(Radio Iowa) – A John Deere employee was hit and killed by a car early Wednesday morning, as he walked to join fellow strikers at the picket line near a John Deere facility in the Quad Cities. The incident happened before dawn in the middle of the intersection of a four-lane highway and Deere Drive — about half a mile from John Deere’s parts and distribution center in Milan. A union member said picketing was halted for the day at the Milan site, following the accident.

The victim was identified as 56-year old Richard Rich, of Moline, a 15-year employee of Deere’s facility in Milan. A preliminary autopsy showed Rich died from multiple traumatic chest injuries.

The U-A-W and Deere issued statements of condolence to the man’s family, friends and co-workers. Milan’s police chief told The Des Moines Register there is no cross walk at the intersection and the evidence suggests the driver did not commit a traffic violation.

(Creston, Iowa) – The driver of an unknown make/model vehicle left the scene of a property damage accident in Creston, Wednesday afternoon. The Union County Sheriff’s Office says a 2018 Cadillac ATS driven by 27-year-old Tania Hernandez, of Osceola, was stopped, facing south on Lincoln Street at the intersection with Adams Street, when an unknown vehicle turned from eastbound Adams Street onto northbound Lincoln.

The other vehicle turned short, and struck the Cadillac, causing $3,000 damage. The other vehicle failed to stop after the collision. No injuries were reported.

(Radio Iowa) – Congresswoman Cindy Axne of West Des Moines is urging her fellow Democrats to abandon a plan that would require new reporting from banks and credit unions about customer transactions. Supporters say it would help track tax cheats hiding their income and should be included in the Democrats’ so-called “Build Back Better” plan. Axne and 20 other Democrats in the House say the data banks would turn over to the I-R-S raises privacy concerns. Axne says other elements of the package are higher priorities. “We need to secure quality, affordable child care for working families across Iowa who on average spend 28% of their annual income on infant care,” Axne says. “Investing in child care would not only help our working families, it would add an estimated $1.7 billion in new state economic activity.”

Axne made her comments this week during Progress Iowa’s annual fundraiser and she offered a general defense of the overall package Democrats have struggled to assemble. “The Build Back Better agenda isn’t about creating radical change,” Axne says. “It’s about making sure everyone has what they need to survive in today’s competitive economy and to make sure everyone has a fair shot at making a living.”

President Biden was set to speak privately with House Democrats to convince Democrats in the House, Thursday (Today), to vote for whatever plan Senate Democrats can develop and pass. House leaders have indicated they want a vote this week.

More area & state news, from Ric Hanson.

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(Creston, Iowa) – An accident in Creston Wednesday afternoon caused a total of $3,500 damage, but no one was injured. Creston Police say a 2021 Chevy Suburban driven by 41-year-old Allison Miller, of Creston, and a 2005 Chrysler 300 driven by 36-year-old Steven Bochniak, also of Creston, were both traveling south on N. Lincoln Street at around 4-p.m., when Miller slowed to turn at the intersection of Manor Drive. Authorities say Bochniak was in the process of slowing his vehicle, when his wet sandal slipped off the brake.

His car rear-ended the Suburban. The Chrysler sustained heavy front end damage, while the Chevy sustained only minor damage. Both vehicles were able to be driven away from the scene. No citations were issued.

(Creston, Iowa) – A Union County man was arrested twice in one day, Wednesday, in Creston. According to the Creston Police Department, 36-year-old John Lyle Vanscoy, of Lorimor, was arrested at around 2:50-p.m. at the intersection of Fremont and Maple Streets. He was charged with 2 outside agency warrants for Solicitation to Commit Aggravated Misdemeanor. Vanscoy was taken to Union County Jail where he was held without bond until seen by a judge.

At around 4-p.m., Wednesday, Vanscoy was arrested at the Union County Law Enforcement Center, where he was charged with: Controlled Substance Violation – Conspire with Intent to Deliver Marijuana; Controlled Substance Violation – Conspire Intent Manufacture/Deliver False Methamphetamine; Possession of Controlled Substance – 3rd Offense; and two counts of Failure to Affix a Drug Stamp. Vanscoy remains in the Union County Jail without bond. Additional charges are expected to be announced on Friday.

And, at around 11:35-a.m., Wednesday, 31-year-old Devon Taylor Keller, of Creston, was arrested at the Union County Law Enforcement Center. He was charged with Domestic Abuse Assault, Strangulation. Keller was taken to Union County Jail. Bond was posted $2000.

The 7:07-a.m. broadcast News from Ric Hanson.

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[UPDATED 11:15-a.m.] (Des Moines, Iowa/KCCI) – The Des Moines Police Department is investigating the city’s tenth homicide of 2021. Officers responded to a home in the 1400 block of Searle Street, just east of I-235, at around 1:50-a.m., Thursday (Today). Police said in a news release that “First responders arrived to find a person suffering from serious traumatic injury. Lifesaving measures were immediately initiated, and medics transported the injured person to a local hospital. That person later died at the hospital.” The 19-year old man’s name was being withheld, pending notification of family.

Police are investigating the death as a homicide and are processing the scene for evidence. There were 21 homicides in Des Moines in 2020.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks is defending how the meatpacking plant in her hometown of Ottumwa responded in the first weeks of the pandemic. “Let’s not forget that even experts like Dr. Fauci didn’t know what was going on in those early months and guidance was changing daily,” Miller-Meeks says.

A new congressional report has found at least 269 employees at the five largest U-S meatpacking companies died of Covid during the first year of the pandemic — three times higher than previously reported – and 59-thousand U.S. packing plant employees tested positive for the virus. Miller-Meeks, a Republican, is a member of the U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, and she is pushing back on the idea the majority of J-B-S workers in Ottumwa who contracted Covid got the virus inside the plant. “People don’t spend 24 hours a day at their workplace,” Miller-Meeks says. “They are at home or in their community and our contract tracing showed that most of our spread came from in the home or other living conditions or in transportation with carpooling.”

Miller-Meeks says the average number of packing plant employees who’ve tested positive for Covid since last November has consistently been lower than the U-S population as a whole. “There has been a declining rate of Covid among meat and poultry workers since May of 2020,” Miller-Meeks says. “…The industry clearly has made significant progress in their Covid-19 mitigation strategy.”

The congressional report singled out the National Beef Plant in Tama, calling it a Covid hot spot during the early weeks of the pandemic, with 44 percent of employees testing positive for the virus. Democrats in congress say OSHA failed to issue meaningful fines last year when unsafe conditions inside meatpacking plants led to the deaths of employees.

(Radio Iowa) – Thanksgiving is four weeks away, after which many Iowans start decorating for the holidays, but finding the perfect Christmas tree could be a challenge this year with a developing tree shortage. David Pierce, past-president of the Iowa Christmas Tree Association, says some tree farms may be having trouble this season due to the long-running drought. “We’re a little low. We had strong demand last year due to other events like the weather, a little bit of deer damage,” Pierce says. “Our supplies are a little bit tighter this year than we would like but we’ve been here before.”

Pierce runs Honey Creek Timbers in southeast Iowa, near Morning Sun, and has a few thousand white pines and Scotch pines on his acreage. Last year’s derecho destroyed untold thousands of native hardwoods and shade trees statewide, but the powerful wind storm didn’t cause much trouble for evergreens. The heat and the dry weather, though, that can be a problem. “The shortage that you’re probably seeing the most is on the fraser fir. That appears to me to be the most dramatic,” Pierce says. “Some of our growers in the northern part of the state, where it’s a little bit cooler, grow those. We’re not able to because it’s a little hot here in the summer.”

A Blue Spruce Christmas Tree (Photo from ISU Extension)

Many clients seek out the fraser firs and Pierce says he’ll truck them in from out of state, if they can’t be sourced nearby. Perhaps a worse threat to the industry than drought is the march of time, as growers with decades of experience in the business are retiring. “We’ve seen a steady decline in those. It would probably mirror what’s happening with other older-generation farmers,” Pierce says. “But this year, we’ve seen a nice influx of new members, people who have decided they’d like to try to plant some trees, so we’re encouraged by that.”

It can take seven to eight years, he says, to grow an eight-foot-tall pine tree from a sapling. The association says eight types of Christmas trees grow well in Iowa: Scotch pine, white pine, Fraser fir, blue spruce, Douglas fir, concolor fir, balsam fir and Canaan fir. To find a grower near you, visit https://www.iowachristmastrees.com and click the “Find a Farm” button.