reporting near ankeny, jacob peklo, local five news. we are iowa." stephanie: the countdown to healthcare is on for hundreds of thousands of iowans. stephanie/1shot: with only a couple of weeks remaining before an important deadline, families on medicaid are wondering about the change over to managed care. local five's chief political correspondent amanda krenz is live tonight with an update for us. two major in the last two days with governor to privatize medicaid. 1. senate democrats voted to stop it. and 2, the iowa democratic party is calling for the republican led house to take it up for debate. let's take a look at the calendar first to see just how close we are to the deadline to do away with the state's medicaid program and put it in the hands of three, private, out of state companies. the new deadline given to iowa by the federal government pushed back the roll-out date to march first. that's 18 days away. the care providers in iowa, that means hospitals and doctors, have signed contracts with these managed care companies? the latest numbers

local 5's jacob peklo will have more on what's being done to fix potholes, tonight at ten. jack: coming up on local 5 news at five... she wrote one of the most famous books of all time. the latest on a noted author passing away. whats trending now stephanie/2couch author harper lee passed away last night at the age of 89 lee wrote the novels 'to kill a mockingbird' and the recent 'go set a watchman' jack 'to kill a mockingbird' was published in 1960 and tells the story of racial injustice in a small alabama town. the pulitzer prize for fiction and has sold more than 10 million copies. lee was also awarded the presidential medal of freedom by president bush in 2007. the book has also become one of the most taught works of fiction. jack/2couch: no it's not a bad sci-fi movie, it's a real thing in missouri called fire tornadoes. high winds caused fires to spread across thousands of acres in missouri thursday, which generated whirling flames. sparks from a tractor ignited the fire, but low humidity and high temperatures stimulated the flames. and with the inflow of colder air h

local five's jacob peklo has more from court avenue. jacob peklo, reporting: "some big changes are coming to the court avenue district. an informal committee started meeting last summer and began meeting on a regular basis in the fall. and beginning march 1st, you'll start to see some of those changes come to fruition." dana wingert, des moines police chief: "when we identify the problems down there and you look at the stats, and pour over the cases, there's nothing more frustrating than having an issue that you know that you can't solve by yourself." chris coleman, city council: "this is going to be a great development. we're going to bring more police officers, better lighting and a really state of the art camera system that's going to ensure a higher level of safety on court avenue in the district." jacob peklo, reporting: "these changes are set to be in place for three years to start, but the committee will continue to evaluate its effectiveness throughout. and we'll have much more on the changes coming up tonight at ten. reporting