Jenna and im jenna rehnstrom. Iowa is trying to keep up with neighboring states. But when it comes to how fast you can go on the roads. Not everyone agrees that we should be pushing the limit. Tim lawmakers in des moinin are cocoidering bumping up speeds on state highghys. Abc9s jess pluehas more on the pros and cons. Jess that right. A bill has been sent to lawmakers proposing an increse in road speeds. More specifically, an increase from 55mph to 65mph on two lane highways throughout iowa. But while many are excited to quench their need for speed, others are more cautious about the potential increase. If all the roads were l le this, then yes, speeds could be a little higher, but woododry county only has three of these roads, says officer todd wingert. The roads officer todd wingert is talking about are twolane highways in iowa. On tuesd, a bill went into the hands of lawmakers to increase speeds from 60 to 65 mph. Gary worthan proposed this bill, keeping the state of iowa in check with other states. Of the states that surround iowa, wisconsin and illinoise are the only two that have not gone and raised their limits from 55mph on a twolane road says gary worthan, proposer of one of three speed crease bills. While most that travel these highways daily, find a potential increase be welcomed, not all drivers think the same. If they increase it to 75mph, i can see people going up p at least 85mph h ich i feel like is very dangngous especially when it gets icy during the winter. I dont think its a good idea, says new driver, nicole newman. No matter what drivers opinions are on the matter, one underlying caution stays the same. Safety. Any time you increase your speed you decrease your reaction time. And people now a days, we are fighting a fight against distracted drivers with all the portable handheld devices, distracted driving is a really bad so when you increase your speed, the longer your eyes are off the road looking at your phone or looking at something, youre traveling that much further than if you were at a slower speed, says officer todd wingert. Jess at gridwall while lawmakers make their final increase, counties that feel their twolane highways would become more dangerous with a speed increase, such as highways with winding bends, low visibility, or too many hidden driveways. They can reject raising the speed limits in their county. Reporting live in studio, jess plue. Abc9 news. Jenna iowa lawmakers are also considering a bill that would change iowas texting and driving law. Right now texting while driving is considered a secondary offense. Meaning officers cant pull you over for texting unless they see you breaking another law. The new bill would make texting while driving a primary offense. The sponsor of the legislation, senator tod bowman, says its a way to toughen up iowas distracted driving laws. Bowman 5 32 18 theres pepele that think it would provide police pull you over, it does when y yre doing soething harmful, it does give them another reason to pull you er but a legitimate reason to pull them over. This bill passed in the senate and will survive funnel week. But bowman says the speaker of the house hasnt expressed interest in taking it up for debate. Tim the iowa senate is proposing a new bill to help protect student hletes from concussions while playing collision sports. The bill would require home teams at High School Varsity games to provide a licensed trainer to assess concussions and other injuries. Events include, wrestling, plus girls and boys soccer. The estimated cost of getting trainers would be between two and five thousand dollars annually. Some local struggle to have consistently and are not sure the option. When were able to, we try to have a trainer for alll our home events but its difficult. The cost is that can come down and take care of our athletes and our opponents athletes, theyre hard to find. Right now about half of the schools in iowa provide some coverage for athletic trainers or other professionals at sport events. Jenna a federal organization known as cms is in chahae of approving changes iowa wants s make with itstsedicaid program. But that g gup says theyre a fairly long list of things the state needed to fix before theyll give approval to move forward. Amanda krenz explains. What you see lawmakers looking at this meeting is a list a 16 items. These are criteria that the Iowa Department of Human Services had to improve before thstate can switch from medicaid to managed care. Senator bob dvorsky 5 08 36 i think were misleading peoeoe, saying these things are completed when theyre not. Sesetor bob dvorsky says all these items arent completed if thre still being worked on and monitored. 5 06 42 this is just some governors smoke. Where were talking about everything thats rosy, dont check anything out here. But these they dont think the state is ready for the entire medicaid system to switch to managed care on march first. Liz mathis 4 56 37 which ones have they said are completed to them . Mikki stier 4 57 15 0 4. 5. 6. 7 is a network, of those one theyre monitoring is 5. The development of our network. That one of the biggest concerns of these lawmakers, the networor will the 560 thousand iowows on medicaid h he the Health Care Providers they need d within a reasonable distance. Republican senator David Johnson who represents one of the most conservative districts in the state says the whole plan needs to be revisited. 5 15 10 why was the legislature left out of this last year . Why . I really feel like we were just left out. Jenna tomorrow is the final day for individuals on medicaid to pick which of the three managed they want for their health coverage. Even though the plan isnt suppose to take affect until march first. Tim on cam barring a veto from southdakota governor dennis daugaard, south dakota i i t to become the first state in the country to enact a law requiring transgender students to use bathrooms, locker rooms and showers facilities that match thier biological sex. On a 2015 the south Dakota Senate approved the bill today tuesday 20 to 15, sending the meaure to the governors desk. According to the measure, transgender students not wishing to those facilities would have to submit a request to School Officials requesting a seporate facilitit debate over th proposed law hasas focused on protecting the privacy of students while opponents are calling it discriminatory. Jenna today women of siouxland gathered to be inspired and empowered together. The organization, iowa women lead change held its Second Annual siouxland Women Leadership conference at the marina inn today. 400 women and 125 College Students gathered to hear speakers on the feedback, and gender intelligence. 25 exhibitors were also there to sell books and provide health tips. The regional manager of the Organization Says their mission is to inspire, lead, and motivate women. The goal of todays conference is to have women be educated, motivated, and inspired when they leave here. The women that we work with on this conference are the women who really are going to make that happen says bobbi segura, regional manager of iowa women lead change. Jenna many were excited about the keynote speaker. Winona laduke. The harvard educated environmentalist has spent her life helping native american groups. She also ran for Vice President twice, alongside ralph nader. Women, we share a lot of similar experiences. You know, being little ladied, being told that youre not good enough for it, or just like being really surprised when you show up and thats the women that im with here, im pleased to be with them says winona laduke, author and executive director of honor the earth. Jenna i was excited to be a part of the conferences Panel Discussion geared towards preparing College Women for personal and professional success after graduation. Tim lt gov kim reynolds made a few stops in sioux city today as a part of her statewide stem tour. Checking out schools that emphasize sicience, tenology, engineering, and math. She had two sioux city schools on her list today. Morningside and loess hills elementary lolos hills is currently in their secondear of the stemrogram. Each student from second through fifth grade has their own laptop for class, even the younger ones use tablets both teachers and the principal agree that skills in problem solving and processing algorithms learned from coding will take these children far. Any free time a child might have here at loess hills,s,hey automatically reach for their programming programs and they lili to create code says john beeck, principal at loess hills elementary, its really fun says students. You like it a lot . Asks elisa raffa, abc9 news yes. Mostly techology. So like if you want to do technology, youll students. These young girls are taking advantage of the technology they have in school. They interviewed the lt gov equipped with a microphone, camera, and some tough questions for their television program. Jenna eager ears gathered in the anthem at the Hard Rock Hotel and casino tonight to hear the names of the bands set to play at the016 awesome biker night. This years nds include rock n roll hall of famerscheap trick featuring edgar winter. They come in addition to the bands in this moment and pop evil. General manager at the hard rock promises concert attendees that this years awesome biker night will go beyond past events. Immeal excited ababt the lineup. Itsa great siouxland tradition n d we really believe that awesome biker night and all thr fans are going to love it here at the hard rock, says todd moyer, general manager at the Hard Rock Hotel and casino. Awesome biker night is scheduled to take place june 1618 in the hard rock and pearl the downtown area. Wristbands and weekend passes for the event go on sale friday on the hard rocks website. Tim and coming up after the break, well take a look at a woman who wont let living with a cronic illness get in the way of living a full life fred tonights ask fred question is how are high and low prsure systems different . The answer, and your 7 day forecast is next stomach ache thaha never seems totoo away. Or intestinal distress a dozen times orore a day. Thats the harsh reality for anyone living with Crohns Disease an inflammatory condition which can affect the entire gastrointestinal tract. Jim morelli explains in todays health minute. Lift your head just a touch zayna gold is a mother, wife and longtime pilates instructor. And for much of her life, shes felt sick. Id be in bed for a week and lose, like, 10 pnds in a week. Id be so incredibly ill. Gold was diagnosed with Crohns Disease a chronic, flammatory condition of the bowels. Symptoms of Crohns Disease can be abdominal pain. Diarrhea. And the passage of blood. Crohns cak be mild. And then it can be horrible. You can have 1520 bowel movements a day. You can have blood profusely coming out with bowel movements. Then severe abdominal pain. Its estimated that about 33thousand americans are diagnosed with Crohns Disease every year. There is no cure. But new medications have made remission possible. Unfortunately, theres still a large subset of patients who do not respond to those treatments. Zayna goldsays a combination of a healthy lifestyle, healthy diet and medicine. Seemsmso be working. Do have a chroroc illness thatas changed everything. My relationships, my lifestyle. Everything has changed. But i can still lead a wonderful life. A busy, productive, positive life. In watertown, massachusetts, jim morelli for cnn tim fred, do we still have those 50s on the way . fred we do 2 line super we do 2 line super fred earlier this morning, sioux city picked up 0. 10 of rain. The hd radar shows a light mix of snow and rain. Cloudy skies are seen on the Port Neal Welding Company skycam hd from the Ho Chunk Centre in downtown sioux city. 37 was the high today and 32 the low. In storm lake, we see the scene in eastern siouxland on the skycam hd. 32 is our sioux city temperature. Local temperatures range from the 20s to the 30s. This mornings system dropped plenty of snow and ice in parts of central iowa. And you can see tonights system currently pushing in. The stormcast hd shows the arrival of mainly light snow tonight. There could be some light freezing drizzle as well, so look out for slick spots. After that, we can look forward to a big warmup friday. The snow forecast shows 0. 5 or less for most of us tonight. Tonight, expect a low of 25 with cloudy skies. A mix of freezing drizzle and snow will be seen overnight. Slick roads are possible. High of 37 and cloudy skies. The 7 day forecast shows 46 thursday, then 50s friday and saturday, before we start to cool a bit next week. Tonights ask fred question is how are high and low pressure systems different . The answer is that with high pressure, we would expect sinking air going from the sky to the ground , drying air, and clearing skies. The opposite is true with low pressure. Low pressure brings rising air from the ground to the sky , increasing humidity, and clouds a a precipitatatn. Tonights winner is kevin bortvit. Kevin wins 2 alan jackson tickets heres ananl nino update. E. Ou can see we havbeen well above the el nino threshold this past fall and winter. Its been a strong el nino. To the right of the dotted line, we see the different model solutionsquite a wide variety the dotted line tepresents the average of tse models, which suggests a switch to la nina by next winter. La nina is the oppostite of el nino and a la nina winter usually follows an el nino winter. What woulthat mean for us . If it materializes, we would likely see a cold and stormy tim coming up in sports. Lawton bronson is in search of their first state berth since 2013. Find out if the e eagles could avoid an upset against boboen hull on the tournament trail. Jenna plus iowa state was looking for some rare success in waco tonight. Find out if the cyclones could win back to back games for the first time this month after the break. Jenna tim chris chlately this season, but over the past couple of years, its been all down when n comes to trips to babaor the cyclones havent beaten t t beararon the road since 2013 and overall, theyre just 20 in waco. The bears, also looking for the the cyclones tonight. Midway through the first. Lester medford with the alley. Taurean prince. With the absolute monster oop. Bears go up five. A few minutes later though. Georges niang, finds some space underneath. That bucket gets him over 2000 in his career, just the third cyclone ever t thit that mark. Then monon morris connenes on the corner triple. He had a doubledouble tonight with 20 points and 11 assists. But baylor closes the half on a 100 run. Medford knocks down the three pointer and the bears head intohe locker room up 4135. In the second half. Isu answers with a lob of their own. Matt thomas to abdel nader. Clones get within one. We jump ahead, nader, had a monster game tonight. This triple puts iowa state up one with under 6 to play in the game. The bears had another run in them though. Johnatha n motley, takes advantage of the defender falling down for the slam. Nader though, the man of the night for isu. He drives through traffic for the Old Fashioned 3 point play, to go up two. But this one the extra frame, iowa state falls for the 4th time in 6 games, 10091 chris one week from tonight the iowa girls state basketball tournament field will officially be set. Tonight class 1a and 2a teams took the court in regional quarterfinals. That included boydenhull in search of an upset against number 13 lawtonbronson. Early on, check out the entry pass from Kaylee Anderson to anna de jongh. Perfect placement. Comet s up a pair. But right away on the other end. Ali verzani. Dishes it off to lexi binder nice highlow game to tie things back up. Boyden hull, keeps working it inside. Chaelor koolstra into anderson on the drop step to go back on top. But Lawton Bronson far too much night. Verzani, open in the e corner, she makeke them pay. Eagles will take on west lyon friday night in lawton, 7238 the final. Chris while some Boys Basketball teams are already in the postseason, others are wrapping up the regulaseason, like west and wolverines and panthers are looking for some momentum heading into tournament play. West has dropped 4 of 6, dv, four of five down thth stretch. In the second quarter. Bubba rosenquist picks the pocket. He finds Tyler Johnson for the finish. Panthers take a 2418 lead. This will make coach kleis happy. Ni Ball Movement sets up luke schmitt for the 15 foot jumper. The lead up to ten. Dv wasnt done. Johnson repays the assist from earlier. Bubba money on the corner triple to go up 11. But right away on the other end, noah mcwell with the eurostep to cut the lead back to single digits. Dv too strong on their homecourt though. John prococllo. With the e sket and the bonus down low. Panthersin it, 7556. East looking for their 8th win in 9 games, welcoming storm lake to town tonight. In the first quarter. Brayden hoops. Im going to pass on the obvious pun there, but check out the jump stop. Tornadoes after they tie it up. Connor murrell kicks it out t trae robinson. He frees s some space and splashes home the three to retake the lead. Storm lake, hanging tight early. Joshua werge. Open on the wing triple to get within two. But then east gets going. Murrell, with the steal, he takes it all the way for the hoop and the hack. Black raiders pull away, 8865. The state dual tournament gets underway tomorrow in des moines and three siouxland teams will be compmping. In 2a, sererant bluff luton opens up competition with third seeded creston orient macksburg. In class 1a, Sibley Ocheyedan opens up as the five seed and theyll take on Logan Magnolia tomorrow morning. Loma finished fifth last year. Finally in the bottom half of that bracket westwood earned the six seed. They open up with alburnett who finished third in the team duals last year. Low of 25 with siouxland. Tonight, expect a low of 25 with cloudy skies this evening. A mix of freezing drizzle and snow ornight. Tomorrow, expect a high of 37 and cloudy skies. The 7 day forecast shows 46 thursday, then 50s friday and saturday, before we start to cool a bit next week. Heres an el nino update. You can see we have been well above the el nino threshold this past fall and winter. Its been a strong el nino. To the right of the dotted line, we see the different model solutionsquite a wide variety the dotted line represents the average of those models, which suggests a switch to la nina by nexex winter. La nininis the oppostite of el nini and a la nina winter usually follows an el nino winter. What would that mean for us . If it materializes, we would likely see a cold afd stormy winter next winter. We have 2 final alan jackson tickets to give away tonight on ask fred keep those questions coming to fhexom kcautv. C or enter on our dicky from hollywood, its Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight gwen stefani. Secretary of state john kerry. And guillermo at the 2016 grammy awards. With cleto and the cletones. And now, step aside, heres jimmy kimmel