The Cass County Sheriff’s Office would like the public to be aware of a possible problem that may be going on. A member of the public reported to the Sheriff’s Office that vacuum salespersons had come to her house, and she believed the two male subjects may have been casing the residence. This concern stems from a media release the complainant had seen wherein persons pretending to sell vacuum cleaners come to do a demonstration and later come back to homes to break in.

The Cass County Sheriff’s Office would like to remind the public to stay vigilant, and if there are any door-to-door salespersons (or anyone else) who seems suspicious, please contact law enforcement immediately.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Some charities are fed up with people who donate items they say belong in a garbage dump. They say disposing of the used tires, old sofas and stained mattresses is costly and limits profits that fund needed services. Goodwill of the Great Plains manages 21 thrift stores in four states including Iowa. Sonny Kellen with the charity tells the Sioux City Journal that all of its locations have had to address the issue by installing security cameras to prevent the bad donations.

Karen Froelich helps manage the Bargain Center which helps families pay for schooling. She says she finds unwanted garbage there almost daily. Todd Oberg runs the Disabled American Veterans Thrift Store and says it usually costs him $150 to take the garbage off the property and to a landfill.

Iowa’s 4th annual Healthiest State Walk will be held next week as part of Iowa’s effort to become the healthiest state in the nation. Iowa Lottery C-E-O Terry Rich is serving as the chairman for this year’s event and says they’re aiming for a goal of 500-thousand walkers to walk one kilometer on Wednesday, October 8th.  “We’re encouraging everyone around the state of Iowa to grab a friend, grab your family, join a walk and walk 1K,” Rich says. “That’s really a pretty easy deal. It’s 15 minutes of walking that day.”

He says there are dozens and dozens of walks organized across the state in every one of the 99 counties. “We called the National Guard out and they’re mobilizing all the troops in all of the 52 armories across the state to lead walks,” Rich says. “The governor will lead a walk that day. A lot of the state reps from around the area will be leading, a lot of politicians are having their supporters walk. Schools around the state are going to have all of their students walk that day as part of National Walk to School Day.”

Nearly 900-thousand Iowans have participated in the Healthiest State Initiative’s walks in 2011, 2012 and 2013. This year’s goal is 500-thousand walkers, which would make it the largest statewide walk to date. “If you want to join a walk, just go to IowaHealthiestState.com and join one, start one, get your family out,” Rich says. “Register that you’ve walked and how many people walked so we can reach that 500,000 mark.”

Many organized walks will be held at noon on Wednesday, but walks are encouraged throughout the day. In order for walks to be counted, registration is required. According to the 2013 poll, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, Iowa is 10th in the nation when it comes to being physically, emotionally and mentally healthy.

(Radio Iowa)

AMES, Iowa (AP) – A consultant says Iowa’s three public universities could save tens of millions of dollars in the coming years and eliminate up to 250 jobs by restructuring their administration. Recommendations released Thursday by Deloitte Consulting LLP call for changing or eliminating many individual departments’ human resources, information technology and finance positions. Instead, many of their functions would be handled at a college or university-wide level by more centralized teams.

Deloitte says the jobs would be cut over two years through attrition and perhaps an early retirement initiative. It cautioned the figures were broad estimates. The Iowa Board of Regents is meeting in Ames to discuss the proposals. Regents plan to gather feedback next week at town hall meetings on the university campuses before potentially taking action on the plans next month.

Officials in the Iowa Department of Public Health say it’s “understandable” that Iowans may find the recent news about an Ebola patient in Texas “scary,” but Dr. Ann Garvey, the assistant medical director for the agency, says the U.S. has health care systems in place to handle such cases. “Ebola is only spread if an infected person is actively having symptoms and it’s spread through direct contact with bodily fluids,” Garvey says. “Ebola is not spread through the air.”

Garvey says public health officials are ready to respond if an Ebola case is identified in Iowa. “Hospitals have been preparing for diseases like Ebola for a very long time. They have procedures in place,” Garvey says. “There is a significant amount of guidance that the CDC has put out recently related to Ebola specifically and that addresses all the procedures and steps that health care providers should keep in mind, many of which they’re already doing on a daily basis for other diseases that are infectious in nature.”

The president of Sierra Leone and the ministers of agriculture in Liberia and Sierra Leone are due to visit Des Moines in mid-October for World Food Prize festivities. Dr. Garvey says there’s no reason for concern. “Again, to get Ebola you have to have direct contact with bodily fluids from someone who is ill and actively having systems. Again, it’s not an airborne disease,” Garvey says. “And the recommendations for individuals coming from parts of the world where their is ongoing Ebola activity are really based upon the exposures that they’ve had, but people who have not had contact with anyone who is ill from Ebola, the recommendation is to just take their temperature daily.”

Dr. Garvey says it would be “extremely unlikely” one of those visitors would come down with symptoms, but if they get a fever, there is “appropriate care” available here. One of four medical missionaries from the U.S. who got Ebola in Africa was treated at an Omaha hospital. Dr. Richard Sacra was released last week and he’s not ruling out a return to Liberia.

(Radio Iowa)