A farmer found peach blossom jellyfish on his property in Guthrie County, west of Des Moines.

The freshwater species originates from China, but is found on every continent of the world except Antarctica.

DNR officials say there have been a couple of other sightings over the years in quarries, but never in public waterways.

Kim Bogenschutz, the aquatic invasive species program coordinator for the Iowa DNR, says the jellyfish do not pose any environmental concerns and, due to their tiny size, aren’t able to sting humans.

DNR officials say there are theories on how the jellyfish ended up in Iowa, including migrating birds, fish stocking, or someone dumping their aquarium, which is illegal.

The Iowa Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the Linn County Auditor can pursue his lawsuit that questions the security of Iowa’s voter registration system.

In 2019, Linn County Auditor Joel Miller, a Democrat, alleged the state’s computerized database of registered voters is potentially vulnerable to cyber threats. Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, said Miller failed to give an example of a specific security threat and the Iowa Voter Registration Commission dismissed the complaint. The Linn County Auditor filed a lawsuit in 2020 and a district court dismissed the lawsuit last year.

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled Miller has the right to proceed with his lawsuit that questions whether the state’s computerized list of registered voters is vulnerable to hacking.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, in a written statement, said “first and foremost,” he wants to “assure Iowa voters that Iowa’s election systems are secure.” Pate said in the years since Miller’s complaint was filed in 2019, the state has installed “robust cybersecurity measures” in its election systems.

In a statement to The Des Moines Register, Miller said his complaint is still valid because Iowa is “using the same voter registration system that I complained about in 2019.”

Miller, who has served as Linn County Auditor since 2007, is not seeking reelection. In 2022, Miller was the Democrat who ran against Iowa’s Secretary of State. In that race, Miller questioned how Pate had spent several million dollars to update Iowa’s computerized voter registration system. Pate, a Republican who also lives and votes in Linn County, won that race with about 60% of the vote.

Iowa has seen a drop in emergency medical responders since the COVID pandemic started.

According to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services, the number of certified EMTs in Iowa has declined for seven straight years.

Mark McCulloch, former president of the Iowa Emergency Medical Services Association, says a lot of Iowans he talks to aren’t aware that EMS, unlike fire and police, is not considered an essential service in this state.

“Number one is awareness. I don’t think everybody understands the situation we’re in, and I don’t think everybody understands EMS is not considered essential, it’s not funded. You know your county is required to adjudicate your fencepost boundary disputes, but not provide you EMS.”

A law passed in 2021 allows counties to declare EMS an essential service and put a levy referendum on the ballot to fund it. McCullough says it’s a good start, but more needs to be done to attract younger volunteers.

“Iowans are special in a way. They care a lot about their communities and they care about the people they live around. And I think if more people knew that we need volunteers, we need responders, I think more people would answer that call. At the same time, as systems go, we need to try to make it an easier ask.”

He says paying for EMS training might be one way to bring more young people into EMS work.

Contributed

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UNI Athletics

This football season at the University of Northern Iowa, fans are delighting in watching a new four-legged member of the Panther Marching Band take the field at halftime.

Winnie, a golden retriever, is a service dog for sophomore student Gabi Riessen, who has a chronic condition called POTS.

“My heart rate fluctuates more than other people. I can get dizzy just standing,” says Riessen. “And so Winnie will warn me before I pass out, or if my heart rate is too high, so I can sit down.”

Riessen transferred to UNI when her old school didn’t allow her to join activities because she would need her service dog with her. Now, Gabi and Winnie are local celebrities.

“When we first spoke on the phone, the plan was, you know, she was not really gonna really do any marching,” says Justin Mertz, UNI band director. “But then we met her, we met Winnie, and we saw what they would both be capable of, and we agreed to give it a try. And the next thing you know, there's a dog on the field.”

You can watch them perform next at UNI’s Homecoming football game against Missouri State on Oct. 26.

Read more from Josie Fischels.

South Korean author Han Kang has won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. The writer was once in residence at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

Kang attended the prestigious program in 1998 as a young writer.

Christopher Merrill, the program’s director, says that Kang began as a poet, and that’s clear in her now award-winning novels.

“Her prose is very precise. It's a kind of chiseled prose, and she's the sort of writer who pays close attention to, sometimes just the most seemingly insignificant details.”

Merrill says Kang was among at least five other IWP alumni in the running for the prize. The Nobel Foundation has honored Kang for her, “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

Kang is the third IWP alum to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Read more from Josie Fischels.

While wind is a renewable energy, wind turbines don’t last forever. The wings have a lifespan of about 20 years, while some are replaced after just ten.

Wind turbine blade recycling has ramped up in Iowa, Missouri and now in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma’s first wind turbine blade recycling plant just opened and has started shredding the blades.

Scott Greene, professor at the University of Oklahoma and former director of the Oklahoma Wind Power Initiative, says it’s important to have a recycling plant open now for a couple of reasons.

“We don't want to waste things if we don't have to waste them. The other thing is, we're starting to get to the point of the end of life cycle.”

When the blades need to be replaced, they are taken down and later sorted at the facility. They are cut into smaller pieces, hoisted into a large metal machine and shredded into mulch-like bits. They’ll go to a recycling mill, to be broken down further and used in products like concrete.

Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines says it was selected by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to get funding for the Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience, or GUIDE Model.

Yogesh Shah is the medical director at Broadlawns Memory Clinic. He says the additional federal funding will allow the medical center to hire more care navigators to connect families with resources. He says one of the model’s main focuses is to provide resources and respite for caregivers.

“We have patients and families [saying] 'Now I'm at the cliff. I can't take it anymore. If I don't get help, I'm going to quit my married life,'" said Shah. "It comes to that level. So if we can provide that four hours of respite one time, that can resolve that problem.”

Broadlawns says it will launch the GUIDE program in July of next year.

According to state data, more than 66 thousand Iowans age 65 and older have Alzheimer ’s disease, the most common form of dementia.

The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously rejected an appeal that could lessen the sentence of Willard Miller, who pled guilty in the murder of his Spanish teacher in Fairfield in 2021 when he was 16 years old.

A district court sentenced Miller to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 35 years. His lawyer argued that sentencing a juvenile to a mandatory minimum without hearing expert testimony was cruel and unusual punishment.

The Iowa Supreme Court found the judge in the case was justified in his decision. According to the unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice Christensen, the Iowa Constitution also does not ban giving minimum sentences to juveniles and also does not require expert testimony."

October is shaping up to be just as dry as September, which is worsening drought conditions.

The new map from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows the patches of severe drought are growing in both western Iowa and in the northeast, now covering more than 7% of the state.

A much larger section, 49%, is considered in moderate drought, and that stretches across the majority of Iowa’s northern half and much of the west.

About 41% of the state is considered abnormally dry, while only about 2.5% has no moisture worries across a few counties in the southwest.

Forecasters say a cold front should start to arrive Friday that will bring progressively colder temperatures over the next several days, with the first frost of the season likely for Iowa next Tuesday.

There are little to no chances for rain for at least another week.

Both of Iowa’s U.S. senators have signed onto a letter asking federal agents to investigate whether pro-Palestinian groups on college campuses are linked to Hamas.

Sen. Chuck Grassley said he’s concerned Hamas is using “Students for Justice in Palestine” chapters to shape U.S. public opinion. If that’s the case, Grassley said those student groups should be registered as foreign agents.

“We ought to know who’s working for foreign countries as they try to influence foreign policy in this country,” Grassley said in September during a Senate meeting about the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

On Thursday, Sen. Joni Ernst said student groups can sometimes get federal funding or tax-exempt status and, if Hamas is funding National Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, those federal benefits should be cut off.

“If they are engaging in violent protests, if they are encouraging violent protests, then funding needs to be cut off or they need to re-register,” Ernst told reporters after an event in West Des Moines. “We want to make sure that they are following federal government guidelines.”

Over the past year, other members of Congress and dozens of Americans whose loved ones were killed in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel have called on the U.S. attorney general to investigate Students for Justice in Palestine. In a statement to Jewish Currents magazine last year, “Students of Justice in Palestine” said their critics are trying to shift attention away from Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

Iowa Democrats are hoping to reclaim seats in the Legislature this fall. In House District 43, which includes Johnston and parts of Urbandale and Saylorville, Democrat Tiara Mays-Sims is challenging two-term incumbent Republican Eddie Andrews.

Mays-Sims says strengthening public education is her top priority. That includes eliminating taxpayer-funded education savings accounts for families sending their kids to private school.

“We’ve got to get rid of that. It's taking too much money out of our public schools. One of the great things about being an American is that our kids are guaranteed a free, quality education.”

She says her other main goals if she’s elected are to roll back the law that bans abortion at around six weeks of pregnancy and to protect fertility treatments.

Andrews says he’s worked to expand mental health care in Iowa over the last four years in the Legislature and continuing that work is his top priority.

“My biggest passion has been, and will always be, providing better access to mental health care services, and health care services in general, but specifically for mental health, increasing the number of doctors here, which we’ve worked to do.”

Andrews says this includes supporting student loan repayment incentives for mental health professionals who stay in Iowa for five years.

Read more from Rachel Cramer.

Last year, the federal government allocated $129 million to help students experiencing homelessness get an education. That aid comes from a federal law that often falls short for rural youth.

A Midwest Newsroom investigation found that, in large rural swaths of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, hundreds of school districts report they don’t enroll any homeless students, even though other measures of poverty indicate that’s likely not true.

“Potentially half of students who are experiencing homelessness are not being identified,” said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a nonprofit advocacy organization for homeless education.

In 2022, the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity analyzed data and found some 300,000 students across the country are likely homeless and not receiving benefits they are legally entitled to receive.

Read the full story.

It's warmer and drier than usual in the Midwest this fall. Here's what that means for producers

Fall is typically a drier time of the year for the Great Plains and Midwest. But drought conditions have returned to the region, and experts are not seeing relief anytime soon.

Above normal temperatures and below normal precipitation are expected through the middle of October. For producers, this means some crops are drying out quickly during harvest.

But it’s also leading to more serious issues, says Dennis Todey, director of the U.S Department of Agriculture Midwest Climate Hub.

“We're starting to get low flow issues on the Mississippi River, and it's also starting to manifest itself in fire issues.”

In the beef industry, the ongoing drought conditions have shrunk cattle herds. Experts say if production continues to get tighter, beef prices will continue to rise.

Read the full story for Harvest Public Media’s Anna Pope.

IV fluids are used everywhere in the health care system, from the ER to operating rooms and dialysis centers. Hospitals across the U.S. are bracing for a shortage of these critical supplies after Hurricane Helene damaged the country’s largest IV fluid manufacturing plant in North Carolina.

Baxter International, the largest manufacturer of IV fluids in the U.S., told hospitals across the country that they will only get 40% of their IV fluid orders. This has pushed facilities to implement conservation plans.

Soumi Saha is the senior vice president of government affairs at Premier, an organization that contracts for medical supplies on behalf of hospitals across all 50 states. She says it’s unclear how long this shortage will last.

The FDA hasn’t put IV fluids on its official drug shortage list yet. If it does, this would lift some federal law restrictions and give authority to other facilities to compound the drugs.

Baxter and state and federal agencies are also working to bring the plant up and running as soon as possible.

Michael Leland

If you head outside late Thursday night and look north, you might catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights.

An aurora happens when charged particles from the sun interact with gases in Earth’s atmosphere. While seeing northern lights in Iowa isn’t unheard of, it’s not common.

Allison Jaynes, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Iowa, studies aurorae. She says we are seeing the northern lights south of where they normally appear because of what’s currently happening with the sun.

“That totally depends on what part of the solar cycle we’re in. The sun goes through an 11-year cycle, and right now we’re in the part where it’s really ramping up.”

She says the best time to view the northern lights will be after midnight, and it’s best to get away from cities and other places with light pollution.

If you don’t feel like staying up late, astronomers say a comet will make its closest pass to Earth Friday and Saturday, and should be visible near the horizon just after sunset.

Iowa, along with 19 other states and nursing home industry groups, is suing the federal government over a rule that would set new minimum staffing requirements in nursing homes.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is co-leading the lawsuit, along with Kansas and South Carolina, against the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The lawsuit claims a new minimum staffing rule proposed by the Biden administration exceeds CMS’s authority and says it will drive many nursing homes out of business, leaving residents with nowhere to go.

CMS finalized the rule in April. The Biden administration created the new standard in response to safety concerns in nursing homes stemming from inadequate staffing.

The new standards are set to be phased in over the course of three years and will include exemptions for facilities in areas facing severe shortages of nurses.

Read the full story.

Radio Iowa

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says peak viewing for fall colors in northern Iowa will likely start this week and run through Oct. 20.

DNR forester Joe Herring, who is based in Iowa Falls, says the leaves of one species of tree typically offer the brightest fall visibility.

“The maples are really the best color. They kind of steal the show. They give you the really nice reds, sometimes oranges and yellows, depending on the species and the location. Out in the more natural timbers, where we get more oak trees, they really comprise the best color later on in the season, like the second half of October and even into November.”

When most of the other colors are gone, he says the white oaks and red oaks will hold their leaves and offer pretty views. Herring says this latest stretch of dry weather should not dim the fall color show.

“This late drought that’s come on shouldn’t be a huge factor. If anything, it might help a little bit because we see that the fall colors tend to be improved when we get really kind of clear and dry, blue-sky days in September and October. It’s kind of warm days, but cold night that tends to help give us the best fall colors.”

Peak viewing across central Iowa is usually about a week behind the northern part of the state and may run through the third to fourth week in October. Southern Iowa may see good color into November.

After a season of storms that stretched across parts of Iowa, FEMA plans to close the state’s last two disaster recovery centers.

The locations in Clay and Sioux counties will shut down Oct. 12 at 5:30 p.m. However, residents still have until Oct. 22 to apply for federal disaster assistance.

Chad McCormick, external affairs officer for FEMA in Iowa, says at one point there were almost 25 centers open in the state.

“We try to provide grants; those are monies that do not have to be paid back. FEMA can't come in and make you whole — can't duplicate benefits relating to insurance. So, a lot of folks may receive a denial letter, and that's usually because we're waiting to see what the insurance is going to pay out.”

So far, FEMA has approved almost $70 million in aid for about 8,500 Iowa residents after tornadoes in Minden and Greenfield, as well as historic flooding in northwest Iowa.

McCormick says that starting next week, flood victims in northwest Iowa will have access to long-term disaster recovery centers operated by the state, where residents can get help with FEMA applications and state and local aid. One of those centers is already open in Pottawattamie County.

“It's been a significant year with tornadoes this year, flooding events across the Midwest, all the way down into Texas area. And then, as you see with the two current hurricanes that are coming in.”

McCormick warns there could be delays for people trying to contact FEMA’s call center because of hurricanes Helene and Milton.

The Des Moines City Council unanimously approved Major Michael McTaggart as the city’s new police chief Wednesday. McTaggart was chosen from the finalists by City Manager Scott Sanders and then the city council voted on the appointment.

Sanders said McTaggart had both extensive experience in the department and connections to the community.

“McTaggart stood out as a candidate, not only for his achievements and his abilities, but also for the relationships he has already built over his 25 years at the department, and having lived here in Des Moines as a Des Moines resident.”

As police major, McTaggart oversaw the Operations Division, the DMPD’s largest division that oversees patrols and community outreach. He has also been involved with the city’s Mobile Crisis Response Team and led the department’s downtown safety plan.

The Des Moines Register reported that McTaggart was named in a lawsuit with dozens of officers relating to the arrest of six protestors during the summer of 2020. The city recently settled that lawsuit for $800,000.

Earlier in the hiring process, the Des Moines Civil Service Commission ranked McTaggart seventh out of eight candidates. Joshua Wallace, a commander from the Chicago Police Department, was the other finalist in the running.

Rachel Cramer

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Iowa Public Radio

As we move into fall, many people are making trips to their local apple orchards and pumpkin patches. Income from this kind of agritourism have taken a jump in recent years, and farmers are getting more creative to draw in seasonal crowds.

The Community Orchard in northern Iowa is one of nearly 400 farms across the state that generates some income from agritourism. Agritourism is the idea of selling experiences — not just products — on a farm.

Traditional forms of agritourism include letting visitors pick their own apples, pumpkins, flowers and Christmas trees. In recent years, it’s become much more diverse. Some offer glamping and specialty dinners with local chefs. Others host flower arranging workshops, live music and food trucks. Paintball and pumpkin cannons are another option.

After steadily increasing for more than a decade, on-farm income from agritourism in Iowa jumped from $4.8 million in 2017 to $10.2 million in 2022, according to the latest U.S. Census of Agriculture, which was released in February. The number of farm operations with agritourism income increased by 10% across the same five-year span.

Read the full story.

Grant Leo Winterer

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Iowa Public Radio

A final stretch of the Cedar Valley Nature Trail is now paved, completing over 50 miles of continuous trail.

Over 30 bikers, hikers and residents came together to cut the ribbon on the completion of the trail on the 40-year anniversary of its founding. The trail is now entirely paved between Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Cedar Rapids.

One of the riders was Linn County Treasurer Brent Oleson. He has been using the trail since its inception, and said the paving was possible, in part, due to a change in the way Iowans think about recreation.

“I think through RAGBRAI, and biking, it’s become more and more popular. When I was growing up, you never would’ve advertised your home, when you went to sell it, as near a trail. You probably would put what school you were close to. Now, if you check, they’ll tell you what trail you’re close to.”

Another cyclist, Glenda Berry, met her husband while biking the trail in the 1980s. They often ride the 33 miles from Urbana to Waterloo, and she said the change from the old, chipped limestone and dirt makes a world of difference.

“It’s so nice and smooth. We ride to the depot in Waterloo, and it’s like, ‘Bump-diddy-bump-diddy-bump.’ This is so nice.”

The trail was originally developed from an abandoned rail line that ran between Hiawatha and Evansdale and completed with the help of about 30,000 volunteer hours.

Isabella Luu

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Iowa Public Radio

Iowa’s 3^rd District Rep. Zach Nunn and his Democratic opponent Lanon Baccam faced off in a televised debate Tuesday night. Moderators asked the candidates about their political affiliations, health care and other topics that concern voters this election cycle.

At the event hosted by KCCI-TV, Nunn said he is “100%” in support of both Social Security and Medicare and denied any affiliation with the conservative think tank report Project 2025.

“Those claims are absolutely false. I've never signed up for that. I've never even read Project 2025. As far as I understand, it's a Democrat talking point.”

KCCI moderators also pressed Baccam on deleted social media posts where he criticized former President Donald Trump and showed support for President Joe Biden's campaign. Baccam stated cleaning up social media is common and he is not hiding from “any of that.”

Baccam cited the Affordable Care Act and Medicare as key programs for helping close the health care gap in rural areas. He also said restrictive abortion laws can exacerbate access to maternal health care.

When asked to clarify his stance on abortion, Nunn said he is anti-abortion, but supports exceptions in cases of rape, incest and the health of the mother. He also said he supports protecting access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and contraception.

Iowa Supreme Court Justice David May is the only Iowa Supreme Court justice up for retention in the 2024 election.

In a retention vote, there is no other candidate. Voters simply indicate on the back of their ballot whether or not they want the justice to be retained — or kept in office. Usually, these retention votes pass with little fanfare. This year is, perhaps, a bit different.

This summer, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a law banning most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy can go into effect. May was one of the justices who voted for this decision. A group called Iowans for Reproductive Freedom began encouraging voters not to retain May.

But there are heated debates about what should inform a voter’s choice on retention, as well as the purpose of a judicial retention election.

Scott Peters, a professor and the head of the University of Northern Iowa’s political science department, said he doesn’t believe the common perception that the way the judiciary handles disputes of the laws can be separate from politics.

“Courts are empowered by the state to give authoritative renderings about what laws mean, and their decisions are backed by the power of the state,” he said. “Everything courts do is political.”

And if politics is already involved in the process, Peters said, then the retention decision is where voters get to weigh in.

Guy Cook, the former president of the Iowa State Bar Association and a double board-certified trial lawyer, disagreed with Peters' analysis. He argues that justices should not be punished by voters for one decision they make, and that to do so would undermine judicial independence.“

The retention election is not a referendum on a particular decision,” Cook said. “We don't have that process in Iowa. It's a question of whether the judge is doing his job. Is he following the code of conduct? Has he engaged in misconduct or not?”

He said voters should look at the Iowa State Bar Association’s review of judges to inform their vote.

Read more from Natalie Dunlap.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate launched a new effort to encourage veterans to vote in this fall’s election.

Pate is providing information to veterans’ organizations to help them register veterans to vote and get them to the polls. Leaders of veterans’ groups say they’ve already been doing these things, but they say Pate’s Veterans for Voting initiative will make a difference.

Pate, a Republican, says he believes veterans are already more likely to vote than non-veterans.

“They’ve already demonstrated their service to our country. But it doesn’t mean that they always know what the barriers might be to get to that finish line — to get the vote done. And that’s what we want to make sure — the barriers are not there, they’re removed. We want to facilitate access so that they’re there and can do their voting. I think that’s the main idea behind this.”

Pate plans to travel the state over the next month to promote his Veterans for Voting initiative.

The Iowa Board of Regents has approved a $280 million deal for University of Iowa Health Care to purchase Mission Cancer + Blood.

UI Health Care says the plan is to partner with the community-based health clinic Mission Cancer + Blood to create a cancer care network aimed at addressing Iowa’s high cancer rates.

UI Health Care’s Vice President for Medical Affairs Denise Jamieson says one of the appeals of working with Mission Cancer + Blood is the organization’s many partnerships in rural communities.

“We want to provide care to the Iowans who need it. And we want to provide care in Iowa to Iowans by Iowans. And so, we want to create a network whereby Iowans don't have to leave the state to get world class cancer care.”

According to data from the Iowa Cancer Registry, Iowa has the second highest and fastest growing rate of new cancers in the country.

The Iowa Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case challenging a land survey access law.

The law allows hazardous liquid pipeline companies to go onto private land after they hold public meetings and send ten days’ notice to landowners through restricted, certified mail.

Last year, Hardin County District Court ordered that landowner Kent Kasischke could not interfere with Summit Carbon Solutions’ survey on his property.

“Would a reasonable landowner believe that when they purchase property, they are subservient to the desire of any possible company to want to kick the tires even if they don’t have eminent domain powers,” said Brian Jorde, Kasischke’s attorney.

Summit did not have the right to use eminent domain when it filed an injunction against Kasischke in 2022.

Summit argues that a land survey is temporary and does not take property. Under the law, companies are required to pay for any damages.

Several groups, including the Iowa Utility Association and Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives filed briefs in support of the state’s survey access law.

Summit Carbon Solutions plans to capture CO2 emissions from ethanol plants in five states and transport it to underground storage in North Dakota.

Volunteer fire departments in rural Iowa continue to deal with a shortage of people willing to take on the job.

In Eagle Grove, located in north central Iowa, only two firefighters out of around 20 in the city’s volunteer department responded to a recent car fire.

Dwayne Hendrickson, fire chief in nearby Jewell and secretary-general of the Iowa Fire Chiefs Association, says rural departments across the state are seeing fewer young people volunteering to fight fires and respond to medical calls.

“Our own department is getting a little long in the tooth, as it were. We got several members basically in their 60s, going into 70s, that are still on the department, because those are the ones that show up. Younger ones work out of town and just don’t sometimes have the time to show up to emergencies.”

Hendrickson says Jewell recently absorbed the fire department of a nearby town because they were short of people. He says over the last several years, Iowa has been losing fire departments at a rate of up to 5% annually.

This year’s Iowa Climate Statement says big change is needed to stop an environmental crisis, but big change can start on a small scale.

David Courard-Hauri, environmental science and sustainability professor at Drake University, says leaders need to take action in order to avoid massive natural disasters in the future.

“We want to be clear that the solution is bigger than individual action. And we need leaders at all levels to enact policies if we want to avert even greater disasters than those we've seen all around us this year.”

Iowa just experienced the second warmest winter on record, and this summer brought historic flooding.

During a news conference Tuesday, science experts said people should buy energy-efficient appliances, electric vehicles and bike or walk to work to reduce climate-warming emissions.

Nearly 200 researchers and educators from more than 30 colleges and universities across the state endorsed the 14^th annual Iowa Climate Statement. They say a majority of their students feel anxious about the crisis, and a survey of 10,000 young people found that 84% reported being moderately to extremely worried.

Previous years focused on the importance of solar energy and the health effects of climate change.

After striking for nearly a week, workers at a Cargill plant in Cedar Rapids will meet with company representatives later this week to negotiate a new contract. A spokesperson from Cargill confirmed that both parties have talked with a federal mediator.

The union went on strike last Tuesday night after their previous three-year contract expired and Cargill failed to meet the union’s demands.

Representatives from the union chapter said workers a seeking an hourly wage increase of more than $3 and Cargill wasn’t offering competitive wages compared to surrounding plants.

Sheila Brummer

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Iowa Public Radio

When voters in the 4^th Congressional District fill out their ballots for the U.S. House of Representatives, they will see two familiar names: Republican incumbent Rep. Randy Feenstra and Democrat Ryan Melton. Two years ago, Feenstra beat Melton by a landslide.

This time around, one issue could make a difference for the challenger.

Eminent domain made Lance Kleckner, a lifelong Republican, rethink his political loyalty.

He operates a tree farm where Summit Carbon Solutions plans to run a carbon capture pipeline. The Iowa Utilities Commission approved the use of eminent domain for the project, which extends through five states, pending approval in South Dakota and North Dakota. With full approval, Summit could force construction on his family’s land.

Kleckner plans to support Melton, a Democrat, for the first time this November because he has been outspoken against the use of eminent domain.

“But even with a Democrat, there’s a lot I disagree with. But you just have to vote for competition. So, Feenstra becomes a little weaker. So, either he changes or he gets voted out.”

As for Feenstra, the two-term representative says the Summit Carbon Solutions project would benefit Iowa’s ethanol industry. But, he says, the company should listen to landowners like the Lance.

Read the full story.

Grant Gerlock

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Iowa Public Radio

Gov. Kim Reynolds and other Iowa lawmakers joined Jewish groups at the state Capitol Monday to mark the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war.

Posters honoring survivors of the attack circled the Capitol rotunda. Speakers reflected on what they called a year of tragedy and called for the remaining 101 hostages in Gaza to be freed.

Jarad Bernstein, director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, says when the war began, no one would have thought it would still be going a year later.

“Nor could we have imagined the antisemitism, which most in our community rarely experience during our lifetimes, could return with such a vengeance.”

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Rep. Zach Nunn attended the event, as did State Auditor Rob Sand and Gov. Kim Reynolds. Reynolds told the crowd at the vigil she continues to support Israel’s war against Hamas and its growing conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Around 1,200 people were killed in the attack on Israel a year ago. More than 41,000 Palestinians have died in strikes on Gaza by Israel.

Two helicopter crews with the Iowa National Guard continue to help communities in western North Carolina recover from Hurricane Helene.

The crews are flying Chinook helicopters to haul cargo to areas cut off by washed out roads and bridges.

Speaking on IPR’s River to River, National Guard spokesperson Jackie Schmillen said they have flown more than 150,000 pounds of food, water and other supplies to communities in the area. While they are on the ground, the crews also gather more information.

“They’re able to talk to the community members and say, ‘What are your needs right now?’ Maybe it’s diapers. Maybe it’s medication that’s not in that area right now. And they’re able to communicate that back with those specific coordinates so people can get the things that they need right now.”

Schmillen says the Iowa National Guard helicopters will stay in the region at least through Sunday, but the mission could change depending on the severity of Hurricane Milton when it lands in Florida this week.

Iowa DNR

Due to dry conditions, 45 counties in Iowa have active burn bans in place.

The ban prohibits most open burning, but this does not prohibit using outdoor fireplaces, barbecue grills or certain trash incinerators. A supervised, controlled burn with a permit issued by a local fire chief is also allowed.

More information is available on the State Fire Marshal website.

Preliminarily data indicates last month was the driest September in 152 years of records for the state. The average temperature was also about three degrees above normal.

Workers are still on strike at a Cargill corn processing plant in Cedar Rapids after failing to come to an agreement on a new contract.

Scott Punteney is the business agent for the local Teamsters chapter at the Cedar Rapids plant. Speaking on IPR’s River to River, Punteney said the company is bussing in workers from other plants to continue production.

He also said the company has not responded to the union’s request to negotiate.

“We haven't heard from them, and we've reached out through a federal mediator to try to resume talks. So we're willing to talk whenever, we were willing to talk the very next day after the strike happened.”

The union’s three-year contract with Cargill expired last week. Punteney said workers are seeking a wage increase of more than $3 an hour and are prepared to strike until the company meets their demands. He said striking workers are paid from a union fund to cover basic living expenses.

Cargill has not responded to IPR's requests for comment on the status of negotiations.

Small communities can sign up for assistance from the Iowa DNR to test for harmful PFAS chemicals in their drinking water supplies.

PFAS are man-made compounds that have been used to make things like stain-resistant clothing and nonstick cookware. This year, the EPA set a legal limit for PFAS because exposure can lead to developmental delays and behavioral changes in children and an increased risk of developing cancer in adults.

Water systems across the U.S. must begin monitoring for the chemicals. But DNR environmental specialist Kathy Lee says the analysis is expensive and it’s not something most small towns budgeted for.

“We’re trying to help these communities get their monitoring done in time and paying for it so they’ll have time to plan for the monitoring costs in the future.”

Lee discussed the testing program on IPR’s River to River. The DNR is paying for testing at the State Hygienic Lab and is paying the cost of shipping the water samples.

The program is available to most water utilities serving fewer than 10,000 people. So far, Lee says, around 400 of the more than 700 small water systems that qualify have signed up.

Every year, Midwestern states spend millions of dollars to control invasive carp species. The biggest goal is to stop them from wreaking havoc on the Great Lakes.

But Kasey Whiteman, a fisheries researcher for the Missouri Department of Conservation, says that fight starts in smaller creeks and rivers.

“So if you think about our river systems across the board and look in a map, it's like a giant interstate system… we all live downstream of somebody and there's always somebody upstream.”

Whiteman estimates Missouri pulled 43,000 pounds of invasive carp out of a tributary to the Missouri River – the most they’ve removed since starting three years ago.

Missouri officials say in the September outing they eliminated more carp than ever before.

“You know, we're kind of talking about a species that's kind of like cancer – that it just keeps spreading,” says Jim Garvey, director for Southern Illinois University’s Center for Fisheries, Aquaculture, and Aquatic Sciences. “ And we’re trying to control it, but it's in so many different places and so trying to come up with a sort of a silver bullet has been the challenge for resource managers throughout the U.S.”

Deer hunting season started Oct. 1 in Iowa, and in several western counties, hunters can only harvest bucks. These restrictions have been increasing for the past few years in response to a dropping deer population in western Iowa.

Jace Elliott, a deer biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said overharvesting and disease outbreak have caused deer populations to drop.

“If we lose deer hunters in western Iowa, of course, not only is that a loss of one of Iowa's most rich natural heritages, but also threatens our ability to manage that population in the future.”

Elliott said he sees support to maintain these restrictions and enforce further harvesting restrictions.

“That's something that we would explore in maybe three to five years, if we don't see the population respond in the way we expect. But right now, we have every reason to believe that our current harvest restrictions are going to start leading to a population recovery once that happens.”

Read more from Meghan McKinney.

The Democrat running against Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District says rank-and-file voters in the district have “massive” public health concerns that aren’t being addressed.

“None of us are happy with the fact, regardless of political affiliation…that we have a cancer crisis on our hands,” says Ryan Melton. “And that we have Republican elected officials representing this state in Des Moines and D.C. that are not even willing to acknowledge the problem, much less try to get to the root of the problem and begin mitigating it.”

Melton cites Palo Alto County, which has a cancer rate 50% higher than the national average. There’s just one other county in the country that has a higher incidence of cancer among its residents. Melton says more robust action is needed to encourage farmers to reduce the amount of fertilizer that winds up in Iowa waterways.

Melton says the added cost of treating drinking water to reduce contaminants and the sheer number of “swimming not advised” warnings this summer at state owned parks are concerning to Iowans, regardless of party. And Melton says there needs to be increased protections for public health and water due to the increase in large-scale hog operations in Iowa.

“You’re adding so much more manure to the landscape and yet you have not added more and more mitigation strategies to protect our waterways,” Melton says.

A team of about 70 Iowa utility workers is in western North Carolina, helping to restore power to tens of thousands of customers who were hit by the remnants of Hurricane Helene.

Line mechanic and crew leader Lee Tyler, of Le Mars, has worked for MidAmerican Energy nearly 20 years. Tyler says there’s nothing he’s seen in the Asheville area so far that’s surprised him, not after all of the storms, tornadoes and derechos that have lashed Iowa.

The crews are working mostly 16-hour days, and come home understandably exhausted to catch a little shut-eye in tents, trailers and trucks.

“As long as there’s sunlight, we’re out working,” Tyler says. “They’ve got breakfast for us back at the show-up area, and they do have trailers with bunks in it, but a lot of guys are just sleeping out in the trucks because the weather’s so nice out right now.”

Aside from the paycheck, Tyler was asked what keeps him motivated on this type of mission, working long hours in challenging conditions far from home.

“Just the fact that we’re getting power back on to all these people that have been without power for so long, and it disrupts their lives, not being able to have the power that they normally have during the day to do their daily activities,” Tyler says, “and everybody’s so thrilled and excited when everything comes back on.”

A simple thank you goes a long way, too. The Iowa utility crews were gratified to get up one morning to find someone had taped a hand-lettered thank you note to one of their bucket trucks, along with a heart and a smiley face.

“That was actually my truck that it got taped to, and yeah, we’ve had nothing but positive from everybody,” Tyler says. “Everybody’s honking and waving and thanking us as they go by. And yeah, it’s been a pretty positive experience, so far, from everybody.”

The city of Des Moines is down to two final candidates for police chief: Joshua Wallace, a commander with the Chicago Police Department, and Major Michael McTaggart of the Des Moines Police Department.

City officials held a meeting with community groups last week to give input on who should get the job. The questions were asked by city employees, and community members were allowed to ask follow-ups

Sharon Zanders-Ackiss, the racial justice and equity director with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, says Wallace offered more concrete ideas for engaging the community – such as a data dashboard, listening sessions and a community round table.

“We definitely wanted someone that believes and supports community engagement, a visionary, is open to working with community.. and just working together, just rebuilding our relationships”

Zanders-Ackiss says ultimately the decision is left up to the city.

Neither Wallace nor McTaggart were the first or second pick by the Des Moines Civil Service Commission, according to the Des Moines Register. Wallace ranked third out of eight candidates. McTaggart came in seventh.

City Manager Scott Sanders will next choose the final candidate, before it goes to city council for a vote.

Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott was in Iowa over the weekend and thanked Gov. Kim Reynolds for sending National Guard members and state troopers to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Reynolds says she’s proud to have sent volunteers to the border starting in 2021 as part of Abbott’s Operation Lone Star.

“I invited Gov. Abbott tonight so he can give us a real, raw account of the mess Kamala Harris has made at the southern border,” she said.

Abbott described his efforts to curb illegal immigration and the Biden administration’s attempts to block his actions. He says he came to Des Moines to thank Reynolds and Iowa taxpayers.

“Thank you for sending your National Guard and law enforcement officers to our border to help us secure our border and protect our sovereignty,” he said.

Abbott says Iowa National Guard members put up razor wire and helped stop immigrants from entering the country without permission.

Reynolds said she’s “almost become obsessed with this election.”

At her seventh annual Harvest Festival fundraiser on Saturday, Reynolds said Vice President Kamala Harris’s immigration and economic policies would be worse than President Joe Biden’s. She said this election is going to come down to turnout, and she encouraged Republicans to vote early.

One month before the general election, a sense of pessimism about life in the U.S. unites many residents of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, according to a set of new polls from The Midwest Newsroom and Emerson College Polling.

The Midwest Newsroom partnered with Emerson College Polling to conduct surveys of registered voters in these midwestern states between Sept. 26 and Oct. 2. The sample size was 1,000 persons in each state, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3% and a 95% confidence level.

When asked, “Do you believe things in the United States are headed in the right direction or do you believe things are on the wrong track?” about 70% of the respondents across these states answered “the wrong track.”

Emerson Polling Communications Director Camille Mumford said it is not unusual for Republicans to express pessimism about life under a Democratic administration and vice versa. All four states in the poll lean strongly Republican.

“Considering Joe Biden is the president right now, most Republicans in the survey were saying that the United States is on the wrong track and most Democrats saying it’s headed in the right direction,” Mumford said. “So, a larger majority of respondents in these states will say we’re on the wrong track.”

When asked, “Do you favor or oppose your state government passing laws that ban certain books from school classrooms and libraries?” more than half of the respondents said they oppose book bans, while under one third said they are in favor of the bans.

Schools and libraries across the Midwest have become a battleground for book challenges over the past few years. Some states have passed laws making it a crime to give children certain library books.

Read more of the results here.

The amount of precipitation across Iowa over the last 12 months was above normal for the first time since 2019. The Iowa DNR measures the state’s “water year” from October through September. The latest total reached 36 inches.

Despite ending the water year in a surplus, a record-breaking dry September is raising concerns for 2025.

The U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly all of Iowa in abnormally dry conditions or drought conditions. Portions of Monona and Harrison counties in western Iowa show severe drought.

This is the first time since May that any area of the state has carried a severe drought designation.

Statewide average temperatures for September came in at 67 degrees, which is 3.3 degrees above normal.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is testing the blood of five Missouri health workers for bird flu antibodies.

The testing will help determine if it’s possible for the H5N1 virus to spread through human-to-human contact. The workers got sick after contact with a hospital patient who tested positive for the virus. That patient is the only one in the U.S. to have developed the strain without reported animal contact.

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services spokeswoman Lisa Cox says their blood will be checked for bird flu antibodies.

“Everyone wants to study this as much as possible and find a source. At the same time, it's not uncommon to actually conclude an investigation and not actually determine a source.”

Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, says it’s likely the healthcare workers had more common respiratory illnesses, rather than contracting bird flu.

“The real concern would be, are we starting to see person-to-person transmission of H5N1? And at this point, we just don't have any evidence of that.”

There have been 14 recorded cases of bird flu in humans in the U.S. since March.

An annual free dental care clinic will be at the Tyson Events Center in Sioux City on Friday and Saturday.

“We will provide cleanings, fillings, root canals, extractions and a limited number of partial dentures, also known as flippers,” says Kiya Stack-Miller, a dentist who is co-chair for the Iowa Mission of Mercy event.

The clinic opens at 6 a.m. and is on a first-come-first-served basis. There is free child care available for those getting care, and youngsters can also get treatment.

“We will have a pediatric section in our clinic for kids who also need dental care as well,” says Stack-Miller.

They have 100 dental stations and X-Rays are available as well.

Dr. Dick Hettinger has been involved since the very first event.

“Since the first I-MOM in 2008 we have seen over 17,000 patients and provided free dental care totaling $12.5 million,” Hettinger says.

The clinic moves back and forth across the state each year and was last in Sioux City in 2018. They expect to see around 1,000 patients in two days.

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows nearly all of Iowa in abnormally dry or drought conditions, with portions of Monona and Harrison counties in western Iowa in severe drought. It's the first time since May that any area of the state has carried a severe drought designation.

Glenwood Fire Chief Matt Gray says the dry weather made conditions ripe for grass and field fires, and fire departments don’t have as many firefighters as they used to.

“Some of these fires are taking three, to four, to five volunteer departments to put them out. Then, you’re getting another one, and you’re having to split up resources – and sometimes, it overwhelms everybody,” he says.

Shenandoah Fire Chief Justin Marshall says farmers need to be working in the fields to bring in the crops and that increases the fire danger.

“The equipment tends to run, engines tend to run hotter with the temperature outside being warmer, that’s a concern. I think everyone’s been pretty good about not burning for the most part. Obviously, producers have to get their crops out. That’s always a risk when it’s this dry,” he says.

Marshall says there’s no rain in the forecast, so the risk will stay high into next week.

“We’re looking at hot, dry Saturday conditions, and quite windy, which has a lot of us remaining diligent and vigilant both, because we know the potential’s there. We hope not, but, yeah, it’s definitely a concern,” Marshall says.

The number of burn bans in the state has more than doubled this week and now includes 34 counties.

After failing to reach an agreement for a new, three-year contract, union members at the Cargill corn milling facility in Cedar Rapids continue to strike.

The Teamsters Local 238 represents around 100 technicians and other employees at the facility.

Joe Kirchhoff, chief union steward, says they are asking for base wages that are on par with what workers receive at other plants in Cedar Rapids.

“We’re not trying to base what we’re asking for on a similar industry 600 miles away. We’re talking [the] same type of industry in this same city.”

Kirchhoff says the last time the union went on strike was in 2007. It lasted around two weeks before an agreement was reached.

In a statement, Cargill said it offered a fair and competitive package and that the strike is disappointing, but the company is ready and willing to meet with the union.

Cargill is the largest privately owned corporation in the U.S.

A northwest Iowa man was arrested by the FBI for allegedly assaulting officers outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He is the tenth Iowan charged in connection with the riot

Earl Jordan from the town of Dickens in Clay County faces federal felony and misdemeanor charges. Authorities say the 50-year-old was caught on police body camera footage fighting with law enforcement officers who were trying to keep people out of the Capitol.

Jordan allegedly grabbed one officer by the throat. In a separate confrontation with police, he is accused of throwing pieces of a metal fence at a door. He was seen at the Capitol alongside his brother from Utah, who was also arrested.

Jordan’s charges include assaulting officers and obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder.

In the three-plus years since Jan.6, more than 1,500 people nationwide have been charged with crimes for helping break into the Capitol building.

Iowa election officials have been working to test all the vote counting machines that will be used in this fall’s election. It’s a routine process that helps ensure Iowans’ votes are counted accurately.

When Iowans go to vote in person, they will take their completed paper ballot and place it in their polling place’s vote counting machine. The testing underway now helps make sure that if there are any problems with the ballot — like marking too many candidates — the machine will flag them.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate says he wants Iowans to feel confident that the election results are correct.

“The pretesting we’re doing today is to let them know that the technology is working. And it’s public testing, so everyone can watch and monitor it. We have paper ballots — let’s not forget that that’s a way for us to be able to go back and do a complete review if we need to.”

Pate says each county also conducts post-election audits to check again that the vote counting machines worked properly.

Natalie Krebs

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Iowa Public Radio

A public sector union is calling on lawmakers to increase protections and wages for correctional officers following an attack at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison last week.

AFSCME Council 61 President Todd Copley says two officers were attacked last week by an inmate who had ripped a metal leg off of a desk in his cell.

Copley says since the beginning of this year, there have been more than 150 assaults on correctional officers in Iowa. He called on Gov. Kim Reynolds and state lawmakers to improve working conditions and pay.

“Nobody wants to get attacked for $24 an hour. There was a time when a correctional officer position was honorable. It still is, it's just not compensated the way it should be.”

Reynolds’ office and the Iowa Department of Corrections each issued a statement saying they are dedicated to improving workplace conditions at Iowa’s state prisons and are investigating the incident from last week.

Read more.

Iowans will hear some new terminology when the winds of winter start to blow.

National Weather Service meteorologist Chad Hahn says the agency is abandoning a few familiar terms in favor of language that is a little more direct.

“You may be familiar with the wind chill warning, the wind chill watch — those are going to become extreme cold warnings and extreme cold watches. Similarly, for the wind chill advisory, that’s going to be rebranded as a cold weather advisory.”

If the air temperature is -10 degrees, that’s quite frigid whether there’s a breeze or not, so Hahn says it makes sense to have an alternative to wind chill advisories when it’s not windy.

“It’s all going to fall under this umbrella of extreme cold. Cold is cold regardless of whether it’s blowing 50 miles per hour or if the winds are calm. You still have the same risk outside if you’re exposed for long periods of time.”

The term “wind chill” isn’t going away. As Hahn says, it remains very useful during the winter months to describe what the air temperature feels like with a combination of cold temperatures and sustained winds.

“We are going to continue to use wind chills. In fact, the criteria is still going to be driven by the ‘feels like’ temperature, the apparent temperature, which wind chill is part of. On the warm side, we deal with the ‘feels like’ temperature as the heat index.”

Radio Iowa

Gov. Kim Reynolds says it’s more than likely she will decide who to pick as Iowa’s next lieutenant governor after the November election.

“We want to get it right, not only for the team, but for Iowans. And so I want to be very thoughtful in how I do that.”

Adam Gregg, who had been Iowa’s lieutenant governor since mid-2017, resigned in early September to take the top job at the Iowa Bankers Association. During a news conference at the Statehouse Wednesday afternoon, Reynolds said she didn’t have a lot of advance notice about Gregg’s decision, and then left on a ten-day trade mission to India. The governor indicated she and her staff are collecting the names of people she might consider, but interviews have not begun.

“We’re putting the process together and doing what we need to be doing. And we’ll probably make that decision after the election.”

Former Gov. Terry Branstad chose Reynolds as his running mate in 2010, and she took over as governor when he resigned to become U.S. ambassador to China. The person Reynolds chooses as lieutenant governor is likely to be her running mate in 2026, if she runs for reelection.

ISU Extension and Outreach

Many millions of tiny insects called minute pirate bugs are swarming our yards in recent weeks, and their bite, while tiny, can be a doozy.

Ginny Mitchell, education program coordinator at the Iowa State University Insect Zoo, says they are an appropriately named creature, as they are only about one-eighth to one-twelfth of an inch long.

“They’re called the minute pirate bug because they’re minute — they’re very, very small. You can’t see them, which is why some people also call them no-see-ums. But the no-see-um is actually a little fly.”

Are they beneficial to the environment?

Mitchell says farmers and other growers should love the minute pirate bugs, as they perform a very valuable service during the spring, summer and early fall, though they are an absolute terror if you happen to be a smaller bug.

“They eat plant pests. So, they’re eating the little aphids and flying midges and scale insects, all the different little insects that eat our plants. So, they’re very, very important. They have a piercing, sucking mouth part, so they actually stab their prey and then suck all the juices out of it.”

How to avoid their painful bite

Why are there so many of these itsy-bitsy biting beasts all of the sudden? Minute pirate bugs usually feed in the tree canopy or in a field, and as the trees start to lose their leaves and the harvest is underway, they have to look elsewhere for food.

Mitchell says the best way to stave off a minute pirate bug is to wear long pants, long sleeves, and dark colors.

“Bug sprays do not work with these guys. They’re going to fall and land on you no matter what type of insect repellent you have on you. They are not attracted to you for food like mosquitoes are. They’re just happening upon you, and then they stab you with their mouth part, which hurts really bad.”

If you are bitten, use soap and water or hand sanitizer right away. There are various creams and ointments that can bring relief, though Mitchell says a dab of raw honey may also do the trick.

The sting of the minute pirate bug can be very painful, which some people attribute to venom, poison, acid or even the bug’s urine. None of those are true, Mitchell says, but they do secrete a type of saliva or enzyme.

“It helps to break down their food. Now, they can’t eat us, and that enzyme does not work to break down us, but it can cause a little bit of irritation in some people. So, some people get bit and it’s just like being poked with a needle, and then it goes away. Some people will have a bite similar to a mosquito bite, and this varies from person to person.”

If you find an insect in your house, or even in the wild, Mitchell usually advocates not killing it, but she takes a different tack with minute pirate bugs. Squish as many as you want, she says, “there are gazillions of them in Iowa.”

Rachel Cramer

/

Iowa Public Radio

A dockworkers’ strike that includes ports in the Gulf of Mexico could directly affect fresh produce in grocery stores. The impact on grain prices may come later.

Chad Hart, an economist at Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, says with harvest underway, farmers are nervous. Around 60% of U.S. grain exports travel by barge on the Mississippi River and exit through the Gulf.

“The big lesson we learned from COVID is any disruption in supply chain sort of ripples through the economy.”

The union that’s striking handles container goods — like cars and perishable fruits and vegetables.

Hart says corn and most soybeans move through bulk shipments — not containers. But traffic jams on the Mississippi could make it harder to move grain, which tends to depress prices for farmers.

Hart says the effects will likely depend on how long the strike lasts.

Gov. Kim Reynolds says her recent trade mission strengthened Iowa’s relationship with India and could lead to major economic opportunities for the state.

Reynolds says India is an attractive market for Iowa’s crops, livestock, biotechnology and manufactured goods. She says India will have to modernize its agriculture sector to boost production and may someday accept genetically modified foods.

Reynolds also says she and other Iowa government and business leaders are working to be a part of those changes.

“We’re going to go back next year, because it can’t be a one and done. This is something that we believe is the right thing to do for our state and for our farmers and manufacturers and biotechnology.”

The head of the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce says they already hosted a business from India that they met on the trip about a potential investment in the Quad Cities. And because of the trip, a biotech company called PowerPollen signed a letter of intent to bring its technology to India for the first time.

One of the two finalists to become Des Moines’s next police chief is $840,000 in debt, according to bankruptcy filings from this year. Joshua Wallace is currently a police commander from the Chicago Police Department.

Wallace filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy earlier this year. More than half of his debt is tied to a $452,000 mortgage loan. The rest is from student loans, credit card debt and unpaid taxes.

Chicago residents have also named Wallace in at least six civil lawsuits, resulting in payouts to plaintiffs of more than $480,000, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Wallace and Michael McTaggart of the Des Moines Police Department were named finalists for the position by the City of Des Moines last week.

Chicken has never been more popular in the United States, but it’s been a rough year for some chicken farmers. Tyson Foods — the nation’s largest chicken producer — has been closing processing plants, sometimes putting chicken farmers out of business.

Tyson pioneered the system of “vertical integration” in the chicken business. It’s been a runaway success in terms of production efficiency and has been widely adopted across the industry, transforming the nation’s poultry farming. U.S. chicken meat production has climbed by almost 600% in half a century, with a lot fewer farmers involved. But, Kansas City lawyer Brandon Boulware says the vertical integration is a hardship for the farmers involved.

“These farmers essentially become sharecroppers on their own land,” Boulware said. “Tyson controls every aspect of the grow process. And there’s only one company that’s going to pay him for the chickens, and that’s Tyson.”

That was especially true in southeast Missouri. Tyson’s Dexter, Mo., complex was the only chicken processing plant in the region, making Tyson the only company farmers could do business with.

And then, suddenly, last August, Tyson closed the Dexter plant. Some farmers sued, alleging that Tyson sacrificed their farms to raise the price of chicken.

Read the full story from Harvest Public Media’s Frank Morris.

Iowa 2^nd District Rep. Ashley Hinson is criticizing the Biden administration’s role in the East Coast port strike.

Hinson, in part, placed the blame for the strike on what she deemed a too-passive Biden administration, saying that the president is “taking a backseat” instead of acting as commander in chief.

In her weekly press call, the Republican representative also raised concerns about the long-term economic damage should the strike last a full two weeks.

“The cost to the American economy, I heard, is about $5 billion a day. And a two-week strike, if it lasts that long — hopefully it doesn’t — could have significant implications all the way into next year.

The White House has backed the port workers union in ongoing negotiations.

An Iowan who became a reality TV star on the hit show American Pickers has died.

Davenport native Frank Fritz, 58, died Tuesday night, according to the administrator of a public Facebook page called Frank Fritz Friends.

American Pickers co-host, Mike Wolfe, posted a tribute on Instagram, calling Fritz “a dreamer who was just as sensitive as he was funny.”

American Pickers launched in 2010, and Wolfe said few “would have ever dreamed the two would share the cockpit of a white cargo van in front of millions of people interested in their adventures.”

Wolfe, along with other friends, were with Fritz Tuesday night. Wolfe said after sharing so many miles together, he was “blessed that he was there when Fritz took one last journey home.”

Fritz had several health issues and had not been on the program since 2020. He suffered a stroke in July 2022.

Members of the Teamsters labor union at the Cargill corn processing plant in Cedar Rapids are now on strike after the company and its workers failed to reach a new contract.

Teamsters Local 238 represents around 100 technicians and other employees at the facility. The union says workers voted “overwhelmingly” to order the work stoppage to try to reach a deal with more competitive wages that will keep up with the cost of living.

Cargill is the largest privately owned corporation in the U.S.

In a statement, Cargill said it offered a fair and competitive package, and that the strike is disappointing, but the company is ready and willing to meet with the union.

A top official with the Environmental Protection Agency says the agency is still reviewing a petition by an environmental group asking for federal authorities to take over enforcement of clean water laws from the Iowa DNR.

In July, the Sierra Club of Iowa petitioned the EPA, claiming the state agency is failing to stop harmful levels of nutrients from reaching waterways.

Bruno Pigott, who leads the EPA Office of Water, says if the agency agrees enforcement in Iowa is falling short, state authorities would have a chance to change course before federal regulators step in.

“We determine whether or not we agree that those are concerns that need to be addressed, then we go back to the state, and if we see that those concerns haven't been addressed — or that there are concerns that need action — we ask them to take this action.”

Pigott discussed the petition on IPR’s River to River.

He also highlighted projects the EPA is helping fund in Iowa to improve water quality, including a $348 million upgrade to the Cedar Rapids wastewater system.

One of two University of Iowa students accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a fraternity party in 2020 and filming it has been dismissed from the case.

The student, Jacob Meloan, and his fraternity Phi Gamma Delta — also known as FIJI— have reached “resolutions” with the victim outside of court.

The woman, Makena Solberg, originally filed a lawsuit against Meloan, FIJI and another fraternity member, Carson Steffen, in 2021. The allegations sparked large protests at the fraternity house.

Steffen is still a defendant in the case. The civil trial is set for November in Tama County.

Even after facing devastating flooding this summer, officials with the Clay County Fair in Spencer say this year’s event was a success.

Preliminary numbers released Tuesday show fairgoers spent more than ever before on rides, food and drinks. The total was more than $3.3 million — breaking the record set last year.

Nearly 300,000 people attended the nine-day event last month. It is considered one of the country’s largest county fairs, with more than 450 exhibitors and vendors from 37 states.

The fairgrounds have served an important role in helping Spencer after historic flooding hit in June. It’s where FEMA set up a recovery center and where people are still living in emergency housing.

Read more.

Mae Dulay

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Unsplash

Most fixed traffic speed cameras in cities across Iowa are being turned off after the Iowa Department of Transportation denied permits to operate them. The decision stems from a new law regulating traffic cameras in the state.

The law required local governments with cameras that automatically issue speeding tickets to apply for a permit from the DOT to continue operating their systems. The DOT approved 11 of the 139 fixed cameras, which are in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Davenport, Le Claire and Marshalltown. Five other cities can use mobile speed cameras. Eighteen communities were fully denied permits for automated speed enforcement.

Prairie City was one town that had to turn off its three fixed cameras. The mayor, Chad Alleger, says he is surprised by the DOT’s denial because the cameras reduced speeding near schools.

“The purpose is to make our community safer, so I don’t understand why you would deny the communities a way to do that.”

The DOT says a seven-member panel made the decisions based on the law, which says cameras can be approved if they’re appropriate, necessary and the least restrictive way to address traffic safety at those locations.

Read more and see a list of cities with speed cameras.

Courtesy of Amy Peterson

/

Estherville News

A former north central Iowa mayor will not serve any jail time in a case that prosecutors called a “long-running corruption scheme.”

A plea deal kept 73-year-old Greg Buum from facing several felony charges. Buum and other city employees in Armstrong were arrested in 2021 for misappropriation of city funds and other crimes.

His son-in-law and former Armstrong Police Chief, Craig Merrill, received a deferred sentence last month. He was accused of using a taser on people for money. Three others also received deferred judgements, which means their records will be wiped clean.

An Emmet County judge gave Buum a suspended sentence and two years’ probation for six misdemeanor counts.

Estherville News reports Buum’s attorney says Buum is working in construction and delivering papers and is ready to move forward, especially with recent health scares.

Congress has failed for a second year to pass a new Farm Bill. The one-year extension of the legislation expired Monday, and the temporary spending package Congress approved last week to keep the government operating through Dec. 20 did not include even a temporary continuation of Farm Bill policies.

Iowa’s 3^rd District Republican Rep. Zach Nunn hoped the U.S. House would vote on a version of the Farm Bill that won bipartisan approval in the House Committee on Agriculture four months ago.

“I wrote a specific letter to the speaker of the House asking that it come to a vote before we leave town,” Nunn said.

Congress is now on recess through Nov. 12. Nunn said even if the House had taken action, the Senate Committee on Agriculture hasn’t developed its version of the five-year Farm Bill.

“We all know it takes two parties to tango on this and the reality is the Senate hasn’t even so much as jotted down on a napkin what their plan is going to be on the Farm Bill,” Nunn said.

He acknowledged Congress will not revisit Farm Bill negotiations until after the election.

“I think we’ve got an opportunity in the lame-duck session for Debbie Stabenow, who’s the senior member on the Democratic side in the Senate, to say, what does she want her legacy to be? A legacy of passing a Farm Bill that helps not just Iowa farmers, but helps feed the entire country and fuel the world? Or do we want to have gridlock for no real reason?” Nunn said.

Rep. Randy Feenstra, the Republican who represents Iowa’s 4^th District, is also a member of the House Committee on Agriculture. Feenstra said in a written statement released Monday that it’s been “nearly 130 days” since that committee passed its version of the Farm Bill.

Feenstra said, “Given low commodity prices and declining farm income,” Congress needs to approve a new Farm Bill to “deliver certainty and relief for… Iowa agriculture.”

Ryan Melton, the Democrat running against Feenstra, said on social media that Feenstra is serving in “the least productive U.S. House in modern history” and the Farm Bill is long overdue.

An Illinois man is suing a Des Moines transportation company for race-based discrimination after he was allegedly fired for not cutting his dreadlocks. Twenty-four states currently ban hair-based discrimination, but Iowa does not.

According to the lawsuit, Drew Harvey claims an HR employee at TMC Transportation told him he needed to cut off his dreadlocks for safety reasons or he would be fired. Harvey claims he told the employee his hair was culturally and spiritually important to him and offered other ways he could meet the requirements, such as by trimming his hair or purchasing a different hard hat. The HR employee allegedly rejected all the options.

Harvey’s lawyer, Ben Lynch, told IPR he has not heard anything from the company since filing the lawsuit. Lynch represented a Black client in 2021 who claimed he was discriminated by the same company for his hair.

TMC Transportation declined to comment.

MidAmerican Energy

Dozens of utility workers from Iowa are now in Ohio helping restore electricity to thousands of homes and businesses in areas where the remnants of Hurricane Helene caused widespread damage over the weekend.

Geoff Greenwood, a spokesperson for MidAmerican Energy, says they sent about 70 line workers and support crews to Cincinnati after staging with their big bucket trucks in Des Moines and Davenport Friday night.

“They got to the Cincinnati area on Saturday night, and they got to work. They’ve been working very long days. On the average, about 16-hour days. They’ve made a lot of progress, and these are largely residential areas. It’s the same type of work that they would do here, but obviously the magnitude is much greater right now because of the need.”

There are areas of the south and southeastern U.S. that were much harder hit by the storm’s remnants than Ohio, and Greenwood says the Iowa crews that are now in the Cincinnati metro are expecting to get another assignment very soon.

“Right now, in the U.S., there are about a million customers still out in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. So, we’re in a bit of a holding pattern. Our crews will continue working in the Cincinnati area throughout the day, but it’s likely that they will get a request to go farther east.”

At the peak, about 140,000 Cincinnati area customers were without power, and by 9 a.m. Monday, only 3,000 or so remained offline.

Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy serves 820,000 electric customers in Iowa, Illinois and South Dakota. They serve 797,000 natural gas customers in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and South Dakota.

The City of Waterloo is joining Des Moines and Cedar Rapids in rethinking how it looks at bicycle safety.

The city has just completed its first quarter-mile stretch of revamped bike lanes downtown. They have also moved the lanes from hugging the street curbs to outside parallel parking spots and painted the lanes green, just as larger Iowa metros have done.

Kyle Durant, transportation planner with the Iowa Northland Regional Council of Governments, which helped implement the changes, says shifting the lanes clears up confusion and safety concerns for the city’s cyclists.

“Users were confused about the layout, and also riding along the curb, they were concerned about slippage and wiping out.”

Durant says that the green paint also helps with cyclist visibility and traffic flow.

Rainfall in the spring and early summer briefly relieved a years-long drought in the Corn Belt. But it also contributed to elevated nitrate concentrations in many of the region’s waterways.

During dry years, nitrates from soil microbes and farm fertilizers can accumulate in fields. When the rain returns, a lot of it flushes into rivers, lakes and sources of drinking water.

Kim Lutz, executive director of America’s Watershed Initiative, which works across 31 states, says the problem is getting worse.

“As we're getting more extreme weather events, especially in the Midwest, that's liberating a lot of the things in the soil that are legacy pollutants.”

Lutz says this pollution is a problem for habitats in and around affected waterways, and it’s hurting industries like fishing and tourism.

It’s also costing communities a lot of money to treat drinking water. But Lutz says new federal funding and conservation practices like cover crops can help.

Read more from Harvest Public Media’s Rachel Cramer.

Radio Iowa

Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Bondurant, says state officials are investigating a group that recruited a fellow Republican to run against Nunn as an independent.

Joe Wiederien of Scranton withdrew his name from the general election ballot and attended Nunn’s campaign fundraiser last weekend. Nunn asked him to stand and be recognized.

“When you try and steal an election by taking advantage of [a] guy like Joe, or any Iowans in this room, I don’t care what your party — we fight back,” Nunn said, pounding the lectern.

As the crowd applauded, Nunn added, “Joe, thank you for what you’re doing.”

An Associated Press investigation published earlier this month found a group called the Patriots Run Project recruited candidates to run as independents in six congressional races, including Nunn’s 3^rd District.

“The [Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation] is currently investigating, so we won’t go into the investigation. But he took his name of the ballot because he realized Democrats knew that the only way they could win in Iowa is to steal elections, to do this kind of dark arts,” Nunn said.

The Patriots Run Project also tried to recruit a candidate to run as an independent against 1^st District Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, but failed to collect enough signatures on the nominating petitions.

“The Democrats are pouring money into Zach’s race, my race and they’re recruiting people from anywhere to run against us,” Miller-Meeks said during her brief remarks at Nunn’s fundraiser. “Why? Because they think they can lie and buy their way into Congress and the White House.”

A spokesperson for the main campaign group supporting Democrats running for U.S. House seats said the organization had no knowledge or involvement in the Patriots Run Project activities in Iowa or elsewhere.

A former north central Iowa mayor is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday in a multi-year criminal case that involved other city employees.

Former Armstrong Mayor Greg Buum originally faced a trial in a case that prosecutors called a “long-running corruption scheme” that involved misappropriated city funds and a coverup.

Buum, 73, reached a plea deal Sept. 23 where he no longer faces any felonies. He entered an Alford plea for three counts of tampering with records, which is an aggravated misdemeanor. An Alford plea means he does not admit guilt but believes there is enough evidence for a conviction.

Court documents also state he entered a guilty plea for three other crimes, including misconduct in office.

His son-in-law, Armstrong’s former Police Chief Craig Merrill, received a deferred sentence and a two-year probation after reaching a plea deal. Merrill was accused of using a taser on people in exchange for cash.

Three other city employees entered guilty pleas and received no jail time.

Madeleine Charis King

Iowa is one of many Republican-led states that enacted stricter voting laws after former President Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election by baselessly attacking mail voting.

This is the first presidential election since the Iowa Legislature cut the time allowed for all forms of voting and put new restrictions on voting by mail.

In recent years, Republican lawmakers have reduced the timeframe for voting by mail by more than half. They moved up the deadlines for requesting and returning absentee ballots, among many other changes. In spite of all that, Democrats and Republicans are encouraging Iowans to vote absentee — which includes voting by mail and in-person early voting — this fall.

Read the full story.

Isabella Luu

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Iowa Public Radio

A new charter school in northeast Des Moines held a ribbon cutting ceremony last week with Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Great Oaks High School and Career Center in Highland Park is designed to reengage students ages 16 to 21 who struggled in school or dropped out of high school. Students can take online classes and eventually graduate with a high school diploma.

Riley Galvin, the career readiness specialist at Great Oaks, says the school offers more flexibility for students, including some who work full time.

“They’re working full-time jobs to help themselves and their families, and then they’re coming in after work and doing some classwork with us for two or three hours a day, and they can work at home.”

Isabella Luu

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Iowa Public Radio

The school also offers career-specific classes in health care, construction, manufacturing and business. Great Oaks started classes Aug. 26 of this year and currently has 70 students enrolled. Galvin says the school eventually plans to have around 150 students.
Great Oaks has free tuition and is open to any student in Des Moines.

An emergency homeless shelter in Sioux City that planned to close on Oct. 1 will now stay open.

Shayla Moore, the executive director of the Warming Shelter, says the nonprofit did get enough money to operate this winter and for the next several years.

“We're all just so grateful to know that that there are people out there that support us and that people that don't know about us are now, you know, willing to learn and come visit and see what we do.”

The shelter opened 11 years ago to make sure no one on the streets died in the winter. Moore says when the weather cools down, an average of more than 100 people use the facility nightly, even more during extreme temperatures.

Moore says the shelter plans to work closely with local agencies to help the unhoused transition into permanent housing.

This week, the Sioux City City Council voted to give the shelter $150,000, in addition to another $50,000 provided earlier this year.

Food & Water Watch

Iowa is the nation’s top-ranking state for manure production. The state produces 109 billion pounds of manure annually, according to new analysis from Food & Water Watch.

Amanda Starbuck, the nonprofit organization’s research director, says Food & Water Watch estimates the livestock waste in Iowa is 25 times more than what’s produced by the state’s human population.

“But unlike human waste, this manure is untreated, spread on nearby fields. These confinement operations operate like sewer-less cities.”

An estimated 300 million pounds of manure were produced every day in Iowa in 2022.

While manure can add nutrients and organic matter to farm fields, Starbuck says the sheer amount is an environmental burden.

“So rather than actually providing nutrients to the land, it runs off in rainstorms, enters rivers and streams. It seeps into groundwater and ends up becoming an environmental burden, not a benefit.”

Food & Water Watch used the latest data from the U.S. Census of Ag and the EPA’s definition of medium-sized concentrated animal feeding operations to develop state rankings and create interactive maps.

The 20-year trends across the US show fewer farms but larger livestock operations.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird has filed a lawsuit accusing an out-of-state company and two of its top executives of failing to properly dispose of over a thousand decommissioned wind turbine blades.

According to the lawsuit, General Electric and MidAmerican Energy paid millions to a company in Washington state to cut up, transport and recycle wind turbine blades. The attorney general says that company, Global Fiberglass Solutions, illegally dumped about 1,300 wind turbine blades at parking lots in Newton and in fields in Ellsworth and Atlantic. The attorney general says those stockpiles posed an environmental risk and the company refused to act despite orders from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. The lawsuit seeks civil penalties of up to $5,000 per day — over a roughly five year period — for violations of the state’s solid waste disposal rules.

Both General Electric and MidAmerican Energy have had the blades removed from the three sites in Iowa and recycled out of state. General Electric has also sued Global Fiberglass Solutions for failing to dispose of retired wind turbine blades in Texas and in Iowa.

Studies show that ELL students, or English language learners, are at a higher risk of dropping out due to the challenges they face.

Vanesa Sanchez’s family moved from Mexico to Iowa for packing plant jobs. As a school child, she struggled with culture shock and a new education system.

“I would get some core instruction, but not very much," she said. "I wasn’t getting anything because I didn’t understand the language. It was exhausting.”

Heather Langenfeld, the Denison Community School District administrator, wanted Sanchez and other immigrants to feel at ease and grow as community members. After Sanchez graduated from high school, Langefeld called her and encouraged her to work for the district.

Now as a teacher working with second grade students in Denison’s dual language program, Sanchez wants to help students struggling like she did.

“I love their personalities. I love just seeing those aha moments in the classroom,” Sanchez said.

Read more from Sheila Brummer.

Iowa’s biofuel industry has been waiting on the U.S. Treasury Department to finalize rules that determine who qualifies for a new federal tax credit known at 45Z.

The rules are based on so-called “carbon intensity” scores, a measure of how much carbon is emitted in the production, distribution and consumption of a biofuel. The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association has warned biodiesel production could shut down at the end of the year if these rules aren’t finalized soon.

Chad Hart, an extension economist and professor at Iowa State University, says extending current tax credits would give everyone some breathing room.

“Trying to put new standards in place right now would be fairly rushed. In order for the standards to truly have impact, you need to have the time for not only the biofuel producers, but all the feedstock producers to be able to adjust their processes to take advantage of the tax credits.”

This week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation that would restrict the eligibility of the 45Z tax credit to renewable fuels derived from only domestically-sourced crops and extend the credit for seven years.

A federal appeals court heard arguments Thursday over whether it should let Iowa’s immigration law making illegal reentry a state crime take effect.

If the law takes effect, state and local law enforcement could arrest and charge immigrants who were previously deported or denied entry to the country and returned without permission. State judges could order them to leave the U.S.

The U.S. Department of Justice and immigrant rights groups sued the state, and a district court judge blocked the law’s enforcement earlier this year. He agreed with the DOJ that the law is unconstitutional and conflicts with federal immigration law.

The state of Iowa appealed and argued in court Thursday that the country is facing an immigration crisis, and this law is an appropriate response by the Legislature. A state attorney said Iowa would enforce its law in a way that doesn’t conflict with federal law.

The DOJ said only the federal government has the authority to control immigration. The federal appeals court could take several months to decide if Iowa’s illegal reentry law can be enforced.

Read the full story.

Sheila Brummer

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Iowa Public Radio

Three months after record-breaking flooding in northwest Iowa, residents say the recovery process is still ongoing.

Jeanne Derby’s home in the Riverside neighborhood of Sioux City was substantially damaged when the Big Sioux River poured out of its banks.

Even though it will still take some time before she can move back in, she is thankful for help from the federal government, the state and local organizations.

Sheila Brummer

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Iowa Public Radio

“The community came together. When I didn't have clothes, people dropped clothes off, people dropped shoes off. People I didn't know showed up to help tear my walls off. It was amazing.”

A local Long Term Recovery Group was formed to help flood victims connect with much-needed services. So far, FEMA has approved more than $3 million for 325 households in Woodbury County.

Another resident of the Riverside neighborhood, Deanna Mercure, says she received $26,000 from FEMA to help with home repairs and is hoping to secure another $50,000 in state funding. However, she admits that isn’t enough and she needed to take out a home equity loan.

“It was rough, and it still is. It's been the longest three months of my life. I was just devastated, thinking, ‘What am I going to do? I don't want to leave this house.’ And it just all fell in place with everybody that stepped up.”

The deadline to apply for individual assistance from FEMA ends Oct. 22 for the following counties: Buena Vista, Cherokee, Clay, Dickinson, Emmet, Humboldt, Lyon, Monona, O'Brien, Osceola, Palo Alto, Plymouth, Pottawattamie, Scott, Sioux, and Woodbury.

Rachel Cramer

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Iowa Public Radio

Former President Donald Trump says John Deere will face steep tariffs on machinery made in Mexico if he is reelected.

“Just notifying John Deere right now: if you do that, we’re putting a 200% tariff on anything you want to sell into the United States,” Trump said during a campaign event in Pennsylvania.

In June, Deere announced it would shift production of skid loaders and compact track loaders from its plant in Dubuque to facilities in Mexico by the end of 2026.

“They think they’re going to make product cheaper in Mexico and then sell it for the same prices they did before… make a lot of money by getting rid of our labor and our jobs.”

Since March, Deere has laid off about 2,300 workers at its plants in Ankeny, Dubuque, Ottumwa, Waterloo and the Quad Cities, as well as at its research and business offices in Dubuque, Johnston, Urbandale and Moline, Ill. Deere has said it’s responding to market conditions, as lower crop prices and higher interest rates have depressed demand for its equipment.

They have not responded directly to Trump’s comments, but a company spokesperson said it is “sometimes necessary to move less complex operations” to other locations in order to position Deere’s “highly value-added activities” in U.S. factories.

Democratic leaders in the Iowa House are laying out the top four issues they would address in the Legislature if they are able to chip away at the current Republican majority.

Their agenda includes putting more funding toward public schools, reversing the recently enacted abortion ban, lowering costs for things like housing and child care and legalizing marijuana for recreational use.

Recreational marijuana is already legal in Missouri, Minnesota and Illinois. Democratic Rep. Lindsay James of Dubuque says that makes it an issue Iowa lawmakers cannot ignore.

“The product is here — it’s here in our state — and the most important thing we can do with that reality is to say we want to regulate it so that we can have a safe product. And we want to regulate it so that we can keep it out of the hands of kids.”

Under Republican control, state funding for schools has gone up by 2-3% percent in recent years. Democratic leaders say they would invest more in education.

House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst, D-Windsor Heights, says Democrats would start by redirecting money going into Iowa’s Education Savings Accounts. That’s the program giving state money to families sending their kids to private schools.

“I believe that the funding we’re giving to school vouchers, which is hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money going to unaccountable private schools, should go to public schools instead.”

Democrats would have to gain significant ground in the Iowa House to enact their agenda. Going into the November election, Republicans control 64 out of 100 seats in the chamber. The GOP has controlled the House since 2011.

Madeleine Charis King

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Iowa Public Radio

The Iowa Democratic Party had to resend absentee ballot request forms to about 36,000 voters this month. The shape of the original forms prevented them from being automatically processed by the postal service.

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart says it’s an issue she’s confident the party is resolving.

“There was a change in postal regulations that took our vendor by surprise. And so those absentee ballot requests have been sent out again, and we have worked with our county auditors across the state to resolve that issue. So, we are confident that we can resolve all the concerns around that.”

An IDP spokesperson says the party received a call Sept. 9 that there was a problem with the shape of the ballot request form. The IDP’s mail vendor then found out the form they had used for years could no longer be processed by postal service machines.

The IDP says they sent new forms to the same voters on Sept. 17, along with information urging them to submit a new request in case their first wasn’t processed. More than 21,000 voters in this group have submitted ballot requests, according to the IDP.

Read the full story.

Michael Leland

Iowans are invited to lend a hand at the Department of Natural Resources eighth annual statewide Volunteer Day on Saturday.

Several parks across the state will host events to help spruce up trails and buildings, collect prairie seeds and repair picnic tables.

The organization Friends of the Ledges is also hosting a free event Saturday with special hikes, games and live music at one of the most popular state parks in Iowa. This year marks the 100^th anniversary of Ledges State Park in Boone County.

Iowa DNR and Friends of the Ledges are planning an official rededication on Nov. 9.

Pilot Knob State Park in Hancock County celebrated its centennial in September.

A report from the state auditor’s office Wednesday found that the city of Hamburg in southwestern Iowa mishandled state money issued after major flooding in 2019.

State Auditor Rob Sand says the city violated Iowa law by giving away city property to private citizens, including a house transferred to the daughter of a city council member. The city also issued an unauthorized payment of $50,000 to its economic development council.

Hamburg received over $1 million in grants and loans from the state to demolish abandoned properties and redevelop old buildings. Four of the six properties that were demolished had ties to the city’s public works director.

Sand says his office started a special investigation after receiving whistleblower complaints.

“This was not a routine review. We had numerous legally qualifying requests come in from the city of Hamburg.”

Sand says it's up to the Iowa Economic Development Authority to decide the next steps and any possible penalties for the city.

The U.S. House passed a bill this month that would increase oversight of Chinese companies with ties to the Communist Party that may attempt to buy farmland.

Chinese entities own less than 1% of American farmland. Still, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have expressed concern about Chinese-owned land being purchased near U.S. military sites.

David Ortega, a professor at Michigan State University who studies international food policy, says if the bill becomes law, it may become harder for farmers to sell products to China.

"China can very well retaliate and it would be far easier for a country like China to find new sources of agricultural products than it is for American farmers to find a new market for our products."

The Biden administration called the bill “unnecessary,” saying existing legislation achieves its aims.

Katarina Sostaric

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Iowa Public Radio

Two disability rights groups in Iowa are hosting candidate forums next month focused on issues faced by Iowans with disabilities. The seven forums across the state will feature candidates for the Iowa Legislature.

Disability Rights Iowa Executive Director Catherine Johnson says the forums provide Iowans with disabilities an opportunity to understand how candidates running for state office think through disability issues.

“It’s been our experience that people in general don’t think about disability unless you have a disability yourself, or you have a friend or a family member with a disability. So having the chance to connect early in an elected official’s career and talk about disability issues is really impactful.”

Each forum will have American Sign Language interpretation and captioning. The first forum is Oct. 1 in Council Bluffs.

Read the full story.

Grant Leo Winterer

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Iowa Public Radio

Two dozen Congolese immigrants have been adapting their indigenous crops to radically different growing conditions in northeast Iowa. They farm several acres at the Highland Park Community Garden in Waterloo, growing corn, amaranth and flowers, too.

The farmers say that the process of bringing native African crops into their Iowa garden has proven to be a challenge. For one, the climate of the Democratic Republic of Congo and northeast Iowa couldn’t be more different. Until recently, things hadn’t been growing.

Shaffer Ridgeway, a conservationist with the USDA, has helped shape community gardens in eastern Iowa for years. He worked with the Congolese farmers in Highland Park to raise their crops.

“Some of them are tough to grow here. It’s cold so late, and then suddenly it gets hot, but it doesn’t stay hot long enough for the plant to reach maturity.”

The DRC has a mostly tropical climate, roughly 80° year-round. It’s a world away from the Midwestern state that prides itself on near-monthly climbs and tumbles up and down the thermometer. On average, only three months each year in Iowa meet the temperature requirements for Congolese crops.

Despite the obstacles they have faced, their harvest leaves plenty to share. Read the full story.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley is blasting the U.S. Postal Service over a whistleblower’s claims that a registered sex offender got a job as a letter carrier, even though he revealed his status on the application.

Grassley says the postal service has refused his request for a list of letter carriers who are registered sex offenders, and he can’t say yet how many there are, or if any of them may be in Iowa.

He says Congress is entitled to the information, and that investigators on his staff asked the postal service for a list of all letter carriers on the payroll, to which the reply was: “Current employees’ names, titles and duty stations are generally considered to be public information and releasable,” but they then refused to provide the information.

Grassley says it’s infuriating and calls the situation “a disgrace.”

“Isn’t it odd that you make an application for a job, and you say you’re on the registered sex offender list and you still get the job? We asked, ‘Are they delivering mail near schools, homes, places where young people are?’ And they don’t seem to have that concern.”

Grassley says after the whistleblower told his office, and once USPS figured out what happened, the employee was placed on paid leave.

He says, “Our communities deserve much better.”

Madeleine Charis King

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IPR News

The Des Moines City Council checked another item off the list — installing more public restrooms — as part of a plan they want in place before the two homeless ordinances go into effect.

A 2024 report found Polk County needs more than $19 million extra to permanently house homeless individuals and families in the area. Last week, the Des Moines City Council outlined $300,000 for more outreach workers as part of its plan to enforce the new bans. 

Speaking on IPR’s River to River, Mayor Connie Boesen said Des Moines’ homeless problem is bigger than just the city.

“This cannot just be a Des Moines solution. It has to be a metro-wide area, and really, all of Iowa area to work on different mechanisms to help people.”

The city manager’s office reported that people have filed more than 200 separate complaints about encampments this year.

Charges have been upgraded for a 21-year-old man accused of killing a teenager in Calhoun County.

A news release issued Tuesday night by the county sheriff’s office says Nathaniel Bevers-McGivney now faces first-degree murder for the death of 17-year-old Michele “Luna” Jackson.

Jackson was reported missing Sunday night in Farnhamville, and her body was found in a cornfield the next day. The criminal complaint says Bevers-McGivney deliberately and premeditatedly cut her throat with a knife with the intent to kill her.

Court documents say her mother and sister saw the suspect while searching for Jackson, and he was covered in blood and had her scooter and other personal items.

Jackson’s obituary says she brought joy to those around her and loved swinging in the park.

Lucius Pham

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Iowa Public Radio

Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America. And while more courts can be found in cities like Des Moines and Davenport, rural Iowans are jumping on the trend, too.

Two years ago, Winthrop resident Dave Flexsenhar converted the hay loft in his barn into a pickleball court.

 “It wasn’t that long ago, there was 100 head of cattle here and this barn was full of hay.”

He plays with friends there in the winter every week, or on rainy days when they are in need of an indoor court.

“It’s a fun way to get exercise, interact with your friends.”

According to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, the number of pickleball players has tripled in three years. The game is played on a court about a third of the size of a tennis court. Up to four people use paddles to hit a plastic ball with holes over a net, like tennis or ping pong.

So far in 2024, more than 20 Iowa cities have opened new, public pickleball courts.

Read the full story.

A public sector union says two prison workers were assaulted by an inmate Monday at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison.

A news release from AFSCME Council 61 says an inmate attacked two correctional officers, leaving one with serious injuries.

In the release, AFSCME Council 61 President Todd Copley accused Gov. Kim Reynolds of not doing enough to keep prison staff and inmates safe. He is calling for the hiring of more prison staff, updated safety equipment and training, as well as an investigation of the conditions of Iowa’s prisons.

The Iowa Department of Corrections says it doesn’t comment on open investigations. But a spokesperson says they are committed to implementing best practices in security and training.

Three years ago, two prison workers were murdered by inmates at the state prison in Anamosa. The Legislature then gave the Department of Corrections a funding boost to hire more staff.

Election Day is just six weeks away, and very few of the 435 races for U.S. House seats are competitive. However, based on the amount of advertising alone, two of the congressional races in Iowa are getting national attention.

University of Northern Iowa political science professor Donna Hoffman said about 95% of incumbents in the U.S. House will get reelected.

“In Iowa, it’s about 85%, so there’s a little bit of a gap there,” she said.

Six years ago, in the 2018 election, Democrats were elected in three of Iowa’s four congressional districts. Republican won all four districts in 2022.

“So, it’s the notion of a swing in Iowa. It happens at the presidential level. It can even happen in these congressional elections, and they can even be competitive. Finding the right issues, getting the right cycle in terms of midterm [or] presidential election turnout — all of those things can combine to make for some surprising results.”

Christopher Larimer, political science professor at UNI, said while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is spending money on candidates in Iowa’s 1^st and 3^rd Districts, it’s hard to judge whether those seats will swing to the Democrats.

“We’re still kind of trying to figure out, ‘What are the atmospherics of this election going to be?’ As strange as that sounds, we’ve had so much change over the summer,” he said.

Larimer and Hoffman made their comments during a recent appearance on Iowa Press on Iowa PBS. The professors discussed their recently published research paper titled “Iowa’s Unique Congressional Competitiveness.”

Why more farmers are planting native landscapes in their crop fields

While corn and soybeans dominate the Midwestern landscape today, some farmers are integrating strips of native prairie back into their fields. This conservation practice has expanded to more than a dozen states, including Iowa.

Ranging from 30-120 feet wide, these bands of native perennials are placed strategically in a row-crop field, often in areas with low yields and high runoff. The prairie plants help improve the soil and protect more fertile fields from bursts of heavy rain and severe storms.

Research shows that converting as little as 10% of a corn or soybean field into a prairie strip can reduce soil erosion by 95%. Prairie strips also help reduce nutrient pollution, store excess carbon underground and provide critical habitat for pollinators and grassland birds.

Read the full story from Harvest Public Media’s Rachel Cramer.

Egg prices are higher than usual, peaking at around $3.30 in recent months. That’s mostly due to multiple bird flu outbreaks throughout the country that resulted in the loss of thousands of hens.

Lee Schulz, an economics professor at Iowa State University, says demand for eggs always goes up around this time of year. That, coupled with bird flu, sent prices up.

“Demand has been stronger than we've seen the last couple of years for eggs. And especially as you look at really the dog days of summer. I think that's where you really started to see the uptick in egg prices.”

However, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the price of wholesale eggs is expected to drop in the coming months. The wholesale price could reach $1.75 per dozen next spring.

Read the full story.

Sheila Brummer

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Iowa Public Radio

Sioux City’s Warming Shelter received a boost that could keep it from shutting down next month. The Sioux City City Council voted Monday night to provide $150,000 to the facility that planned to close Oct. 1 due to lack of funding.

Officials with the emergency shelter say local businesses and community leaders have stepped forward to help, but they stopped short of saying if the facility plans to stay open.

Sioux City Mayor Bob Scott says the city has received unfounded criticism for not doing enough to help.

“The demonizing on both sides has to stop today. We need to go forward in a positive manner, or you're not going to be successful in your fundraising and we're going to look awful stupid in the community for giving money out for a plan that doesn't work.”

One councilmember, Alex Watters, voted no to providing the money. He says even though he supports the shelter he wants a more definite plan on how it will remain financially sustainable.

Officials with the Warming Shelter say since it opened 11 years ago, no one living on the streets has died due to winter exposure in Sioux City.

A poll from The Des Moines Register shows that nearly 60% of Iowans oppose the state’s six-week abortion ban. Nearly two-thirds of Iowans believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart says the results indicate Iowa’s abortion laws are at odds with a majority of people’s opinions across the state.

“The polling makes it clear that this is an important issue for Iowans, that they are the ones that are saying, ‘Hey we’ve gone too far.’”

Although a majority of people surveyed support abortion access, the poll also shows that a majority in three out of Iowa’s four congressional districts prefer a Republican candidate over a Democrat. The one district where people favored a Democratic candidate is the 1st Congressional District, which includes Iowa City and Davenport.

The poll was based on phone interviews done with 811 Iowans, ages 18 and older.

A 20-year-old man is in custody in connection to the death of a 17-year-old girl in northwest Iowa.

A special agent with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation told IPR News that more information will be released about the case from Farnhamville — about 80 miles northwest of Des Moines.

A news release from the Calhoun County Sheriff reports the victim was reported missing Sunday and her body found Monday morning. The suspect was detained early in the investigation.

Authorities say there is no ongoing threat to the public.

Hundreds of National Guardsmen have spent the past three years rotating through a deployment in Texas. They’ve traded Midwestern green grass, highways and sprawling crop fields for dusty roads, a dry riverbed and close-ups of concertina wire thousands of miles away from their families.

Baking for hours in the withering heat, the troops from Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska share a mission under the banner of Operation Lone Star: Intercept immigrants arriving illegally and drugs crossing the U.S. border from Mexico.

“Political theater” is how immigration and border relations researcher Tony Payan describes the operation. He regularly travels both sides of the border interviewing activists, migrants and experts about immigration.

Unlawful migration has become a political flashpoint since former President Donald Trump began campaigning on the issue and arguing for a border wall in 2015. It continues to be a key element of GOP campaigns. According to a July poll from Gallup, about 55% of Americans support a decrease in immigration to the U.S.

The Republican governors of Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska, along with Republican governors from other states, said the troops would be intercepting human smugglers and massive shipments of fentanyl. There were predictions of mass arrests, drug busts and the apprehension of suspects on the terrorist watchlist.

However, records show that the sensational arrests and busts Midwest governors predicted have been few and far between. Meanwhile, state highway patrol officers from understaffed Midwestern departments are assisting with traffic stops miles from the border while National Guardsmen stare at sand, researchers and critics of Operation Lone Star told the Midwest Newsroom.

Read the full story.

Meat grown from cell tissue in laboratories is barely available in the U.S., but it’s already facing opposition at the state level.

In Iowa, a new law requires special labeling for lab meat.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen — who is also the state’s biggest pork producer — recently announced new labeling rules and called on lawmakers for a ban. A similar ban has been proposed in the Illinois statehouse.

“Fake meat, petri dish meat, lab-grown meat, bioreactors… to just sit back and hope that doesn’t happen? Hope’s not a very good strategic decision.”

Tom Rossmeisl with California-based Eat Just says a growing global demand for meat means the world needs both cultivated and conventional meat.

“Global protein demand is going to double between now and 2050. There will be no shortage of demand for Nebraska beef. But that doesn’t mean we should just stop innovating as a country.”

Eat Just and another California company, Upside Foods, are the only companies with cultivated meat products cleared for sale in the U.S. by federal regulators. But developing mass production methods for meat grown in the lab is expected to take years.

Several Iowa cities were swamped with flood waters, but Iowa Workforce Development Director Beth Townsend says the flooding didn’t significantly impact unemployment numbers.

“We only saw a few hundred claims total in the flooded areas at the peak, and now it’s down, probably closer to one hundred or less.”

Townsend says the claim numbers didn’t go up after the initial filings, and they continued to decline steadily and fairly quickly.

She says there was the opportunity for some to make claims that normally wouldn’t be able to.

“When the president declares a national disaster area, then individuals who might not otherwise be qualified for unemployment, i.e. because they’re self-employed, would be eligible to receive benefits. And then the Feds reimburse the state trust fund for the amount of the disaster-related unemployment claims,” Townsend says. “So actually, disaster-related claims do not hurt our trust fund balance because we’re going to get that money back from the Feds.”

Townsend says the floodwaters did not hit any of the larger cities where there are large concentrations of workers, and that is why unemployment didn’t see the impact.

With the state’s new abortion law in place, services at Planned Parenthood in Sioux City now include helping women find care in other states.

Local historians say in 1934, a group of Republican women first opened a Planned Parenthood in Sioux City to provide reproductive education. The location was forced to close in 2017 after Iowa lawmakers defunded Planned Parenthood. It reopened on a limited basis during the pandemic and now operates full time.

Sheilahn Davis-Wyatt, CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, says Sioux City’s health center no longer provides medical abortions due to Iowa’s new law that bans most abortions after six weeks. Patients now must travel to other locations, including the nearby states of Nebraska and Minnesota.

“Women's health is just so critical, and we know that when we go to restrict abortion access, it impacts so many other factors for women and the care that they receive.”

Davis-Wyatt says women from marginalized communities are especially impacted since they don’t have the resources to seek care elsewhere.

Nicole Baxter

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Iowa Public Radio

A bookmobile rolled into Des Moines Sunday to give away free copies of books that are frequently banned.

Beaverdale Books was the first stop for what’s called the Banned Wagon. Publisher Penguin Random House is taking the Banned Wagon on tour to states in the Midwest and South.

People at the event could choose a copy of a picture book or novel, such as The Handmaid’s Tale.

Des Moines teacher, Dan Gutman, was part of an ongoing lawsuit with Penguin Random House against Iowa’s law banning books with sexual content in school libraries.

Gutman says the law has caused many districts to pull classics off the shelf.

“What we’ve seen is books like 1984, books that may be just an edge above that puritanical sensibility, but taken off the shelves. I mean, these are books that have value.”

According to PEN America, which tracks book bans across the country, more than 10,000 books were removed from schools nationwide last year. The group’s preliminary data on the 2023 school year show Florida and Iowa accounted for approximately 80% of those reports.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird says her office is leading the prosecution of a non-U.S. citizen charged with election misconduct for illegally voting.

Bird’s office says the 42-year-old man from Marshalltown has been charged with illegally voting in a July special election for the Marshalltown City Council. He was legally residing in the U.S., but is not a citizen.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate says Iowa requires voter ID and works with the court system and other partners to ensure people who register to vote are U.S. citizens.

“Our role is to make sure only eligible voters vote. Even one, two, five, 100, whatever the number might be is not acceptable,” Pate said. “So we’ll keep trying to make sure we’re protecting and keeping that away. I don’t believe in Iowa we have any of those types of massive voter fraud.”

Some other Republican-led states have recently pushed to clear potential noncitizens from their voter lists, but many eligible voters have been wrongly flagged. Pate made his comments on Friday during a taping of Iowa Press on Iowa PBS.

Iowa has the highest percentage of rural bridges rated poor or structurally deficient in the country. TRIP, a national nonprofit that focuses on transportation issues, found that 21% of bridges in non-urban areas of the state fall into this category.

Scott Neubauer, the bridge maintenance and inspection engineer for the Iowa Department of Transportation, says Iowa is among the top ten states when it comes to the number of bridges, most of which are in rural areas. Neubauer says at least half of the rural bridges in Iowa rated “poor” have very low traffic volume, averaging 35 vehicles or fewer per day, and county engineers regularly inspect them.

“They maintain those bridges just enough to keep those 35 or so vehicles that need to use them every day safe for them to use. You know, they use weight limit signs and that to restrict traffic on them. So, they’re just hard to spend a lot of money on when they have needs in other areas where the traffic volumes are higher.”

Neubauer says bridges are like any other structure, in that they deteriorate over time. He says on roads maintained by Iowa DOT, the number of bridges rated “poor” was once around 250, but they’ve reduced that to 20.

He says the local agencies in charge of these structures get around 44% of federal funding for roads and bridges, but when it’s divided among Iowa’s 99 counties, the money doesn’t go far.

“And bridges are fairly expensive, you know, you can be in the millions of dollars to replace even a small bridge. So it’s really hard to invest in these smaller, poor bridges when you’ve got bigger needs and some of the bigger bridges that are more expensive to take care of.”

Water levels in the Mississippi River are so low they’re affecting grain transportation in the Midwest.

The Ohio River Basin, the upper Mississippi and the Missouri have all been especially dry according to Anna Wolverton, a meteorologist for the Army Corps of Engineers.

“Since Aug. 1, this is the driest they've been since 1976, so you know, going on 50 years, these areas haven't, haven't seen this kind of dryness.”

When river levels are low, barges can’t carry as much of a crop like corn. If they’re overloaded, they could run aground. That means shipping costs go up.

Farmers ultimately pay the price, according to Jim Tarmann, the managing director of the Illinois Corn Growers Association.

“At the end of the day that all comes back and is pretty much laid at the producer's feet ... it's going to cost him.”

This is the third consecutive year river levels have been low. Tarmann says at this point, the solution is pretty much to hope for rain.

Iowa’s deputy secretary of agriculture says there are “frustrating and confusing inequities” in federal programs meant to support farmers trying to recover from natural disasters.

Grant Menke testified this week before the U.S. Senate Small Business Committee.

“In addition to the overall complexity of these programs, one of the most significant issues Iowans have faced is the disparity in accessibility and eligibility between USDA and SBA disaster programs,” Menke said.

Farming operations are not eligible for Small Business Administration loans and Menke said the historic flooding and a record number of tornadoes have created significant challenges for Iowa farmers.

“In many cases, these folks lost nearly everything,” Menke said, “not just farm buildings and equipment, but also their homes.”

Menke noted SBA disaster loans offer lower interest rates and a longer repayment period than the disaster loans farmers have access to through the USDA.

“SBA disaster loans also offer deferral of the first payment and no interest accrual for the first 12 months – features that are not available with USDA disaster loans,” Menke said. “These discrepancies place an undue burden on farmers and farm businesses who already operate on thin margins, especially during the softening ag economy.”

Menke told senators another frustration is the USDA’s disaster loans have an upper limit that’s lower than the maximum loan amount available through the SBA.

(Henderson)

Iowa’s unemployment rate went up for the first time in four months in August — moving from 2.8% to 2.9%. Workforce Development Director Beth Townsend says the state is doing well despite several manufacturing layoffs.

“Even though we saw a slight uptick in unemployment…we’re 20,000 jobs over where we were this time last year,” She says. “So we’ve got more people working. We have fewer unemployed, and we have more jobs than we did the same time last year.”

Townsend says concerns about the national economy are part of the issue with manufacturing layoffs.

“I think that’s what’s giving employers pause right now. So it’s hard to say if we did see an increase in September, whether that’s related to the layoffs, or whether that’s just uncertainty and anxiety in the economy for now,” Townsend says. “You know maybe some of this will get resolved after the election, because, of course, that’s another X factor, right?”

Townsend says those who get laid off still have many options.

“I mean, we still have over 54,000 open jobs on iowaworks.gov, ” she says.

Townsend says Iowa’s economy continues to weather the problems at the national level.

The latest Iowa Drought Monitor shows moderate drought conditions have returned to 4.4% of the state, with the rest of Iowa rated as abnormally dry.

Just over half of Fremont County in southwest Iowa is considered to be in moderate drought, along with five counties in the northeast corner of the state. All of Clayton County and most of Fayette County is in moderate drought, along with the northern tip of Dubuque County and southern areas of Winneshiek and Allamakee counties. The Iowa Drought Monitor is released weekly, on Thursdays, using weather data collected through 8 a.m. Tuesday morning.

State Climatologist Justin Glisan said rain is in the forecast for the next several days, but Iowa has been abnormally dry this month.

“Going back to 1895, when the federal records start, this is the second driest September through the 18th,” Glisan said. “If you look at the statewide average right now, we’re about at a tenth of an inch and that’s about 5% of normal…In the forecast we do see the potential of an inch-and-a-half to two inches across much of the state with the potential for thunderstorms tonight, but widespread rainfall over the weekend.”

Warm temperatures this month have depleted some moisture in the top soil and, if that isn’t replenished before the ground freezes, it will be a concern heading into spring planting. However, Glisan said it’s not a concern right now during harvest season.

“Basically the crop is done, so it’s not using a lot of water,” Glisan said. “Stream flows are still near normal or slightly above.”

Some FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers will be closing soon and the federal agency is making a call to those who may not have signed up for help yet.

“We always try to reach everyone possible who may have been affected,” says FEMA spokesperson Sharon Karr.

Karr says families with diverse immigration status, including adults who are in the country illegally, may still apply for assistance if another adult member of the household meets the eligibility criteria, or if they are the parent or guardian of a minor child who is a U.S. citizen, non-citizen national or a qualified non-citizen and they apply for assistance on behalf of the child.

Karr says the quickest way to check your eligibility is to go to a disaster recovery center if there is one still open in your area. You can also check online, call FEMA at 1-800-621-3362, or download the FEMA app.

Residents of Buena Vista, Cherokee, Clay, Dickinson, Emmet, Humboldt, Lyon, Monona, O’Brien, Osceola, Palo Alto, Plymouth, Pottawattamie, Sioux and Woodbury counties are eligible for FEMA assistance under the Federal Disaster Declaration.

There’s a fruit that grows throughout nearly half of the U.S. that most people have never tried. It’s called the pawpaw. While the fruit trees are native to much of the Midwest and East Coast, you won’t find them in many grocery stores.

“The chief limitation is the almost ephemeral nature of the fruit,” said Adam D’Angelo, the founder and director of research at Project Pawpaw, a crowdfunded breeding and research program.

Events like the Pawpaw Festival in Ferguson have become a prime way to turn the challenge of that short shelf life into an advantage, said Chris Chmiel, the founder and director of the Ohio Pawpaw Festival.

“Instead of that being a limitation, you kind of turn it into an asset by having an event,” he said.

With more farmers interested in the fruit and efforts to develop new marketable varieties, the pawpaw could become even more popular.

Read more from Kate Grumke.

Sheila Brummer

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Iowa Public Radio

Sioux City leaders say they are working to help the unhoused after one of the community’s largest shelters announced plans to close its doors on Oct. 1.

The Warming Shelter says it doesn’t have the money to stay open even with a proposal by the city to provide $150,000. They say $500,000 is needed each year.

Council member Alex Watters says Sioux City has been providing more resources, time and staff to combat homelessness.

“The City of Des Moines just passed a measure that actually criminalizes camping, or those outdoor camps. These cities are taking hardline stances that seem much more callous than what we're doing when we're spending $4 million just from January to try to assist these individuals.”

Watters spoke during a news conference Thursday, and says he was shocked to hear about the Warming Shelter closing, especially since the city recently provided $50,000 to the facility.

Des Moines Public Schools has been helping families and students experiencing homelessness understand the camping bans the city council approved earlier this week. One ordinance makes it a simple misdemeanor to camp and sleep in public spaces, which includes a $15 fine.

Lyn Wilson, the district homeless liaison at DMPS, says her team will have to be even more proactive when planning where students without stable shelter are sleeping at night.

“There’s only so many emergency beds that we have at youth shelters and the options are very limited. So, we do have lots of kids who are couch surfing. We do know that, at times, they do have to resort to sleeping outside.”

The bans passed by the city council do not apply to minors. Wilson says she’s most concerned for older students who may not make it into a youth emergency shelter because of limited beds.

Wilson encourages any family experiencing or at risk of homelessness to contact school counselors.

“Things are hard out there right now, and we want to make sure our students are supported and are in school every day”

Enforcement of the camping bans has not started yet.

NASA

An asteroid is approaching the Earth, which the experts say will come close enough to be caught in our planet’s gravity well, technically becoming a second moon — at least for a few months.

University of Iowa physics and astronomy Professor Casey DeRoo says this asteroid will be captured by the Earth’s gravitational pull around Sept. 29. It will slow down, then go into a “horseshoe” orbit.

“Really, it’s going to do just a single slingshot around the Earth and sort of an oblong or ellipse, and then carry on its way behind us, having approached from the front.”

The asteroid, known as 2024 PT5, is only about 33 feet in diameter, or about as big across as a school bus. While it will come relatively close to Earth — close in astronomical terms — DeRoo says there’s no chance the asteroid will hit us.

Those hoping to catch a glimpse of this wandering space rock are wishing on the wrong star, because even though it will be in Earth’s orbit, it will still be many tens of millions of miles away.

“If you imagine trying to see a school bus from the distance of the moon, that would be the difficulty that you’re trying to actually encounter here. This is the kind of thing that you pick out with dedicated ground-based observatories or telescopes."

The experts say the asteroid will slingshot out of Earth orbit around Nov. 25, after about 56 days as the planet’s looming moon. Then it will drift harmlessly back into space.

Where did it come from? There are various theories. DeRoo says it could have been created many millennia ago when the Earth and Moon first separated, or it may have fallen out of the asteroid belt that hovers between Mars and Jupiter. We’ll likely never know for sure.

Courtesy of Todd Noack

A peer-run mental health and substance use recovery center in Clinton is holding its first-ever candidate forum this weekend.

Life Connections Peer Recovery Services Executive Director Todd Noack says he wants to empower people with behavioral health needs to ask elected officials questions and to vote.

“So many times, it is hard and a struggle to navigate the recovery and support services…for both substances and mental health. And we know that. And so many times, nine out of ten, those people receiving services—and possibly their family members — don’t even vote.”

The forum in Clinton will include local candidates for the county board of supervisors and the Iowa House of Representatives, as well as information about how to vote.

The Iowa Developmental Disabilities Council is supporting the event with a voter empowerment grant. It will take place Sept. 21 at the Life Connections Wellness Recovery Center in Clinton.

Read the full story.

Summit Carbon Solutions plans to hold a final public meeting for property owners on Friday concerning an expansion to the company’s initial pipeline plans.

Summit scheduled public meetings in 23 counties as required by the Iowa Utilities Commission to increase its nearly 700-mile carbon capture pipeline by 340 miles.

Dave Balder, a farmer who lives near an ethanol plant in Albert City, plans to attend the meeting in Buena Vista County. He already granted easements for two natural gas pipelines, which he says are public projects.

“I do not agree with someone coming in and with eminent domain and taking over, especially since this is a private situation,” he said. “This is a dangerous, profit-driven project, and I see that it will be obsolete before it even gets completed.”

Several property owners, lawmakers and the Sierra Club have filed lawsuits opposing the use of eminent domain to build the pipeline connecting about 60 ethanol plants across five states.

Sheila Brummer

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Iowa Public Radio

The new Woodbury County Law Enforcement Center is in the final stretch of a long and turbulent journey to completion.

In 2020, voters supported spending about $50 million on a new jail and courtrooms to replace an old facility officials say was overcrowded and unsafe.

The cost rose to about $70 million with the opening delayed a year due to higher prices and construction issues. The county is looking at taking legal action against some of the companies involved with the project.

During an open house in Sioux City Wednesday, Woodbury County Supervisors Chair Matthew Ung said the county was forced to take the lowest bid for the project.

“Well, everyone knows there's been a lot of hiccups and obstacles with this project. But in 50 years, people aren't going to remember that it was a year or two too late. They're not going to remember the protesters that drove from across the state. They're going to remember that this project is, at the at the end of the day, a tax neutral project.”

Ung says housing federal inmates at the facility will help pay for the new center, along with $15 million coming from American Rescue Plan funds.

A health care provider in the Sioux City metro has agreed to pay over $12.5 million to settle a federal investigation of alleged kickbacks.

The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa says kickbacks make health care more expensive and create the potential for health care decisions that are not in the best interest of the patient.

Dunes Surgical Hospital in South Dakota was accused of making significant payments to a nonprofit affiliate of a physician’s group whose physicians made referrals to the facility. The settlement also resolves allegations that the surgical hospital provided free or below-market-value clinic space, staff and supplies to another group of physicians.

The statement from the U.S. Justice Department indicates the Dunes Surgical Hospital cooperated with the government's investigation and has taken a number of significant steps to reach a resolution to the case.

The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is now in its second year. The hotline has received around 10 million calls and texts from people in mental health emergencies. Crisis counselors help people who may be on the cusp of taking their own lives. But some counselors say they face verbal and sexual abuse from a small fraction of callers.

“Everyone knows that there's repeat callers to a crisis line, and there were repeat callers who were not using it for its intended purpose,” said Daisy, a crisis counselor. “They were using it as a way to pleasure themselves.”

Sexually inappropriate calls, texts and chats are infrequent, but not uncommon on the 988 line, as are other types of abuse, including pranks, insults and personal attacks on the crisis counselors. National totals aren’t tracked, but data from one crisis center shows abusive contacts account for around 1% of the nearly 5,000 total calls the center receives per month. While the volume may be small, the impact these calls have on crisis counselors can be long-lasting, and multiple current and former counselors expressed there aren’t enough measures to protect them from these behaviors.

Read the full story from Side Effects Public Media’s Melissa Ellin.

The deadline for the Farm Bill is quickly approaching. U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, says the federal package can still be finalized this month, but not without guarantees on funding for food assistance and conservation programs.

Stabenow oversees the Senate's version of the bill as chair of the Agriculture Committee. She says she won't budge in her opposition to a Republican-led proposal to cut $28 billion in SNAP food assistance benefits.

"I just want you to know I'm doing everything humanly possible to find creative ways to make sure we're protecting the right priorities, but actually get a bill done."

The Farm Bill is normally renewed every five years, but is currently operating on a one-year extension. The deadline to complete the next Farm Bill is Sept. 30.

The Water Pollution Control Facility south of Ames is getting a $53 million upgrade. It treats around six million gallons of wastewater each day from Ames, the National Centers for Animal Health, Iowa State University and the town of Kelley.

During a ceremony Tuesday, Mayor John Haila said the upgrades will increase treatment capacity, which will support residential and industrial growth.

But the main goal of the project is to cut down on nutrients entering the South Skunk River.

“So, this is our effort to help reduce that while also meeting the goals of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy.”

The strategy is part of the state’s roadmap to curb nitrogen and phosphorus in Iowa waterways and the Gulf of Mexico. Large wastewater facilities are expected to reduce nitrogen discharge by 66% and phosphorus discharge by 75%.

Officials with the northwest Iowa community of Spencer say housing is one of the top issues after devasting flooding this summer.

Sheriffa Jones with the Spencer Chamber of Commerce says with such widespread damage, the recovery process isn’t easy.

“There's always this huge outpouring of support initially, and we definitely saw that. And then it dissipates. This is going to be a recovery effort that's going to take years — three years, five years, ten years, 20 years. Ultimately, Spencer and Clay County will never be the same.”

Jones estimates most property owners did not have flood insurance and are receiving federal, state and local help. But she admits not everyone will receive all the funding they need to recover.

Housing officials say some flood victims are living in 40 state-funded RVs at the Clay County Fairgrounds as developers work on rebuilding homes. Another 40 RVs will be filled soon. The RVs are not meant to be used during the winter, so residents will be moved into FEMA trailers or rental units.

Jones says the Spencer Chamber Foundation received more than $250,000 from almost 500 donors across the country and has awarded grants to 35 businesses and more than 170 residents throughout Clay County.

The head of the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority, known as DART, says she’s optimistic members will come to agreement on how to fund the struggling system.

DART faces a nearly $5 million deficit by 2027.

Last week, the mayors of six member communities sent a letter to Des Moines Mayor Connie Boesen, threatening to leave DART if Des Moines does not pay more of the cost. Des Moines accounts for 70% of ridership and, according to a 2021 agreement, should pay about half of the property taxes to fund the system.

CEO Amanda Wanke says operating revenues declined as ridership patterns changed during and after the COVID pandemic. Wanke says all parties involved know what’s at stake.

“We need a regional system. We have to figure out how to fund it, but we need regional transit. It is essential to our economic development, to our workforce and to being the healthy and thriving community we want. There’s a lot of conversations yet to be had.”

Other DART members want Des Moines to raise its franchise fee — a tax on gas and electric bills — to help fund DART. Boesen says she does not want to impose that burden on property owners.

DART is conducting a comprehensive evaluation of services and will vote on a system redesign sometime next year.

A former north-central Iowa police chief received no jail time after a multi-year investigation into criminal wrongdoing. A judge in Emmet County District Court handed down a deferred sentence and two years of probation to Craig Merrill, 47.

The former Armstrong police chief reached a plea deal on two aggravated misdemeanor counts of assault with a dangerous weapon for using a taser on partygoers. He entered an Alford Plea, which means he maintains innocence, but takes responsibility for the charges.

Merrill and four other Armstrong city officials were arrested in 2021 on several counts of theft and fraud. Former Armstrong Mayor Greg Buum, Merrill’s father-in-law, is scheduled to be tried in Clay County on Oct. 1.

The Sioux City City Council voted down a plan to rezone a piece of farmland to build a concrete mixing plant and storage area.

Construction company Knife River wanted to buy 30 acres in the Leeds neighborhood for the project. More than 600 residents signed a petition in opposition. Many were concerned about air quality, traffic, noise and the location being too close to schools, homes and parks.

A representative for Knife River says the company is willing to work with the city to find the right location for the facility.

The Des Moines City Council voted Monday night to ban people from sleeping and camping on public property. The bans are targeted at people who are homeless.

The council also voted to lower the notice time from ten days to three before the city can remove tents and shelters on public property. Under the new bans, people who do not agree to move to a shelter can be arrested, charged with a simple misdemeanor and fined $15.

Councilman Chris Coleman, chair of the Homeless Coordinating Council, said the original idea for the bans came from a group of council members.

“The five people that voted for it tonight all ran for election in the fall. We all got elected. And I think it was loud and clear that people wanted us to find better long-term solutions, both to help the homeless, but also to make sure that we are accountable for keeping our parks and sidewalks safe so that the public can enjoy them.”

People can appeal to the city clerk if they receive a notice their encampment will be cleared. The mayor said the council does not have a timeline yet for when the bans will go into effect.

Read more.

It’s National Voter Registration Day Tuesday, and the state’s top election official is urging Iowans to register to vote and make a plan to vote.

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate says the day is about reminding people that their vote is important. He says Iowa is one of the best states for voter turnout and registration.

“We’re really appealing to that base to make sure they’ve got their plan put together. Have they updated that voter registration, because some people have moved. Do they know where their polling site is? Do they know how they want to vote this year?”

Iowa residents who are U.S. citizens and will be at least 18 years old on Election Day can register to vote in the November election. Most Iowans can register to vote online and can check their registration online.

The deadline for voter pre-registration is Oct. 21. Iowans can also register to vote at their polling place on Election Day — they just might have to bring some additional documents to prove residency.

Read more.

Iowa nursing home inspections are falling short of federal requirements, according to an analysis by the State Auditor’s office.

Statewide, the average time between inspections is about 17 months. The federal mandate is 13 months.

State Auditor Rob Sand says if the state doesn’t have enough people to inspect the state’s 403 nursing homes on time, the Legislature should respond.

“If we’re way below the average for nursing home inspections, why would we not fund additional inspections. The entire purpose of the inspection is to make people understand that someone may be coming to take a look. That helps them do a better job of taking care of our elderly and vulnerable residents.”

Sand says Iowa ranks 46th in the nation for the number of nursing home staff members per resident. There is also high turnover in the industry. More than half of nurses who worked in a nursing home left in the past year.

An Associated Press investigation has found a group called the Patriots Run Project tried to recruit conservative candidates to run as independents in two competitive congressional districts in Iowa.

It was part of an apparent attempt to draw voters away from Republican candidates in Iowa and four other states. Patriots Run attracted potential candidates on Facebook and hired petition gatherers with ties to a Democratic consulting firm to try to put them on the ballot.

A man recruited to run against Rep. Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3^rd Congressional District said he withdrew his name from the ballot when he learned Patriots Run was not backed by former President Donald Trump.

Nunn says he's outraged to see anyone prey on hardworking Iowans or try to deceive voters.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a top Democratic super PAC told the AP they had no part in the plan.

Iowans whose homes were damaged by storms or flooding this spring and summer might be feeling some pressure to get repairs done before the weather turns. FEMA is offering some free advice on rebuilding and making homes more resistant to damage from future disasters.

Greenfield was hit by a deadly tornado in May, and Rock Valley was heavily damaged in a June flood. FEMA spokesperson Barb Sturner says the agency has been in these areas since then.

““Iowa, as beautiful as it is, it is prone to disasters, and people who live there know that. Our goal is not only to help them recover from disasters, but it’s to help them minimize or prevent damage from future disasters.”

Sturner has an example of one tip that will save money in the future.

“When you’re putting that sheetrock back in, leave a quarter to a half-inch gap between the sheetrock and the floor. You can cover it up with a baseboard and nobody will even know it. But the advantage of it is it really helps prevent growing mold.”

FEMA specialists will be at the Greenfield True Value Hardware and M&H True Value Hardware in Rock Valley from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. Those who can’t make it in person can call the FEMA Hazard Mitigation Helpline at 833-336-2487.

While the FDA grapples with how to approve medicated assisted psychotherapy, Dr. Michael Flaum, professor emeritus at University of Iowa Health Care, is conducting research at the University of Iowa on how psychedelic drugs could be used to treat alcoholism.

Because of the challenges of using a placebo against a psychedelic drug, the study instead uses two different drugs to see comparative effects. Research subjects with moderate to severe alcohol issues are given a dose of psilocybin or ketamine. This allows them to compare the effects of the psychedelic drug to another drug with known effects to compare the differences. Neither the patients nor the researchers know who gets which drug.

Flaum said the researchers are finishing a small pilot project to explore if the study is feasible and what it’s like for the patients.

"What we've learned is we very much can do this. I just came from an exit interview of a patient who just completed the study. He had nothing but good things to say about it.”

Read more about psychedelic-assisted therapy.

When someone wants to add chicks to their backyard farm or populate a larger operation, they often order from hatcheries. For the past 100 years, those hatcheries have used the U.S. Postal Service to ship live baby birds around the country. Increasingly, customers and suppliers say slow deliveries are causing birds to arrive dead.

In 2020, more than 4,800 chicks died in a single postal service shipment to a Maine customer.

Postal service delays have become more persistent in the years following the pandemic, and a new ten-year plan was put in place by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy aimed at ending losses in the billions of dollars a year — and slowing delivery is integral to the plan.

The Midwest Newsroom interviewed four hatchery owners and four backyard farmers in different parts of the U.S., who all say they’ve seen a marked increase in deaths while baby birds are in transit with the postal service over the past year.

Read the full story from the Midwest Newsroom’s Kavahn Mansouri.

The chief of the Governor's School Safety Bureau says they have been doing a lot of training for school staff, law enforcement and first responders on how to handle incidents at schools.

Matt Anderson says they have also installed 1,253 emergency radios across different school districts. He added that they are in a second round of getting radios installed and have more than 100 schools who have asked for them.

Anderson says the school safety bureau had 300 total tips last year on Safe+Sound Iowa, the free app that allows anyone to report a concern. One problem, he says, has been false tips designed to get a response. Anderson says 32% of schools are using the state app, while several other districts are using another app to do the same thing.