The Ames Police Department is investigating a death after a body was found in a shack Friday night. KCCI reports authorities were called to a dilapidated shack on the 900 block of S. Duff Avenue at about 6:05 p.m. A citizen had reported a deceased body in the shack. When police arrived on the scene they found the decomposing body of a man. The body was transferred to the Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy. Authorities are waiting for an autopsy to be performed before releasing a cause of death. Police conducted interviews, canvassed the area and processed evidence. They do not believe there is a threat to the community at this time.

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call the Ames Police Department at 515-239-5133 or the anonymous tip line at 515-239-5533. Tips can also be sent in to Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa at 515-223-1400.

About 250 Iowa Army National Guard soldiers returned home Saturday to cheering, smiling and tearful loved ones, following a yearlong deployment. Dual ceremonies in Des Moines and Fort Dodge honored the soldiers returning home. They included members from the 1st Battalion, 194th Field Artillery, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division. KCCI reports Gov. Kim Reynolds attended the ceremony at a hangar at Des Moines International Airport. She called ceremonies for returning service members one of her favorite parts of the job.

“On behalf of a grateful state, thank you for your service, for your selfless devotion to cause and country, for protecting the freedoms of your fellow Americans and for doing so with courage, honor and integrity,” she said.

Ninety-nine soldiers were on the flight that returned to Des Moines.

Police in Red Oak arrested a woman Saturday night for allegedly driving while license revoked. Authorities report 26-year-old Aspen Renee Riley was taken into custody at around 8:30 p.m. Following a traffic stop on 200th Street. Riley was transported to the Montgomery County Jail, and held on a $1,000 bond.

Sidney, Iowa – July 31, 2021, The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office is notifying drivers that I-29 Southbound, south of the Hamburg Exit, will be closed tomorrow (August 1, 2021) at 7:00 A.M. so that an accident scene can be cleaned up at the 122 MM in Missouri. The estimated clean up time is one to two hours. Sign boards will direct traffic on a detour through Hamburg, Iowa via Highway 333 east to US 275 south to Missouri Highway 136.

Despite the heavy rain Atlantic received Friday night and early today, the Cass County Fair Board has determined that ALL activities scheduled for today, will take place as planned. Thank you.

(Radio Iowa) – Sure, it’s been a sweltering week in Iowa, but University of Iowa researchers are doing groundbreaking studies on an environment that’s beyond scorching — using data from a spacecraft that’s orbiting the sun. U-I physics and astronomy professor Jasper Halekas is the lead author of a report on the sun’s electric field and the solar wind that flows outward from our star. Halekas compares that flow to an earthly waterway. “Let’s say we’re sitting here in Iowa City watching the Iowa River go by. It’s hard to know when that river might flood unless we know what’s going on upstream, say, at the Coralville Dam,” Halekas says. “So, we really need to make measurements up close, where the source of this solar wind — or in my analogy, the river — is to know what’s going to happen when that solar wind gets to Earth.”

Fluctuations in that solar wind, like a solar flare, can disrupt our power grid, our satellites, and much of our communications on Earth — everything from cell phone calls to G-P-S navigation to T-V and radio broadcasts. The Parker Solar Probe has made eight orbits of the sun so far, and each orbit takes about three months to complete. Remember, the sun is huge. “Every couple of orbits we fly by Venus and dump a little bit of our momentum there and that allows us to get in still closer to the sun,” Halekas says. “By the end of the mission, we hope to get about two times closer to the sun than we are now — and where we are now is already far closer than anything man-made has ever gone.”

The spacecraft has gotten within nine-million miles of the sun, which may not sound all that close, but temperatures on the side facing the sun are peaking around one-thousand degrees. It’s a robotic explorer like no other in history, and no, it won’t melt. “The front end of our spacecraft has this big carbon-carbon heat shield and then there’s a bunch of plumbing that hangs off of the back of it that acts to shunt heat away from that heat shield and keep it from getting back to the rest of the spacecraft,” Halekas says, “and the rest of the spacecraft kinda’ hangs back in the shadow.”

The research they’re doing is historic, he says, as these are the first definitive measurements anyone’s ever been able to make of the sun’s electric field. “I’ve been involved in this mission since it was just a sketch on a napkin, so it’s been extraordinarily rewarding to see it built and tested and launched and now we’re charting new territory closer to the sun than anything man-made has ever gone,” Halekas says, “so, yes, it’s very exciting for me.”

Launched in 2018, the NASA-funded mission is scheduled to run through at least 2025 as the spacecraft should be able to make about 20 orbits around the sun, drawing ever closer, at a speed that should top off around 430-thousand miles an hour. It’s the first NASA spacecraft named after someone who’s still alive, 94-year-old Eugene Parker, an astrophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, who first did key research in solar physics in the 1950s.

The broadcast News at 8:05-a.m., from Ric Hanson.

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(Radio Iowa) – The Siouxland Habitat for Humanity chapter has started the construction of its first home in Hawarden. Siouxland Habitat for Humanity Director, Anne Holmes, says there’s a great need for safe and affordable housing, and that Hawarden has welcomed them with open arms. They held a groundbreaking late last week where home recipient Heather Sabin was on hand. She says she’s excited to get all the help from the community, and most of all is excited for her kids to be able to grow up in the home.

Holmes says Heather Sabin’s enthusiasm and gratitude is overwhelming saying Sabin is the kind of person when you’re having a down day all you have to do is call her and her family up and just listen to the excitement in their voices, she says it automatically fills your bucket. Sabin says she can’t wait for one thing. “To move in…start new memories for my kids. It’ll be good,” she says. Sioux County Habitat for Humanity Director Kurt Franje is excited to be building a home in a new community He says they are “super excited” to be able to start another home and share God’s lover with one another.

This is the first time Sioux County Habitat is building two houses in the same year. Franje says he wasn’t sure how it would work out — but the other home in Hull is ready for the sheetrock to be taped. “That one is in a very good spot and we’ll be able to start this one and get it started before winter, there’s plenty of time to do that,” Franje says.

Sioux County Habitat for Humanity has plans to build another second home in Alton next year, and they’re working with city officials in Hospers to possibly build one there in 2022. Franje says they could use more volunteers — and anyone interested in helping with the Hawarden project can contact Siouxland Habitat for Humanity through their website: siouxlandhabitat.org, or through their Facebook page, or call the Hawarden City Office.

(Radio Iowa) – A rare bird has been spotted in northern Iowa. Erich Gilbert, assistant manager at the Union Slough National Wildlife Refuge near Titonka, says there’s a partial albino among the Canada geese that have settled in for the past few weeks.”It looks almost like a ghost or a hologram,” he says. It’s the time of year for Canadian geese to molt — lose their feathers. Albino birds are rarely found in the wild.  “They say that birders — someone who is a bird watcher — is likely to see this maybe a couple of times in their lifetime, but it may be a cardinal, it may be a sparrow, it may be any kind of bird,” Gilbert says. “It is quite rare, but if you’re a bird watcher, you’re likely to see one at some point.”

Gilbert says the albino goose is visible from the county highway passes along the south end of the refuge. Gilbert can see sandhill cranes in a shallow area right across from his office. “They nested here for the third year in a row,” Gilbert says. “Three years ago they nested here for the first time in at least 100 years, probably more than that.”  The drought has made the refuge more attractive to birds.

“Most birds actually like water that’s knee deep or less and some of them actually like water that’s like a half inch deep or even a mud flat, so those shallow water depths aren’t a great problem for birds…but eventually we are looking forward to the rain returning,” Gilbert says. “Hopefully what’ll happen is we’ll get some rain here late summer or early fall and we’ll get things filled back up here for the fall.”

Automobiles may start driving on the tour route through the refuge on August 1st. It’s open to the public from sunrise until sunset through September 20th. The driving route starts at the Refuge Headquarters, which is six miles east of Bancroft. Gilbert says there are all sorts of birds, including ducks, trumpeter swans, great blue herons and pelicans, at the refuge and the best time to see them is in the early morning or evening hours, when the temperatures are cooler and the birds are most active.