February 9, 2012

You are here: Home / 2009 / August / Archives for 27th

Two charged after high-speed chase in Carroll and Crawford counties

August 27, 2009 By

Two Omaha men are in custody after leading deputies on a high-speed chase through portions of Crawford and Carroll counties. Twenty-six-year old Mark A. Lea Junior and 36-year-old Brian K. Thessen are being held in the Carroll County jail on charges of attempted murder, eluding law enforcement and reckless driving.

The chase began after eight a-m when a citizen reported two men were trying to break into a coin box at the Dow City Car Wash. The pursuit began six miles west of Denison on Highway 30, proceeded through Denison and continued east into Carroll County. About one mile and a half east of Arcadia, the suspects crashed into a sheriff’s department patrol car as a deputy was attempting to deploy stop sticks.

The suspect vehicle then rolled end over end into a ditch where Lea and Thessen were taken into custody. The Crawford County Sheriff’s Department says Lea was the driver. The pursuit reached speeds in excess of 100 miles-an-hour and involved the Crawford and Carroll County Sheriff’s departments, Denison Police and Iowa State Patrol.

 

Filed Under: Crime & Courts

One utility already offers rebates for old appliances

August 27, 2009 By

As the federal government considers a Cash for Clunkers-type of program for old appliances, Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy already has a similar statewide program in place.

Utility spokesman Mark Reinders says the program was launched a few weeks ago and works with contractors to pick up and dispose of old, yet still-working appliances.

The rebate offers $50 for refrigerators and freezers and $25 for window air conditioners. Reinders says the idea is to get rid of an older piece of equipment and purchase a more energy-efficient item. He says the program benefits customers with the cash as well as getting rid of the old appliance while helping them cut back on future energy use.

Rebates are also available for customers buying new appliances. For information, call 800-621-2757 or visit MidAmerican’s website .

Filed Under: Business Tagged With:

Study shows gambling treatment program is working

August 27, 2009 By

An annual study of problem gamblers in the state shows Iowa’s publicly funded treatment services are helping people quit. Mark Vander Linden is the Gambling Treatment Program coordinator with the Iowa Department of Public Health.

He says the study found, six months following treatment, 95% of respondents reported they had reduced or quit problem gambling behaviors. In addition, 41% of people entering treatment said they had been late paying their bills.

By discharge, that number dropped to 21%. The study was conducted in partnership with the University of Northern Iowa’s Center for Social and Behavioral Research. Around 940 people sought help from Iowa’s Gambling Treatment Program in 2008. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Health & Medicine Tagged With:

Drake University hosts son of Nikita Khruschev

August 27, 2009 By
Sergei Kruschchev

Sergei Kruschchev

To mark the 50th anniversary of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s historic visit to Iowa, Drake University is hosting a dinner and lecture tonight on the Des Moines campus.

The guest list includes Khrushchev’s son, Sergei, who’s now 75. Drake President David Maxwell toured Russia as a teenager at the height of the Cold War as his father was a trumpet player in the Benny Goodman Band.

Maxwell recalls the band playing a party on July 4th of 1962 at the U.S. Embassy’s guest house in Moscow.

Maxwell says, “We’re at this party, a typical American 4th of July party, outdoor barbeque, lots of food and lots of fun, and then there’s this big hubbub and the word started getting around the crowd that Nikita Khrushchev had just shown up to congratulate us on the anniversary of our revolution.”

It was the first time an American jazz band had played “behind the Iron Curtain,” Maxwell says, so it was an incredibly big deal to be there. Seeing Khrushchev just added to the thrill. Maxwell says, “He and the ambassador said a couple of nice words to each other in front of everybody and then Khrushchev went around the crowd pressing the flesh, shaking hands with everybody, including this 17-year-old kid who was there, tagging along with his father.”

Given the political climate of 1962, Maxwell notes that when he returned, most people in his hometown in New York couldn’t believe he’d even been to Russia, let alone met Khrushchev. Maxwell says, “Nobody knew anybody who could actually go there so at that age to spend seven weeks traveling thousands of miles around the Soviet Union and then in the midst of this, shake hands with the Soviet premier, was really surreal and very exciting.”

He says the trip was a life-changing experience that placed him on the path to become a professor of Russian literature and ultimately a university administrator. About 40 Russian political and business leaders will be at Drake today. The featured speaker at tonight’s free lecture is scholar and author William Taubman, who won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Premier Khrushchev.

Sergei Khrushchev will also be speaking about his memories of his family’s visit to Iowa in 1959. The lecture’s at 7 P.M. in Sheslow Auditorium in Old Main. Additional information.

Filed Under: Human Interest

Effort underway to cut back on plastic grocery bags

August 27, 2009 By

An effort is underway by the Iowa Grocery Industry Association and environmental organizations to cut back on the number of plastic grocery bags that are used in stores across the state.

Association president Jerry Fleagle says the “Build with Bags” program has a couple of goals.

He say they want to double the number of plastic bags that are recycle over the next 24 months, reduce the consumption of plastic bags and increase the use of reusable bags.

Fleagle says they will also develop and institute a program to help parks and schools buy products made out of recycled plastic bags. Fleagle says there’s a lot of work to do to achieve their goals.

Fleagle says there were over 550-million plastic bags used just in the grocery industry alone in Iowa last year. He says they are still compiling the numbers of how many bags are recycled, and the goal is to double that number. Many stores now sell the reusable cloth bags, but Fleagle says they need to get people to remember to take the bags with them.

He says getting people to use the reusable bags is one of the biggest challenges, and they will come up with some “best practices models” to give to stores to encourage the use of the reusable bags. Fleagle says those things include stickers, signs and window clings to remind people to bring the reusable bags with them. Fleagle says there are things like benches that are made out of recycled plastic bags and they want to encourage the use of such products.

Fleagle says they will set up a program that will make it affordable for schools and parks to use those products instead of wood products. Fleagle says there are environmental benefits to cutting back on plastic bags, and there are other benefits as well. He says less plastic bag usage helps stores and consumers by keeping the costs low.

Fleagle says consumers already benefit at many stores by getting credit when they bring in their reusable bags. The grocers are working with Keep Iowa Beautiful, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and Metro Waste Authority to get the program going.

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation

Start of school puts more strain on Crawfordsville water situation

August 27, 2009 By

For two months now, the southeast Iowa town of Crawfordsville has been without water. The town’s water well broke in late June. Since then, the town’s had to truck in water from neighboring communities. Now that school has started, the demand for water is even greater.

Town leaders are wrestling with how to provide a sufficient water supply when they’re running out of money. They’ve asked everyone to cut back on using water, including the school. Vicki Reynolds, the school principal, says they’re doing their best.

“We monitor (students) at the drinking fountains, monitor what we have in our kitchen…full loads of dishes,” Reynolds said. City Councilman Don Brookhart says the town’s brought in an extra truck load of water each day since school started on Monday. “It hurts us because we have to figure out how to pay for the water and the trucking,” Brookhart said.

Each truck full of water costs the city about $165. That adds up to about $500 a day being drained from the city’s coffers. To help pay for the growing cost of busing in water, Mayor Tom Conrad says the city is considering doubling their utility rates.

“What the rates will be I’m not sure,” Conrad said. “We’re going to try and keep them as reasonable as possible.” Crawfordsville resident Larry Black says no one can survive without water even if they’re upset about paying more for it.

“There will probably be a few people disgruntled about it, but the whole thing is…water is something we have to have,” Black said. Mayor Conrad says he’s hoping the state will release about $300,000 in grant money to help the town build a new water pipeline. He hopes that new water system will be in place by November.

Story by Jami Brinton, KCRG-TV, Cedar Rapids

Filed Under: Environment & Conservation

Rain causes flooding in some areas

August 27, 2009 By

Parts of Iowa have gotten more than a half-foot of rain since Tuesday, bringing high water, road closures and wet basements — and it’s still raining. Andy Ervin, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in the Quad Cities, says the rain has hardly let up in some areas for the better part of two days and there’s more rain in the forecast.

“Across all of eastern Iowa, we do have a threat for flash flooding that continues today and for extreme eastern Iowa, through this evening,” Ervin says. “We’ve got a very slow-moving disturbance that’s riding along a stationary front and if you’re in Iowa very long and you’ve heard that weather forecast, you know it means heavy rain.” He says there are no evacuations reported, but many parts of the region have been forced to put up barricades to seal off flooded streets.

“We’ve had parts of the area that’ve had anywhere from three to upwards of seven inches of rain over the past two days and there’s a pretty good threat that much of eastern Iowa today, especially north of Highway 34, could see an additional one-to-two inches of rain,” Ervin says. “That’s going to cause some flash flooding concerns and some river flooding concerns.”

He says there’s already flooding in parts of eastern Iowa. A Flash Flood Warning is in effect at 9 AM for Linn, Iowa, Benton and Johnson counties, with reports of basement flooding and road closures in the Cedar Rapids metro area.

Filed Under: Weather
« Older Posts