IOWA – Timely rains, while needed, limited Iowa farmers to 3.8 days suitable for fieldwork during the week ending May 25, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Corn and soybean planting continued, but some producers are waiting for warmer and drier conditions to start spraying. Topsoil moisture condition rated 4 percent very short, 15 percent short, 76 percent adequate and 5 percent surplus. Corn planted reached 95 percent and emerged reached 76 percent, six days ahead of last year’s pace and two days ahead of normal.

ALGONA – An Iowa native has been convicted of abusing children in the Haitian orphanage four decades ago. The Des Moines Register reports 73-year-old Michael Karl Geilenfeld has been sentenced to 210 years of prison for sexual, physical, and emotional attacks of children at St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in the Caribbean. Geilenfeld is originally from Algona. Prosecutors say he used his orphanage to gain access to vulnerable children and had them travel with him to and from the country.

IOWA – A nursing home has been re-added to a federal government watch list of the worst care facilities in the country. Iowa Capitol Dispatch reports Correctionville Specialty Care is back on the Special-Focus Facilities published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A worker allegedly raped a resident in October of 2023. Since the beginning of 2022, Correctionville has been cited 93 times for state and federal violations.