Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

The annual farmland survey released earlier this month by Iowa State University showed a record average cost of land at eight-thousand-296 dollars an acre. I-S-U economist, Mike Duffy, who conducts the survey, says most of the purchases are by those who want to expand. He says the buyers are typically neighbors or those in the neighborhood, as the vast majority of those buying land are inside Iowa. Duffy says farmers see the high return in corn and soybeans as a reason for investing in more land.

“What we’re seeing is a continuing increase in the amount of land that’s going to farmers and a decrease in the amount of land going to investors,” Duffy explains. “And that’s I think due to the fact that farmers are the ones making the money off the land right now. Farmer view land in a different way, and so they are in the market much stronger now than the investors are.” Duffy says there is more transfer of land by inheritance right now than by sale. Duffy says the higher prices have made some of those who inherit land decide not to keep it.

“I think that’s particularly for non-farming heirs that have inherited. They are looking at the land and saying we would have held onto it with it at two or three-thousand dollars and acre, but with it at eight or nine-thousand dollars an acre, the price of sentimentality went up. We are seeing more activity from that group,” Duffy says. The annual survey from Iowa State University showed farmland values increased almost 24-percent over last year.

(Radio Iowa)

A lobbying campaign aims to convince state officials to provide forgivable loans to students studying to be doctors, if they agree to practice in Iowa once they graduate. Sue Huppert, a vice president at Des Moines University, made her pitch directly to Governor Branstad earlier this month. “We’ve been working very closely with the American Academy of Family Practice. They have, in fact, taken the lead last year and as you may know we were successful in getting legislation through for the forgiveable loan,” Huppert said. “We were unable to fund it. You had some fiscal issues that you had to deal with in the past two years and we appreciate that you’ve done that — and now we are here asking for $2 million.”

That money would provide loans to 10 students at Des Moines University who are studying to be osteopathic physicians and another 10 students in the University of Iowa’s College of Medicine. The forgiveable loans would be made available to students just entering the programs. “Who make a committment, up front, to practicing and staying in the state of Iowa,” she said. According to the Iowa Medical Society, 43 percent of the doctors in Iowa today are above the age of 49.  “So this is definitely a workforce issue,” Huppert told the governor. “It’s definitely an economic development issue.”

(Radio Iowa)

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is offering several new options for fishing and hunting licenses in 2013. D-N-R Chief of Fisheries, Joe Larschied, says the new options were developed based on feedback from Iowans. “A lot of anglers came to us and said ‘you know we’d like to pay for the privilege to fish with three poles,’ especially bank anglers and ice anglers and things like that. So we’re offering that for the first time,” Larschied says. “The other things we’re offering are a three-year angling license, so you can lock current prices for three years…you gain some savings with administrative fees for each of those three years.”

There’s also what he calls the hunter’s special. “A three-year hunting license with the habitat stamp included, so again you can lock in the current years prices for three years. And then the other option is an outdoor combo license which combines the annual resident hunting, fishing and habitat combo for one year,” Larschied says. He says there’s a cost savings on the fees, but is mostly a convenience feature. Larschied says people who hunt and fish wanted to see the option tailored more like other licenses. He says you get a driver’s license and boat registration for several years and that’s why they decided to do the same for hunters and anglers.

Larschied says the program is self-supporting and hopefully making things more convenient will get more people involved. “The trust fund where all the license dollars goes is what allows us to hire game wardens, to hire the people to run the hatcheries and stock fish, and it is solely run on fishing and hunting license revenue,” Larschied says. “And so this just allows people to lock in for three years their commitment to shore up their trust fund, which is what we’re really trying to do.”

The cost of a bonus line fishing license is 12-dollars. The cost for an outdoor combo license is 47-dollars, a three-year fishing license 53-dollars, three-year hunting license 86-dollars. You can now purchase those new licenses and use them through the rest of this year up to their expiration date.

(Radio Iowa)

A new state program aims to line up unpaid internships for unemployed Iowans, with the goal of having that internship turn into a full-time job. Teresa Wahlert is director of Iowa Workforce Development, the state agency that’s managing the program. “We take people who are still collecting their unemployment benefits and match them to jobs that are open,” Wahlert says, “where a company has several jobs, can’t seem to get the jobs filled.”

The interns will work for 24 hours a week and must spend another 16 hours per week getting a special certification that shows they’re skilled at applied mathematics, reading comprehension and searching for information. Just one intern has completed the program so far, working at a lumber supply company that could not find applicants to fill a job opening.

“Instead of having an eight-week internship, this person only had a two-week internship which is just fine,” Wahlert says. “The company offered him a full-time job and the rest of the story is that intern only had seven weeks left on his unemployment benefits…and it just so happens that the intern happened to be a very, so it’s really a great story.”

State officials launched the program statewide in late November, with 15 unemployed beginning their eight-week-long internships.

(Radio Iowa)

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An elderly Council Bluffs man remained in critical condition Monday, following a fire in his home, Sunday morning. According to the Omaha World-Herald, 90-year old Robert A. Kissel, Sr., was taken to Creighton University Medical Center in critical condition following the blaze which took place at the home located at 28 Bennett Avenue, at around 2:30-a.m. Sunday. Kissel was transferred from Creighton to the St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center in Lincoln, NE, for further treatment of third-degree burns, smoke inhalation and other, possible injuries.

Fire investigators say a smoke detector saved the lives of Kissel, Sr., and his 59-year old daughter, Robin Ann Krause. Krause told firefighters that she tried to reach her father but couldn’t because the staircase was on fire. She called 911 and crawled out a basement window. Fire crews found Kissel, Sr. in his bedroom.

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The song says some kids just want two front teeth for Christmas, but others are getting a whole new face. Children across the region who are the targets of bullies are going to great lengths to make the taunting stop, including plastic surgery. Dr. Richard Bruneteasu is a plastic surgeon in Omaha/Council Bluffs who says more children from Iowa, Nebraska and beyond are seeking help from his office because they’re bullied.

“When people stand out a bit, they become targets of abuse from time to time,” Dr. Bruneteasu says. “We see kids who come in, maybe they have prominent ears and people make fun of them because of that. We see kids with nasal deformities, they may have an ethnic nose which results in people picking on them.” He says there’s a big difference between wanting surgery and needing it.

“You have to look at each case on an individual basis,” Bruneteasu says. “If it’s just vanity, then maybe it’s something that you can wait until you’re older and a bit more mature, but if it’s something that’s just totally disrupting your life, then I think it’s a reasonable thing to consider.” Bruneteasu says more children are having expensive procedures done to improve their self-image.

“We get the occasional kid who has a pretty significant nasal deformity and is very bothered by it and maybe has been subject to teasing by his peers or maybe physical bullying,” he says. “In those kinds of situations, we consider everybody on a case-by-case basis and in some parts of the country, like New York City, it’s very common. They do a lot of teenage rhinoplasties.”

Bruneteasu says the most common procedure performed on a child is to fix prominent ears and that’s usually done at age five.

(Radio Iowa)