May 23, 2012

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DNR releases names of victims in Burlington boat wreck

May 21, 2012 By

The victims of boat collision early Saturday near Burlington have been identified. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources identified the victims as: 21-year-olds Matthew T. House, 22-year-old Jacob K. Boyd, 20-year-old Caitlyn M. Atchley ,  and 21-year-old Blake A. Eakins. All of the victims who died are from Burlington.

The D.N.R. says the collision happened around 1:40 A.M. Saturday in the O’Donnell Slough area of the Mississippi River near Burlington when a jon boat operated by 20-year-old Joseph S. Schier of Burlington ran into another jon boat operated by 21-year-old Douglas C. Metcalf, also of Burlington.

In addition to the victims, other passengers in the boat operated by Metcalf included 21-year-old Christopher Edwards, 21-year-old Jedadiah J. Thomas, 21-year-old Michael M. Shea, 21-year-old Reno A. Trejo, 20-year-old Jennifer C. Parcel, all of Burlington and 19-year-old Katie K. Nelan of Davenport. Schier was the lone occupant of his vessel.

Schier, Metcalf, Edwards, Thomas, Shea, Trejo, Nelan and Parcel all made it to shore shortly after the accident. All were treated at Great River Medical Center in Burlington except Nelan, who was air-lifted to University Hospitals in Iowa City.

The D.N.R. says search efforts for House, Boyd, Atchley and Easkins continued throughout the day Saturday until dusk and then resumed early Sunday morning when they were recovered in 10 to 12 feet of water within approximately 100 yards of where the collision occurred.

State and local officials are still investigating to try and determine what happened.

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters, News Tagged With:

Group helps wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan

May 21, 2012 By

A group that was formed by military wives in 2006 to help wounded soldiers is reaching out to Iowa veterans. Robin Kelleher is one of the founders of the “Hope For The Warriors” organization.

“We have 10 different programs that begin at bedside, and so we are at the hospitals when our servicemembers come in from Iraq or Afghanistan,” Kelleher explains. “We work with the families on the onset of injury to sort of help alleviate some of the financial pitfalls that they may see on that path to recovery. And then later into the recovery process we offer other programs.” Kelleher talks in more detail about the organization’s programs.

“Spouses scholarships, financial needs assistance grants, we have warrior’s wish program that grants wishes to severely wounded, we have a team that supports and trains our servicemembers to do athletic endeavors despite their different injuries. At the end of that cycle you would see a program called Above and Beyond,and that’s where we really work in that transition piece for them,” Kelleher says.

 The group has joined in a partnership with the Casey’s Convenience store chain to help raise awareness about their programs. “We have a website that’s very comprehensive on our different programs, and that’s  www.hopeforthewarriors.org. If you go to Casey’s this month and buy one of their large specialty pizzas, there’s a sticker on the outside of the box that gives you all of our contact information. And for every large specialty pizza they sell, they are donating one dollar to Hope for the Warriors,” Kelleher says.

 She says anyone who wants to help the effort can make a donation. “We have people who do beneficiary events for us all the time from lemonade stands to putting on runs in their own community. You can certainly make a donation on-line,” Kelleher explains. “As of this weekend, if you text ‘Warriors’ to 20222, you can make a $10 donation.”

 The organization is headquartered in North Carolina, but Kelleher says they are expand their presence across the country in states like Iowa that have soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Filed Under: Human Interest, Military, News

Indianola woman sentenced in prison identity theft case

May 19, 2012 By

An Indianola woman who stole the identities of volunteers at a state prison will spend four years in prison.  A U.S. District Court judge sentenced 37-year-old Shelley Ann Bridges to 48 months in prison on one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of credit card fraud.

Court documents say Bridges took personal information from at least 48 volunteers who were participating in a church outreach program at the Mitchellville women’s prison. She used the information in August and September of 2011 to create credit accounts for herself at five financial institutions.

The judge also ordered Bridges to pay nearly $9,000 in restitution.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, News

Free viewing sites are available for Sunday’s eclipse

May 19, 2012 By

Astronomers and others who like to study the things beyond earth will get a treat Sunday when the moon passes between the earth and sun. Richard Miles of the Science Center of Iowa says they have set up a special event to watch the eclipse.

“This is going to be visible for us here in Iowa starting at 7:20 p.m. and it will last about an hour and 10 minutes before the sun sets, at which point, we’ll be at 66-percent coverage. So, 66-percent of the sun will be covered by the moon and we will basically see a crescent sun,” Miles says. It’s an event that hasn’t happened in nearly two decades.

“This particular type of eclipse…hasn’t been visible from the mainland United States since 1994, so it’s been awhile since we’ve seen one here in the mainland United States,” Miles says. He says it’s the first eclipse of any kind this century that has been seen in the mainland U.S. Miles says some people in the U.S. will see more of the sun hidden by the eclipse.

He says Albuquerque, New Mexico for example will be in the “path of totality” and will see most of the sun blocked out so only a ring of the sun around the moon. Miles says you should not look directly at the sun and that’s why the Science Center has set up a viewing area near the courts building in Des Moines.

“The Science Center of Iowa and the Des Moines Astronomical Society will be out there with telescopes with special filters that will allow you to view the sun safely,” Miles says. “We’ll also have some telescopes that are specifically designed to look at the sun, so that will allow people to actually see this event safely without hurting their eyes.” Miles encourages everyone to find a way to safely view the eclipse. He says this type of eclipse will happen again in two years, and then there’s a longer wait.

“Five years from now is the next time we’ll have one that will be better, so it’s a fairly rare event. And you never know what the weather is going to be like, so you’d hate to miss it this time and then have it be cloudy again the next time,” Miles says. The Science Center viewing event is free.

The University of Northern Iowa will have solar-viewing equipment available to the public in the parking lot to the west of the UNI-Dome, near the athletic fields, starting at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. If you can’t get to one of these sites, Miles says you can check with your local astronomy club to find out information about viewing the eclipse in your area.

Filed Under: Human Interest, News, Recreation & Entertainment Tagged With:

Update: two now charged in Des Moines murders

May 18, 2012 By

Rhonda Plew, Ronald Hawkinson.

Des Moines Police say a second suspect has been arrested in a double murder of two men Thursday evening. The shooting happened at Seibert Trucking.

Police say 30-year-old Serif Hidic and 49-year-old Robert Smoot were both found dead at the southeast Des Moines property. It’s unclear what led to the shooting , although the dispatcher who answered a 911 call heard an argument and then gunfire.

Thirty-nine-year-old Ronald Hawkinson, who was tracked down in Winterset, and is charged with two counts of first degree murder. Forty-one-year-old Rhonda Plew is charged with being  an “accessory after the fact.”

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, News

Unemployment rate moves down again in April

May 18, 2012 By

The unemployment rate has dropped every month this year and April was no exception. Iowa Workforce Development spokesperson Kerry Koonce, says,”We’re down to 5.1%, and that makes Iowa 3 percentage points below the national average which is at 8.1% for April. We were at 5.9% this time last year, so we’ve seen a significant drop in our unemployment rate.”

The job growth continues to offset the job loses in the state, with a gain of 5,800 jobs in April. “A large portion of those, 3,700, were in the construction and manufacturing industry,” Koonce says, “which is very good because its adding it in what we call the durable goods, long term goods, not disposable goods, which is a good sign that the economy is continuing to improve.”

The transportation industry continues to see job losses. “Overall we lost about 1,100 jobs in the trade and transportation area, those being heavily in transportation. The higher gas prices are still keeping the transportation industry a little sluggish. And then retail trade continues to see its ups and downs,” Koonce explains.

“And then we lost a couple hundred jobs in the leisure and hospitality area, but those were the major changes.” There’s been a lot of talk on the national level about the number of people who have given up looking for work and the fact that they are not included in the national unemployment numbers.

Koonce says people in that category are hard to track, and there’s some confusion about the make up of the workforce. “You don’t have to be receiving unemployment benefits to considered unemployed and looking for work. That sometimes is a misconception. For example, we have about 85-thousand people who are unemployed right now, but only about 45-50-thousand that are getting unemployment benefits,” Koonce says.

“And so you don’t have to be receiving benefits to be considered unemployed. But once you stop looking for work, you are not consider part of the labor force anymore. So that makes it very hard to put an actual number on what we call the discourage worker syndrome.”

Koonce says some of the people who dropped out of the workforce have come back in as the economy has improved. “Our labor force is growing, which is an indication that people who may’ve been a discouraged worker are coming back into it as well. They’re seeing the positive signs out there and are coming back in and looking for work as well,” according to Koonce.

The total number of working Iowans increased to 1,578,200 in April compared to 1,575,700 in March.

Filed Under: Business, News Tagged With:

Long term forecast raises some worries for the growing season

May 18, 2012 By

The National Weather Service is predicting Iowa’s early summer temperatures and rainfall will be near normal, but two Iowa-based climatologists say they’re somewhat concerned about the weather impact on Iowa’s crop-growing season. The NWS forecast predicts warmer than normal temperatures south of Iowa and Illinois in the extreme southern cornbelt.

State Climatologist Harry Hillaker says he doesn’t want to see the warm temperatures seep into Iowa. “A little bit of concern though, you know the last week oh about a week and a half now has been quite dry across Iowa, and very dry to the southwest of us. Kansas, Oklahoma has turned very dry in the last few weeks. Don’t like to see that area so close by you know to see drought expanding this time of the year because very often it keeps on expanding as time goes on,” according to Hillaker.

And Iowa’s May temperatures are already running about 6-degrees above normal. “Which is quite a large departure for this time of the year, historically you look back at years that brought us unusually warm Mays, pretty large percentage of the time its also brought us above normal temperatures for June and July,” Hillaker says.

Iowa State University climatologist, Elwyn Taylor, is also worried about the long-range forecasted above normal temperatures in the southern corn belt. “That’s slightly discouraging.I don’t like to see July and August on the warm side of usual. The plants use more water, they mature faster and so they don’t get as many days in the sun to put on the weight that we harvest and sell.”

The long-range forecast is for normal precipitation through June. Hillaker says the La Nina and El Nino influences are subsiding and shouldn’t affect Iowa’s summer weather.

Filed Under: Agriculture, News, Weather
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