(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports 35-year-old Thomas James Delgado, of Red Oak, was arrested at around 8:25-p.m. Tuesday, in Red Oak. Thomas was taken into custody in the 200 block of S. 2nd Street, on a charge of Domestic Abuse Assault by impeding the flow of air and/or blood. He was being held without bond in the Montgomery County Jail.

(Radio Iowa) – Some thermometers in western Iowa hit triple digits yesterday (Tuesday). National Weather Service meteorologist Alex Trellinger says the highest temperature reported to his office in Sioux Falls was 102, just south of Akron. “We got one of our sites at Morris, which is in Sioux County, at 100 degrees,” he says, “and then Spencer hit 101.” That was the temperature in Spencer at 5 p.m.

It’s been 97 years since Spencer had a 101 degree day in September — and that 101 degree day back in 1925 was on September FOURTH. Things warmed up quickly in Iowa yesterday (Tuesday), with temperatures soaring by 11 a.m.  “We just got a much warmer air into the region out ahead of a cold front, which really helped to effect all of these much warmer temperatures here in our region,” Trellinger says, “especially considering the time of year here, the middle-to-end of September.”

Trellinger says drought conditions played a role in yesterday’s high temperatures in northwest Iowa, as the sun’s heat bore down on parched ground. “When we’re not in a drought, the heat is also used to evaporate some of the moisture in the soil there, so it’s not as efficient as a heating mechanism when there’s moisture in the soil,” he says, “so by being very dry, that does set us up to being warmer than usual.”

Several other Iowa cities broke high temperature records Tuesday: In Atlantic we reached 99 degrees, which broke a 131-year old record of 95 (set in 1891); Cedar Rapids hit 96. That was also the record high in Lamoni. It reached 95 in Burlington. Des Moines hit 94 and it was 93 in Dubuque. Meteorologist Jim Lee of the National Weather Service office in metro Des Moines, who was tracking the records, says Waterloo hit 96 degrees. “We were unseasonably hot, as any resident would tell you,” Lee says. “We had multiple parts of the state get well up into the mid to upper 90s.” A triple digit temperature had not been recorded on a September 20th anywhere in Iowa for 69 years.

“By a lot of measures not only did we break daily records, but to be this late in the year and get this hot maybe it not unprecedented, but very rare,” Lee says. Today’s forecast: highs in the 60s and 70s.

(Redfield, Iowa) – A collision in Dallas County, east of Redfield, late Tuesday morning , left one person dead and two others, including a child, injured. The Iowa State Patrol reports a 2011 Dodge Grand Caravan driven by 97-year-old Arnold Philip Whitney, of Redfield, was southbound on I Avenue, when Whitney failed to yield as he proceeded to turn east onto Old Highway 6.

A 2018 KIA Sorento traveling east on Old Highway 6 and driven by 76-year-old Jeffrey Lynn Lyon, of Adel, struck the van in the rear, sending it into the westbound lane, directly into the path of a westbound 2010 Honda Odyssey van, driven by 34-year-old Savannah Louise Corbett, of Adel. The crash happened at around 11:15-a.m.

The Dodge and the Honda collided in the westbound lane before the Caravan came to rest in the north ditch. The Honda van spun around and came to rest facing east, in the westbound lane. The Patrol says Arnold Whitney died at the scene. Corbett, and her 11-year-old passenger, Olivia Corbett, were injured and transported to Methodist Hospital in Des Moines by Dallas County EMS.

All of the crash victims were wearing their seat belts. The Patrol was assisted at the scene by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office.

(Radio Iowa) – Health officials are encouraging Iowans to get flu shots as soon as possible. The experts say Australia is already experiencing its worst flu season in five years, which could indicate it will also be severe in the U-S. Nola Aigner -Davis, spokeswoman for the Polk County Health Department in Des Moines, says the county is still seeing many COVID-19 cases and its hospital system is again strained.

“We really need to still be good to our hospital and healthcare systems,” Aigner-Davis says, “because they’re still in a staffing shortage from COVID-19. They’re still taking care of very sick individuals.” Since early 2020, more than 46-thousand Iowans have been hospitalized for treatment of COVID, while the state’s death toll from the virus is expected to exceed 10-thousand when the official numbers are released on Wednesday.

“We’re not seeing COVID slow down,” she says. “We keep hearing of people getting sick, being hospitalized. Cases aren’t stopping and you can get COVID and the flu at the same time.” Aigner-Davis says people who are interested can get a flu shot and a COVID booster in one visit, while Iowans who think they have the flu should contact their doctor for guidance. In the past few years, Iowa’s average life expectancy has fallen about a year-and-a-half due to COVID.

(reporting by Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

(Radio Iowa) – Officials from Taiwan have agreed to buy two-point-six billion dollars worth of U.S. corn, soybeans and dried distillers grain. Representatives of Iowa commodity groups joined Taiwan officials at the Iowa Capitol for a signing ceremony. Johnson Chiang is director general of the country’s Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago.

“We want to have more cooperation with Iowa in addition to purchasing agriculture products, but also I think we enough areas in high technologies because of Taiwan is also one of the leading contributors to the high technology supply chain.” Taiwan, for example, is the world’s largest supplier of computer chips. Taiwan has signed letters of intent to purchase one-and-a-half million metric tons of U.S. corn and up to two-point-nine metric tons of U.S. soybeans as well as by-products of corn and beans over the next two years.

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig says trade matters to Iowa. “As a leading exporter of food and agriculture products, we see great value in the type of commitment that you all signed today and that continues to build upon a relationship that we are maintaining and building throughout time.” Governor Kim Reynolds says Iowa exports to Taiwan have increased in the past five years and are on pace to be higher this year as well.

“Taiwan’s economic clout is substantial,” Reynolds says. “It’s the 12th largest purchaser of Iowa products, with a total of $304 million of (Iowa) goods sold in Taiwan last year.” The Taiwanese delegation is on a goodwill mission to the United States and has spent the past two days in Iowa. Chin-Chang Huang is the deputy minister of Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture. He was intrigued by Iowa State University programs on climate change and sustainable agriculture and plans to recommend his government establish agreements with I-S-U.

“And also send our people to study at Iowa State University,” he said. Taiwan’s first directly-elected president earned an agricultural economics degree from Iowa State in 1953. President Lee led Taiwan from 1988 until 2000.

(Radio Iowa) – The emerald ash borer (EAB) has now been discovered in all but six of Iowa’s 99 counties.
The Iowa Department of Agriculture has confirmed that Mitchell County is the 93rd county with an E-A-B infestation. Larvae were collected near Spring Park in rural Osage and federal identification confirmed them as the invasive insect. It is the ninth confirmed infestation this year.

The only counties now without an E-A-B infestation are Plymouth, Woodbury, Monona, Osceola, Emmett, and Palo Alto counties in western and northwest Iowa. The Ag Department says the invasive insect is a threat to native ash tree species — with the damage from the larva typically killing a tree within two to four years after infestation.

(Radio Iowa) – Republican Senator Chuck Grassley says a former aide on his Democratic opponent’s campaign has made very concerning allegations in a police report — allegations Mike Franken says are false.  “Iowa voters deserve honesty and, of course, the victim deserves respect,” Grasley says. Kimberley Strope-Boggus was fired from Franken’s campaign in February. She says Franken kissed her without her permission in March after offering her a new campaign job. Strope-Boggus filed a police report about a month later. Prosecutors declined to file charges. During an interview with The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Franken denied the allegations in the report and accused Republicans of targeting him because he’s in a critical U.S. Senate race.

“Franken made this a campaign issue, I think, by his comments,” Grassley says, “but it’s not a campaign issue I’m going to follow up on.” Grassley says Franken’s comments to the reporter show total disregard to his former campaign aide. “Anybody running for office, those of us running are held to a very high standard and I fulfill that responsibility for transparency each day as I have to honor serving the people of Iowa,” Grassley says, “and I think Iowans deserve nothing less.”

Grassley made his comments this (Tuesday) morning during a weekly interview with Iowa radio reporters. Four hours later, a spokeswoman for Grassley’s campaign said the senator would focus on issues like the economy and inflation — but at the same time, until there is full transparency about the alleged incident, it will continue to be an issue in the campaign.

(Radio Iowa) – Northeast Iowa officials say a young farmer has died. A Farley man died in a farming accident on Saturday night. The Dubuque County Sheriff’s Office says it happened shortly before 9:30 north of Farley, at a residence there. Workers were unhooking a silage wagon when it started rolling backward. Twenty-five-year-old Austin Gaul got caught under the wheels and was run over.

(Radio Iowa) – A northwest Iowa woman has been offered a plea agreement in a case involving the deaths of over a thousand pigs at two hog confinements in Sac County in June. Thirty-four-year-old Elana Laber, of Early, was responsible for the care of the pigs. The company that owned the animals estimates it lost 150-thousand dollars due to the deaths of the pigs. Court records indicate Laber will plead guilty to one count of first-degree criminal mischief and one count of livestock neglect.

She faces up to 10 years in prison for the felony charge of criminal mischief charge. The sentence for animal neglect could be as long as a year. Her plea hearing is scheduled for next Monday, September 26.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak this (Tuesday) afternoon, reported two arrests. At around 2:55-a.m., Red Oak Police arrested 45-year-old Anthony Dean Morris, of Red Oak, for Driving While Suspended. His bond was set at $300. And, at around 11:15-a.m., 39-year-old Blair Alder Redd, of Lampasas, TX, was arrested in Red Oak for Public Intoxication, Criminal Mischief in the 3rd Degree, and Burglary in the 3rd Degree. Redd was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $5,000 bond.