DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Cable television provider Mediacom says customers whose televisions are not yet digital ready have been given a two-week extension before analog reception is fully eliminated. The company still has 48 cable channels located between 23 and 78 operating on older television sets.  A phase-out of analog reception began two weeks. The upgrade to all-digital channels will be complete on April 10th.

For the past six years, customers have received both analog and digital signals through a Mediacom cable connection, but now most analog stations are being eliminated to make room for more high-definition channels and faster broadband Internet speeds.

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – Authorities say a Nebraska man who supplied crack cocaine that was sold in northwest Iowa has been given 15 years in federal prison. Federal prosecutors say 32-year-old Tuwane English had pleaded guilty in Sioux City to conspiring to distribute crack cocaine. English would sell crack in Omaha, Neb., to people who would sell it in the Sioux City area. English, of Omaha, must serve eight years of supervised release when he leaves prison. He was sentenced on Monday. He’d already been convicted of conspiracy to distribute narcotics in Nebraska.

The director of the Iowa Department of Human Services says a plan to redesign Iowa’s county-based system for delivering mental health services should also tackle a critical shortage of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. D-H-S director, Chuck Palmer, says lawmakers acknowledge that Iowa’s shortage of psychiatrists is one of the most severe in the country. “It’s the full range, we have acute problems, particularly in rural Iowa. We see it as a significant need and we have to take it on,” Palmer says. Palmer says the bill to reorganize the mental health delivery system includes a study of the shortage of the people needed to run the system.

“The legislature has built into the bill the creation of a workforce group that’s to look at the full range of providers — from psychiatrists where we’re 47th in the nation — to even building up more people trained in peer support,” Palmer explains. Providers say the shortage means a lack of access to mental health care in some parts of the state, especially rural Iowa. Lawmakers say they’re optimistic they will reach agreement on their plan to standardize mental health care statewide and have the state pick up more of the cost.

(Dar Danielson/Radio Iowa)

An event scheduled to take place next Monday night at the Treynor Community Center, will benefit a member of the American Legion Post in  Treynor, who was critically injured last December. According to the Omaha World-Herald, the benefit fish fry for Jerry Lustgraaf will be held from5- to 7-pm Monday at the Community Center, located at 11 West Main Street. The cost is $8 per person.

Lustgraaf, who was the driver of a tow truck, went to help a motorist who had gone into a ditch during an ice storm on December 3rd. He was outside of his truck when he was hit by another vehicle. Lustgraaf was released from the hospital in late January, and while he continues to recuperate at his Treynor home,  it will be months before he can return to work. All of the  proceeds from the benefit fish fry Monday night will go to Lustgraaf’s family, to defray his injury-related expenses.

Anyone with items to donate can contact Post 725 Adjutant Ken Koehler at 712-487-3813.