OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – The FBI says two underage victims have been rescued and three pimps arrested in the Omaha area as part of a nationwide crackdown on human trafficking. In all, the FBI said Tuesday, 21 people were arrested in Omaha as part of the Operation Cross Country IX. The effort was led by the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The Omaha Police Department, Douglas County,Nebraska Sheriff’s Department, Council Bluffs Police Department, Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office, and the Mills County Sheriff’s Office are part of the local FBI-led task force.

The FBI says the national sting was conducted in 135 cities. Altogether, authorities rescued 149 minors and arrested 153 pimps.

DES MOINES – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey today (Wednesday) announced that the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship will be awarding grants to twelve Iowa projects to help enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops grown in Iowa. The Department received slightly more than $296,720 through the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program from the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service to support the program.

Included among the grant recipients is Prairie Moonwort Hops Farm, LLC. The business will receive a $9,100 grant to determine the viability of hops plants, within the small plot (less than 10 acre) field common in the Loess Hills region of western Iowa, and to prove the marketability of “locally grown” hops to the emerging craft beer industry.

Iowa agricultural non-profit organizations, cooperatives, specialty crop industry associations or organizations, and producer groups were eligible to apply for funding. The maximum grant award from the Department to sub-grantees is $24,000 and administrative and indirect costs were not allowed.

Grant funds will be used for projects that benefit and enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops industry as a whole, and cannot be for projects that directly benefit a particular product or provide a profit to a single organization, institution, or individual.

“Specialty Crops” are eligible under the program include fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits and horticulture and nursery crops, including floriculture. The funds not passed through will be used by the Department to administer the grant.

The rest of the grant recipients are as follows:

• Iowa Department of Public Health – WIC – $24,000 to increase the sales of fruit and vegetables at Iowa farmers markets and the consumption of various specialty crops resulting from an advertising campaign promoting the usage of the farmers market checks distributed to WIC participants.
• Iowa Lakes Community College – $20,000 to educate community youth, adults with disabilities, college students, and community patrons on specialty crop gardening, the nutritional benefits of locally-grown food, the physical benefits of gardening, and the economic resourcefulness of local produce programs.
• Practical Farmers of Iowa – $24,000 to enhance collaborative on-farm research and farmer to farmer knowledge sharing for successful specialty crops in Iowa.
• Iowa Food Hub dba Allamakee New Beginnings – $10,500 to enhance the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP)/Good Handling Practices (GHP) cost share program for Iowa fruit and vegetable producers.
• Iowa Honey Producers Association – $8,581 to establish an online searchable bee law website for general public use.
• Lutheran Services of Iowa – $24,000 to help refugees in Iowa improve their production of specialty crops and increase the availability of their produce to the public and to begin to transition their specialty crop businesses to independent operations.
• Iowa City Parks and Rec – $23,990 to create and teach within edible classrooms in order to promote specialty crops in Iowa City for community involvement at the Robert A. Lee Recreation Center.
• New Hope Community, Inc. – $22,643 to establish and create the Mahaska County season extension demonstration project for specialty crop production.
• Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s Farm to School Program – $14,900 to teach students through hands-on lessons about all aspects of gardening and healthy environmental alternatives to composting in a specialty crop environment.
• Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship – $46,693 to conduct the Iowa commercial horticulture food crops survey and economic impact study.
• The Iowa Wine Trail – $24,000 to increase awareness of specialty grape crops in Iowa through a marketing campaign.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A federal agency has awarded contracts to two companies to manufacture a bird flu vaccine. But officials haven’t decided whether to give the doses to poultry to protect against a disease that led to the destruction of 48 million chickens and turkeys this spring. The Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday it had awarded contracts to Harrisvaccines of Ames, Iowa, and Ceva, a company based in France. The USDA didn’t release the cost of the contracts.

As part of the agreement, the companies agreed to manufacture an unspecified number of doses, store them for up to five years and deliver them throughout the U.S. within 10 days. The USDA says it would need to decide whether the treatment would be effective and weigh potential trade effects before using any vaccine.

The latest U-S-D-A crop report shows the harvest is 12 days ahead of last year for corn and 10 days ahead for soybeans, but one section of the state is lagging well behind those numbers. Iowa State University agronomist Aaron Saeugling monitors 12-southwest Iowa counties.  “In southwest Iowa it’s going to be a long fall,” Saeugling says.

That’s because constant rains, some often several inches, delayed planting and kept some fields from being planted. That makes for a lot of different scenarios in the fields. ”I’ve got producers who are wrapping up soybeans and I’ve got producers that haven’t started,” according to Saeugling.

It’s not all of southwest Iowa — not even all of some farms. “So for those guys it’s kind of bittersweet,” Saeugling says, “they’ve got fields that are yielding better than they ever dreamed of. They’ve got fields they won’t harvest.” Either way, the area is well behind the statewide average for corn of 20 percent harvested and 65 percent for soybeans. “If I had to average — probably pushing really close to fifty-percent on beans. Corn right now, maybe twenty percent,” Saeugling estimates.

In contrast, in northwest Iowa where things were drier, an agronomist reports two-thirds of the corn and nearly all of the soybeans are already harvested.

(Radio Iowa)

The Cass County Board of Supervisors had a brief meeting this (Wednesday) morning, here in Atlantic. The Board approved the final plans for Bridge #20 (Whistler’s Bridge), located about 2-miles south of Cumberland on 690th Street. Cass County Engineer Charles Marker said work on the project involves replacing the culvert under the bridge. The bridge is currently down to one lane because of the condition of the structure underneath it. A box culvert will be installed.

The culvert will have two, “shotgun-style” openings, or three, side-by-side, depending on the flow capacity needed. Bids for the project will be let later this fall. Marker said also, a meeting was scheduled to take place today (Wednesday) with the contractor pertaining to the bridge on Highway 83 near the Griswold Golf Course, with the plan being to pour concrete for the project Thursday morning.

Marker also planned to meet with the contractor for Bridge 247 located south of Anita. He said the contractor would like to start work on the pony truss bridge Thursday, as well. The bridge is being replaced because it is limited to the amount of weight it can handle.

And, the Board presented the County’s initial Collective Bargaining proposal to the Union representing the Deputies and Jailers. The Union last week had presented its proposal to the County for the FY 2017-through ’19 contract.

More area and State news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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The area’s top news at 7:06-a.m., w/KJAN News Director Ric Hanson

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Police in Creston say a man from Texas was arrested twice this (Wednesday) morning. At around 2:30-a.m., 38-year old John C. Jordan, of Katy, TX, was arrested for OWI/1st Offense. Jordan , who was released from the Union County Jail on $1,000 bond, was arrested again just before 6-a.m., also on an OWI charge. He was being at the jail in Creston, on $1,000 bond.

Creston Police report also, an ex-employee of RELEWIS Refrigeration, Inc., of Creston, failed to return a company vehicle and trailer after he was released from employment. A 2015 Chevy Silverado truck and 2010 H&H cargo trailer containing tools and company equipment valued at $85,000, were recovered in Texas.

And, a Creston resident reported to police late Tuesday morning, that someone broke into her camper and stolen a Nintendo DS, MacBook Air laptop computer, and a Black and Decker drill. The loss was estimated at $530. The theft took place sometime between 10-p.m. Friday and 7-a.m. Saturday.

CRESTON, Iowa (AP) – A 45-year-old south-central Iowa woman who’s been sentenced to 20 years in prison has been told to pay back the vehicle dealership she stole from while working there. Online court records say Lyndsay Huntsman was ordered last week to pay restitution of nearly $432,000 to Creston Automotive in Creston, where she’d worked for several years in the bookkeeping department.

She’d made a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to five of the six theft counts against her. Prosecutors dropped a charge of ongoing criminal conduct in exchange for Huntsman’s pleas.

Firefighters from Massena responded early this (Wednesday) morning, to a report of a possible residential fire at 202 Pine Street. The call from a woman who said her fire alarm was going off and who smelled smoke, came in at around 1:15-a.m.  A Cass County Sheriff’s Deputy who was in the area and was first on the scene, said he could smell smoke in the home, but wasn’t able to observe any flames.

After about an hour on the scene, authorities were able to determine a motor on an appliance had burned-up, causing the smoky smell. There were no injuries and no damage was reported. All fire units were back in-station by 2:20-a.m.