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Montgomery County Fair Rabbit Show Results

Ag/Outdoor, News

July 15th, 2020 by Jim Field

Here are the results from Wednesday’s rabbit show from Red Oak:

  • Breeding Buck:  Champion – Corbin Wolfe  Reserve- Lilly Anderson
  • Breeding Doe:  Champion – Corbin Wolfe  Reserve – Corbin Wolfe
  • Breeding Pair:  Champion – Corbin Wolfe
  • Breeding Rabbit: Grand Champion Overall – Corbin Wolfe  Reserve – Corbin Wolfe
  • Meat Rabbit Fryer:  Champion – Ella Peterson  Reserve – Anistyn Poston
  • Meat Rabbit Roaster:  Champion – Olivia James. Reserve – Natalie True
  • Meat Rabbit:  Grand Champion – Ella Peterson. Reserve – Olivia Jacobs
  • Pen of Three Fryers:  Champion – Ella Peterson. Reserve – Alyssa Strebe
  • Pen of Three Roasters:  Champion – Corbin Wolfe. Reserve – Olivia Jacobs
  • Pen of Three Meat Rabbits:  Overall Grand Champion – Ella Peterson. Reserve – Corbin Wolfe
  • Showmanship Winners:  Senior – Corbin Wolfe, Junior/Intermediate – Lilly Anderson, Beginner – William Pollock, Overall Grand Champion – Corbin Wolfe

Mills County Sheriff’s report (7/15/20)

News

July 15th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

The Mills County Sheriff’s Office reports three arrests took place Tuesday. 42-year old James Allen Stanley, of Omaha, and 42-year old Sean Michael Gochenour, of Woodbine, were taken into custody at the Pottawattamie County Jail. Stanley was wanted for being a Fugitive from Justice, and on a warrant for Violation of Probation. He was being held without bond in the Mills County Jail on the Fugitive warrant, and on a $2,000 bond for Probation warrant. Gochenour was arrested on two warrants for Pretrial Release, the bond for which was set at $20,000.

And, 26-year old Dante Decarl Dirks, of Kansas City, MO., was arrested at the Mills County Jail Tuesday afternoon, for being a Fugitive from Justice. He was being held without bond in the jail.

Officials: 2 killed in head-on Nebraska crash from Iowa

News

July 15th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

NORTH PLATTE, Neb. (AP) — Sheriff’s officials in central Nebraska have identified two men killed in a head-on crash involving a car and semitrailer as Iowa residents. The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office says in a news release that the crash happened Tuesday evening on U.S. Highway 83 about seven miles north of North Platte. Investigators say a northbound car crossed into the southbound lanes directly into the path of the truck, which tried but could not avoid a head-on crash. Deputies say both vehicles caught fire, and two men in the car died at the scene. Authorities later identified the driver killed as 32-year-old Robert Islas and his passenger as 59-year-old Gilbert Vasquez, both of Sioux City, Iowa. The truck driver suffered minor injuries.

Walmart to require customers to wear masks at all its stores

News

July 15th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart has become the latest major retailer to require customers to wear face coverings at all of its namesake and Sam’s Club stores. The nation’s largest retailer said the policy will go into effect on Monday to give the company time to inform stores and customers. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said that currently about 65% of its more than 5,000 stores and clubs are located in areas where there is already some form of government mandate on face coverings.

The retailer also said it will create the role of health ambassador at its Walmart stores and will station them near the entrance to remind customers without masks of its new requirement.

Variety of school start approaches, including Iowa City’s all online decision

News

July 15th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) — It appears Iowa City’s School Board is the first in the state to vote to hold all classes online when school starts in August. Other schools have developed multiple options, including remote learning or weekly schedules combining online AND at-school classes. Sioux Center Community Schools Superintendent Gary McEldowny says after consulting with the governor’s office as well as state and local public health officials, his district is planning for in-person classes. “The information that we feel like we have at this point, from the last update, is to plan to start school as you normally would,” he says.

The first day of school in Sioux Center is currently scheduled for August 13th, but a full, five-days-a-week schedule won’t start until August 31st. That’s an intentional move, McEldowny says, as he expects people to be worried about going back to school. “A lot of that anxiety is going to have to bubble up and start to wash off a little bit and that’s for everyone involved — that’s for parents and for kids and for the staff,” McEldowny says. “The first week, that’s a two-day week, then the next week we have four days — Monday through Thursday, and then we have Monday through Thursday the following week.”

The district HAS developed options for online learning as well as a combination of in-person and online virtual learning. “We will be a hybrid from the jump because there are going to be families and students and the reality — I shouldn’t say reality, it’s an opinion — we will have children that are going to be out for a while and hopefully able to come back when healthy,” he says. “We’re going to have teachers or staff members that are going to have an impacted family member or themself.”

McEldowny says the challenges of remote learning in the final weeks of the PAST school year showed the district what they can do better. The district also has surveyed families and students to identify areas of concern.  “We take those things to heart,” McEldowny says, “and the things that we can control, we want to do a better job of controlling.”  In the state’s largest district, Des Moines high schoolers will have one day of in-person instruction per week. Elementary and middle school students in Des Moines will have two days of in-person classes each week. The rest of their instruction is to be conducted online.

Severe storms bring strong winds, heavy rain, large hail & damage

News, Weather

July 15th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

(Radio Iowa) – You know it’s a bad storm when the National Weather Service staff has to abandon its office and take shelter underground. Severe storms rolled across central Iowa last (Tuesday) night, bringing winds up to 60 miles an hour in the Des Moines area, along with two-inch diameter hail and heavy rain. Meteorologist Frank Boksa, at the Weather Service, says it was a very active evening. “We had a funnel cloud reported near Boone around 6:40,” Boksa says. “There were only a couple reports of what I would consider very large hail, Grimes and Ankeny. Several locations had trees down, Windsor Heights and the town of Saylorville. Numerous reports of quite heavy rain, two-to-four inches of rain.”

There were multiple reports of “rotation” seen on radar, a possible indicator of a tornado, but no twisters are confirmed. Boksa says their Johnston office had to be evacuated for a short time as a particularly nasty storm cell approached. “It did have a tornadic signature to it so the people who were working here during the evening took cover as the storm passed over the office,” Boksa says. “We have a storm shelter that we go into.”

While the Des Moines office was temporarily closed, forecasting duties were shifted to the National Weather Service bureau in the Quad Cities. Skies are grey across much of Iowa this morning but Boksa says the immediate threat of more severe weather is over. “We’ll see some thunderstorms through the morning, diminishing in the afternoon,” Boksa says. “The severe threat is really passed. It’s more of a heavy rain threat now.”  Multiple power outages were reported and damage, primarily to houses and trees, is also reported in Pella, Sandyville, West Des Moines and Urbandale. No injuries were reported.

Union County Sheriff’s report (7/15)

News

July 15th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

The Union County Sheriff’s Office reports one arrest and one incident of vandalism. At around 6:15-p.m. Tuesday, 58-year old Timothy Allan Sly, of Lorimor, was arrested at the Union County Law Enforcement Center, on a Union County warrant for driving while barred. Sly was released from the Union County Jail on $2,000 bond. And, at around 2:30-p.m., Tuesday, a woman from  Lorimor reported that her son’s 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee had been vandalized recently. The damage was estimated at $3,000.

Two CCHS Employees Test Positive for COVID-19

News

July 15th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

Atlantic, IA—Cass County Health System (CCHS) officials announced today (Wednesday), that two employees have tested positive for COVID-19. CCHS Chief Executive Officer Brett Altman says “We are happy to say that our employees are only experiencing mild symptoms right now, and we expect and hope that both get well soon.” The employees contracted COVID-19 from sources outside of the CCHS. The employees are isolating at home until they are considered recovered in accordance with the recovery criteria from the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH).

While the staff members were always appropriately masked and protected while near patients, CCHS officials felt it was necessary to go above and beyond the current contact tracing procedures to notify any patients who were cared for by these staff members, as well as to inform the community of these new cases. CCHS Chief Nursing Officer Amanda Bireline says “We had five patients who received care from these employees. In our investigation, we found that there was no significant risk to the patients because of our use of PPE (personal protective equipment) – gloves, masks, and proper hand hygiene were properly observed. Yet, when we put ourselves in the shoes of the patients and their families, we felt like the right thing to do was to tell them.”CCHS officials have spoken with the patients who were impacted.”

In alignment with IDPH guidance, CCHS is also keeping home other staff members who worked in close contact with the employees who have tested positive for COVID-19. This is a precautionary safety measure put into practice by CCHS to minimize the risk of spreading the illness. Altman said “All along, we have been planning and preparing for the day when COVID-19 started to impact our community and staff. Without a doubt now, we’re at that point where there are real implications, and this likely won’t be the only impact on our workforce. We have an excellent team in place to strategize how we continue to safely care for patients, families, and the communities we are privileged to serve, but we still need everyone’s help to prevent the spread of the virus.”

Bireline added, “Despite these positive cases, we feel that there is no additional risk to our patients or the patients that we served at the time. We acted quickly to isolate the cases, and we are monitoring and testing the exposed staff members.” All patients and visitors at CCHS are screened at the entrance for fever and COVID-19 symptoms, and everyone in the facility is masked. CCHS also maintains a COVID-19 hotline for questions and concerns, as well as a Respiratory Care Clinic to serve patients with any respiratory symptoms that is in a designated space away
from other patients.

Judge denies request to delay Iowa drug kingpin’s execution

News

July 15th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A federal judge has denied an Iowa drug kingpin’s requests to delay his execution, which is scheduled for Friday. U.S. District Judge Leonard Strand wrote Tuesday that he would not intervene to delay Dustin Honken’s execution date due to the coronavirus pandemic.

FILE – In this Aug. 18, 2004 file photo, Dustin Honken is led by federal marshals to a waiting car after the second day of jury selection in federal court in Sioux City, Iowa. A federal judge has denied the Iowa drug kingpin’s requests to delay his execution, which is scheduled for Friday, July 17, 2020. U.S. District Judge Leonard Strand wrote Tuesday, July 14 that he would not intervene to delay Honken’s execution date due to the coronavirus pandemic. He said the Bureau of Prisons was in the best position to weigh the health risks against the benefits of carrying out the execution. (Tim Hynds/Sioux City Journal via AP, File)

He said the Bureau of Prisons was in the best position to weigh the health risks against the benefits of carrying out the execution.

Strand also denied Honken’s motion to declare his execution void due to an alleged procedural error by the government. He affirmed the executive branch’s power to set the date for executions.

(Podcast) KJAN 8-a.m. News, 7/15/20

News, Podcasts

July 15th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

More State and area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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