(DES MOINES) – The Iowa Finance Authority (IFA) and Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) today announced their newly designated 2025 Iowa Thriving Communities.  The communities of Council Bluffs, Des Moines, Fort Dodge, Mason City, Newton and Waterloo have received designations.

“Housing is the foundation of upward economic opportunity, and when all Iowans have access to affordable homes, families, communities, and businesses can truly thrive,” said IEDA|IFA Director Debi Durham. “Iowa Thriving Communities have stepped up as leaders in embracing housing for all income levels, and I extend my congratulations to our newly designated communities.”

Addressing the housing needs of our thriving economy requires a strategic, proactive, and innovative approach. Iowa communities, local partners, and employers must work together to ensure that all Iowans can afford to live in the communities where they work.

To highlight and encourage these efforts, IFA and IEDA launched the second annual Iowa Thriving Communities designation. This initiative recognizes communities that are going above and beyond, using innovative strategies to attract housing opportunities for their workforce.

“We are thrilled to receive the Iowa Thriving Community designation,” said Mason City Mayor Bill Schickel. “This recognition not only affirms our commitment to providing housing for our workforce but also energizes our ongoing efforts to build a brighter future for all residents. With this designation, we can continue to create a vibrant, inclusive community where everyone has the opportunity to prosper.”

These communities demonstrated their commitment and innovation in welcoming housing for all income levels through a rigorous application process. By showcasing best practices in attracting housing development, they aim to serve as models for both state and national efforts. In addition to the recognition, the designation comes with valuable scoring points for the Federal Housing Tax Credit and Workforce Housing Tax Credit programs, effective through 2025 for each community.

In addition, the following 2024 Iowa Thriving Communities were granted extensions to encourage additional development: Charles City, Creston, Knoxville, Manning, Muscatine, Stanton and West Des Moines.

More information about Iowa Thriving Communities is available at iowafinance.com.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, a Republican from Marion, says the current administration has to take responsibility for the crisis at the southern border. Hinson says she’s tired of seeing stories about immigrants who are in the country illegally committing serious crimes. “A recent report from the House Judiciary Committee raised serious concerns about suspected terrorists released into our communities under the Harris-Biden administration. During her time as the Border Czar Harris has only traveled near the southwest border once, and there were reports that border patrol agents were actually told to sanitize the area ahead of her arrival to mask the true severity of the crisis,” Hinson says.

Hinson says the national media are trying to revise history on Harris’ role at the border instead of questioning it. “She, along with every single congressional Democrat who refused to support secure border policies and hold this administration accountable, bear responsibility for the dangerous illegal immigration crisis,” she says. “They bear responsibility for those who have been violently attacked and in some cases killed by illegal immigrants.” Hinson says the issue needs to be addressed.

“There must be accountability for the ongoing crisis at our southern border, and I will continue working to hold Harris and Biden accountable so we can make America safe again,” Hinson says.

Hinson made her comments during her weekly conference call with reporters.

(Radio Iowa) – The Office of the State Archaeologist has spent 12 days unearthing a mastodon skull in south-central Iowa’s Wayne County. State Archeologist John Doershuk says it all started when he got a call about a Facebook post. “It was a photo of this relatively young guy. Huge grin on his face, holding a Fred Flintstone-type, you know, 45-inch long, massive bone,” he says. That was the leg bone of a mastodon that led to the unearthing of the skull.

Doershuk would normally leave such things to paleontologists, but a sample came back approximating its age at 13-thousand-600 years old. That’s on the edge of when native American ancestors would have come into this area of Iowa. ” The last glaciation probably still had the northern part of Iowa under ice. But the southern part was ice free at the time and was starting to vegetate and animals like mastodons were coming in to browse and human hunters would have also found that a hospitable place as well,” Doershuk says.

This mastadon skull and other bones were recovered in Wayne County. (photo from State Archaeologist’s FB page)

So far no mastodon bone in Iowa bears cut marks consistent with human involvement, but Doershuk says he’s looking for that in this fossil. Doershuk says he was particularly excited about a two foot section of tusk recovered from the site. He called it a “goldmine” for answering all sorts of questions about the animal.  “Apparently there are techniques now to determine how many calves a female mastodon had that get recorded as a chemical signature because of the changes in the body chemistry during the pregnancy and the birth. And that gets recorded in the tusks,” Doershuk explains.

The team didn’t find any stone tools near the bones that might indicate there was some human interaction.

[Update] (Radio Iowa) – Governor Reynolds is seeking a waiver to use federal funds to provide boxes of food for low income Iowa kids NEXT summer. Reynolds turned down 29 million dollars in federal funding for a program THIS summer that would have provided an extra 120 dollars in grocery money for each child who qualifies for a free or reduced price lunch at school. Iowa was one of 13 states that did not participate in the program.

The money is distributed with Electronic Benefit Transfer or E-B-T cards that can be used at grocery stores where food stamps are accepted. The governor’s request is for Iowa to get the 29 million next summer and use it to provide boxes of groceries to feed an estimated 300-thousand children. Reynolds says her alternative will use bulk purchasing and provide healthier food to families, at lower cost.

Iowa Hunger Coalition spokesman Luke Elzinga says it’s not exactly what the group hoped for, but it acknowledges there’s a need to act because Iowa food pantries are overwhelmed. “We appreciate the state’s willingness to explore alternative options,” he says, “but we also remain steadfast in our belief that using Summer EBT to provide grocery benefits directly to families is the best decision for Iowa.”

Democrats have criticized Reynolds for refusing to accept the federal money to feed low income kids this summer. Some Democrats in the legislature say the governor now is proposing a new and untested way of distributing food assistance and she should, instead, use the same benefit system established for food stamps.

(Radio Iowa) – State officials say the latest report shows the closure of Tyson’s pork processing plant in Perry has had little effect on the state’s overall unemployment rate. Iowa’s unemployment rate was 2.8% in July, unchanged for the fourth consecutive month. Jesse Dougherty, a spokesman for Iowa Workforce Development, said less than half of the nearly 1400 workers who lost their jobs when the Tyson plant closed in June applied for jobless benefits in July. “We do know that there was around 200 that transferred to other Tyson plants. Some workers took time off. Some returned to their home country and have plans to return back to the area. Others we do know have found some jobs in similar fields,” Dougherty said. “We can’t tell exactly what that number is yet.”

Tyson was the largest employer in Perry. Tyson cited financial struggles within the pork industry as the main reason for closing the plant. The state set up a transition center at the plant to help the Tyson workers find another job and Dougherty said his agency is still evaluating data about how many are now employed elsewhere. “We don’t have quite the full picture of that yet,” Dougherty said. “…Layoffs are always a difficult situation, but because this was announced in March, we do think we were able to lessen some of that impact.”

About half the employees lived in Perry and the rest commuted to the work at the plant and Dougherty said that’s perhaps another factor in the lower than expected number of unemployment claims. “And I do think Perry does benefit from the fact that you’re also in between the Des Moines metro and Ames,” he said. “That has also helped a little bit.”

Today’s report shows there were about a thousand more Iowans receiving unemployment benefits in July compared to June. Dougherty said the unemployment rate stayed steady because jobs were added in some sectors of the economy. “We actually did have some smaller gains in non-durable goods factories. They were a lot smaller than the losses in Tyson, but they did offset that a little bit,” Dougherty said, “and we also had some gains in education and health care and then also leisure and hospitality.”

The sector that includes leisure, hospitality, entertainment and recreation businesses in Iowa added about 500 jobs in July. “Even though that has been hard hit across the country, it is a good indicator of spending,” Dougherty said. The education and health care sectors are lumped together in the monthly report and added 700 jobs. “Nursing and residential care facilities — that was most of the 700,” Dougherty said.

The total number of Iowans in the workforce has dropped in the past year, however. There were over 21,000 fewer Iowans working last month compared to July of 2023. The number of construction jobs in Iowa has declined by over 3000 since March and in July alone Iowa’s manufacturing sector shed 800 jobs.

(Radio Iowa) – The chairman of the Franklin County Republican Central Committee Larry Sailer is strongly condemning the content of flyers placed on the doors of Hispanic businesses in Hampton earlier this week. “To me, it’s a bit of a hate crime, and I just strongly condemn it. As chair of the Franklin County Republican Party, there’s just no room for this. It’s just a way to try to divide people, and that’s really not what we did now in small town, Iowa, we work pretty well together,” he says.

The flyers read in part: U-S-A Illegal Immigrant Hunting Permit, no bag limit and tagging not required and the bottom of the flyer reads: Trump 2024.

“People know what’s going on. This poster didn’t do either party, any party, any good, just not how we operate. We want to operate on the issues. Have a discussion. Talk to everybody,” Sailer says. Franklin County Democratic Party Chairperson Catherine Crooks has been asked for a comment, but has returned a call.

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with Creston Police Department said at around 8-a.m. today (Thursday), they took a report of a shooting incident. Authorities say the victim drove themselves to Greater Regional Medical Center. A report on their condition was not immediately released. A person of interest in the incident turned himself in to law enforcement at around 10-a.m.

According to a Facebook post from Greater Regional Health in Creston, the facility was placed on lockdown at 8 a.m. on advice from police. The center said there was no threat to employees, patients or visitors at the time and that police felt it was an isolated incident. At around 9-a.m. Creston schools and Southwestern Community College also went on lockdown. The lockdown was lifted at around 10-a.m.

Additional information is currently not available.

(Radio Iowa) – A report from the National Council on Aging and the Urban Institute finds few Iowans 65 and older are enrolled in public benefit programs for which they’re eligible. It found 34 percent of eligible Iowa seniors are enrolled in the Medicare Savings Program, 27 percent in Supplemental Security Income, and just 17 percent in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Jen Teague, at the National Council on Aging, says more eligible seniors should sign up. “If we think about SNAP, it really puts money back in somebody’s pocket so that they can go and purchase healthy and nutritious foods,” Teague says. “Things like SSI, Supplemental Security Income, can really help move someone’s income level from a base level to a higher level so that they have more money each month.”

Teague says there are many reasons so few Iowa seniors are taking part, as they may not know about the programs or may not know how to sign up. “We often find people saying, ‘I don’t want to take a benefit from somebody else,'” Teague says, “and what we really want to encourage, what we want people to hear is that these benefits are available for anyone who’s eligible and it’s not taking it away from someone else.”

The data show Iowa fares worse than the national average for eligible senior enrollment in all three programs.

(Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

DES MOINES, Iowa — Traffic violations will now be more expensive in Des Moines. KCCI says the city rewrote its ordinance to comply with a change in Iowa law. Red light violations increased from $65 to $100. Speeding more than 11 mph over the limit is now a $75 fee. That fine doubles if in a roadwork zone. If you’re caught going more than 26 mph, it is now a $250 fine.

(Radio Iowa) – A few hundred Iowans are being recognized at the Iowa State Fair today (Thursday) as the owners of farms that have been in the same family for at least 100 years. Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig will be handing out the certificates beginning at 9-a.m.  “Truly my favorite day of the year which is the day that we recognize our Century and Heritage Farm award winners,” Naig says. “This year we’re going to recognize 439 families.”

A Heritage Farm has been in the same family for at least 150 years, a Century Farm for 100 years. Today’s (Thursday’s) ceremony will be held in the first building on the fairgrounds that was made of brick. It opened 122 years ago for cattle and horse shows — and Naig imagines some of the founders of Iowa’s Century farms have been in that building. “I cannot think of a better place or time to do that than in the historic Livestock Pavilion here at the great Iowa State Fair,” Naig says. “It’s just so fitting for that.”

More than two-thousand Iowa farms have been owned by the same family for at least 150 years. There are more than 21-thousand Century Farms on the state’s registry — including the farm near Cylinder where Naig grew up.