The Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce is asking businesses to decorate their windows pink for breast cancer awareness October 19th – October 23rd. Each business is encouraged to decorate and/or paint windows to promote breast cancer awareness. A “Pink Cruise” will take place on Thursday, October 22nd starting at 6 PM. Residents are encouraged to decorate their vehicles while they cruise “the loop”, viewing the creative window art. Along with the cruise, there will be a donation bucket at the Depot taking donations for Cass County Relay for Life.

At the request of the Atlantic Police Department, the following rules must be followed:

• Obey all traffic laws including stopping at all stop signs and traffic lights.
• Occupants must remain in vehicles at all times. Please do not sit on top of, or in the back of vehicles.
• No honking, out of respect for residential areas.

Capture the creative window art with #MyAtlanticIA and post to the Atlantic Area Chamber’s Facebook page or Instagram (AtlanticIowaFan). Contact the Atlantic Area Chamber with any questions at chamber@atlanticiowa.com or call 712-243-3017.

(Radio Iowa) – U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is encouraging Iowans who’ve recovered from Covid to donate their plasma. About 22-hundred Covid patients in Iowa have been treated with convalescent plasma. Azar says the product is available at 43 Iowa hospitals. “American enjoy access to convalescent plasma than patients in any other country,” Azar says.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar

Azar, who toured a blood center in Des Moines where plasma is being collected, says Iowa is among the states where Covid cases are rising and, as the weather gets colder, he urged residents to avoid the risks of socializing in groups. “That means family gatherings, it means neighborhood get-togethers,” Azar says. “…We are seeing increasing numbers of community spread throughout the Midwest, upper Midwest, northern plains from these types of casual household gatherings.”

A record number of 482 patients are being treated in Iowa hospitals for Covid. Azar says there’s been a 75 percent drop in the mortality rate among patients over the age of 70 since April due to new treatment options. “That’s real progress, but we also have concerning trends as cases rise in a number of places, including here in Iowa,” Azar says. “We should all be taking steps to protect ourselves — to keep ourselves, our families and our communities safe.”

More than 14-hundred new cases of Covid have been confirmed in Iowa through test results in the past day. At least one of five people tested in eight counties in the past two weeks have had the virus. In 10 other counties, between 15 and 20 percent of residents who were tested had Covid. Azar also visited Ames this (Thursday) morning. He met with a man who’s participating in a clinical trial for antibody products that may help prevent or treat Covid-19.

Azar says it’s the trial is for the same antibody cocktail President Trump took. “We want to just express our deep, deep appreciation to any individual who enrolls in a clinical trial because this enables us to establish the data, the evidence, the science that allow us to bring forward the next generation of therapies that can save people,” Azar says. Azar encourages Iowans to donate blood as well, since most traditional blood drives have been suspended during the pandemic.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa officials are investigating possible abuse at a troubled state-run institution for people with intellectual disabilities.  Kelly Garcia, director of the Iowa Department of Human Services, said in an interview Thursday that there is a “visible marking” on a resident at the Glenwood Resource Center, which has been rocked by scandals twice in the past four years, the Des Moines Register reports.

She said the injury couldn’t have been inflicted by another resident, because everyone who lives in the person’s house is immobile. Garcia said she asked the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation to help determine what happened.  “We’re still very much sorting through the facts,” she said.

The institution is home to about 190 adults with severe intellectual disabilities, such as autism or seizure disorders. The residents live in ranch-style homes spread around the campus.  Although no staff members had been suspended and no criminal charges had been filed, supervision has been increased, Garcia said.

She said her agency also reported the situation to a state entity that regulates health care facilities and the U.S. Department of Justice, which already is investigating the Glenwood Resource Center over allegations of poor medical care and unethical research into sexual arousal.

(Radio Iowa) – The National Weather Service released its annual winter outlook this (Thursday) morning with defined outlooks for either warm and dry or cold and wet conditions going into the winter season. But Climate Prediction Center Deputy Director Mike Halpert says it gets a little bit more complicated when you look at the jetstream and its impact on Iowa.

“The Iowa, Wisconsin area oftentimes falls in between or becomes very uncertain as to whether they become drier as a drier signal as the jetstream shifts further north or becomes wetter as it doesn’t shift quite as far,” he says. “So the forecasts for Iowa are actually in the equal chance category so there’s an equal chance for wet or dry, warm or cold.”

Dave Miscus is a drought expert at the C-P-C. He says our temperatures over the next several months will likely dictate what we expect come spring as far as ongoing drought conditions go even if we do end up in a wetter than normal pattern. He says once the soil freezes in the wintertime the soil doesn’t get into the soil and then we have to wait until spring to get any soil moisture recharge.

Miscus says if the soil freezes soon before any more precipitation, we enter the winter waiting. “Not looking too good for removing that drought in especially western Iowa — which has been lingering for the last six to nine months here. We’ll have to wait and see what the spring brings,” Miscus says.

The outlook released Thursday has higher probabilities or colder and wetter conditions to our north along with drier and warmer conditions to the south, but nothing is definitive at this point, especially not knowing exactly how strong the developing La Nina pattern is going to be.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A majority of bankers surveyed in rural parts of 10 Plains and Western states are showing more enthusiasm for the state of their local economies than they have since the coronavirus pandemic began. The Rural Mainstreet Survey’s overall index surged to 53.2 in October, up from 46.9. in September and well ahead of the 35.5 reading in March, when the index bottomed out as the outbreak began. Any score above 50 suggests a growing economy, while a score below 50 suggests a shrinking economy.

Bankers from Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming were surveyed.

Sheriff’s Deputies in Page County, Wednesday, arrested a Shenandoah man wanted on a warrant. Sheriff Lyle Palmer says 31-year-old Nicholas Lee Steinhoff was arrested on a Page County warrant for failure to appear on an original charge of Operating a vehicle without owner’s consent. Steinhoff was arrested in Shenandoah and transported to the Page County Jail, where he was being held on a $2,000 cash-only bond, pending further court proceedings

(Radio Iowa) – A man who sold a fatal cocktail of illegal drugs to a woman in Dubuque last year has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Court documents show 30-year-old Carl Ravon Watkins admitted he told the woman he was selling her heroin. Watkins actually sold the woman a mixture of fentanyl AND acetyl fentanyl, which is 15 times more potent than morphine.

The woman took the drugs later that night in her home. A few hours later, her boyfriend found her dead. Dubuque Police set up a sting a day later and, as Watson was arrested, prosecutors say he dropped a baggie containing the same mixture of drugs.

Two members of the Atlantic Rotary Club, President Brian Harris, and Ruth Sears, Thursday (today), presented Atlantic Police Lt. Devin Hogue with a grant check for $3,000, which will help defer the cost of a drone used for emergency situations.

Atlantic Police Lt. Devin Hogue (center) receives a check for $3,000 from Atlantic Rotary President Brian Harris. (also pictured from left to right): Atlantic Fire Chief Tom Cappel; Cass County Sheriff Darby McLaren; Cass Co. EMA Director Mike Kennon; Rotary member Ruth Sears; Atlantic PD Officer Brock Thompson. (Photo submitted)

Lt. Hogue has headed-up the effort to acquire a drone equipped with FLIR, a Forward-looking Infrared camera, otherwise referred to as a thermal imaging camera, which detects heat signatures.

Hogue said the total cost of the program, including the drone, camera, and training, is just shy of $20,000. After Hogue, other law enforcement and Emergency Management officials saw a demonstration of what a drone can do, he spearheaded the effort to acquire the funding.

Other grant funds in addition to those provided by the Rotary, are currently pending. The FLIR feature of the drone, Hogue says will help in many situations.

Cass County Emergency Management Coordinator Mike Kennon if a law enforcement or emergency manager needs a drone, time is of the essence. He says drones from Montgomery and Shelby Counties were used last week in locating cattle that had gotten loose along the interstate, and a drone would have been helpful back in July 2015, when there was an anhydrous ammonia leak at West Central Cooperative.

Hogue said the drone will be purchased from HTS Ag in Harlan. The Autel Evo II dual is expected to arrive hopefully, by the first of the year. By then, the determination will be made who the most qualified pilots are.

He said they hope to show the public the capabilities of the new tool, sometime in the coming months.

Hogue says they’re happy to get the program underway, and very appreciative of the funds they’ve received thus far, including $8,000 from the Cass County EMA.

An Autel Robotics EVO II drone. (Photo via Autelpilot.com)

One person complained of pain and possible injury, but was not hospitalized, following an accident that took place at around 1:15-p.m. Wednesday, north of Panora. The Guthrie County Sheriff’s Office says a 2011 Nissan SUV driven by 56-year old Michael Mobley, of Panora, was traveling north on Highway 4 and had signaled, waiting for oncoming traffic to pass, so he could turn left onto Chimra Road. A 2004 Chrysler Town & Country van driven by 16-year old Johnathan Michaelson, of Yale, was also traveling north on Highway 4. When he became distracted by a passenger in the van, he failed to notice in-time, the vehicle in front of him was stopped on the highway.

The teen was unable to maintain control of the van, which ran into the rear of the SUV. Mobley complained of pain afterward. Neither Michaelson nor his two male juvenile passengers from Jamaica and Yale, were hurt. All of the occupants of the combined vehicles were wearing their seat belts.

A Guthrie County Deputy cited Michaelson for Failure to Maintain Control. Damage from the collision amounted to $3,300 altogether.