DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa’s unemployment rate dropped slightly in October to 4.1 percent but an official warns the decline could be temporary. Iowa Workforce Development Director Beth Townsend says the unemployment rate drop announced Friday came despite layoffs in construction and manufacturing companies. She says that could make the decline “only a temporary reprieve.”

Townsend notes, however, that Iowa has jobs available so those affected by layoffs should be able to find other work. During October, the number of unemployed residents dropped to 70,300. The total number of Iowa workers climbed to 1,655,200. Iowa’s unemployment rate compares to a national rate of 4.9 percent. A year ago, Iowa’s unemployment rate was 3.5 percent.

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) – Health officials are puzzled by an outbreak of the mumps among Dubuque County students that has now climbed to 30 cases, which is more than one-third of all cases statewide. According to Dubuque County Health Department executive director Patrice Lambert, the source of the outbreak has not yet been determined. Lambert says this is the worst outbreak in 10 years in the county.

Dubuque Community School District’ health services coordinator, Rhonda Ramler, says officials haven’t seen a pattern to the students who have been affected. The Telegraph Herald reports that precautions are being taken to try and halt the spread of the disease, which can cause fever, headaches and swollen salivary glands.

The Union County Sheriff’s Office says a Clarke County man was arrested Thursday night on three Union County warrants for: Leaving the scene of an accident, reckless driving, and no valid drivers license.  44-year old Michael Dean Craig, of Murray, was arrested at the Union County Law Enforcement Center and later released on $300 bond.

The Iowa Utilities Board heard an update on the progress of the Dakota Access Pipeline through the state and complaints from those who oppose it at their meeting Thursday. I-U-B attorney David Lynch gave the latest progress report from the company. “It indicates that 99 percent of the pipeline in Iowa has been lowered into the trench — and 96 percent of that trench has been backfilled. Only Buena Vista and Cherokee Counties are not yet complete to that stage,” Lynch says.

Work is more than halfway done in finishing up construction. “The report also indicates that 52 percent of the clean up and land restoration has been complete, while 61 percent of the pipeline in Iowa…has been hydrostatically tested,” according to Lynch.

Lynch told the three board members information from the board has been filed in the lawsuit against the pipeline. He says those who filed the lawsuit have until next Monday November 21st to file their reply briefs, and the oral arguments before the district court at still set for December 15th. He says they received three more complaints about the pipeline since the last meeting. “This gives us a total of 23 inquiries or complaints that have been filed since the first one on March 31st 2016. Fifteen of those 23 have been closed and eight of them are still in process. Most of those are in a state of a proposed resolution being drafted,” Lynch says.

The board heard from two representatives of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. Mark Edwards talked about concerns that the pipeline workers did not drain water away from the areas where they worked. He told the board it was difficult to get complaints addressed and says the county board of supervisors did not want to take action because they were afraid of being sued. “I could go on with further examples of going down this rabbit hole of this public plunder for private gain. But it has been clear from the beginning that this is a rigged game,” according to Edwards. “Three politically appointed people have been given the power to risk the public waters, land and navigate private landowners’s rights. These proceedings have been quite the education and clearly illustrate we have little hope in our government to protect our rights and our land and our water.”

Carolyn Raffensburger also spoke about what she says are violations by the construction company, including continuing construction on land that was inundated with water. “What we have seen is that they have violated the largest commitments that they made and down to the smallest ones,” Raffesnburger says. “What we now know is that this is the rule of money rather than the rule of law. If there is not monitoring and no enforcement of your regulation — of the rules that you put in place — then it has no meaning whatsoever.”

Raffensburger made another plea for the construction to stop. “What we’re asking you today is to put on hold the rest of the construction. They are not done with construction in two counties. They have not complete the boring under the Des Moines River. That is not complete. We ask you put that on hold, that you stop construction until your rules have been followed,” Raffensburger says.

The I-U-B also heard from people about the pipeline during their public comment period. They listened for around 30 minutes to comments of those who are opposed to the pipeline. The board did not give any response to the comments.

(Radio Iowa)

The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission plans to do another market survey on the gambling conditions in the state. Commission administrator Brian Ohorilko says the new study is prompted by the plans of a Cedar Rapids group to file an application for a new casino license. “There was a motion made to direct staff to initiate an R-F-P (Request For Proposal) process so that a vendor or vendors would be selected to conduct a statewide market analysis,” Ohorilko says.

The Racing and Gaming Commission voted 4-1 in April of 2014 to deny a license for a proposed 164-million dollar casino project in Cedar Rapids after approving a gambling license for a casino in Jefferson County. Ohorilko says the last market study was done prior to that decision. “It was a statewide market study to determine if there were any underserved or overserved markets in the state,” Ohorilko says. “In addition to that, The study called for a target analysis for two particular counties — and those were the counties were referendums had passed at that point in time and there were applications in — and that was Linn County and Jefferson County.”

Ohorilko says a new study would be key for the commission to decide if they would be willing to approve a new request for a license in Cedar Rapids. “There’s a whole host of criteria that goes into determining whether or not an application for a license should be grants. A couple of those factors are related to market impact: Is there new money coming into the area, was it just a shift of revenue, how much it would impact other licensees.”

Wild Rose Casinos and Resorts which already operates three casinos in the state is proposing what it calls a “boutique” casino that would be smaller than traditional casinos and located in the downtown area. They also say a smaller casino would have less an impact on existing casinos. The developers say they should have a plan ready to request a license in January. Ohorilko says the new statewide study would be started in mid-February.

“The way this would work with applications being due on February 13th, by the time the vendors are selected to do a market analysis, they’ll be able to look at the scope of any potential applications,” according to Ohorilko. “If it’s a small project or a different type of project, that information will be known and the vendors be able to consider that when doing their market analysis.”

Wild Rose operates casinos in Emmettsburg and Clinton along with the Greene County casino in Jefferson.

(Radio Iowa)

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – Authorities say a truck carrying more than 150 pigs tipped over after jumping a curb in western Iowa. The Sioux City Journal reports that the more than two dozen of the pigs were dumped out of the truck in the accident around 9 p.m. Thursday in Sioux City.

Authorities contained the pigs to a grassy area, where they grazed until animal control officials arrived with an empty livestock trailer and gates to corral them. More than 100 pigs were still trapped inside the trailer. Sioux City Police Sgt. Jim Cunningham says he suspects that many of those inside were not going to survive the crash.

The driver was uninjured. The pigs were from Ireton, Iowa, and were being taken to Missouri.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS

The Red Oak Police Department reports the arrest of a Red Oak woman on Thursday, following a traffic stop.  At around 3:35-p.m., Officers stopped a Chevy sedan at the intersection of G Avenue and Highway 34 for speeding.  Officers then determined that the driver, 46-year old Iva Mae Ransom, had a suspended drivers license.  Ransom was then arrested for Driving Under Suspension and taken to the Montgomery County Law Enforcement Center and held on a $300 bond.

A Republican member of the Iowa House is making appearances on state, national and even international talk shows to discuss his “suck it up, buttercup” bill. Representative Bobby Kaufmann, of Wilton, wants to cut taxpayer funding for Iowa, Iowa State or U-N-I if the universities spend money on grief counseling for students upset about the presidential electi “In all fairness, there’s a huge percentage of college students that are normal, responsible adults,” Kaufmann says, “but there are too many that are being coddled and in my opinion they’re not being prepared for the real world because you don’t get to go to a cry room when life hands you lemons.”

Officials with the three state universities say they are not spending money on “cry rooms” or other services specifically for students upset about the election. Kaufmann’s proposed bill would also increase penalties for protesters who block public roads. “It was in my district, just outside of it, with my constituents where they protested and shut down Interstate 80. I had a constituent from Bennett, Iowa, who has a blood disorder who if the protest would have lasted at a time when she needed her medication, she would have died,” Kaufmann says.

Kaufmann, the son of Iowa G-O-P chairman Jeff Kaufmann, says he was annoyed to see colleges in OTHER states offering counseling sessions for college students upset about Donald Trump’s election. Kaufmann has taken his beef to the airwaves, with appearances on national outlets like Fox News and local radio stations in Iowa. “It’s a little surreal that I’m getting literally dozens upon dozens of media requests, thousands of emails across the country,” Kaufmann says. “I never fathomed it would become what it’s become.”

Kaufmann made his comments on K-S-C-J Radio in Sioux City, Thursday. He says the reaction he’s gotten online is positive by a 10-to-one ratio. “A lot of the negatives I get are from people that the message is directed at and they come at me with these profanity-laced, threat-laced emails and I’ve come up with a term for them,” Kaufmann says. “They’re keyboard cowboys.”

The Iowa Democratic Party issued a statement Thursday, saying as a “young Republican leader,” Kaufmann had an opportunity after the election to “bring the people of Iowa together,” but instead chose “callous comments that threaten the free speech” rights of students. On Wednesday, the top Republican in the legislature was asked if now “is the time to tell the buttercups to suck it up.”

And this the answer House Speaker Linda Upmeyer gave: “We do have one member doing that…There’s room for disagreement. There’s always room for disagreement, but this is a time to focus on opportunities that present themselves and giving people chances. I mean, we had an election and we have the results of the election and we need to move forward. I think focusing on forward is a really positive thing.”

(Radio Iowa)

A man who led the Sioux City Diocese for nearly a decade has been elected by U.S. bishops to be the top Catholic leader in the country. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo will be president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for three years. “Pray for me,” DiNardo said in a video message. “…Let’s together move ahead in the vision of mercy that Pope Francis has given us.”

DiNardo was bishop of the Sioux City Catholic Diocese from 1997 to 2006. He’s currently the leader of the Galveston-Houston, Texas, archdiocese. DiNardo was flying to Rome after the U.S. bishops concluded their meeting in Baltimore, Thursday, but he hopes to meet with President-elect Donald Trump when he returns.

DiNardo says when considering immigration policy and civil rights issues under a Trump Administration, he’ll stress the church’s call to “respect the human person in our midst.” The U.S. bishops have also chosen DiNardo’s successor. It will be a Mexican-born Cardinal who became a U.S. citizen 21 years ago.

(Radio Iowa)