(Guthrie Center, IA) – The Guthrie County Roads Department reports Horn Avenue – between 160th and 170th Streets – will be closed for bridge repairs beginning today (Thursday) at 10-a.m.. It is expected to be closed for approximately 30 days (March 20th, by 5-p.m.).

(Creston, IA) – The Creston Police Department reports a man was arrested Tuesday evening on a charge of Attempted Burglary in the 3rd Degree. Authorities say 26-year-old Noah Alexander Young (No known address) was arrested at the Union County Law Enforcement Center. Young was taken to the Union County Jail and held on a $2,000 cash or surety bond.

(Radio Iowa) – The University of Iowa’s Museum of Natural History will be a featured waypoint next month on a historic cross-country journey celebrating the American bison. Jessica Smith, spokeswoman for the U-I’s Pentacrest Museums, says it’ll be the only Iowa stop for a unique shipment celebrating our national mammal. “The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History has commissioned three, larger-than-life bronze bison sculptures,” Smith says, “and they are going to be picked up on a truck with an open bed in Colorado and begin a great American bison road trip from Colorado all the way to the National Mall in D.C., where they will be installed permanently.” Bison are being recognized in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and Iowa City was picked as one of the rest stops, given the many connections with the wooly beasts.

“Here at the University of Iowa and in the state of Iowa, we have some of the most impressive research and archaeological dig sites that really help us to understand the history of the bison and their connection with Iowa’s first peoples,” Smith says. “And in the galleries themselves, we have a few spots that are dedicated to bison.” The truck and the sculptures will be parked beside the museum on Sunday, March 15th, offering a rare opportunity to see the bronze bison up close before they continue their trek to Washington D-C and the National Mall. “At 3 o’clock sharp, that truck is going to pull away off of Clinton Street, they’ll be parked right out in front of the Museum of Natural History,” Smith says. “There is a national PR team that’s documenting this trip and so they are trying to collect footage of each of the major stops of folks waving the truck goodbye, so we’d really like to give them a solid Iowa send off.”

At the museum, visitors are invited to a special bison-focused program featuring short talks and up-close experiences. The day’s events are free and open to the public.

(Radio Iowa) – The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union is condemning Whirlpool Corporation’s latest layoff announcement for the Amana facility. The Union statement says the layoffs on March 9th will impact nearly 400 workers at the facility which produces refrigerators under the Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, and Amana brands. The Union says Whirlpool’s decision continues a pattern of corporate abandonment, after the company laid off 250 workers in Amana last year.

The statement says while Whirlpool cuts jobs in Iowa, it has been aggressively expanding its manufacturing footprint in Mexico. The Union is calling on the Iowa Congressional Delegation to “stand up for the working families of Amana” and push back against this latest round of layoffs.

(Greenfield, IA) – The Adair County Board of Supervisors, Wednesday, passed a motion that called for a zero-percent wage increase for the Board of Supervisors, in Fiscal Year 2027. Supervisor Michael Christoffersen requested the item be placed on the agenda because the carryover percentages in the General Basic and Supplemental funds is lower than what the Board is typically comfortable with or where they have been in years past.

In exploring ways to cut costs, Christoffersen say he kept coming back to the matter of wages.

He said he compared Supervisor’s wages in Adair County with other counties of comparable size.

After the Board approved the zero-percent wage increase for FY27, they discussed holding meetings with County departments in order to identify other ways to keep costs under control.

(Radio Iowa) – MidAmerican energy company says it plans to install six more aircraft detection systems to keep the red warning lights at the top of wind turbines off until they are needed. MidAmerican spokesman Geoff Greenwood says they started testing the system in 2023.”It has really gone well. It dramatically reduces the amount of lighting at the wind farms where we have this system installed, and we’ve gotten a lot of public compliments out of it. People notice it. They notice that the lights are off at night,” Greenwood says. They have 38 wind farms in 34 counties. The blinking red lights are required from dusk until dawn by the F-A-A so planes can see the wind turbines at night. Greenwood says the warning system is simple, and they’ve found it keeps the lights off 95 to 98 percent of the time.

“It’s a radar tower that keeps the lights off at night unless there’s an aircraft that approaches the area,” he says. “If the system detects an aircraft in the area, it turns the lights on. And as soon as that aircraft leaves, the lights go back off.” Greenwood says the lights are important in rural areas where there are small airports. “And the lights don’t go on if it’s a commercial aircraft flying over Iowa, you know, 30 to 50-thousand feet, whatever it is. So a commercial aircraft at its regular altitude, its regular cruising altitude, will not set these lights off,” Greenwood says. “What will set the lights off are the general aviation aircraft, the smaller aircraft that you see flying a lot lower.” Greenwood says they have to follow all the regulations for installation, but plan to eventually add the light control systems to all their wind farms.

“This started off as an experimental technology, but it’s really not an experimental technology anymore. It is a system that MidAmerican and other companies are adopting because we know it works and we get positive results from installing these systems and then positive feedback from the communities,” he says. A bill recently passed out of a subcommittee in the legislature would require the systems at new wind farms, and would require existing turbines to be upgraded by the start of 2028.

The first MidAmerican test systems were installed at the Eclipse and Morning Light wind farms in Adair, Audubon, Cass and Guthrie counties. MidAmerican installed systems at its Lundgren wind farm in Webster County and Wellsburg wind farm in Grundy County in mid 2025. MidAmerican plans to add aircraft detection technology to six wind farms this year, the Arbor Hill in Adair County; Diamond Trail in Iowa County; North English in Poweshiek County; Shenandoah Hills in Page and Fremont counties; Vienna in Marshall and Tama counties, and the Walnut wind farm in Pottawattamie County.

MidAmerican plans to add systems in 2027 to its Highland and O’Brien wind farms in O’Brien County.

(Radio Iowa) – Zach Lahn — a Republican running for governor — is raising concerns about the construction of data centers and he’s suggesting new tax zones for the facilities. “If you want to build a data center in Iowa, I’m going to charge you five times the property tax and it’s going to go lower the property taxes of people in the neighborhoods that you’re around,” Lahn said, drawing applause from the crowd.

Lahn hosted a campaign event last (Wednesday) night at a West Des Moines restaurant. Lahn told the crowd the current construction of two data centers near Cedar Rapids is a troubling site. “1400 acres of farmland has now had the topsoil ripped off. It looks like a military installation,” Lahn said. “…I have never in my life seen something built this fast.”

City officials say the data centers for Google and Q-T-S being built in an industrial park in southwest Cedar Rapids. Q-T-S — which operates data centers in the U-S and Europe — plans to spend 750 MILLION on its facility. The City of Cedar Rapids has approved property tax rebates to Q-T-S worth more than half a billion over 20 years. Lahn says that’s unacceptable, since the company has only pledged to create 30 full-time jobs once the seven buildings on the Cedar Rapids campus are operating.

“Here’s what Donald Trump would say about this: ‘We’re suckers.’ And as governor, we are not going to be suckers anymore. We’re done. We’re putting Iowa first,” Lahn said, to applause. “There’s an article in the paper in Cedar Rapids that said: ‘Well, they’re knocking on our doors. Do we want them to go somewhere else?’ Yes. Go.”

Industry analysts say Iowa has become an attractive location for data centers due to low construction costs and a stable power grid that provides affordable electric rates.

(Ames, Iowa) – A woman crossing a street in Ames was struck by a motorcycle Wednesday night. The Iowa State Patrol says 80-year-old Margaret Suzanne Olson, of Ames, was crossing Lincoln Way near S. Russell Avenue at around 8-p.m., when she was hit by a 2025 Kawasaki motorcycle, operated by 31-year-old Steven Javier Salazar, of Ames. The cycle was traveling westbound on Lincoln Way when the accident occurred.

Salazar was not injured. Olson was flown by helicopter to Mercy Hospital. A report on her condition was not released. Multiple agencies assisted at the scene. The report did not indicate if there were any charges filed in connection with the accident.

(Radio Iowa) – A bill moving through the Iowa legislature will name a portion of U.S. Highway 30 in honor of one of the two Iowa National Guard soldiers killed in Syria late last year. “Staff Sergeant William Nathaniel Howard Highway” will be a five-mile stretch of Highway 30 that runs through Howard’s hometown of Marshalltown. Representative David Blom of Marshalltown is sponsoring the bill to make that happen.

“It feels like people move on and stop remembering in the way that they did during the time of the funeral,” Blom said, “so in naming this section of the highway that goes through Marshalltown, we want a way to consciously remember that we can pass through our country and we have a free country here because of the sacrifice of the people that have gone before us.” Blom and Howard were students in Marshalltown high school at the same time.

“His parents and my parents went to Israel together and so just a lot of close family connections. We’ve been constantly trying to make sure we’re still getting meals to them to let them know they’re still remembered and haven’t been forgotten,” Blom said. “It’s been really hard on the family. We’ve been working hard to make sure that we still support Adriana and Nate’s brother as well, just making sure that we have the whole community wrapping around in constant support.”

Blom’s bill has won unanimous support in the Houe Veterans Affairs Committee and is expected to gain full approval in the House and Senate before the 2026 legislative session ends. Members of Iowa’s congressional delegation have introduced federal legislation to name the community-based outpatient clinic in Marshalltown the “Staff Sergeant William Nathaniel Howard VA Clinic.”

The Iowa National Guard Heroes Commemoration Act also would name the V-A clinic in Des Moines in honor of Staff Sergeant Edgar Torres-Tovar.