What:
The Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston will release results of a Suffolk University poll of the 2016 Iowa Republican presidential caucus.

The poll surveys potential Republican caucus-goers on their reaction to the recent Fox News Republican presidential primary debate and their candidate preferences in the 2016 presidential race.

When:            
Poll results will be available at noon EST Tuesday, August 11, on the Suffolk University Political Research Center website. The poll is being conducted using live telephone interviews of landline and cell phone users.

Who:
David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, will be available for interviews and on-air analysis. Paleologos and Suffolk University's Political Research Center have a track record of precise and timely analysis based on live telephone interviews.

Where:
News organizations and working journalists who wish to be added to the distribution of the news release, marginals and cross-tabulation data should email: ggatlin@suffolk.edu or mnorris@suffolk.edu.

MOLINE, IL?The award-winning documentary Letters Home to Hero Street, produced by Lora Adams of WQPT-Quad Cities PBS and Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films, has received a Mid-America Emmy® nomination in the Historical Documentary category. A gala award ceremony will take place in St. Louis, Missouri on October 3.

Letters Home to Hero Street focuses on a young Mexican-American veteran's personal view of World War II as told through the letters he sent home to his family in Silvis, Illinois. He becomes one of eight veterans of WWII and the Korean War killed in combat from the same block-and-a half long neighborhood now called Hero Street, USA.  Frank Sandoval was just beginning a new job at the Rock Island Arsenal when he was drafted in 1942. He sent hundreds of letters to family and friends during the two years he was in the service and the 130 letters that remain tell the story of one man's dramatic and epic journey from Illinois to India. Killed on the bank of the Irrawaddy River in Burma on June 1944, Frank was one the first of the Hero Street Eight to fall in combat.

Reenactments in the film feature Eric Juarez, Maya Chavez, Cindy Ramos and Josh Wielenga, all from the Quad Cities. WQPT's Chris Ryder was the cinematographer.

The 25-minute historical documentary film was partially funded by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council and recently received a Silver Eddy and the Audience award at the 2015 Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival.

Fourth Wall Films is an award-winning independent film and video production company formerly located in Los Angeles, and now based in Moline, Illinois. This is the second Emmy® nomination for Fourth Wall Films' Kelly and Tammy Rundle.

DES MOINES, IA (08/10/2015)(readMedia)-- There's a lot to see at the 2015 Iowa State Fair, but no "Fair Tour" will be complete without a glimpse of chainsaw wood carving. A.J. Lutter and Gary Keenan, sculptors and registered chainsaw carvers, will be sharing their art with Fairgoers each day. Spectators can watch four times a day as the nationally known pair turn simple logs into everything from animals to people.

After seeing the transformations, Fairgoers can bring home their favorite pieces by bidding on them at the 2015 Woodcarver's Auction. It will include all the pieces created during the Fair by both A.J. and Gary, as well as the Blue Ribbon Foundation concrete horse statue designed by Sticks to celebrate the 2015 Fair. Champion Meats will also be up for bid during the sale, including ham, bacon and dried beef.

The 2015 Woodcarver's Auction will be held on Sunday, August 23 at 3:30 p.m. in the Cattle Barn's Penningroth Media Center. All funds generated from the auction will be used by the Blue Ribbon Foundation to preserve and renovate the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

Since its inception in 1993, the Blue Ribbon Foundation has been raising funds to renovate and restore the historic Iowa State Fairgrounds. Funds have been generated to support 40 projects throughout the Fairgrounds. Improvements have been made to the William C. Knapp Varied Industries Building, the Grandstand, the Campgrounds and Ye Old Mill. In addition, funds support the building of new facilities such as the Paul R. Knapp Animal Learning Center, Elwell Family Food Center and the Richard O. Jacobson Exhibition Center.

The Blue Ribbon Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. Since 1993, the Foundation has generated more than $110 million for renovations and improvements to the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

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SAN DIEGO - The U.S. Coast Guard will announce record drug seizure rates in San Diego Monday at 8:30 a.m. as the crew of the Cutter Stratton offloads more than 66,000 pounds of cocaine worth $1.01 billion wholesale seized in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

The Commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Paul Zukunft, will announce Coast Guard and partner agencies have seized more cocaine in the Eastern Pacific Ocean in the last 10 months than in fiscal years 2012 through 2014 combined. U.S. and allied forces operating in the Eastern Pacific Ocean near Central and South America have seized more than 119,000 pounds of cocaine worth more than $1.8 billion and apprehended more than 215 suspected smugglers. Fiscal year 2015, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, is already the most successful year in U.S. counter drug operations in the Eastern Pacific since 2009.

"This is about more than just trying to keep drugs off U.S. streets," said Zukunft. "The cultivation, trafficking and distribution of narcotics fuels violence and instability throughout the Western Hemisphere, leaving a path of destruction directly to the door step of the U.S. We must continue to make progress in our effort to combat transnational organized crime networks to ensure safety and security in our hemisphere."

Transnational organized crime groups are vying for control of illicit trafficking routes and power in numerous Latin American countries, resulting in increased violence and instability. This has led to record high homicide rates in Central and South America, as well as the Caribbean; 8 of the 10 countries with the highest homicide rates in the world are in this region. More than half of the unaccompanied children that crossed the U.S. southern border last year suffered or faced harm from organized crime groups, qualifying for international protection,.

Bruce G. Ohr, Associate Deputy Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice/Director, Attorney General's Organized Crime Council Director, Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, and Mr. George Russell, Chief of International Interdiction at Office of National Drug Control Policy/Executive Director, U.S. Interdiction Committee are also scheduled to attend the announcement.

"There is still work to be done. We can only act on 30 percent of known drug shipments in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean," Zukunft said. "We must increase already hard earned momentum to curb the rising tide of crime, violence and instability in our hemisphere."

The more than 66,000 pounds of cocaine is equal to about 33 million lines of cocaine or 336 million hits of crack, according to DEA estimates. Illicit drugs remain a serious threat to the health, safety, security and financial well-being of Americans, costing the U.S. $193 billion annually.

This will be the largest known cocaine offload in Coast Guard history with an estimated street value of more than of $1.01 billion. The drugs were seized in 23 separate interdictions by U.S. Coast Guard cutters and Coast Guard law enforcement teams operating from U.S. Navy vessels in known drug transit zones near Central and South America. As part of the offload, Coast Guardsmen will turn over 21,000 pounds of cocaine seized by the crew of Stratton during the interdiction of two different self-propelled semi-submersibles. Stratton's July 18 SPSS interdiction is considered the largest in Coast Guard history. Read More: http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/4007/2575910/.

Numerous U.S. agencies from the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security are involved in the effort to combat transnational organized crime including the Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, Customs and Border Protection, FBI, DEA, ICE, U.S. Attorney's Offices in California, New York, Florida and Puerto Rico, and U.S. intelligence agencies. Allied and international partner agencies play an important role in counter drug operations. The fight against transnational organized crime networks in the Eastern Pacific requires unity of effort in all phases from intelligence to detection and monitoring to interdiction and to prosecution.

During at-sea interdictions in international waters, a suspect vessel is initially located and tracked by allied military or law enforcement aircraft or vessels. The actual interdictions, including the boarding, search, seizures and arrests, are led and conducted by U.S. Coast Guardsmen.

The Coast Guard has increased U.S. and allied presence in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Basin, which are known drug transit zones off of Central and South America, as part of its Western Hemisphere Strategy.

The Coast Guard Cutter Stratton is a 418-foot national security cutter on a 116-day deployment. Cutters like Stratton routinely conduct operations from South America to the Arctic where their unmatched combination of range, speed, and ability to operate in extreme weather provides the mission flexibility necessary to conduct counter-narcotics, homeland security, and alien migrant interdiction operations, domestic fisheries protection, search and rescue, and other Coast Guard missions at great distances from shore keeping threats far from the U.S. mainland.

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