,000 increase over 2002 and an $80,000 increase since 2001. Demand for vouchers is increasing not only in the Quad Cities but also in outlying counties. For more information on sponsoring or participating in Race for the Cure, log on to (http://www.qcraceforethecure.org) or call (877)921-2873 or (563)421-2873. For more information about the voucher program, call coordinator Linda Rymars at (563)421-7620.
• A recently released study, "Ranking Vouchers: Grading America's School-Choice Programs," evaluates and ranks the nation's 13 school-voucher programs based on three criteria: how many students are eligible to receive a voucher; how much money the voucher is worth; and how many and what type of private schools parents can choose. For each category, the program is assigned a letter grade, and the final ranking is based on the average of the three. The nation's highest-scoring voucher program is Florida's McKay Scholarship with a 3.6 GPA or A-, while the lowest-scoring voucher program is the Iowa Personal Tax Credit with a 1.76 GPA or C-. Milwaukee's voucher program, the nation's oldest such program for low-income families, receives a grade of C, while Colorado's program, one of the newest, gets a B-. A copy of the report can be downloaded at (http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/vouchers.pdf).
• Accelerating a trend that has seen lifesaving defibrillation capabilities for sudden cardiac arrest become almost as easily accessible as fire extinguishers and other emergency equipment, Medtronic Physio-Control has announced a partnership with Walgreen Co. to sell automated external defibrillators (AEDs) online at (http://www.walgreens.com). Walgreens.com will offer online shoppers the opportunity to review information about and directions for purchasing the AED on a special Web page at (http://www.walgreens.com/library/disease/sca/default.jhtml). To purchase an AED, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration requires a physician's prescription.
• The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws reports that federal legislation was introduced to withhold highway funding from state legislatures that do not pass laws enacting mandatory minimum penalties for anyone convicted of driving under the influence of illegal drugs. The bill, H.R. 3907, comes two weeks after panelists at a conference co-sponsored by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy called on federal officials to develop "uniform standards" and "model legislation" to encourage states to enact and/or modify their DUID (driving under the influence of drugs) laws. Under the proposed legislation, sponsored by Representative Jon Porter (R-Nevada), states have until 2006 to pass and enforce DUID laws "approved by the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration" or lose portions of their federal highway funding. Under these statutes, so-called "effect-based" DUID laws, a prosecutor must prove that the driver's observed impairment and/or incapacity is directly associated with drug ingestion. A state-by-state summary of DUID laws is available online at (http://www.walshgroup.org) and more information can be found at (http://www.norml.org).
• Trinity Regional Health System's parent organization, Iowa Health System (IHS), has placed 70th in a national ranking of the top 100 integrated-health-care networks in the country. As a member of Iowa Health System, Trinity is part of the highest-ranking system providing health-care services in the Quad Cities. Verispan, a Chicago-based health-care research firm, selects the honorees from 568 non-specialty regional health-care networks in the United States that meet the necessary critical success factors.
• The Iowa House has passed a bill, House File 2341, that allows off-duty and out-of-state peace officers to carry concealed weapons in Iowa. Currently, a permit to carry a weapon is issued by and at the discretion of the sheriff or public-safety commissioner after a determination that all code requirements have been met. An out-of-state peace officer is defined as someone who is authorized to carry a firearm in the performance of his or her duties and who is certified or licensed as a regular peace officer in the appropriate out-of-state jurisdiction. In addition, the definition includes a federal law-enforcement officer.
• On Saturday, March 20, the beginning of spring and the anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, more than 40 organizations in Iowa, including environmental, peace, and social-justice groups, will participate in a day of Global Action, including a family parade (costumes, signs, etc. welcome) and a rally on the Drake University campus in Des Moines. Festivities will begin at 12:30 p.m. and end about 6 p.m. For more information, visit the Web site of Physicians for Social Responsibility (http://www.iowa-psr.org). If you are from the Quad Cities and are interested in going to Des Moines by bus, you can contact Len Adams at (lencon2@mchsi.com) or (563)322-4524. (A $20-per-rider donation is suggested.) Participants will meet in the parking lot of the Unitarian Church, 3707 Eastern Avenue in Davenport, at 9 a.m. and return mid-evening. Local participation in this event is sponsored by QCAction.org, a new organization based on the model of Moveon.org.
• The 2003 yearly report of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Quad Cities affiliate shows that there is a high demand for mammography, prosthesis, and compression-garment vouchers for medically underserved and underinsured women. Since 2001, the number of mammogram vouchers the affiliate has granted in its bi-state service area has grown by approximately 32 percent. The affiliate announced in January that it will allocate $234,626 for the 2004 voucher program - a $21,000 increase over 2002 and an $80,000 increase since 2001. Demand for vouchers is increasing not only in the Quad Cities but also in outlying counties. For more information on sponsoring or participating in Race for the Cure, log on to (http://www.qcraceforethecure.org) or call (877)921-2873 or (563)421-2873. For more information about the voucher program, call coordinator Linda Rymars at (563)421-7620.
• A recently released study, "Ranking Vouchers: Grading America's School-Choice Programs," evaluates and ranks the nation's 13 school-voucher programs based on three criteria: how many students are eligible to receive a voucher; how much money the voucher is worth; and how many and what type of private schools parents can choose. For each category, the program is assigned a letter grade, and the final ranking is based on the average of the three. The nation's highest-scoring voucher program is Florida's McKay Scholarship with a 3.6 GPA or A-, while the lowest-scoring voucher program is the Iowa Personal Tax Credit with a 1.76 GPA or C-. Milwaukee's voucher program, the nation's oldest such program for low-income families, receives a grade of C, while Colorado's program, one of the newest, gets a B-. A copy of the report can be downloaded at (http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/vouchers.pdf).
• Accelerating a trend that has seen lifesaving defibrillation capabilities for sudden cardiac arrest become almost as easily accessible as fire extinguishers and other emergency equipment, Medtronic Physio-Control has announced a partnership with Walgreen Co. to sell automated external defibrillators (AEDs) online at (http://www.walgreens.com). Walgreens.com will offer online shoppers the opportunity to review information about and directions for purchasing the AED on a special Web page at (http://www.walgreens.com/library/disease/sca/default.jhtml). To purchase an AED, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration requires a physician's prescription.
• The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws reports that federal legislation was introduced to withhold highway funding from state legislatures that do not pass laws enacting mandatory minimum penalties for anyone convicted of driving under the influence of illegal drugs. The bill, H.R. 3907, comes two weeks after panelists at a conference co-sponsored by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy called on federal officials to develop "uniform standards" and "model legislation" to encourage states to enact and/or modify their DUID (driving under the influence of drugs) laws. Under the proposed legislation, sponsored by Representative Jon Porter (R-Nevada), states have until 2006 to pass and enforce DUID laws "approved by the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration" or lose portions of their federal highway funding. Under these statutes, so-called "effect-based" DUID laws, a prosecutor must prove that the driver's observed impairment and/or incapacity is directly associated with drug ingestion. A state-by-state summary of DUID laws is available online at (http://www.walshgroup.org) and more information can be found at (http://www.norml.org).
