Iowa's Radio News Network
A 43-year-old woman who neighbors say left her boyfriend and moved in with her brother was shot to death Friday night in a mobile home park just outside of Cedar Rapids.
The woman’s ex-boyfriend was found dead near Mount Vernon and authorities say he killed himself.
The Clinton Fire Department is investigating a fire which injured one person and killed four others Friday night.
Fire units were called to the two-story, single-family dwelling at 11:37 p.m. The fire was extinguished in 10 minutes. The first units on the scene reported light smoke coming from the structure.
There were no working smoke detectors in the home.
(Reporting by Warren Kitts, KROS, Clinton)
Governor Chet Culver toured western Iowa Friday to survey the damage caused by this week’s ice storm. During a stop in Atlantic Friday night, the governor said the ice he observed encasing the power lines in Carroll, Crawford and Sac Counties was six-to-eight inches in diameter.
“It’s been really pretty bad out there,” Culver said.
Audubon County, for example, was still pretty-much in-the-dark county-wide on Friday and Culver said there are some real concerns in neighboring counties as well. Culver said he was touring the western part of the state to make sure relief and repair efforts are “moving in the right direction.” The governor said there was some good news, though, as far as Atlantic was concerned.
“It looks like most of the power has been restored here,” Culver said. Atlantic was devastated by ice that encased trees and power lines, caused both to snap, and rendered at least half the City powerless at the height of the storm. The governor saw miles of utility poles and lines down all across western Iowa.
“It’s unbelievable. I mean, you’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of poles,” Culver said. “In just the Denison area alone, there was 300 miles of line on the ground, hundreds of poles that were just split like toothpicks.”
Culver said he’s worried what the end-result of the damage may mean to the livestock industry and Ag-based economy.
“I’ve worked today with Secretary Northey, the ag secretary, on a creative program where we’re getting the word out and asking Iowans across the state, farmers across the state to donate or sell generators if they have extra ones available,” Culver said. “We’re going to also work with the RECs and try to find extra generators there because of the long-term outage concern and the importance of keeping these livestock operations up and running.”
The number for the “Safeguard Iowa Partnership” is 515-246-1707 or 1-800-447-1895.
As if the damage and lack of power weren’t bad enough, the Governor acknowledged some unscrupulous individuals were trying to take advantage of Iowans who are struggling to recover from the natural disaster, by scamming them on tree-trimming services or generator sales.
“We stand ready to hold anyone accountable for taking advantage of Iowans during this storm and there will be consequences for those that try,” Culver said. If you or someone you know has been taken advantage of from a “fly-by-night operator” who is not certified by the city they are operating in, call the Iowa Attorney General’s office at 1-888-777-4590.
(Reporting by Ric Hanson, KJAN Atlantic)
Bones uncovered in southwest Iowa in 2002 are now being examined by University of Iowa researchers who are hoping to learn more about what Iowa was like during the Ice Ages. It all started when Bob and Sonya Athen spotted an unusual bone in a creek bed behind their home near Shenandoah.
The Athens brought the bone to Iowa City during a visit with their daughter who attends the U-I. Geology professor Holmes Semken determined the bone was from a Jefferson Ground Sloth, which have been extinct for 10,000 years. “I stepped through the door, saw that thigh bone and I knew right away that this was an extinct giant Ground Sloth,” Semken said. “I knew there was more there because she had three other bones with her, which included ribs and vertibre from the neck and tail. It looked like a complete specimen.”
The University of Iowa’s David Brenzel and others spent eight years digging around the site near Shenandoah. Brenzel says the Ground Sloth was an impressive creature. He says the typical Ground Sloth was 10 feet tall and weighed about 3,000 pounds. The animal also had long arms with “imposing claws” to reach into trees.
Sarah Horgan, who coordinates the University of Iowa’s Museum of Natural History, says the dig produced 104 adult Sloth bones, 41 bones from a juvenile Sloth and a shoulder bone from a baby. A Canadian researcher is now analyzing DNA to determine if they’re a family.
“The number of bones that we’ve recovered and the number of animals at the site…we have an adult and two juvenile Giant Sloths, and that’s unheard of…there’s no other site to compare this to,” Horgan said.
“So, scientifically, this is in a league of its own.” The Shenendoah discovery produced one of only 200 specimens of Giant Sloth bones known in North America.
They’re top college sports rivals but when it comes to helping sick kids, Iowa State and Iowa are united allies. Hundreds of I.S.U. students are taking part in a dance marathon on the Ames campus today that will benefit the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital in Iowa City.
I.S.U. student Lindsay Lomer is helping organize the event. She says there are 950 dancers signed up for the 15-hour marathon, which begins at 9 AM and runs until midnight. Lomer says there will be a wide variety of things to do during the dance and an electronics store has donated a host of TVs, video games and other products.
Several family members and children who’ve been treated at the hospital will be at the event in hopes of inspiring the dancers to keep moving. “Hearing these families’ stories and how much Dance Marathon has impacted their life and how great the hospital was (is) really motivational,” Lomer says. Last year’s event at I.S.U. hauled in around $171,000 for the Iowa City medical facility. Since the number of dancers has jumped up significantly from a year ago, Lomer is hoping for a bigger take at this year’s marathon.
She says there were about 500 dancers last year, compared to more than 900 this year. Since its beginning, Dance Marathon has raised a total of $1.3 million. It is Iowa State’s largest student-run philanthropic event. Lomer, a student from Maple Grove, Minnesota, says contributions can also be made online: “www.dm.stuorg.iastate.edu”
By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City
Tyson Foods in Council Bluffs, Iowa announced Friday that 480 people will be laid off on the second shift of production. Council Bluffs Mayor Tom Hanafan says this is a big loss. “It has a huge impact on the metropolitan area. The breakdown of their employee base is there are a number of people that live both in Iowa and Nebraska and I think in this case there may be more Nebraskans at this facility than Iowans and so when you are shifting 480-plus jobs away from the second shift, it is going to effect the entire metro area,” Hanafan says.
Hanafan is grateful the Tyson plant is remaining open as this announcement comes on the heels of a big meatpacker closing completely in Sioux City this week. “If you look at Sioux City, one of the things that Morrell said was that this was an old plant. It was built in the late 50′s. It hasn’t been retooled in years. The good news about the Tyson facility here is that it is a case-ready meat plant. They just invested millions of dollars into a sewer treatment facility there. They have upgraded the equipment. They have spent a lot of money on equipment and training. So, there are two different things,” Hanafan says.
Mayor Hanafan says it is very difficult to see ag-based production and manufacturing facilities reduce size here in the Midwest as we are the heart of agriculture country. “We have been pretty sheltered in this area not to see the layoffs that were done on the East Coast and West Coast in our Midwest area in Iowa and Nebraska, beef production, pig production is a big issue to us in agriculture base and when we see it start to erode, that starts to concern me because we’re the ag center,” Hanafan says, “I just hope, I think it will turn around. This is an adjustment in the economy. We are more at the tail end of it and so hopefully we can turn this around and those people can go back to work.”
Tyson is closing its second shift operations and other facilities will pick up the slack. This facility wraps meat to get it ready for the grocery store meat case. There are two other Tyson facilities in the metro-area and they will not be impacted by the change.
By Karla James
Congressman Steve King was among the speakers at Friday’s “March for Life” in Washington, D.C. Since January of 1974, pro-life activists have held annual rallies that are timed to coincide with the date on which the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion.
Congressman King began his brief speech at Friday’s rally with a reference to this past Tuesday’s special election in which Republican Scott Brown won the U.S. Senate seat that had been held by the late Ted Kennedy. “Say, is there anybody here from Massachusetts?” King asked the crowd. “Thank you Massachusetts. Thank you for helping us kill that anti-life bill.”
O.KayHenderson.com