Sioux City, Iowa (KTIV) – Another cleaning company has been fined thousands of dollars by the U.S. Department of Labor for employing children to clean Sioux City’s Seaboard Triumph Foods pork processing plant. Qvest LLC of Oklahoma was the cleaning contractor for the plant between September of 2019 and September of 2023.

The Labor Department says the first company fined for hiring minors, Fayette Janitorial Services of Tennessee, took over the contract from Qvest, and hired some of the same children Qvest had employed to clean the plant.

Court documents filed in the Northern District of Iowa show that Qvest will pay $171,919 in child labor civil money penalties, hire a third party to review and implement company policies to prevent the employment of children, and set up a process to report possible child labor law violations.

The Labor Department’s investigation found 11 children had been cleaning equipment in the packing plant, including saws used to cut the pork. Federal law prohibits children under age 18 from working in dangerous jobs like meat processing facilities.

In a statement released to KJAN on Dec. 3rd, 2024, Seaboard Triumph Foods Communications Manager Riley Kohn said:

“The legal filings against Qvest Sanitation by the Department of Labor (DOL) do not include any claims against Seaboard Triumph Foods (STF). STF did not employ any of the alleged individuals and has no evidence that any underage individuals accessed the plant. In addition, this vendor, who had express contractual requirements to follow all labor laws, has not been
present at the STF facility for more than a year, as the company’s sanitation needs are currently supported through an ongoing partnership with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW).

“This situation underscores the problems facing employers throughout the country: individuals, including minors, obtaining jobs through their use of fraudulent identification documents, which are sophisticated enough to fool even the federal government’s E-Verify system. Businesses are victimized by this fraud,” notes Paul DeCamp, the former head of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, and counsel for STF.

“Safety, ethical practices, and compliance with regulations and industry standards are of paramount importance to STF. We expect the same from our vendors and partners, and we will not tolerate any vendor’s use of underage labor within our facility, and will also take measures to prevent fraud against our company.”

(Iowa City, Iowa – One person was killed and another injured during a crash in eastern Iowa’ Washington County, Saturday afternoon. According to the Iowa State Patrol, the accident happened southeast of Brighton shortly before 4-p.m.

Authorities say a 1999 Toyota Camry was traveling east on Highway 78, west of Toadflax Blvd, when the driver failed to negotiate a curve in the road. The car went out of control and ran off the left side of the road before rolling over several times.

The driver of the vehicle – who was not wearing a seatbelt – was ejected from the vehicle, and did not survive. A passenger  who was wearing a seatbelt, suffered non-life threatening injuries. They were transported to the U of I hospital by Washington EMS, for treatment.

The names of the driver and passenger are being withheld pending an investigation.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak say there was minor damage to two pickup trucks, but no injuries were reported, following a collision Friday morning at 4th Street and Senate Avenue. According to the report, a 2013 Chevy Silverado pickup driven by 84-year-old Fred Benedict, of Villisca, was traveling west on Senate Avenue. Benedict stopped at the intersection with 4th Street, but didn’t see an oncoming pickup driven by 51-year-old Gary Clear, Jr., of Red Oak.

When Benedict proceeded into the intersection, his pickup was struck on the passenger side by Clear’s 2016 Chevy Silverado pickup. The accident happened at around 10:25-a.m. Damage from the collision amounted to $4,000. Both vehicles were able to be driven away from the scene.

No citations were issued, but the Police report stated a contributing factor to the collision was Benedict’s failure to yield.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak arrested a woman Friday evening, on an assault charge. 52-year-old Charity Ann Boulton, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 5:20-p.m. in the 2400 block of N. 8th Street, for Assault with a dangerous weapon. Boulton was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $2,000 bond.

(Radio Iowa) – While the H-P-V vaccine is often marketed in Iowa toward women, a health care professional says it’s important that young people of -both- sexes get inoculated against the potentially-deadly virus. Dr. Ben Parsons, a hematologist-oncologist at Gundersen Health, says human papillomavirus is an equal opportunity threat.

“HPV is a virus that affects all humans, and it’s actually relatively ubiquitous. Lots and lots of people are exposed to it,” Parsons says. “Men and women are at risk for contracting HPV, and the vaccine is exceedingly effective at preventing the most harmful strains of HPV, which are very much carcinogenic.” A state report shows the H-P-V vaccination rate among adolescent Iowans in 2022 was at 57-percent, though the rate fell below 30-percent in parts of southeast and eastern Iowa.

Health officials recommend the vaccine for those between the ages of 11 and 13. That’s before they’d typically become sexually active. “When it came out in 2006, a focus was on preventing genital warts and cervical cancer, and really, both men and women benefit from this,” Parsons says. “When you think about, how do you limit an infection in our society? It takes everyone. It takes a high level of herd immunity to prevent these things from really becoming as big of a problem as they are.” Parsons says getting vaccinated can help to protect you from all sorts of cancers, including head and neck cancer.

“You can imagine the sensitive areas of your tongue and your cheek, and the treatments for people who develop those cancers are really quite rigorous, including removal of those very, very sensitive organs, or treatment with radiation that can be damaging,” Parsons says. “While those oftentimes lead to cures, it’s still a road that we would much rather prevent than have to travel.”

Parsons says his 13-year-old son has already received the vaccine, adding, it’s for his son’s best interest and for the community. Gundersen Health System has clinics in Calmar, Decorah, Fayette, Lansing, Postville and Waukon, and a hospital in West Union.

(Radio Iowa) – The most recent federal data shows the number of stalking reports connected to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University campuses increased last year, but officials say the statistics are misleading. For the University of Iowa, there were over 100 separate reports classified as stalking, but Mark Bullock — the university’s assistant vice president for public safety — says only 45 police reports were filed.

“And 32 of those occurred at our hospital,” Bullock says. “That includes a significant amount of violations of no-contact orders. These families that we’re bringing into our children’s hospital sometimes don’t have the greatest family dynamic, they have histories of domestic violence — things that have happened away from our campus — and they bring with them no-contact orders and they’re at the hospital together, violating those no-contact orders. That counts as a stalking case.”

The six other University of Iowa cases classified as stalking in the annual federal report on campus crime statistics were actually extortion cases according to Bullock. “A trend that we call ‘sextortion’ where somebody will reach out to somebody on social media, start a conversation, they share inappropriate pictures,” Bullock says, “and then it’s ‘I’m going to send these pictures to your family if you don’t send me an Apple gift card.'”

Michael Newton, I-S-U’s vice president for public safety, is also chief of campus police. He says most of the I-S-U cases identified as stalking in the federal report are things that happen online.  “It’s something we’re seeing not just at Iowa State, but nationally we’re seeing this trend,” he says. Newton says most stalking reports at Iowa State are about unwanted messages rather than in-person behavior. “What I’ve found with these cases, though, involving our students generally if they get authorities involved, if they get police involved we tell the person to knock it off, they stop,” Newton says. “…I’ve had a lot of conversation with my student advisory board and others about what can we do to get people to have better interpersonal skills and be able to tell people themselves that ‘Hey, I don’t want to have contact anymore,’ or ‘I don’t want to be involved with you,’ instead of a text message.”

Newton says it’s worth noting the annual federal report on crime data from all U-S college campuses defines stalking as not just engaging in conduct that would cause a reasonable person to fear for their safety or the safety of others — which can be lead to criminal charges. It also defines stalking as activity which can cause emotional distress. “You will see things that appear in our statistics that aren’t state law violations. They’re more of an annoyance. They’re more of a harassment issue,” he said. “…One we had recently was just unwanted email, text after text.”

University of NORTHERN Iowa officials report there were 16 reports of stalking and harassment on the Cedar Falls campus last year.

(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 UI’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.”

Radio Iowa photo

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.”

Stover predicts the holiday shopping season ahead will be robust, with a retail sales increase of between two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half percentage points from last year. She says, “Overall, holiday shopping is going to be strong again this year.”

DES MOINES, Iowa — [KCCI] – Court records show a Polk City woman was under the influence of methamphetamine when she caused a crash that killed her son. Abby Amenson, 41, has been charged with homicide by vehicle-operating under the influence in the crash that killed 10-year-old Maxwell Amenson last summer.

Authorities say she crossed the center line on Northwest Fisher Lane and hit another vehicle head-on July 7. Court records say authorities found drug paraphernalia and meth inside the woman’s purse in a search after the crash.