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Red Oak man dies in accident

October 25, 2011 By

A southwest Iowa man died in a single vehicle accident this morning in Mills County. The Iowa State Patrol says 86-year- old Charles Phelps, of Red Oak, was traveling west on Highway 34 east of Hastings at around 9:15 a.m., when for reasons unknown, his 2010 Dodge pickup went off the road and into the north ditch.

The vehicle then entered a field and hit the eastbound ditch off of 370th Street. The impact caused the pickup to vault over 370th Street before it came to rest in the west ditch. Officials say Phelps was wearing a seat belt.

By Ric Hanson, KJAN Atlantic

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, News

Newton woman admits to spraying gas during argument

October 25, 2011 By

A Newton woman who admitted to spraying gasoline on another woman during an argument at a local convenience store will be sentenced Wednesday. Sixty-two-year-old Barbara Anne Smithhart pled guilty to assault.

Newton police say Smithhart sprayed a significant amount of gas all over the 46-year-old victim’s body, soaking her clothes, and then left the gas station. The victim did not have any serious injuries, but her neck face and arms were red and she did complain of a burning sensation.

The assault happened around 3:30 A.M. on August 21st.

By Randy Van, KCOB, Newton

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, News

Prison workers continue protest over staff numbers

October 25, 2011 By

More correctional officers in Iowa prisons are claiming they’re understaffed and being placed at risk. Workers at the Anamosa State Penitentiary are rallying for more hired help. The Anamosa prison has lost nearly 90 correctional officers over the past decade, while the statewide prison population has increased 15-percent.

Anamosa State Penitentiary Correctional Officer Mark Baker says, over the past 23 years, he’s seen his fair share of changes on the job.

“Just crowded everybody together, tempers flare more, less room for advancements, less jobs for inmates, less staff…they just keep cutting our budget,” Baker said.

Last week, guards found two homemade knives in the prison recreational yard. “You used to see six or seven officers in the yard on any given day when there would be a thousand inmates there. Now you see one if you’re lucky,” Baker said.

Governor Branstad said Monday he’s done his best to “clean up the mess” the Culver administration left behind. Former Governor Culver cut funding to the Corrections Department as part of an across-the-board budget cut shortly before he left office.

Branstad approved an additional $25-million to the Corrections Department budget last year. “I think Corrections has been treated very fairly,” Branstad said. Much of that money was used for staff pay raises, but AFSCME Iowa Council President Danny Homan says there should be money to hire more officers.

“Our pay raises did not cost $25-million. The Iowa legislature, signed by the governor, appropriated for 20 new officers for this institution. We have not one hire yet,” Homan said. He wants an investigation into what he says is a misappropriation of state funds.

Homan says prison staff, the inmates and the public’s safety are all at risk. Prison workers at the State Penitentiary in Fort Madison also held a rally to protest staffing shortages earlier this month.

By Nadia Crow, KCRG-TV, Cedar Rapids

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, News Tagged With: ,

West Union man faces charges after alleged threats

October 25, 2011 By

A West Union man is facing charges of making threats of terrorism and first-degree harassment. The Fayette County Sheriff’s Department says 21-year-old Christopher Burke was arrested after they were alerted to Burke’s plans to bomb the First District Department of Correctional Services facility in West Union.

They say he spoke in great detail of plans to kill or harm employees or inmates at the facility. He also allegedly threatened to harm a sheriff’s department employee. Burke is being held on other charges and will appear in court today on the new charges.

By Darin Svenson, KDEC, Decorah

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, News

Project tries to help foster kids who turn 18 and leave system

October 25, 2011 By

A new project in eastern Iowa aims to smooth the transition for foster children who age out of the system. Organizers of “Bridging the Gap” will meet today with Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley to discuss the program. Grassley, who co-founded and is co-chairman of the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth, says thousands of foster kids nationwide are falling through cracks in the system.

“We’ve found the practice is that the states shove them from one foster home to another, they never get adopted, they become 18 years of age and they’re ‘independent,’” Grassley says. “They’re thrown out in the street. They take their clothes in a garbage bag, go down the road and maybe be homeless, who knows?”

The new program is based in Cedar Rapids and aims to fill a suitcase with items for each foster child who reaches 18 and has to leave.

“This may sound like not much, but for these kids, it’s an awful good thing, things like bedding, pots and pans and cleaning supplies,” Grassley says. “This effort is so valuable.”

Grassley helped enact the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. It gave states an option to extend support for youth remaining in foster care to age 21 as long as they’re in school, working or otherwise preparing for work. The law requires each state to have a procedure that ensures every child leaving foster care has a transition plan created on his or her behalf.

Grassley says, “If there’s one thing I have learned from kids that are in foster care, what they’d like to do is be like other kids, have a permanent home, have a loving mother and dad.” Just in the Cedar Rapids area, 900 children are in foster care. Every year, at least 25 of them turn 18, graduate from high school and are sent into the world.

Filed Under: Human Interest, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Ag Secretary says retailers want new food safety tests

October 25, 2011 By

U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says some of the nation’s largest retailers are already asking for the kinds of new food-safety tests for raw beef that the U.S.D.A. will require this coming spring. The U.S.D.A. is expanding the testing on beef to check for six more strains of e-coli.

“That’s a big deal and it’s going to make — obviously — ground beef safer,” Vilsack says. “It’s also expanded our testing procedures to include bench trim, which was not included before.” Bench trim is the fat and meat that’s trimmed from steaks and roasts. It’s generally added to ground beef, which is why the U.S.D.A. is now requiring it to be tested for e-coli, too.

More than 30,000-thousand Americans are likely to be sickened this year because they’ve eaten beef contaminated with e-coli and some — particularly the very young and the elderly — will die.

“It’s a significant number of people who are impacted, and we’ve been reducing those numbers,” Vilsack says. “We obviously have to continue doing that.” Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann recently visited a meat locker in Des Moines where both Bachmann and the owner of the establishment complained there were too many food safety tests required for beef.

Vilsack says the marketplace is demanding the new tests for raw meat. “What we recently announced was already being adopted by some of the major beef processing companies in the United States and some of the major retailers, so the market’s demanding this,” Vilsack says. “It’s not just the U.S.D.A. The market demands a lot of this — you take a look at Walmart, for example, they are now demanding a much higher threshold for food safety activities at their suppliers.”

Vilsack made his comments during taping of a program that will be broadcast November 4th on Iowa Public Television.

Filed Under: Agriculture, Business, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Garrison Keillor speaking at Drake

October 25, 2011 By

Garrison Kiellor

The man behind one of the most famous voices in radio will be central Iowa tonight to do what he does best — gab about what’s on his mind before a live audience.

Garrison Keillor is known to more than four-million listeners a week on N.P.R. as the host of “The Prairie Home Companion” and his famous monologues. 

The 69-year-old Keillor is speaking at Drake University in Des Moines, where law professor Neil Hamilton is in charge of the lecture committee. Hamilton says they didn’t ask Keillor to take any particular avenues in his address.

“We have every reason to expect it’ll be a delightful evening,” Hamilton says. “It’ll probably reflect on his career and broadcast and as a writer and his Midwestern sensibilities and sense of humor. I don’t know that he’s one you could necessarily direct if you wanted to.” Keillor, who’s also a best-selling author and Grammy winner, is known for his books and radio monologues about Lake Wobegon, which he claims as his hometown.

Hamilton says the Drake audience may get to hear a few tidbits about the fictional rural Minnesota hamlet. “I would hope there’s a little bit of Lake Wobegon in there,” Hamilton says. “I would imagine some in the crowd would be disappointed if there aren’t.” A Prairie Home Companion first went on the air in 1974 and is now heard on some 600 stations nationwide and around the world on Armed Forces Radio.

Keillor’s talk at Drake’s Knapp Center is free and Hamilton’s expecting a full house. “We can seat around 8,000 and we had a crowd of about that size for Maya Angelou and you never know how large of a crowd to expect and we’re expecting quite a few,” he says. Keillor says he’s retiring from radio in the spring of 2013, but says he will continue to write.

The talk begins at 7 P.M. For more information, visit www.drake.edu/bucksbaum

Filed Under: Human Interest, News
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