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Blood centers says supplies remain low, donors needed

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About 150 pints of blood donated by Iowans is helping people who were injured in the recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida to recover, but more donors are urgently needed to support hospitals in Iowa.

Danielle West, spokeswoman for LifeServe, says they’ve already forwarded south all the pints they can spare. “We’ve sent some to Florida and some to Texas so far to help them either prepare for the hurricanes or as part of their recovery efforts,” West says. “Our summer supply wasn’t great here locally so we’re also in need. We want to cover our local hospitals first before we send anything more out nationwide.”

LifeServe is calling on all potential donors across Iowa to roll up their sleeves and give the gift of life. “All of our blood types are at a lower supply than we’d like them to be,” West says. “We’re always looking for O donors because they’re the universal donors and they’re the highest population, but really anyone and everyone. If you’ve never donated before, we’d love for you to give it a try. We’re just looking for anyone who can come in as soon as they can.” One donation of blood can help to save three lives and West says it’s not a big commitment of a donor’s time.

“It’s normally a 45-minute process from start to finish,” West says. “You come in, check in, there’s a short questionnaire, we do a mini-physical and you’re only in the chair for 5 to 10 minutes, and then we have snacks at the end.” LifeServe is the only provider of blood and blood products to 120 hospitals in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. To schedule an appointment, call 800-287-4903 or visit www.lifeservebloodcenter.org.

Blank Park Zoo celebrates the Monarch butterfly

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Monarch butterfly. (Photo by Karl Schilling)

A celebration in central Iowa this weekend is focused on an insect, one that’s getting a lot of attention in recent months.

Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines is hosting its annual Monarch Festival as the butterflies make their annual migration over Iowa, 2,000 miles from Canada to Mexico. Jessie Lowry, the zoo’s conservation manager, says one feature of the festival is teaching people how to “tag” monarchs.

“You can safely catch them with a net and you get these little stickers from Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas,” Lowry says. “You gently attach the sticker to their wing and report the serial number and then you let them go on their migration to Mexico. The folks down in the area in Mexico get paid an income to find the tags.”

When those workers find the tags, they’re reported in order to track migratory patterns. While many Iowans are seeing resounding numbers of monarchs and the smaller “painted lady” butterflies this month, Lowry says the monarch population has fallen by 90 percent in the past 20 years. She says Iowans can help to restore the population.

“All you need to do is plant a butterfly garden in your yard,” Lowry says. “A couple important things to include are host plants and nectar plants. Nectar plants are flowering plants, native plants that produce nectar which adult butterflies eat. The host plant for the monarch is milkweed. It’s the only plant their caterpillars eat and it’s the only plant the adult butterflies will lay their eggs on.” These orange-and-black insects play their part in a vital role, especially in an agricultural state like Iowa.

“They’re building blocks of the entire ecosystem,” Lowry says. “Monarchs, like other butterflies and bees, are important pollinators and help produce one-third of our global food supply. Many people have no idea the importance of pollinators to our daily lives as humans.”

Army veteran runs across Iowa to raise awareness of PTSD

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An Army veteran from central Iowa has embarked on a journey to run across the state — from west to east — as a way of drawing attention to veteran suicide and PTSD.

Josh Jorgensen left Council Bluffs on Thursday and plans to spend ten days running the 330 miles to Burlington. Jorgenson, who’s from Adel, is a member of Team Fidelis, a national group that’s working to end the epidemic of veteran suicide.

Jorgensen says, “I found this to be a way to raise awareness for our organization and also to reach out to the veterans themselves who maybe don’t think there’s a finish line there, that are struggling at the moment.” Jorgensen, who served in Iraq as a member of the 101st Airborne, says he’s been planning the run for more than a year but was thrown a curve ball when he was told he had to have open heart surgery six months ago.

“I wasn’t going to let that be a barrier if it didn’t have to be,” he says. “When I got wheeled in to my operation, I told the doctor, ‘Hey, make sure I get off the table and I’ll do the rest.'” While he knew he could postpone the run because of the surgery, he decided to go ahead with it as the cause is so important to him. To further challenge himself, Jorgensen is making the border-to-border run across Iowa while wearing a military-issued gas mask which covers his entire face. He says the mask helps him to start conversations about veteran suicide and PTS-D.

“We can create the awareness of the help that we’re trying to get for other veterans and the struggles they’re going through,” he says. He plans to run about 33 miles a day across Iowa and should reach the Mississippi River next weekend.

 

Cassini to wrap up 20-year space mission with fiery Friday finale (audio)

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NASA image of Cassini.

A robotic spacecraft carrying instruments built at the University of Iowa will plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn and burn up early Friday morning, its final mission after 20 years in deep space.

U-I research scientist Bill Kurth is at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where the final commands will be given to Cassini, sending it to its fiery fate. Kurth says the mission’s been a great success.

“I would say it’s more than exceeded all of its goals,” Kurth says. “It originally was planned to be in orbit at Saturn for four years and we’re now in our 13th year.”

It was January of 1990 when Kurth first started drafting plans for the sophisticated instruments onboard to measure radioactive emissions and waves in the ionized gas, called plasma, which surrounds the ringed planet. Since Cassini’s launch in 1997, Kurth says the 22-foot-long, 4,700-pound intrepid space explorer has helped scientists unlock many of Saturn’s mysteries, while revealing new questions for them to ponder.

“We’ve taken advantage of discoveries that we’ve made along the way,” Kurth says, “notably, the existence of geysers coming from the small, icy moon Enceladus.” The mission has brought great progress, he says, in understanding Saturn, its rings, its moons, its months-long storms and its lightning-filled magnetosphere.

The spacecraft’s fuel supply is nearly spent and it is being intentionally sent to its flaming demise. If left to drift in Saturn’s orbit with no way to maneuver, Kurth says it’s possible Cassini’s wreckage could critically alter the environment on one of planet’s 62 frozen moons.

“We would hate to go in 20 or 30 years to look for evidence of life on Enceladus and find some form of life there that, perhaps, came from Cassini should Cassini accidentally crash onto Enceladus and infect it, so to speak, with microbes that might’ve been carried with it from Earth,” he says.

After 27 years of work on the project, which started with building the instruments by hand in an Iowa City lab, Kurth says Cassini’s conclusion brings a combination of feelings — sadness, relief and accomplishment.

“I think the mission will stand out as one of the best NASA has flown,” Kurth says. “I’ve also worked on Voyager so it’s hard to say that anything could top that mission, but Cassini certainly ranks right up there.”

Cassini is now on what’s called a ballistic trajectory, blazing along at 76,000 miles an hour toward Saturn’s atmosphere, where it will be incinerated about 6:55 A.M. Iowa time on Friday.

Audio: Matt Kelley interview with Kurth 7:54.

Fed Reserve Bank finds some improvement in Midwest economy

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A new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City shows slight improvements in the economy of the Midwestern farm sector.

Nathan Kauffman, an executive with the Fed’s Omaha Branch, says lower farm incomes and weaker credit conditions continue in Iowa and neighboring states, but he says the second quarter was not quite as negative as it has been the past couple of years.

“We’ve seen commodity prices really be more or less stable the last couple of years, albeit at a lower level,” Kauffman says. “We’re just not seeing the same pace of decline that we would’ve seen a couple years ago as commodity prices had really fallen sharply.” Kauffman says many lenders were caught off guard a few years ago with the decline in commodity prices, but he says it seems like they have adjusted.

“A lot of lenders are still trying to work through some of those issues, communicate more effectively with their borrowers, maybe requiring a little bit more from their borrowers, recognizing that maybe not out of the woods even though things are not deteriorating as rapidly as they had been,” Kauffman says. During the second quarter, more bankers reported denying new farm loan requests compared to the previous two years. Kauffman says credit conditions are weaker compared to several years ago.

“There are a number of businesses that would be involved in providing service to agriculture,” Kauffman says. “So, when there are changes to the agricultural economy, that does have an impact across a larger spectrum of business interests.”

Producers are not being helped by the fact that interest rates on variable rate operating loans increased to nearly six-percent in the second quarter, the highest in five years. Kauffman says conditions are stabilizing, but commodity prices are still lower than five or six years ago.

Poweshiek County Sheriff confirms black bear sighting

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A black bear was spotted last night in central Iowa. Poweshiek County Sheriff Tom Kriegel says the big furry creature was seen about 6:30 P.M. southeast of the town of Montezuma.

“Somebody called it in and we sent a deputy over into the area to check it out. We wanted to confirm it,” Sheriff Kriegel says. “He actually saw it a couple of times and tried to get it on the in-car camera but he wasn’t able to.”

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources sent out a staffer who, working with the deputy, located and confirmed it as a black bear, though they didn’t offer an estimate on its size. Kriegel says there have been many mountain lion sightings in his county over the years, but this is the first bear.

“They roam from time to time,” the sheriff says. “It might be a younger bear that just happened to wander down here. Kind of unusual but they’ve been spotted up in counties to our north several times.”

Residents who see the animal are warned not to approach it. “Keep some distance away from it and don’t try to corner it,” Kriegel says. “Be aware of your surroundings, too. Don’t crowd it. Hopefully, he’s just passing through and will work his way back out of the area.” He says the bear was not showing any signs of aggression and is not considered a threat.

American Cancer Society advocates lobby Congress for more funds

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Activists from all 50 states are in Washington D.C. this week to lobby members of Congress to pump more money into cancer research.

Among Iowa’s representatives, Angela Sylling, of Johnston, is a volunteer advocate for the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network. Sylling is calling for Congress to increase funding for cancer research at the National Institutes of Health to $36 billion.

“Cancer is a disease that kills 600,000 Americans every year or one person every minute of the day,” Sylling says. “It’s an important priority and we really need to see support from Congress on funding the fight against cancer.” Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are being asked to work together to stabilize the health insurance market so cancer patients and survivors can access the quality health care coverage they need.

Sylling says they’re also calling for support of the Palliative Care and Hospice Education Training Act which will greatly improve the quality of life for cancer patients, as well as support of the Removing Barriers to Colorectal Cancer Screening Act.

“We know a lot of the cancer decisions happen, not in the hospital room or in daily life, but in the halls of Congress,” Sylling says. “We encourage people to join us in the movement and use the opportunity to make your voices heard. Contact your state representative.” Like most of us, Sylling says she’s lost several friends and relatives to cancer while her mother, in Iowa, is currently fighting stage-four cancer.

“It is near and dear to my heart,” Sylling says. “As a caregiver, it gives me some semblance of control of the situation and helping by making my voice heard and impacting lawmakers with some of the decisions we’re asking them about.” It’s predicted 17,200 Iowans will be diagnosed with cancer this year, while 6,500 will die from it.

 

Senator Grassley introduces bill designed to improve IRS customer service

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The Internal Revenue Service has never been anyone’s favorite agency, according to Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, but his new legislation may help people to detest the IRS a little less.

Grassley is introducing what he’s calling the Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights Enforcement Act. Grassley says, “The bill would improve customer service at the IRS, create new taxpayer protections and update and strengthen existing taxpayer protection.”

Grassley, a Republican, says he’s introduced similar legislation several times in the past, dating back to the mid-1980s. He says many of the earlier goals have already been met but the now agency needs to have the bar placed higher.

Grassley says, “There’s still much work to be done to make sure taxpayers have what they need as they work to meet their tax obligation.” Following recent scandals involving the agency and a boost in complaints about poor customer service, Grassley says it’s clear the IRS still needs closer regulation and guidance.

“Taxpayers shouldn’t be at a disadvantage with an agency that has such tremendous power over their money,” Grassley says. “The IRS has to answer taxpayers’ questions, protect their privacy, and help people meet their tax obligations with fairness and most importantly, respect.”

Grassley most recently introduced a Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights in June of 2015 which targeted mismanagement and inappropriate conduct by IRS employees.

Illinois woman charged with stabbing sister to death in Des Moines

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Ieisha McDuffy

An Illinois woman is accused of killing her sister in Des Moines over the weekend.

Police say 31-year-old Chicago resident Ieisha McDuffy is charged in the stabbing death of her sister, 30-year-old Lakeisha McDuffy of Des Moines. Investigators say the two sisters were visiting another relative in an apartment complex early Sunday, they got into an argument and the stabbing happened in the hallway.

The younger sister was rushed to a Des Moines hospital, where she died. The elder McDuffy is jailed on a charge of first-degree murder. It marks the 24th homicide this year in Des Moines.

Iowa helps Japan launch its first bacon festival

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Organizers of the world’s largest bacon festival, held every winter here in Iowa, are launching the first-ever bacon festival in Japan — in Iowa’s sister state of Yamanashi.

Brooks Reynolds, chairman of the Iowa Bacon Board and co-founder of the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival, says they’re donating at least one-thousand pounds of Iowa bacon to jump-start the Japanese event in November.

“Twenty percent of Iowa pork is already sent to Japan. They’re one of the largest importers of Iowa pork,” Reynolds says. “We just thought why not try to do what we do here in Iowa — over there?”

The Japan Bacon Festival will take place in Kofu, the capital city of Yamanashi Prefecture on November 3rd. Those who attend will get to sample Japanese and American-style bacon. There will also be bacon-inspired contests, beverages, music, a chef exchange, and more.

Reynolds says, “We’re going to have 20 different food vendors using bacon in various ways, whether it’s bacon yakitori, bacon ramen, or fun, interesting bacon sushi items.” The Iowans have launched successful bacon festivals elsewhere, including in Keystone, Colorado and in Reykjavik, Iceland. Reynolds says the large shipment of bacon to Japan will arrive with specialty cookbooks to assure the delicacy is prepared just right, a combination of crispy with a little bit of chewy.

“I’m going over for 11 days so I’ll be in the Kofu area for a week, working with the various food vendors,” Reynolds says. “If they have any questions or need any help, hopefully I’ll teach them the right way to cook quality bacon.” The popularity of the Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival, held in downtown Des Moines, has continued growing exponentially year after year.

“We started in 2008 with 200 people and for the first six years, we doubled, going from 200 to 400 to 800 to 2,000 to 4,000 to 8,000,” Reynolds says. “This year was our 10th year and we had 11,000 people from 40 states and seven different countries attend the largest bacon festival in the world.” Next year’s bacon festival is set for February 17th at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines.

The Japan Bacon Festival was inspired by a historic humanitarian effort in 1959. Japan was devastated by two huge typhoons and Iowa’s response was to airlift 36 breeding hogs and ship 100,000 bushels of corn to help with the recovery.

The so-called Iowa Hog Lift is credited with setting the stage for Iowa and Yamanashi becoming Sister States by formal agreement, opening markets in Japan for U.S. goods and services, and initiating agricultural cooperative programs between the two nations.