DES MOINES – Gov. Kim Reynolds has scheduled a 6:05-p.m. live address to Iowans, with regard to COVID19, the need for Iowans to practice safe mitigation efforts, as well as to announce new steps to fight the virus in order to protect lives, livelihoods, hospital resources and health care workers. It will be livestreamed and posted in full on Governor Reynolds’ Facebook Page.
WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Officials say a mother and her two children were injured this weekend escaping an apartment fire in West Des Moines. Television station WOI reports that firefighters were called just before 2:30 a.m. Sunday to the West Glen Apartment complex. Arriving firefighters saw smoke coming from the building and called for a second alarm, and police arrived to help evacuate the building. Officials say a mother and her two children were taken to a hospital with minor injuries after escaping through a third-story window. Fire crews quickly brought the fire under control. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
IOWA CITY, Iowa — University of Iowa senior defensive lineman Zach VanValkenburg has been named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week, following Iowa’s 35-7 win at Minnesota, as the Hawkeyes retained Floyd of Rosedale for a school-record sixth straight year. The announcement was made Monday by the Big Ten Conference office.
Iowa (2-2, 2-2) will play at Penn State (0-4, 0-4) Saturday at 2:30 p.m. (CT). The game will be televised on Big Ten Network.
The Mills County Sheriff’s Office, Monday (Today), reports four people were arrested Sunday on theft, burglary and other charges:
That same day, four individuals, one from Bennington, NE., the others from Malvern, reported incidents of Burglary. The latter three took place in the vicinity of Prospect Avenue, and were reported between 4:15-and 4:20-a.m., Sunday
The Guthrie County Public Health Department has issued a request of Superintendents and School Board in the County, with regard to Thanksgiving and a return to classes. In his statement, Guthrie County Public Health Director Jotham Arber says “In an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our county and help reduce the strain that a high positivity rate puts on our community’s resources, the Guthrie County Public Health Department is asking that our school districts consider lengthening the time that students are away from school over the week of the Thanksgiving break.
Arber said “We recommend that all schools include Monday, November 23rd and Tuesday November 24th to the days that students are not in person on campus. This would allow students and staff to remain at home with their families and away from others for 9-to 10-days before and throughout the holidays.” He said the thinking is that the move would provide a decrease in the daily positive cases and overall positivity rate.
Officials with the Panorama CSD will follow the recommendation from the Guthrie County Public Health Department and conduct virtual remote learning on Monday the 23rd and Tuesday the 24th of November. District meals will not be provided to students on November 23rd or 24th. Office hours in both buildings will be from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM. The secondary library and elementary cafeteria will be available for WiFi on both dates. Panorama students in grades Pre-k through 8th grade will need to be accompanied by an adult if utilizing the library or cafeteria. Face masks will be required of any adults utilizing the secondary library and elementary cafeteria during these time periods.
Panorama officials say they will use this week (November 16-20) to finalize plans, check out chromebooks, and communicate out further details.
Derrick Demon Penelton (Iowa DOC photo)
DES MOINES – The Iowa Department of Corrections reports 26-year old Derrick Demon Penelton, who was convicted of Willful Injury and other crimes in Polk County, left the Fort Des Moines Residential Facility without permission Sunday night, and has not returned. Penelton is a black male, 5-feet 9-inches tall. He weighs about 176 pounds. Penelton was admitted to the work release facility on October 1, 2020. Persons with information on Penelton’s whereabouts should contact local police.
(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa State Education Association says schools should be allowed to go online until coronavirus infections subside, without seeking approval from state officials. More than 40 school districts are currently operating all or some grades under temporary virtual learning waivers from the Iowa Department of Education. Many are struggling to staff classrooms and bus routes because of the number of employees in quarantine. Mike Beranek, president of the state teachers union, says it shows that schools are not immune to the pandemic. “While there may be less of an opportunity for students to be symptomatic, they are still fully capable of spreading that virus,” he says. “When they go out into the communities they interact with other individuals who may not be following the protocols which are necessary.”
Beranek says the state’s two-week waivers don’t fit the public health guidelines for quarantine and isolation, because not everyone in a school gets exposed at exactly the same time. “If that requires students to be home for a longer period of time than five days or two weeks, then districts should be able to make those decisions without having to go through the waiver process,” he says.
Last week, Governor Kim Reynolds issued a partial mask mandate for some indoor gatherings of more than 25 people, but it does not apply to schools. Beranek says it should. According to a survey by the ISEA, 40 percent of Iowa school districts do not require students and teachers to wear masks.
(Reporting by Iowa Public Radio’s Grant Gerlock)
(Atlantic) – The Annual Grand Lighting Ceremony will be held this Thursday, November 19th at 5:30 PM in Downtown Atlantic. Attendees must park along Chestnut Street and remain in their vehicles at all times. Gathering on the street and sidewalk will not be allowed. Santa will ride up Chestnut Street on his Fire Truck following the lighting and be in his Cabin from 6 – 7:30 PM. The lighting will also be live streamed on the Chamber’s Facebook page for those who wish to enjoy from home.
Santa’s Cabin will also be a little different this year. All attendees over the age of two must wear a mask when entering the Cabin. Children will have a seating area where they can sit and tell Santa what they want for Christmas. Children will not be allowed to sit on Santa’s lap this year. A socially distance photo may be taken before exiting the Cabin. Social distancing will be mandated while waiting in line. Santa will be in his Cabin every Saturday from 1:30 – 3:30 PM beginning November 28th and ending December 19th. He will be in his Cabin every Thursday from 5:30 – 7 PM beginning December 3rd and ending December 17th.
Pick up your Christmas brochure from area retail businesses, “like” the Chamber on Facebook or follow on Twitter, to find dates and details to celebrate Christmas in Atlantic. You can find a complete list of activities at www.christmasinatlantic.com.
Capture the Christmas magic with #MyAtlanticIA and post to the Atlantic Area Chamber’s Facebook page or Instagram (AtlanticIowaFan). Contact the Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce with any questions at chamber@atlanticiowa.com or call 712-243-3017.
(Radio Iowa) – Iowa cattle producers could soon be able to use a cell phone app on their animals that’s based on bovine facial recognition. Kansas State University animal scientist K-C Olson says they gathered about a thousand short videos of feeder cattle restrained in a chute and the information was loaded into a neuro network based on artificial intelligence. Olson says the results were encouraging enough to develop a cell phone app. “You simply position the cell phone camera in front of an animal,” Olson says. “When the conditions are right, as judged by the app, it will snap a series of pictures, it will put a GPS stamp on each one and a date stamp on each one. Those are automatically uploaded to a secure cloud database.”
Use of the app could eventually save producers from all sorts of hassles, from security to animal health. “Any subsequent time that another producer, another owner, would be curious about the origins of a particular calf, they could use the same app, take the pictures, upload those to the database,” he says. “The information that they would then receive is when the animal was read into the system and where, physically where the animal was when it was read into the system.”
Human facial recognition is now a standard for identification in airports and other secure locations. That technology is based on the geometry of the human face and uses intricate measurements to put a permanent identification on a person. “Later on, when that human being needs to get on a flight or something similar, they can have hat on, they can have glasses on, they could have grown facial hair, they could have grown older, but that technology is capable of nearly 100 percent accurate read rate,” he says. “The thinking here is that why couldn’t we have something like that for beef cattle.”
Olson says the ultimate goal would be the creation of a national animal disease traceability system. He says the technology will be commercialized this fall and possibly before 2021, producers could add birthweights, vaccination history and other information.
(By Ryan Matheny, KMA, Shenandoah)
Following St. Albert’s loss in the Class A Semifinals the postseason All-District Awards were handed out for Class A District 9. ClassADistrict9AllDistrictFB
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