An Atlantic area farmer and businessman is set to appear before the Senate Agriculture Committee this Thursday morning, in Washington, D.C.  Glen R. Smith is in the nation’s capital for a Senate hearing that precedes a Senate vote on confirmation for a position on the Board of Directors for the Farm Credit Administration. The FCA is headquartered in Washington, D.C.  Smith was notified in mid-September that he was nominated to be a Member of the Farm Credit Administration Board, Farm Credit Administration.

Smith is currently the President of Smith Land Service, Co., and owner/operator of a corn and soybean farm in western Iowa, in partnership with his wife Fauzan and son. If he is appointed by the President and approved by the Senate, Smith will serve on an advisory policy and rates Board for the Farm Credit Administration, an independent Federal agency that regulates and examines the banks, associations, and related entities of the Farm Credit System (FCS). FCS is the largest agricultural lender in the U-S, and is a nationwide network of lending institutions that are owned by their borrowers. It serves all 50 states, and Puerto Rico.

The advisory Board members, Smith says, typically serve a six-year term, but he would be filling the term of a board member who died in March. Therefore his term would expire 2022. Joining Smith when he sits before the committee, Thursday, will be Stephen Vaden, who is being considered for the position of General Counsel for the USDA. Smith’s hearing is set to begin 8:30-a.m. Central Time (9:30-a.m. Eastern).

A link to view the hearing can be found here: www.agriculture.senate.gov/hearings.

Sheriff’s deputies in Montgomery County, Monday night, arrested a 17-year old male on a felony charge of Burglary in the 2nd Degree. The teen, who was not identified, was taken into custody at around 8:07-p.m., following an incident in the 200 block of E. 6th Street, in Villisca. He was transported to the Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) in Council Bluffs, for placement.

Five of the seven Democrats running for governor appeared at a fundraiser in Mason City last (Monday) night, expressing support for initiatives to address gun violence after Sunday’s mass shooting in Texas. Candidate Fred Hubbell, a retired Des Moines businessman, says refusing to talk about the problem is no longer acceptable.

“Clearly, we’re getting a lot more kind of these incidents and mental health is part of it,” Hubble says. “Access to guns is part of it. Let’s call it the speed with which guns can shoot, you know because they have these AK-47s and these things that you can put on them to make them shoot faster, we need to have a conversation.”

Other candidates say they support rolling back the new state law that has expanded gun rights. Candidate John Norris of Des Moines served as chief of staff to former governor Tom Vilsack.  “No one needs to carry an AK47 into a McDonald’s full of kids and that’s what you can do in Iowa today,” Norris says. “That’s just nonsense. That’s going beyond common sense and reality.”

Norris also opposes the part of the new law that lets people bring a concealed weapon into the statehouse if they have a permit to carry it. “I certainly respect Iowans’ right to own guns and sportsmens’ rights, but we’ve gone too far,” Norris says. “…The promotion of guns in public buildings with children is just outrageous.”

Candidate Nate Boulton, a state senator from Des Moines, says he’s most concerned about the new law’s “Stand Your Ground” provisions that give people legal protection if they use deadly force to protect life and property. “In Iowa we have a very good balance,” Boulton says. “We have high rates of gun ownership and low incidents of gun violence and we’ve seen things that are starting to look like they could lend themselves to disrupting that balance as we expand deadly force to include mistakes and things that could have unintended consequences.”

Candidate Andy McGuire, the former Iowa Democratic Party chairwoman, is also a medical doctor. McGuire says she wishes people would look at mass shootings as a public health issue that must be addressed. “If anything else were killing Americans like this is, we would look into it,” McGuire says. “It’s not that I’m against anybody. I just am against people dying.” Former Des Moines School Board members Jon Neiderbach, the other candidate at last night’s event, says people need to stop shouting at each other after mass shootings and come up with solutions.

The candidates spoke during a fundraiser for State Representative Sharon Steckman of Mason City, who is running for a fifth term in the Iowa House.

(Radio Iowa)

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:47 a.m. CST

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A judge has sentenced a former treasurer of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska tribal council to five years of probation. The U.S. Attorney’s Office says U.S. District Court Judge Laurie Smith Camp on Monday sentenced 56-year-old Thomas Snowball of Winnebago to the probation as well as community service and $36,500 in restitution. Snowball had pleaded guilty earlier to theft from an Indian gaming establishment, related to unauthorized disbursements from the WinnaVegas casino in Sloan, Iowa.

TOLEDO, Iowa (AP) — A second trial has begun for an Iowa man, nearly three months after a judge overturned his first-degree murder conviction in the 2000 disappearance of a woman whose body has never been found. Attorneys gave opening arguments Monday in the retrial of Tait O. Purk, who was charged in connection with the disappearance of his fiancee Cora Okonski. A jury previously convicted Purk, but a judge found the verdict wasn’t backed by evidence. The case is now before Judge Ian Thornhill.

INDIANOLA, Iowa (AP) — Simpson College in Indianola says it will cover tuition costs of Iowa students whose families have an adjusted gross income of $60,000 or less. To qualify, students must be a 2018 Iowa high school graduate and state resident, submit a federal student aid application and have a 2016 adjusted gross income of $60,000 or less. They also must live on campus and pay room and board fees, which this year totaled $8,370.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s governor has ordered flags at state buildings to be lowered to half-staff to honor the Texas church shooting victims. Authorities say a lone gunman killed 26 people Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Gov. Kim Reynolds’ order is in conjunction with President Donald Trump’s flag order.

Tax payments to the state were up significantly through the end of October, but some of that growth cannot be counted in the current budgeting year. State tax revenue was up 12 percent from July 1st through October 31st. Jeff Robinson, the senior fiscal analyst for the Legislative Services Agency, says “The revenue situation is not near as rosy as there are two significant issues to the growth posted through the end of October.”

Some of the money is being recorded as taxes due BEFORE July 1st. It erased some of the deficit in the last state budgeting year. Second, the Iowa Department of Revenue implemented a tax processing change. A significant amount of taxes came into the state treasury on October 31st rather than sometime in November. Robinson says when adjusting for those two issues, tax payments to the state were up about two-point-three percent for the past four months.

“The combination of individual income tax, sales tax, use tax and corporate income has produced modest growth through October 27th,” Robinson says. In mid-October, a three-member panel reduced its official prediction of state tax collections. If tax revenue does not grow significantly THIS November compared to LAST November, at least 35 million dollars will have to be cut from the current state budget.

(Radio Iowa)

Agriculture and energy officials are working together to deal with the high demand for liquid propane this harvest season. Iowa Propane Gas Association Executive Director Deb Grooms says customers who use propane to heat their homes were told to top off their tanks this summer. She says farmers got the same advice from Ag Secretary Bill Northey.

“To take advantage of the early buying process. Our marketers are also telling their customers to get their tanks full so they’re prepared when winter hits,” Grooms says. Propane is used to dry grain when it comes out of the fields with too much moisture. There was a shortage of liquid propane to dry crops and heat homes in 2009, and former Governor Terry Branstad declared an energy disaster in 2013 when farmers throughout the Midwest used a record amount of the fuel to dry their corn. That demand from farmers depleted supplies for home owners who were forced to pay record high prices.

Carlson says suppliers were busy last week as good weather allowed farmers to get into the fields. “They’ve been working very hard to get the ag customers taken care of this week and pretty soon the home heating season will begin, so communication is a big thing,” Grooms says. The president of the Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Stores of Iowa, Dawn Carlson, says they’ve talked with farmers about the importance of taking steps to have enough propane for the harvest season.

“They have been urging their customers to put storage on the farm. Our propane distributors in Iowa have been purchasing more storage tanks on their own property so we actually have a lot more storage capacity in the state than we did right years ago,” Carlson says. Another factor in the liquid petroleum availability is that worldwide demand is at an all-time high. Carlson says long term contracts with countries like China make the fuel very attractive and exports reflect that.

“Since November of 2009 they’ve increased from 100-thousand barrels a day to the most recent data I have is from August of this year — they’ up to to 720-thousand barrels a day,” Carlson says. “So just in the last eight years, we’ve increased eight-fold.” Propane prices went up slightly last week as demand increased. The report from the state ag department says the price was up four cents for a statewide average of one dollar, 39 cents for a gallon.

(Radio Iowa)

INDIANOLA, Iowa (AP) — Simpson College in Indianola says it will cover tuition costs of Iowa students whose families have an adjusted gross income of $60,000 or less.

The Des Moines Register reports that the college announced its plan Monday, with Simpson President Jay Simmons saying in a statement, “There has been a lot of talk about making college affordable. We decided it was time to take action.”

Gary Steinke, president of the Iowa Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, say no other Iowa private college has such a program.

To qualify, students must be a 2018 Iowa high school graduate and state resident, submit a federal student aid application and have a 2016 adjusted gross income of $60,000 or less. They also must live on campus and pay room and board fees, which this year totaled $8,370.

Students would pay for any tuition increases.

OELWEIN, Iowa (AP) — Authorities in northeast Iowa are investigating the shooting death of a zebra. KCRG-TV reports Buchanan County Sheriff Bill Wolfgram confirmed the Oct. 31 shooting of the zebra in Oelwein, but he wouldn’t comment on a claim by the animal’s owner that a neighbor was too blame. Mike Henninger says he found the 2½-year-old zebra named Taz dead from a gunshot wound. The death came after months of threatening texts, photos and videos from a neighbor, including images of him shooting a stuffed zebra.

On Saturday night, a neighbor identified by Henninger called KCRG and denied killing the zebra. Wolfgram says an investigation of the shooting is continuing.

(DES MOINES) – Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered all flags in Iowa at half-staff effective immediately until sunset on Thursday, November 9, 2017, to honor those killed and injured in Sunday’s mass shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. This order is in conjunction with President Donald Trump’s order that was issued Sunday. Flags will be at half-staff on the State Capitol Building and on flag displays in the Capitol Complex. Flags will also be at half-staff on all public buildings, grounds and facilities throughout the state.

Individuals, businesses, schools, municipalities, counties and other government subdivisions are encouraged to fly the flag at half-staff for the same length of time as a sign of respect.

A van that collided with a cow Saturday morning in Page County caught fire, but no one was injured. The Page County Sheriff’s Office was notified about the accident near the intersection of Highway 2 and Hackberry Avenue, at around 3:15-a.m.  Officials say 56-year old Carol Anthony Colton was driving a 1999 Ford E-350 Super Duty Econoline van eastbound on Highway 2, or about 7 miles east of Shenandoah, when a black cow entered the road and was struck by the van, which ended-up on fire. Damaged to the vehicle was estimated at $8,000.00. The cow, owned by Bruce Ketcham, was valued at $2,300.