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Drivers stay alert for deer movement

Ag/Outdoor, News

October 20th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Iowa DNR News) – Drivers are advised to stay alert as they travel Iowa’s roadsides over the coming weeks. Autumn deer behavior, crop harvest and peak travel times for motorists combine to hike the risk of vehicle-deer collisions in Iowa. From the middle of October until the third week of November, Iowa bucks become more active in the pursuit of does during the breeding season. Motorist may be distracted by the first deer that crosses not seeing the pursuing buck. This adds to multiple scenarios of fast moving, unpredictable deer crossing highways.

The crop harvest is also in full swing, concentrating deer into remaining cover that is often brushy creeks, trees or fence lines which often intersect with roads. A third factor will be the change away from daylight savings time on November 7, placing more Iowans behind the wheel during the deer-heavy dawn and dusk periods.

A few ways to give drivers an edge during this period are to reduce speed, increase following distance from other cars, and to sweep eye movements from ditch to ditch, especially during those low light periods and when approaching those brushy or tree lined ‘funnels’ near roads. Drivers are also encouraged not to ‘veer for deer,’ leaving the lane of traffic could cause a collision with another vehicle or a roadside obstacle, such as a utility pole or culvert.

Iowa’s deer herd is managed to provide a harvest of between 100,000 and 120,000 annually, that is achieved by providing additional opportunities for hunters to harvest does. Last year, Iowa hunters reported harvesting nearly 110,000 deer.

Beautiful colors showing this fall in Iowa

Ag/Outdoor, News

October 20th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Iowa DNR News) – Fun abounds statewide for those in search of color and good times outdoors. Enjoy a fall drive and take in all the beautiful colors this weekend. Plenty of fall color is lingering in northeast Iowa. Fall color will be at its peak in central Iowa this week.  Urban maple is showing a few brighter reds and oranges in southeast Iowa. Hard maple is at peak color in the urban landscapes in south-central Iowa.

Warm nights have slowed color changes in west-central and southwest Iowa. Yellows are just starting to appear on the bottomlands in the Missouri River Corridor.

Go to the Weekly Fall Colors Report

Look! Up in the sky! It’s 100,000 migrating birds in a huuuuuge flock!

Ag/Outdoor, News

October 20th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – One of the sure signs of fall, Iowans are seeing huge congregations of birds filling the morning and evening skies, giant clouds of feathered creatures that often take several minutes to pass. Steve Dinsmore, a central Iowa ornithologist and bird watcher, says it’s typical during this time of the year to spot birds migrating in tremendously large numbers over Iowa. “Those could represent a number of different species of birds,” Dinsmore says. “One of them is European starlings, so we call those a murmuration of starlings. We also, right now, have very, very large numbers of blackbirds, primarily redwing blackbirds and common grackles, and also other species that are also migrating. Those birds, just like starlings, form these large, wavy, meandering flocks.”

Dinsmore is a professor of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Iowa State University. He says birds of a feather do flock together for several reasons. “One of them certainly deals with predator avoidance, a sort of safety-in-numbers component,” Dinsmore says. “These birds also feed en mass so one of the other advantages of them associating in flocks is the transfer of information about foraging sites or feeding sites. They do that through these large flocks as they’ve moving to and from roosting and feeding areas.”

Migrating birds. (ISU photo)

The miles-long undulating flocks are fascinating to watch and may contain tens of thousands of birds, perhaps more. “One of the real fun questions to try and answer is, ‘How many are there?’ and certainly, those flocks are very, very large, to the point where you can’t count individuals,” Dinsmore says. “Sometimes, we use estimation techniques or approximation techniques. Pushing 100,000 is pretty unusual but there are records in the hundreds of thousands and some estimates even up to a million individuals.”

Some Iowans who live in larger cities may even be surprised to spot wild turkeys in their back yards, though they’re typically thought of as more of a “country” bird.

Creston woman arrested on drug charges

News

October 20th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

The Creston Police Department reports 36-year-old Holly Renee Donehoo, of Creston, was arrested Tuesday night, at her residence. Donehoo was charged with Possession of Drug Paraphernalia and Possession of Controlled Substance Methamphetamine 1st Offense. She was taken to the Union County Jail and later posted a $1,300 bond before being released.

(Podcast) KJAN News, 10/20/2021

News, Podcasts

October 20th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

Area broadcast News at 7:08-a.m., with Ric Hanson.

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Union County accident reports

News

October 20th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

The Union County Sheriff’s Office says two separate accidents took place Tuesday. Authorities say at around 11:32-p.m. Tuesday, a 2015 Ford F-150 pickup driven by 24-year-old Blaine Andrew Sportsman, of LaClede, Missouri, was traveling westbound on 140th Street in Union County. When Sportsman looked down at his cell phone GPS to see where he was going, the passenger side wheels of the camper his truck was pulling, began to go off the north side of the road, near the ditch. When he tried to get the camper back on the road, it continued towards the ditch before entering, and flipped onto its side.

The flipping action of the camper caused the pickup to flip over as well. Sportsman was wearing a seat belt and was able to safely extricate himself from the pickup. Damage from the accident amount to $20,000 altogether. No citations were issued. And, at around 5:34-p.m., Tuesday, a 1996 Oldsmobile Ciera driven by 42-year-old Jesse White, of Creston, was traveling north on Highway 25. As he was looking at the cornfields, he failed to notice the vehicle in front him, a 2015 RAM pickup – driven by 26-year-old Trevor Blake Luther, of Creston – was slowing down due to a semi hauling crops that was ahead of the pickup. When he finally saw the pickup, White slammed on his brakes, but struck the rear of the pickup truck. He complained of head pain and was transported by ambulance to the hospital in Creston, where he was examined and released. Damage to his car was estimated at $5,000. The pickup sustained $2,000 damage. No citations were issued.

And, the Creston Police Department reports a 2016 Chevy Colorado pickup truck was legally parked in the 100 block of E. Montgomery Street when it was struck on the driver’s side front panel by an unknown vehicle. The other vehicle transferred green paint to the pickup during the collision. The incident, which happened sometime over the previous 24-to 48 hours to Tuesday afternoon, caused an estimated $1,600 damage to the pickup.

Sioux City group creating Holocaust memorial with a railcar from Atlantic

News

October 20th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – Sioux City’s railroad museum is refurbishing a vintage boxcar purchase from an Atlantic man, to turn it into a replica of the cattle cars that the Nazis used to transport European Jews to concentration camps. The idea came out of the annual “Tolerance Week” — which for 17 years has annually brought Holocaust survivors to Sioux City to visit local schools to educate children about their history. Boardmember Kelli Erickson explains. “And we all thought, what if we brought a railcar up here, and create a Holocaust museum where it is not just one week? So we are going from one week of education to potentially nine months,” Erickson says.

File Photo – (Left) Matt Merke with the Sioux City Railroad Museum, and Keith Olsen, with Olsen’s BP.

The railcar – formerly owned by Keith Olsen, of Atlantic – will be part of a permanent museum exhibit known as “Holocaust Rails, Desperate Passage.” “And it’s very, very important education for us to share. How did this happen, who are these people, how did people let it happen?,” she says. “There are answers to all of these –and the survivors — the stories of the survivors, very inspiring.” The finished cattle car will be the centerpiece of the only Holocaust exhibit in the midwest. “One survivor has been quoted that the railcar symbolized their transition from being human beings to being numbers that could be disposed of at any time. It’s a hub, the very center of what we’d like to create,” she says.

Humanities Iowa and the National Endowment for the Humanities are partnering in the project. They plan a fundraising campaign for the overall project — and hope to have the exhibit ready by the fall of 2022.

Disabled vehicle investigation results in a felony arrest

News

October 20th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports an investigation into a disabled vehicle on Highway 34 at around 12:40-a.m. today (Wednesday), resulted in a felony drug arrest. Deputies found the vehicle broken down, in the 2900 block of Highway 34. Authorities say 40-year-old Austin Marie Schutt, of Creston, was arrested for Possession of a Controlled Substance (PCS)/3rd offense, a Class-D Felony. Schutt also had multiple warrants out of Missouri for PCS, four counts of illegal possession of an item in a county facility, and unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia.

She was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $15,000 bond.

NE woman shot in south Des Moines has died from her injuries

News

October 20th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(KCCI/Des Moines, Iowa)A woman shot in the neck earlier this month at an embattled bar south of downtown has died of her injuries. The shooting happened early Oct. 10 at the High Dive bar on Indianola Road. According to KCCI, Police say they have responded to the location more than 80 times so far this year.The 26-year-old Omaha, Nebraska, woman – whose name was not released – was rushed to a Des Moines-area hospital, where she died Tuesday, according to a police news release. The other shooting victim, a 27-year-old man, was treated at a nearby hospital and released. Des Moines police said the killing marks the city’s eighth homicide of 2021, which is down from 21 homicides in all of last year.

After several instances of violence, a developer plans to replace the High Dive bar building with high-end condominiums featuring a skyline view. He hopes construction will start next summer.

Ex-Congressman Steve King selling his book online

News

October 20th, 2021 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – Former Iowa Congressman Steve King has published a book that names and blames some fellow Republicans for what King calls a massive conspiracy to end his political career. “Maybe some of the people at that upper echelon who might get their tail feathers singed a little bit in this book will reset themselves and go back to being the decent human beings I knew before they did this,” King says.

King, who is 72, says things “started to melt down” for him politically just before the 2018 election when the Wall Street Journal and others criticized him for meeting with members of a European political party associated with the neo-Nazi movement. In early 2019, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said the G-O-P would not tolerate King’s remarks about white supremacy and King was removed from House Committees.

In the book, King accuses McCarthy of blocking steps that could have led to King regaining those committee assignments. “I just couldn’t believe there could be, I’ll say, that low a level of integrity at those high levels in office,” King says. Radio Iowa was unable to reach a spokesperson for McCarthy. King endorsed Ted Cruz before the 2016 Iowa Caucuses and King admits there was a political cost once Trump won, as Trump did not acknowledge King publicly in 2018 or when King faced a G-O-P Primary opponent in 2020.

“That’s part of the cancellation that came about and the governor was involved in some of that,” King says. “…She took Randy Feenstra by the hand and led him back to shake hands with President Trump.” A spokesman for Governor Reynolds declined to comment. Feenstra finished 10 points ahead of King in a five person G-O-P Primary and won the fourth congressional district last November with 62 percent of the vote. The title of the book is called “Walking Through the Fire” and King says it’s partly written so his eight grandchildren can read his own words rather than the 41 pages about him on Wikipedia.

“I’m very grateful to my staff and my family and my real friends. None of them left me through all of that — not a staff person, not a family member said: ‘You know dad, you’ve gone too far,’ or anything like that,” King says. “The real people in my life stuck together.” The book can be purchased online at SteveKing.com and King says his publisher will release it nationally in a few weeks. The book was published by a company co-founded by Oliver North, the former National Rifle Association president and T-V host who was involved in the Reagan Administration’s Iran-Contra Affair.