With KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Iowa Congressman Steve King said Friday, that he will be honoring Sioux City resident and wounded Vietnam Army Veteran, Dennis Roberts on Tuesday, August 21st, with medals Roberts did not formally receive previously for his service. The ceremony takes place at 12:30-p.m., in Congressman King’s office in Sioux City.  Roberts is slated to receive the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, the Air-, Army Commendation-, National Defense- and other, similar medals, in addition to his Combat Infantryman badge, and sharpshooter badge and rifle bar.

Roberts served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam from March 1969 to June 1970. During that year he was a reconnaissance scout assigned to search and destroy missions with the 101 St. Airborne Divisions.  On Christmas Day in 1969, his 25 member platoon landed and split up into groups.  The landing zone or “L-Z” was hot, with the soldiers came under enemy fire. In the fire-fight, Roberts came into contact with a booby trap. The explosion blew-off his right thumb. Shrapnel also pierced hit his right arm and lower back. Roberts suffers from permanent loss of hand motion as a result of his injuries.

Discussion between the driver of a pickup and her passenger Friday afternoon about a turkey in a field, resulted in a rollover accident southeast of Red Oak. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department says Mary K. Bailey and her passenger, Erica R. Jackson, both of Red Oak, suffered from minor injuries following the accident, which happened at around 6:30-p.m., near the intersection of 210th and K Avenue.

Officials say Bailey was driving a 1993 Chevy pickup southbound on K Avenue and speaking with Jackson. The discussion was about a turkey Jackson saw in a field on the east side of the road. When Bailey turned to look at the wild bird, she missed her turn onto eastbound 210th Street. When she realized her mistake and attempted to negotiate the turn, the pickup skidded off the south side of the road, entered a ditch and rolled onto its side. The damage was estimated at $3,000.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says it has received scattered reports of dead deer around water sources this summer. D-N-R wildlife research supervisor, Willie Suchy, says they believe the dead deer are due to a disease called E-H-D. “Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease, ant it’s a virus that’s transmitted by a biting midge. And in dry years deer get concentrated around somewhat limited water and if they happen to be going to a water source where the midges are around and they get infected, then you can have a more significant die off than that local area and that’s what we’re seeing,” according to Suchy. He says they are asking the public to report any deer that are dead or don’t appear to be acting normally.

He says you should call your local D-N-R officer if you see something like this. “The other thing is we are always on the lookout for animals that are diseased and sick. And right now if it’s E-H-D there’s not much you can do, the disease will take its course. But there are other things we can monitor for,” he says. Suchy says the deaths due to E-H-D don’t pose a major threat to the deer population. “At this point it’s above what we normally would see and this is kind of what we would be expecting with the dry weather,” Suchy says. He says the last big outbreak of 1988 and deer numbers then were down a little bit, but he says they bounce back.

The disease has also shown up in Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Missouri and Michigan. E-H-D remains active until rain disperses the deer or a heavy frost kills the midges.

(Radio Iowa)

Some two-thousand volunteers will be painting several dozen homes in Council Bluffs and Omaha today (Saturday) as part of a community-wide beautification and weatherization effort. Tom Pettigrew is executive director of the 24th annual Brush-Up Paint-A-Thon. He says it helps low-income elderly residents and people with disabilities to maintain their properties. Out of some 210 applications, about 75 houses will be painted. Nearly 75 companies, businesses and individuals donated all the materials that are being used for the project.

Pettigrew explained the qualifications for getting your home’s exterior freshened up with a new coat of paint: You need to be over 62 years old or be permanently disabled at any age, you must own the home, no rentals, and meet certain financial guidelines. Some volunteers started earlier in the week with scraping off the old, flaking paint and getting the houses coated with a primer.
They’ll prime any bare wood, put down a top coat of paint and then caulk, too, to weatherize the homes. In the past 24 years, more than 24-hundred homes in the metro area have been painted by volunteers through the program.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

No injuries were reported following a car fire Friday evening on Interstate 80 in Cass County. According to dispatch reports, the fire occurred at around 7:40-p.m. on I-80 eastbound at the 50.85-mile marker.

Firefighters look over the burned out vehicle. (Mike Kennon photo)

Car fire on I-80 (Courtesy MIke Kennon/Cass Co. Emergency Management Agy,)

Firefighters from Marne and Atlantic responded to the scene. Authorities said the driver of the car, and only occupant, escaped unharmed. Cass County Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Kennon told KJAN News the driver and another motorist were on their way back to Des Moines after purchasing the car at an auction, when the blaze broke out.

Earlier in the afternoon, Friday, a pickup truck pulling a horse trailer caught fire on I-80 near the Cass/Adair County line. The truck appeared to have been a total loss, but no animals or humans were injured.There is no more information currently available.

And, firefighters from Anita and Wiota were called to help extinguish a grass fire that was burning dangerously close to a barn and residence, Friday afternoon. The blaze was reported at around 1:50-p.m., at about 140th and Delta Avenue, in northwestern Adair County. No other details are available at this time.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa’s unemployment rate edged up to 5.3 percent in July. State labor officials say the preliminary rate was two-tenths of a point higher than June’s revised rate of 5.1 percent. The rate was 6 percent in July 2011. Iowa Workforce Development says in a report issued Friday that the state gained 2,300 jobs in total nonfarm employment last month after two months of decreases. The state says the gains occurred only in the sectors of wholesale and retail trade, other services, local government and health care. The number of unemployed people in Iowa was estimated at 88,200 in July, compared with 85,300 in June. A year ago, an estimated 99,100 people were unemployed in Iowa.  The national jobless rate rose a tenth of a point in July, to 8.3 percent.

An incident that began with the theft of a motor vehicle from Pottawattamie County, resulted in a chase but no arrest Thursday evening, despite a coordinated effort by several law enforcement agencies. The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office reports Police officers in Harlan observed a vehicle known to have been stolen from Pott. County inside the Harlan city limits. The officers engaged in a pursuit of the vehicle, a 1996 Oldsmobile. The chase continued east onto Oak Road, before the H-PD officers requested assistance from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department. The officers and deputies lost track of the vehicle however, in the 1200 block of Oak Road.

At around 11:30-p.m., the Sheriff’s Office was alerted to suspicious activity in the 1900 block of Oak Road, where authorities recovered the stolen vehicle. The Sheriff’s office requested and received assistance in locating the suspect, from the Cass County K-9 Unit, along with sheriff’s deputies from Audubon County. Deputies recovered property from the suspect in the area, and cordoned-off a corn field, where the suspect was though to be hiding.

Additional assistance was requested from the Omaha Police Department, which sent their helicopter, “Able 1” to the scene. The chopper was equipped with a FLIR (Forward looking infrared Radar), which detects heat signatures. Despite the concentrated effort, the suspect was never located, and the search called-off during the early morning hours.

An investigation into the theft continues. Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.