(Radio Iowa) – Students at Sioux City’s Career Academy are once again building two homes, one to sell and one for Habitat for Humanity. Principal Eric Kilburn says the home they will sell will be good for a family. “It’s 14-hundred-81 square feet, still three bedrooms up, two bathrooms up primary, and the opportunity to double that with a basement or foundation,” he says. It’s the second year they’ve built the homes and he says they have 26 juniors and 18 seniors who are providing the leadership from last year’s builds.

“They’ve gotten better at some of their work too. So they’re quicker at framing, they’re more precise with some of the stone work and fascia and some of the more complicated work, and they’re taking more interest in some of the finer details and also learning within the trades, which trade they want to do, what their passion is,” Kilburn says. “So might be framing, it might be roof work, it might be a drywall. It could be electrical, some plumbing. We’re doing more plumbing in HVAC this year with our seniors.” Kilburn says they are letting potential buyers see the home and they can also suggest some changes is they are seriously interested in buying the home. “I want them to have a blank canvas. And right now it’s fairly blank. We don’t have a countertop sorted yet. A lot of the finish and fixtures can be adjusted at this point. So yes, we would love people to come on in and put their dream to it,” he says.

Potential buyers need to have a lot for the home and need to submit a formal letter of interest to the Career Academy no later than May 9th.

(Radio Iowa) – The U-S-D-A is ending two local food programs this month, which is a financial blow to some eastern Iowa farmers. The programs helped connect regional food producers with food banks and schools statewide. Funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance and Local Food for Schools programs was approved under the Biden administration, but is now being cut off. Emmaly Renshaw is with Iowa Valley R-C-and-D, a nonprofit that supports food supply chains across Iowa.

“What we have seen in the last three years of LFPA and LFS has been absolutely phenomenal, as farmers have more stable revenue through these programs, as food hubs are able to have that revenue, they’ve grown,” Renshaw says. “We’ve seen new trucks, we’ve seen new cold storage, we’ve seen new connections.” Renshaw says the total revenue for producers in both programs was 360-thousand dollars. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said they were COVID-era programs that needed to be eliminated. Emma Johnson is an owner of Buffalo Ridge Orchard in Central City.

“Local food is going to be more expensive, because currently, we’re at a stage where every farm is having to do every single part of production — sales, distribution, all of it,” Johnson says, “and this is why it was so important to actually build the infrastructure for local food.” With the programs being discontinued, Johnson says her orchard has roughly 50-thousand pounds of apples that she needs to find a new way to sell.

(Iowa News Service) – Educators at Iowa State University are creating a new major to meet what they see as a new and growing demand in the health care field: pairing medical knowledge with business and “people skills.” Iowa State is launching an integrated health major, which goes beyond the so-called hard, science-based skills medical professionals usually get to include the “softer skills.”

Yanhai Yi, professor and chair of the Department of Genetics, who helped develop the curriculum, said there is a tremendous need. “The health care occupation is projected to grow by 15% from 2021 to 2030,” Yi pointed out. “There’s a strong need. In the United States, health workers need to be increased by about 1 million in the next 10 years.”

The integrated health major will focus on wellness from multiple angles, with classes in life sciences, behavioral and social sciences, data gathering and the humanities. According to Yi, it is designed to create more well-rounded health care professionals, something he argued the medical field has been lacking.

Yi noted there has been so much interest in the new program, some Iowa State students are switching majors to take advantage of the future demand created by meshing the traditional hard sciences with the people skills health care professionals need to be compassionate, as well as training them to be business savvy. “That not only understand the scientific part of health, but also understand the social aspect, ethical aspect of human health,” Yi explained.

There appears to be high demand for the new major, not just in Iowa but nationwide. Only a handful of universities offer integrated health majors and all of them are relatively new.

Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.

(Radio Iowa) – Insurance company executives and agents who sell insurance gathered at the Iowa Capitol yesterday (Tuesday) to urge legislators to pass one of the governor’s priorities. The bill is a collection of ideas developed in response to last year’s natural disasters. For example, it would require insurance umpires, appraisers and independent adjusters to be licensed by the State of Iowa in order to work in Iowa. Governor Reynolds says insurance plays a vital role in protecting families, businesses and communities.

“Insurance is more than just policies and premiums,” she said. “It’s security, it’s stability and it’s opportunity whether it’s safeguarding our homes, ensuring access to health care or helping businesses recover from unexpected challenges.” The governor signed a proclamation yesterday (Tuesday) honoring Iowa’s insurance industry.

“Here in Iowa we’re proud to have a strong and innovative insurance sector that provides jobs, it drives economic growth and it delivers peace of mind to millions,” Reynolds said, “but as our world evolves through technology advancements, Mother Nature and regulatory changes we must continue to advocate for smart policies that protect consumers while fostering a competitive and thriving marketplace.”

Nearly 200 insurance companies are headquartered in Iowa and over 90-thousand people work directly or indirectly in the state’s insurance industry. That’s about three percent of the entire private sector workforce in Iowa.

(Radio Iowa) – A Democrat who has represented Cedar Rapids in the Iowa House since 2023 has been appointed to fill a vacancy on the Linn County Board of Supervisors. Democrat Sami Scheetz  — a union organizer — is the first Arab American elected to serve in the Iowa legislature. Scheetz told reporters in Cedar Rapids he has resigned from the House to take on his new role as a member of the Linn County Board of Supervisors.

The governor has five days to set the date for a special election in Cedar Rapids for the now vacant House seat Scheetz had held.

There have already been two special elections this year to fill vacancies in the Iowa legislature. One was for a state senate seat held by Chris Cournoyer who resigned just before Governor Reynolds appointed her lieutenant governor. The other happened after a southeast Iowa lawmaker died unexpectedly and that House seat was just filled last week. While Scheetz has been appointed to the board of supervisors, there could be a special election for the board seat if voters in Linn County gather the required number of petition signatures in the next two weeks.

Scheetz is among 17 who applied to fill the vacancy created when 44-year-old Ben Rogers resigned from the Linn County board to take a position with UnityPoint Health.

(Radio Iowa) – About a dozen people rallied outside the Iowa Capitol today (Tuesday), criticizing a bill shielding some farm chemical makers from lawsuits alleging product labels failed to warn of cancer risks. The bill narrowly won approval in the Iowa Senate last week and is eligible for consideration in the House. Ava Auen-Ryan of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action says the legislature’s time would be better spent finding ways to lower Iowa’s rising cancer rate. “Not working on bills that provide immunity to giant corporations,” she said.

Jenny Turner’s husband died in 2018 of a type of lymphoma she says has been linked to Roundup. “He wasn’t a farmer. He was a school band director, but he used Roundup in our yard and he had summer landscaping jobs and he lived in Iowa where we have high concentrations of pesticides and nitrates in our air and water.” Turner, who is from West Des Moines, says the bill is being pushed by lobbyists to benefit Bayer, not farmers.

“Now I know that glyphosate is useful for some farming, but everything has its pros and cons and Roundup has a cost. Bayer would like to pretend that there is no cost,” Turner said. “Our state legislature must not help them silence people’s right to redress that cost in court.”

Bayer — the maker of Roundup — says the litigation industry has unfairly targeted glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup. The company says glyphosate minimizes the need for plowing and increases the productivity of crop land.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s economy saw a significant upward bounce during the past month, but analysts fear the volatility of the current international trade climate will mean a big drop is likely for the month — and months — ahead. The latest Creighton University survey of supply managers in Iowa and eight other Midwestern states during March showed the best overall numbers since July of 2022, but Creighton economist Ernie Goss says fears over a looming trade war cloud everything.

“Twenty-five percent indicated that they had advanced their purchases from abroad or from outside of the U.S. in anticipation of higher tariffs,” Goss says, “and fully one-third said they had reduced imports because of the anticipation of tariffs.” Goss says he’s not supportive of the threatened tariffs, the latest of which are expected to be announced by President Trump on Wednesday, as Goss says tariffs are “really, really causing issues for the manufacturers.”

Ernie Goss

The survey gauges the economy on a zero-to-100 scale, with 50 being growth neutral. The overall index for Iowa in March exceeded 56, a tremendous jump from around 44 in February.  “What we’re seeing is extreme volatility in our surveys, up and down, but this is a big jump upward,” Goss says, “and I expect us to have to pay for it in the next month when it comes down.” Goss says recent declines in the value of the dollar helped make American-made goods more competitively priced abroad, which pushed new export orders up. For the first time in a long time, Goss says a large number of supply managers across the Midwest reported having more applicants than openings.

“Hiring was very strong for March. The number was 67.6 and that’s well up from February’s 51.2, so it’s also the highest since July of 2022,” Goss says. “We’re seeing some really good numbers, but again, this is for the month of March and I just don’t think we’re going to see it replicated in months ahead.”

According to U.S. International Trade Administration data, Goss says the Iowa economy began the year with $1.1 billion in manufacturing exports, compared to $1.2 billion for the same period in 2024, for a 7.6% reduction.

(Atlantic, Iowa) -Firefighters in Atlantic Fire were called to a possible residential fire at 1308 Chestnut Street late this (Tuesday) morning. The incident was reported at about 11:54-a.m.

Atlantic Fire Chief Tom Cappel…

Cappel said the fire was apparently caused by “Improperly disposed smoking material.” Despite the home being occupied when the fire was first observed, there were no injuries to the residents or firefighters. Atlantic Police were on the scene for traffic and crowd control. Firefighters were on the scene for about 30-minutes.

(Audio courtesy Jennifer Nichols, Atlantic News Telegraph)

Public Notice: The Montgomery County Auditor’s office will be closed beginning at noon on Tuesday April 8th and all of Wednesday April 9th for all staff attending out-of-town training.

Please email auditor@montgomerycountyia.gov or call the office at 712-623-5127 and leave a voicemail.  Their staff will respond and get back to you in a timely manner upon their return Thursday April 10th.