FROM KCCI: Years after abuse reports, ex-coach at renowned Chow’s Gymnastics in Iowa is arrested by FBI. The U.S. gymnastics world was only just recovering from a devastating sexual abuse scandal when a promising young coach moved from Mississippi to Iowa to take a job in 2018 at an elite academy known for training Olympic champions. Liang “Chow” Qiao, the owner of Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, thought highly enough of his new hire, Sean Gardner, to put him in charge of the club's premier junior event and to coach some of its most promising girls. But four years later, Gardner was gone from Chow’s with little notice. ... READ MORE

FROM WHO-TV: Grimes baby dies after father admits to hitting her over 40 times. A two-month-old Grimes baby who officials said was beaten by her father earlier this month has died. WHO 13 confirmed the information about the infant’s death with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday. The child’s father, Dylan Brown, is accused of beating the child and the child’s mother at the family’s residence in the 600 block of NE Jacob Street in the early morning hours of Aug. 7. ... READ MORE

FROM WOI: Woodward Resource Center fined $30K after resident's death. The Woodward Resource Center has been fined by the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals & Licensing after a resident died in early May. A DIAL citation reports a 49-year-old man with autism and other medical and intellectual disabilities was found unresponsive by a Residential Treatment Worker around 5 a.m. and was "on his stomach in bed, covered in feces." ... READ MORE

FROM AROUND THE WORLD: Israel mobilizes thousands of reservists for new fighting in Gaza. Israel is preparing to launch an expanded military operation in Gaza City, possibly in the coming days, even as negotiators scramble to bring Israel and Hamas to a ceasefire to end 22 months of fighting. ... READ MORE

FROM AROUND THE NATION: Trump’s federal law-enforcement crackdown ripples through DC neighborhoods. The main drag in Washington’s Columbia Heights neighborhood is typically crammed with people peddling pupusas, fresh fruit, souvenirs and clothing. On Tuesday, though, things felt different: The white tents that bulge with food and merchandise were scarcer than usual. ... READ MORE

FROM AROUND THE STATE: Iowa man spent $140K in company funds on Pokemon cards, gaming items. A western Iowa man has been sentenced to federal prison for wire fraud. Mitch William Gross, 34, of Earling, was sentenced in court Friday to four months in federal prison and to pay restitution, a release states. Court documents indicate that from September 2021 to October 2022, Gross defrauded his employer, Ruan Transportation Corp., with personal purchases. ... READ MORE

Clear Mortgage meteorology

A few spotty showers are possible this afternoon. Temperatures will again be in the mid-80s. Warm weather continues into Friday, when we could see an evening shower into Saturday in the early morning. We start getting cooler on Sunday!

For help with pre-approvals or refinancing, get in touch with Originating Branch Manager Carrie Hansen at carrie.mortgage.

Woebegone Wednesday
Ultraprocessed foods make up the majority of calories Americans are eating. But there are signs this consumption might be declining: Sandwiches, baked goods, salty snacks and other ultraprocessed foods accounted for 55% of the calories Americans age 1 and older consumed from August 2021 to August 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics study. That proportion is fortunately getting smaller. For adults, the mean percentage of calories consumed from ultraprocessed foods fell 3 percentage points to 53% since 2018 and for children and teens, it fell nearly 4 percentage points to 61.9%, the report found.
Ultraprocessed foods have been linked to obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and depression. There isn’t a set definition for ultraprocessed foods but researchers consider them foods made with ingredients not normally found in a home kitchen, including high-fructose corn syrup and emulsifiers such as soy lecithin.

Deals today
• Kelly's Little Nipper (1701 E. Grand Ave., Des Moines) offers any burger with a side for $10 on Wednesdays. 

• Exile (1514 Walnut St., Des Moines) offers a $12 burger basket with fries and a beer on Wednesdays. 

• Beaver Tap (4050 Urbandale Ave., Des Moines) offers $8 French toast or pancake breakfasts and $2 tacos, $9 wraps and $10 half pounds of wings on Wednesdays. 

• Johnny's Italian Steakhouses have a chicken Madeira special on Wednesdays before 4 p.m., $15 including beverage.

• Smoking Goat Pub (3015 Merle Hay Road, Des Moines) has a $10 classic burger and beer all day. 
 
• Gilroy's (1238 Eighth St., West Des Moines) has all you can eat fried chicken dinners on Wednesdays, $21.99 after 5 p.m. Jake Schrodt will play on the patio there from 6 p.m. tonight.

• Haiku (1315 31st St., Des Moines) lets kids 11 and younger eat free with adults on Wednesdays. Hot sour soup and eggrolls are comped today with lunch entrees.  

• Wednesdays bring steak night to Club 2000 (422 Indianola Road, Des Moines). Steaks are cooked to order with salad, potato and bread, $14.99.

• Angry Goldfish (2301 S.W. Ninth St., Des Moines) offers hot beef sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy for $11.50 on Wednesday. 

• Curbin' Cuisine (1325 S.W. Oralabor Road, Ankeny) offers traditional gyros for $7 Wednesdays. 

• Wine bottles are half price on Wednesdays at Trostel's Greenbriar (5910 Merle Hay Road, Johnston). The Continental (407 E. Fifth St., Des Moines) also has half priced bottles on Wednesdays. 

• G Mig's (128 Fifth St., Valley Junction) offers a special grilled chicken bow tie carbonara dinner today with salad and garlic bread for $19.25.

• Barntown's (9500 S.E. University Ave., West Des Moines) Wednesday specials are a pound of chicken tenders with fries and two sauces for $11.99, plus $13 core pitchers of beer.

• Wednesday is Biryani Festival at Chowrastha (5910 Ashworth Road, West Des Moines). Buy two and a third is free.

• Tacos Mariana's (1305 University Avenue) and The Station (3124 Ingersoll) have specials on tacos today. 

• Village Inns offer free pie with entrees on Wednesdays. 

• It's lasagna day at Maxie's Supper Club (1311 Grand Ave., West Des Moines), breaded pork tenderloin day at Eastside Eddie's (3517 E. 26th St., Des Moines), and barbecue ribs evening at G Mig's (128 Fifth St., Valley Junction).

• Panka Peruvian (2708 Ingersoll Ave., Des Moines) has live jazz Wednesday. 

• Chuck's (3610 Sixth Ave., Des Moines) offers $5 off pizza on Wednesdays.

• Bordanaro's (6108 S.W. Ninth St., Des Moines) has a Wednesday-Thursday only special on carryout pizza. They start at $6.50 for a 10-inch cheese pie. Each ingredient added is an extra charge, but this pretty much adds up to half-price pies.

• Night Like This plays Either/Or at 6 p.m.

• Hy-Vee stores have sales on chicken thighs and drums for 99 cents/pound, Haagen Daaz for $3.99/pint and Hy-Vee yogurts at $1/three through Sunday. 

• Fresh Thyme (2900 University Ave., West Des Moines) begins a week-long sale on boneless chicken breasts at $1.99/pound, sweet corn at $6/dozen and colossal shrimp (8-12 per pound) at $7.99/pound.

— Jim Duncan, jd91446@aol.com

Most labradors have a strong affinity for water. My friend’s dog, Ms. Journey, is no exception. If there’s a puddle, a kiddie pool, or even a suspiciously large bowl of water, she’ll be there like a kid on summer vacation. Photo by Paul Houston

1619: First enslaved Africans arrive in Jamestown, setting the stage for slavery in North America. On or about Aug. 20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrive in the British colony of Virginia and are then bought by English colonists. The exact date is not definitively known (a letter from the time identified the ship's arrival coming in "the latter part of August"), but this date has been chosen by many to mark the arrival of the enslaved Africans in the New World—beginning two and a half centuries of slavery in North America. ... READ MORE

1945: 17-year-old becomes youngest to hit MLB home run. On Aug. 20, 1945, 11 days after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, Brooklyn Dodgers utility player Tommy Brown homers to drive in his team's only run in an 11-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. It seems insignificant, aside from the fact that, at 17 years old, Brown remains the youngest player to homer in a Major League Baseball game, a feat unlikely to be duplicated.  ... READ MORE

1975: Viking 1 launched to Mars. Viking 1, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Mars.. ... READ MORE

 www.history.com