An accident Wednesday afternoon in Red Oak resulted in the driver of a van being issued a verbal warning for Unsafe Backing, and Failure to Yield while backing onto a highway. Red Oak Police say the accident happened at around 12:32-p.m., in the 100 block of W. Oak Street. A 2018 Ford transit van driven by 37-year-old Trevor Troy McAlpin, of Red Oak, was backing out of the Casey’s parking lot. A 2004 Dodge Stratus driven by 29-year-old Jodi Michelle Booher, of Shenandoah, was eastbound on W. Oak, when McAlpin backed the van onto the road, into the side of the Dodge.

Damage to the Transit van, registered to a Red Oak heating and cooling company, was estimated at $9,000. The Dodge sustained $4,000 damage. No injuries were reported.

A check of some of the latest area news, from Ric Hanson.

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(Creston, Iowa) – Police in Creston report the arrest at around 1:37-p.m. Wednesday, of 47-year-old Cory Wayne McKinney, of Creston. He was taken into custody in the vicinity of Sheldon and Highway 25, for Driving While Barred. McKinney later posted a $300 bond, and was released.

(Radio Iowa) – There’s a breakfast war heating up now in Iowa to try and capture customers who are once again venturing out of their homes following pandemic shutdowns. Casey’s convenience stores C-E-O Darren Rebelez talked about the competition during an investor call. “What you saw a year ago when lots of businesses were shutting down, offices were shutting down, people were sheltering in place — that had a disproportionate impact on the breakfast daypart. And that hit everybody from the Starbucks of the world to McDonald’s to us,” he explains. Rebelez says the race is on to get the customer’s attention. “I think everybody is optimistic about getting that business back to normal as more schools are in session in person and more people are returning to work than there was a year ago,” he says. “You’ve seen McDonald’s come out with more promotional activity. Wendy’s has certainly been very active in the space. Taco Bell is bringing breakfast back after suspending it.”

He says it is a big segment for Casey’s. “Breakfast is about a third of our prepared foods business. A lot of that come sin our breakfast pizza — but a lot of other things like donuts and baked goods, coffee and sandwiches also play a big role, and that’s where we’ve innovated,” Rebelez says. The innovation he is talking about is a new product that uses their pizza dough to make a calzone-type sandwich. “Which sausage and egg and cheese, or bacon and egg and cheese — but leveraging that dough so in a unique way so it’s handheld and very portable and car-friendly,” Rebelez says.

He says they also changed out all their coffee machines for new ones. “The coffee technology grinds the beans and brews each cup of coffee fresh,” Rebelez says, “so that will enable us to reduce waste, make it easier to execute in the stores from a labor standpoint, and provide fresh coffee 24-7.” Rebelez says they also reviewed and upgrade the ingredients in their other breakfast products, and eliminated some that were not selling well.

Peggy Stover is head of the Marketing Institute at the University of Iowa School of Business. She says convenience stores offering grab-and-go prepared foods may have a couple of advantages over fast food franchises. For one, the fast food industry is having a harder time hiring and keeping workers and convenience stores — where the median age of employees in nearly 37 — may have an advantage. “Also, I think Casey’s — depending on how they’re pricing — could definitely position themselves to be more competitive,” Stover says, “if they’re offering good value at a reasonable price.”

Stover says Casey’s — with locations in small towns as well as urban areas — will be able to reach a whole different set of customers who don’t have the option of going to a fast-food drive through. “It may just be cost prohibitive for a McDonald’s franchise to be there,” she says. “Why not add prepared foods into your product mix and just make it a little bit more convenient for folks who are living in areas that may not have the choices available to them?” Stover has 25 years of experience working in the grocery industry for companies like Kraft, S-C Johnson and Coors.

(Radio Iowa) – A dog trainer in central Iowa says he’s seeing a big boost in clients needing help dealing with separation anxiety in pouting pooches. Jack Fitzjunker, who runs Dog Training Elite of Des Moines, says many Iowans adopted dogs during the worst days of the pandemic, but now the kids are back in school and most adults have returned to in-person workplaces, so the suddenly-lonely canines are acting up. “It’s difficult for them, for sure, especially when you’ve spent the last year, year-and-a-half, spending all of your time with that dog,” Fitzjunker says. “It’s definitely a big change for them and a lot of dogs struggle with that quite a bit because it’s something new, something they’re not used to and a lot of dogs aren’t fully prepared to handle that.”

The separation anxiety is often worse for high-energy, working dogs like German shepherds and border collies, he says, and the warning signs are varied. “They’ll do some howling, barking, they may whine,” Fitzjunker says. “They could have indoor accidents even though they are housebroken. They may chew things up, dig holes, scratch windows and doors. Pacing is something I see a lot or they could just try and escape.”

Dasher the dog (Radio Iowa photo)

You can’t go from spending all of your day around a pet to being gone for eight or nine hours at a time, the trainer says. To begin with, he suggests a combination of physical and mental exercises for the dog. “Before you go to work and leave for the day, taking your dog for a long walk is a good option, taking them to the park and throwing the ball,” Fitzjunker says. “Also, basic obedience type of stuff, getting some of that mental exercise in as well. That’s a great starting point.”

It may also help to take “baby steps” with the separation. Try leaving the dog for five or ten minutes, then returning, and taking progressively longer trips away to help the dog adjust to being alone. He notes, it’s good for dogs to have some alone time as it gives them an opportunity to rest and recharge.

(Radio Iowa) – A New Mexico man has been fined five-thousand dollars and sentenced to two years probation for flying a plane without a pilot’s license — and making an emergency landing in Waterloo. Court records show 44-year-old Keith Alexander Thomas flew from New Mexico to Wisconsin with a friend in June of 2018. The friend bought a Cessna and Thomas — who did not have a pilot’s license — agreed to fly it back to New Mexico.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, the Cessna was not air-worthy, the engine failed and the landing gear didn’t work. Thomas was able to do an emergency landing in Waterloo and no one was hurt, but he didn’t establish radio contact to warn crews on the ground.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A man from Taylor County was arrested Wednesday night on a drug charge, in Red Oak. According to Red Oak Police, 22-year-old Konner Ray Martin, of New Market, was arrested at around 7:42-p.m., for Possession of a Controlled Substance/1st offense. Martin was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – Children account for 29 percent of the positive Covid-19 test results in Iowa this past week and seven percent of the Covid patients in Iowa hospitals are under the age of 18. For the tenth straight week, the total number of Iowa hospital patients with Covid has grown, to a total of 578 patients on Wednesday night. That’s a 10 percent since the middle of last week. Eighty-eight percent of the patients who’re being treated for Covid in an Iowa hospital’s intensive care unit have not been fully vaccinated.

The Iowa Department of Public Health’s latest update indicates 58-and-a-half percent of Iowans 12 and older have received the Johnson and Johnson single dose or both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

(Radio Iowa) – Biden Administration officials say the nation’s four major meatpackers are engaging in profiteering during the pandemic and generating record or near-record profits this year. U-S Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says it’s time to hold meatpackers responsible for unfair practices. “Farmers are losing money on cattle, on hogs and poultry that they are selling at a time when consumers are seeing higher prices at the grocery store,” he says.

Vilsack and other members of the administration’s competitiveness council meet Friday to discuss ways to address consolidation in the industry. “I remember talking to a producer the other day in Council Bluffs and he said: ‘I don’t get this, Mr. Secretary. I just sold my cattle and I lost $150 a head, but the processor made $1800 a head,” Vilsack says. “How can that be?”

Legislation introduced in congress would require more disclosure of the prices meatpackers are paying private contractors. That may give independent livestock producers a better sense of what meatpackers are willing to pay for cattle, hogs and poultry. According to the National Meat Institute, consumers are paying higher prices for beef, pork, chicken and eggs because of a persistent and widespread shortage of workers in meatpacking plants.

(Radio Iowa/KCRG) – Governor Kim Reynolds is directing 100 million dollars in federal pandemic relief money be spent on housing projects.  “A transformative investment that promises to build approximately 36,450 new housing units,” she says.

K-C-R-G T-V broadcast the governor’s comments last (Wednesday) night. Sixty-five million from this allotment will go toward tax credit programs for housing developers. Twenty million will be awarded as grants for projects in Iowa cities with fewer than 30-thousand residents that convert downtown buildings into housing units. The rest will be used to finance home repairs, to help minority home buyers make down payments and to expand the number of homes inmates at the state prison in Newton are building.

These funds are in addition to the 230 million dollars for housing the Iowa legislature approved spending over the next five years. Reynolds says the combined 330-million dollars is a down payment on Iowa’s future prosperity. K-C-R-G T-V covered the governor’s speech at the HousingIowa Conference in Cedar Rapids yesterday (Wednesday).  “We’ve seen a growing mismatch between where the job opportunities are thriving and where people can find affordable places to live,” the governor says.

According to the Iowa Finance Authority, 40 percent of the housing units in Iowa were built before 1950. The agency’s latest report concludes the most common housing problem in Iowa is a lack of affordable housing.