A man from Creston reported to Police Tuesday morning, that his residence in the 500 block of N. Vine Street, had been broken into.  He said a BB gun pistol and a gun cleaning kit were taken. The loss was estimated at $70.

(Atlantic/Cass County) – The latest local News from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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(Radio Iowa) – The pandemic and the tight labor market are cited as two of the main causes for a drop in community college enrollment in Iowa. The Iowa Department of Education’s Community College administrator Jeremy Varner. “Our enrollment at our 15 community this fall is down about one-point-six percent from the prior year — bringing us to about 82-thousand students,” Varner says. “While that enrollment is down — national fall enrollment at community colleges is down about five-point-six percent.”

Varner says it wasn’t an across the board drop. “Nine of the 15 community colleges actually saw gains this fall. A lot of what is going on there are institutions sort of adjusting to disruptions from the pandemic last fall. So, some of the colleges that saw the biggest dips last fall are seeing things sort of evening out a bit,” he says. Varner says the economy and job market have a big influence. “I always say when I am talking about our community colleges, community college enrollment is in a substantial part countercyclical, meaning when the economy is very tight, folks are looking to get into the workforce. And during recessionary periods we have more students coming back looking to get more training,” according to Varner.

He says a decline in high school graduates deciding to go to college also plays into the enrollment issue. They track that by the number of high school students who sign up for the free college aid availability assessment. “Those trends have been generally downward — which is a bit worrisome. So, we are watching that and generally how students and families think about college,” Varner says. One change saw a drop in female enrollment. “Because the national trend there is actually for the male students to be falling off. Instead, we saw female students slip about three percent,” Varner says. “since about 1980, roughly 40 years, we had this roughly a 60-40 split. We were surprised to see male students increasing this fall.”

Female students still make up 56-point-five percent of community college students, while males moved up to 43-point-five percent. The Des Moines Area Community College saw the largest decrease in students at around 11 percent, followed by North Iowa Area at a seven-point-four percent drop. Iowa Lakes held steady, while Iowa Central in Fort Dodge had the largest increase at nine-point-eight percent.

Other enrollment drops saw Northeast Iowa down point-one percent, Iowa Valley down two-point-eight percent, Iowa Western down one-point-seven percent. Other increases saw Northwest Iowa up two-point-two percent, Eastern Iowa up five-point-four percent, Kirkwood up two-point-seven percent, Western Iowa Tech up one-point-seven percent, Southwestern up two-point-six percent, Indian Hills up three-point-two percent, and Southeastern enrollment increased by two-point-seven percent.

(Radio Iowa) – Union workers at John Deere have accepted the company’s latest offer and their 35-day strike has ended.
Sixty-one percent of workers who cast ballots yesterday voted “yes” on Deere and Company’s third contract offer. It was very similar to the second. Both promised immediate 10 percent raises along with 5 percent raises in the third and fifth years of the six-year-long contract. The third agreement made modifications to production incentives.

In a written statement, U-A-W International president Ray Curry said the strike at John Deere seemed to unite the nation behind the struggle for fairness in the workplace. Deere and Company C-E-O John May also issued a statement, calling the wage and benefit package groundbreaking in many ways.

The U-A-W said its members assigned to the third shift could voluntarily work overnight. All others will be expected at their job sites today. This was the first strike at Deere and Company since 1986.

Here are vote margins:
UAW Locals in Iowa:
Ankeny — 64% yes
Davenport — 77% yes
Dubuque — 86% yes
Ottumwa — 75% yes
Waterloo — 44% yes

(Radio Iowa) – Former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad will be “ambassador-in-residence” at Drake University, meeting with students and planning to host a yearly conference about U.S. and China relations. Branstad, who was President Trump’s Ambassador to China, graduated from Drake’s law school 50 years ago.  “I have a lot of good memories involved with going to law school here, even though I was also serving in the legislature. It was a very active time,” Branstad says. “This is where I met my wife, for Drake’s homecoming.”

Branstad, the nation’s longest-serving governor, has just turned 75. His office on the Drake campus is in the law library. “I’m feeling good and I’m in good health and I hope this will be for an extended period of time,” Branstad says. “I do intend to meet with students, be available like on a weekly basis. I will only teach classes not real often, maybe a couple of times a semester or something like that.” Branstad hopes to organize an annual conference to focus on the U.S. relationship with China — a country Branstad says can be considered both an adversary and a potential trading partner.

“We have some big differences on policy and those have gotten wider over the years and especially since Covid,” Branstad says. “The Chinese still deny that it started in Wuhan.” Branstad says it was no easy task as the ambassador to evacuate 13-hundred people from China back to the United States. Branstad says the Chinese government has done everything it can to cover up the origins of Covid-19 and the world probably will never know for sure how it started.

“We had people from the CDC there at the embassy and we’re calling them every day, offering assistance and wanting to help, but no response,” Branstad says. “…They did everything they could to lie and cover it up and say everything is fine and whatever — until it got way out of hand.” Some of Branstad’s personal papers and memorabilia will also be donated to Drake. Some of it is already at the Winnebago County Historical Museum.

“You get a lot of stuff as governor and as ambassador I found out as well and so we wanted a place to display it where the public can see it and so some of it will be here,” Branstad says. “There is some up in Forest City at the Mansion Museum as well.” Branstad’s OFFICIAL papers from his time as governor are digitized and available at the State Historical Museum’s library. Digital copies will soon be available at the library on the Drake campus as well.

Drake’s library is also the repository for Senator Tom Harkin’s papers and the records of former Governor Robert Ray. Ray graduated from Drake’s Law School in 1954 and served as Drake’s interim president in 1998.

(Radio Iowa) – An amendment by Iowa Congressman Randy Feenstra to use biomass collected through fire mitigation efforts to produce energy has passed as part of the National Wildland Fire Risk Program.

Feenstra, a Republican from Hull says the plan would also bolster biofuels production.

The proposal passed the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology with unanimous support.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – A public hearing was held during Wednesday evening’s City Council meeting, in Atlantic. The hearing was with regard to the sale of city-owned property at 901 Birch Street, a dilapidated home with a large retaining wall, broken windows, a bad roof and other issues. There were no comments received from the public in writing or otherwise. Prior to taking a roll-call vote on passing a Resolution approving the sale to Charles (CJ) Adams for of $5,350, the Council discussed and all agreed that, as Councilman Pat McCurdy said, “it’s a good deal.

Adams has said he intends to “flip” the property (rehabbing the home to make it saleable and profitable). City Administrator John Lund has indicated selling the lot would yield a triple-profit for the City: Cash up-front; Increased property value if Adams chooses to sell it; and a serious liability property would be removed from the City’s books. In other business, Angie Strotman, Fox Engineering Director of Marketing, in Ames, presented Councilman Jim Behrens with a check for $500. She explained the check is the result of a meeting of the Iowa League of Cities last September, in Coralville.

Angie Strotman w/Fox Engineering presents a “check” to Councilman Jim Behrens.

Strotman said also she coincidentally met Behrens before his name was even drawn.

She made it clear that she was not the person who drew his name for the prize. Fox Engineering by-the-way, were the designers of the City’s wastewater treatment plant. Behrens is donating the $500 to the fire department, to be used as part of their extrication equipment fundraiser.  The Council then heard a presentation from Kristine Stokes, Community Development Specialist with the Southwest Iowa Planning Council (SWIPCO), with regard to a Community Development Block Grant – CV (Covid) opportunity for the City’s Food Pantry, to help them pay for food in 2022.

Kristine Stokes

Funds for the grant come from the CARES Act for Covid relief, of which Iowa received $31.3-million to implement the CDBG grants, which are processed through IEDA (The Iowa Economic Development Authority).

The City of Atlantic would simply act as a flow-through agency for any funds that might come from the grant, if it is approved. The Food Pantry/Food Bank cannot apply for the funding on its own. The Atlantic Food Pantry, Stokes said, has been serving the community for nearly 40-years (It was founded in 1982). It has around 30 volunteers. Stokes said there’s been no let-up in the demand for food, especially since the beginning of the pandemic.

The Food Pantry distributes food every Thursday. SWIPCO would serve as the applicant on behalf of the food pantry, which makes the pantry a sub-recipient of the grant funding. Already 38 letters have been received in support of the application.The Council agreed in principal to support the grant application, but since it wasn’t on their agenda for official approval, they couldn’t act on it. Instead, the food pantry will come up on the Council’s agenda in December to conduct a public hearing for the CDBG application, and for the grant application to be processed by SWIPCO.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowans are warned to be careful when scanning Q-R codes with their phones. Those squares with the jumbled black-and-white dots and lines that resemble a game of Tetris can be helpful in getting to menus, websites and coupons, but they can also mean trouble. Consumer protection expert Michael Domke says always check where that link is going before you click “okay” on your phone.

Domke says, “It’s important to make sure when you are scanning those codes that it’s taking you to the location that you wanted to go to, or appears to at least.” Scanning malicious codes could open up your phone to malware, hackers or other problems. If you end up with malware on your phone, Domke says you could have to factory reset your device, in the worst case.

“The loss that you’re going to suffer through maybe one of those previous state restarts is going to be far less than letting the malware run rampant and having somebody steal all your information,” he says. If you’re unsure about a code, use your phone’s Q-R software to scan it or use an anti-malware program. Domke says to treat Q-R codes like any link you might get in an email — if you don’t trust it, don’t scan it.

(Radio Iowa) – The State Board of Education discussed the shortage of teachers this (Wednesday) morning during its meeting in Des Moines. Some districts have had to cancel classes due to a lack of teachers or substitutes, and some are looking at extending the Thanksgiving break due to shortages. Department of Education director Ann Lebo mentioned the issue while updating the board on her webinar with school superintendents. “I think most people would not be surprised that the primary topic this month was on staff shortages, and some of the conversations around what some of the solutions might be available there,” Lebo says.

She says the Ed Department is gathering information on the issue. “What is the experience of shortages, and what are some potential solutions. That is being led a lot by a teacher shortage task force group,” she says. The task force group is expected to report to the Board of Ed in December. Board member Mike May of Spirit Lake says it is an issue that has to be addressed as soon as possible. “We’re at critical mass now — we’re not talking about just a small problem — we are talking about a critical problem. And my question for you, what are we doing about it? How can we contribute to solving that issue?,” May asked. “When we are closing schools now in Iowa because we don’t have enough teachers — we know that some of that is COVID-related — but it is also because of the huge drop in the number of kids who are actually choosing education as a major.”

Lebo says they have to develop solutions on two fronts. “There’s kind of two pieces of it too — it’s the recruitment and retention. So when we talk about some of the recommendations that might come from the teacher shortage workgroup we are focused more on maybe the recruitment and pathways,” according to Lebo. “But then it’s the retention aspect as well and what sort of big ideas do we have that might change the narrative a little bit in terms of the profession, what that looks like and what the deeds are. So, we look forward to continuing to engage in that conversation.”

Lebo says the teacher shortage is also part of the larger labor shortage in the state of Iowa and how to prepare students to fill the shortages.

(Radio Iowa) – The number of Covid patients in Iowa hospitals has increased for the second straight week. The Iowa Department of Public Health’s weekly report shows the Covid patient count in Iowa hospitals is 544. More than a fifth of those patients are in intensive care. In the past 24 hours, 99 Covid-positive patients were admitted to an Iowa hospital. A year ago, Iowa hospitals were dealing with more than 15-hundred Covid patients — the peak during the pandemic.

On November 16th of last year, the governor delivered a rare statewide address, ordering restaurants to close at 10 p.m., limiting the size of crowds and urging Iowans to take precautions to stop the spread of the virus. By November of last year, officials had confirmed more than two-thousand Iowans had died of Covid. Today, the death toll is more than three and a half times higher. By the middle of this week, state officials had confirmed 72-hundred-68 Iowans have died of Covid.

The total number of confirmed Covid cases is on the rise in Iowa, with more than nine-thousand Iowans testing positive this past week. Children under the age of 18 account for more than 20 percent of the week’s positive Covid test results.