(Radio Iowa) – Today’s Black Friday shopping extravaganza, followed by Small Business Saturday, marks a vital kickoff to the holiday shopping season, which a University of Iowa College of Business professor says could be make-or-break time for countless Iowa merchants. Professor Peggy Stover, who directs the U-I’s Marketing Institute, says some businesses may have a so-so 11 months and they rely on this weekend’s events to kickstart consumers for December to meet their margins and stay afloat. “They’re very important, especially for the small retailers in Iowa, since so many of them are competing against your big box retailers,” Stover says, “and then you have, of course, the online retailers who have managed to carve out a significant market share of the holiday shopping.”

Not too many years ago, a majority of stores opened on Thanksgiving Day to beat the Black Friday deals, but there was a backlash that returned the holiday’s focus to family, reserving Friday for the shop-til-you-drop enthusiasts. Now, very few retailers are open on Thanksgiving, and even many grocery stores will be closed. “I think it’s both a great PR move by retailers, but it also comes on the heels of consumers just really realizing that the unsung heroes during the holiday season are the retail workers,” Stover says.

“They oftentimes are not able to enjoy the holiday season, much like the rest of us, because they have to work.” Many factors may impact the shopping season ahead, including interest rates, inflation, and credit card debt. Stover also says there’s a demographic change and a shift in mindsets coming, for which retailers will need to brace.”You have Gen Z and then the younger Millennials, who they would prefer to pay for an experience versus goods or a product,” Stover says. “Another thing to take into account is that Gen Xers are starting to retire, so now you’re losing a consumer base that could have had more disposable income.”

Given uncertainty in the economy, inflation, tariffs, and layoffs in the public and private sector, Stover predicts a modest two-percent growth in holiday sales. That’s well below last year’s four-percent rise.

(Red Oak, IA) – The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports the arrest at around 11:15-p.m. Thursday, of 28-year-old Tucker Evan Webster, from Shenandoah. Webster was arrested in the 2700 block of Highway 48, on an active Montgomery County warrant for Violation of Probation. He was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $1,000 cash-only bond. Officers with the Shenandoah Police Department assisted in Webster’s arrest.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – A Nebraska man who caused an emergency landing on a flight diverted to Cedar Rapids is now scheduled to hear his sentence. KCRG reports 24-year-old Mario Nikprelaj, of Elkhorn, NE, pleaded guilty in federal court to interference with flight crew members and attendants on September 23rd. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. January 13 in Cedar Rapids. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Nikprelaj was arrested from a SkyWest flight from Omaha to Detroit on July 17. According to a federal complaint, the captain was told about Nikprelaj and flight attendants described him as an “unruly passenger” before take off. Flight attendants told the captain that Nikprelaj was leaving his seat against orders. He flipped off the flight attendants and returned to his seat. He was sat in the plane’s exit row.

According to a criminal complaint, he later tried to open an emergency exit door and fought with other passengers. At one point, he threatened to kill a flight attendant. The flight attendant told him to remain in his seat and he grabbed her arm. The captain called the Eastern Iowa Airport and said he needed to make an emergency landing. The call took place about fifteen miles from the airport.

Passengers helped subdue Nikprelaj until the plane landed at the Eastern Iowa Airport, where he was detained.

(Radio Iowa) – A recent study found artificial intelligence appears to be a greater threat to entry level jobs for software developers and computer programmers and a Drake University computer science professor says it appears professional experience makes someone more resilient as A-I influences business decisions. Chris Porter is director of Drake’s Artificial Intelligence program.

Drake’s A-I major has been offered since the fall of 2020 and Porter says it’s been designed to give students the right experience — and he warns them to not rely solely on Chat G-P-T and other forms of artificial intelligence to solve problems.

“Students who major in AI at Drake, maybe half their curriculum is technical and the other half is philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, design, law,” Porter said. “…So I tell them, you know, ‘The digital ethics course that you take is just as important as the machine learning course you take because you can automate machine learning, but being able to solve ethical problems, like, your employer’s going to rely on you to have that know how and have that ethical outlook and be able to lay out the issues and that’s not something that you can easily automate at all.’ And why would we?”

Chris Snider, who teaches digital media classes at Drake, says one of their priorities is helping students land internships and have classroom experiences that are like an entry level job — so when students graduate they’re applying for that next step up the job ladder.

Snider and Porter made their comments during a recent appearance on Iowa Press on Iowa P-B-S.

BUTLER COUNTY, Iowa – Officials with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), Thursday night, said in a statement that on November 27th, 2025, the Iowa State Patrol (ISP) requested assistance from the DC with regard to an officer-involved shooting that occurred near the intersection of C13 and Franklin Avenue, in Butler County, Iowa.

The statement said that at approximately 9:10- a.m., Thursday, the Butler County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call from a victim reporting a man shooting into their residence. The 911 caller reported multiple individuals were trapped inside the residence. ISP troopers and Butler County deputies responded.

When law enforcement arrived on scene, an ISP trooper made contact with a male subject carrying a firearm that matched the description of the subject provided by the victim. Shortly after the trooper made contact with the subject, an exchange of gunfire between the subject and the trooper ensued. After the exchange of gunfire, the subject fled into a nearby residence.

An ISP Tactical Team responded to the scene and was able to safely remove multiple individuals from the residence. Once the individuals were secure, an ISP Negotiator established contact with the subject and the subject surrendered and was taken into custody by ISP. The subject suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment. The subject is currently receiving medical care, but is expected to survive.

The investigation determined the shooting was not random, and there was a connection between the victims and the subject.

The troopers and deputies involved in the incident were uninjured. The trooper involved in the exchange of gunfire with the subject has been placed on critical incident leave, according to department policy.

This is an ongoing investigation and no further details will be released at this time.

(Radio Iowa) – A retired Iowa State University sociology professor has combined his love of woodworking and music to help out young musicians. Paul Lasley played the upright bass for years in a local group, but took up the violin after retiring four years ago. It was smaller and easier to handle, and a nod to his great-grandfather who played what he calls the fiddle. One of his favorite old fiddles broke and he decided to try to bring it back to life.

He began looking for fiddles to fix at thrift stores and through relatives.

Lasley says he likes the challenge of getting the violins to sing again. Lasley decided to donate the revamped instruments, remembering his start in elementary school band in Queen City, Missouri.

Paul Lasley and one of the violins he’s working on. (ISU photo by Christopher Gannon)

His parents couldn’t afford a new instrument, so the school gave him a beat up metal clarinet that stood out among the newer clarinets other kids played. Lasley says it gives the beginners an instrument that looks good that they can start on.

Lasley so far has donated 18 to the Iowa State Center’s Stephens Auditorium instrument drive, which are loaned out to local school districts.

If you have a violin or parts to one that you’d like to donate, you can email Lasley at lasley@iastate.edu.
You can also donate other musical instruments to local band and orchestra programs or drop them off in the cart in the Stephens Auditorium ticket office lobby in Ames.

(Radio Iowa) – Until this week, Jeff Chelesvig held the title of president and C-E-O of Des Moines Performing Arts — which includes the Des Moines Civic Center and the Temple Theater a few blocks away. Chelesvig also expanded the organization’s reach over the past decade with educational programs, camps and stage shows for a million school kids from around the state. Chelesvig (CHELLS-vihg)  says it all fits with the organization’s mission — to bring world class entertainment, education and cultural activities to the Midwest.

Retired Des Moines Performing Arts CEO Jeff Chelesvig on the “Iowa Press” set at Iowa PBS. (Iowa PBS photo)

“We feel like we have this jewel of a 2700-seat venue downtown. We have all the things you need with parking and restaurants and hotels nearby,” Chelesvig said. Chelesvig was born in Eagle Grove, but his family moved and he went to high school in Belmond. During his senior year, he was cast as “Henry Higgins” in a production of “My Fair Lady.” Chelsvig went to college in Minnesota for a couple of years before enrolling at Iowa State.

Chelesvig moved to jobs in Minnesota and Florida before returning to Iowa and the Des Moines Civic Center job in January of 1995.

When he arrived, the organization was basically renting the Civic Center to a booking agency that picked which shows would be staged in Des Moines. In 1997, Chelesvig started what has turned out to be a very profitable season ticket series, featuring eight Broadway shows. Nearly 25 years ago, the Civic Center began investing in shows debuting on Broadway. It’s a move that has made the Civic Center among the first stops when a Broadway hit starts touring the country.

The organization’s chief financial officer is interim C-E-O until Monica Holt takes over in January. She was an executive at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. for 16 years.

(Creston, Iowa) –  Authorities in Union County have released information with regard to a single-vehicle rollover accident with injuries that took place Monday night, northwest of Kent. According to the Union County Sheriff’s Office, a 2004 Ford F-150 pickup driven by 22-year-old Sophia Marie Short, of Kent, was traveling west on Highway 34 east of Beechwood Avenue, when the vehicle went into the north ditch, striking the ditch and rolling over several times before coming to rest on its top. The accident happened at around 9:40-p.m.

Short told deputies she did not remember what happened. She mentioned she was not feeling good before she left from work. She was injured in the crash and transported by ambulance to the Greater Regional Medical Center, in Creston. The pickup sustained an estimated $20,000 damage, according to the sheriff’s report.

(Radio Iowa) – An Iowan who’s a pilot has completed two missions to raise worldwide awareness of Rotary’s push to end polio. This fall, Peter Teahen of Cedar Rapids and a pilot from New Jersey took a 37 day journey across the Atlantic and raised a million dollars for the Rotary Foundation.

Teahen flew a single-engine plane around the world in 2023 and raised over two MILLION dollars for the effort. Teahen notes each shot of polio vaccine costs just two dollars — and the Gates Foundation is matching the donations.

Teahen’s co-pilot and fellow Rotarian on that 2023 mission was John Ockenfels of Swisher. There are fewer than 270 pilots alive today who’ve flown around the globe and Ockenfels says they intentionally took the Rotary logo off their plane — just in case.

Ockenfels and Teahen travel to Rotary clubs around the country to talk about their journeys and Rotary’s global effort to eradicate polio. Over the past 40 years, the organization has helped immunize more than two-and-a-half BILLION children against polio in 122 counties. Polio remains endemic in just two countries — Afghanistan and Pakistan.