More State and area news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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The area’s latest and/or top news stories at 7:06-a.m. From KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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(Radio Iowa) – Authorities have pulled a body from a northeast Iowa river. Officials say the man’s body was discovered Monday floating in the Cedar River above the downtown dam in Waverly. Police and firefighters recovered the body around 8:30 AM. A family member has positively identified the victim, but authorities aren’t releasing his name until all notifications have been been completed.

The body has been transported to the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office for further investigation.

(Update 8:20-a.m.) Firefighters from Atlantic were dispatched to a semi tractor-trailer fire early this morning. The page about an UPS trailer on fire went out at 5:27-a.m. The driver had pulled off Interstate 80 westbound at Exit 57 when he noticed the fire, which fire officials say was apparently caused by overheated wheel bearings on the trailer. Crews arrived on the scene at around 5:40-a.m., and quickly knocked down the fire on the wheels and tires. There was no damage to the trailer or its contents, and no one was injured.

Firefighters departed the scene a little after 6-a.m.

(Radio Iowa) – With millions of acres of Iowa cropland flattened by last month’s derecho, a webinar is planned for tomorrow (Wednesday) targeting Iowa farmers who need to address the challenges of managing those destroyed crops. While officials initially estimated 14-million acres were impacted, field agronomist Meaghan Anderson, at the Iowa State University Extension, says at least three-and-a-half million acres of corn are shot. “There are a lot of acres that we would consider to be not salvageable at this point,” Anderson says, “and a number of them have already been tilled under or the residue has been managed in one way or another because they’ve been deemed to be not mechanically harvestable.”

The August 10th storm, with peak straight-line winds of 140 miles an hour, hit at a point when most of Iowa’s corn crop was at maximum height and all of the roots were fully developed. Anderson says there’s no hope for the corn that was knocked down being able to right itself — and the majority of the ears are worthless. “The corn is very light so it’s very poor quality,” Anderson says. “It’s going to be very hard to dry down and that’s even if we could pick it up off the ground. Some of it is just so flat that there’s not a way that we could physically get it into a combine.”

The derecho left a significant amount of acreage where the corn can’t be harvested, which creates a challenge in fields across the state. “Most people are going to need to attempt to do some kind of residue management with it, at the very least to size the corn stalks,” Anderson says. “Instead of being six-plus-foot long corn stalks, we really need them to be smaller pieces of corn stalk, especially when we think about planting next spring.” Some farmers might be able to allow livestock to graze on the fallen corn, but there are practical difficulties with that option, too. She says some growers are struggling as they look to the 2021 growing season. “Nobody wants to talk about all the corn that’s on the ground,” Anderson says, “but talking about how we can best manage these fields looking toward next year and what we need to be thinking about for next year, those are all important discussion points that we’ll have on Wednesday.”

The webinar will run from 1 to 2 P-M. It’s free but registration is required at www.aep.iastate.edu/corn

(Radio Iowa) – Reports of child abuse in Iowa have dropped dramatically in recent months, but advocates for children says it’s no cause for celebration, as a drop in calls doesn’t mean a drop in incidents. Brooke Hendrickx, spokeswoman for the Quad Cities Child Abuse Council, says the pandemic and back-to-school policies are affecting children at risk of abuse and neglect. “Calls with reports of child abuse were down over 50% across the state,” Hendrickx says. “That was a little scary because we knew that child abuse hadn’t decreased by 50%. If anything, it had probably increased due to the increased risk in homes.”

Teachers, coaches, clergy, and others who are required to report child abuse and neglect lost access to children in mid-March when schools and child care centers closed to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Still, Hendrickx says they’re finding ways to adapt to the changes brought on by the pandemic. “With that adaptation comes certain measure that can be put in place to check in on kids,” Hendrickx says. “You’re seeing that with a lot of the schools’ ‘Return to Learn’ plans. Even families who chose the 100% remote learning, there’s weekly video check-ins with those kids.”

Hendrickx says only the “Child Protection Center” in Muscatine remains open to conduct medical examinations and forensic interviews for children affected by abuse or neglect. Without access to grandparents and other adults, she says many parents call the Quad Cities Child Abuse Council to ask about changes in their kids’ behavior. “That increased stress and that increased isolation all increase the risk of child abuse,” Hendrickx says. “We just need to continue to look out for one another, to check in on our neighbors and our friends.”

The local Child Abuse Council created Facebook groups for parents to connect with each other, while Hendrickx says client groups meet virtually to give moms and dads a chance to talk to someone besides their kids. Learn more at ChildAbuseQC.org or by calling the national hotline, 800-4-A-CHILD.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Workforce Development says the unemployment tax rates paid by businesses will remain unchanged in 2021. Businesses pay unemployment taxes into a trust fund so unemployment benefits can be paid out — and there was some question whether the increase in unemployment brought on by the pandemic would cost them more. I-W-D says the governor has put 490 million dollars of federal coronavirus relief money into the pool — and that will allow the rate to stay the same in 2021.

I-W-D is required to set the new unemployment tax rate each year based on the trust fund balance at the end of the fiscal year June 30th.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:45 a.m. CDT

UNDATED (AP) — The Polk County Sheriff’s Office has agreed to release reports and video of crimes and other incidents it investigates when there is an open records request. The court settlement in the lawsuit filed by the Iowa Freedom of Information Council was released Monday. The sheriff’s office had refused to release officer video and reports of the July 2018 fatal shooting by a deputy of Isaiah Hayes, of Wisconsin. The sheriff’s office promises to release the Hayes case information and similar information in other cases moving forward.

UNDATED (AP) — Rapper Kanye West will remain on the Iowa ballot as a candidate for president after a state panel rejected two challenges to his candidacy. The Iowa Candidate Nomination Objection Panel on Monday unanimously rejected one challenge related to signatures on West’s nomination papers and another that noted West was running as a “no-party” candidate but is registered in his home state of Wyoming as a Republican. The panel is comprised of Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate and Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller and Democratic Iowa Auditor Rob Sand. Besides West, eight others will appear on the ballot.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa continues to record a high number of new positive coronavirus cases as the state continues to struggle with spreading virus in several counties, including those with university campuses. Data from the Iowa Department of Public Health showed 611 new positive cases and two additional deaths, raising the total to 1,112 deaths. With many K-12 schools back in class, some districts also are struggling with high levels of county virus activity. Twelve counties have a positivity rate of 15% or higher. That’s the threshold Gov. Kim Reynolds has set for schools to request to go to online teaching.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Democrats filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn court rulings last week that invalidated thousands of absentee ballot requests. The Democratic Party, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee filed the lawsuit Monday after judges in Linn and Woodbury counties sided with President Donald Trump’s campaign and other Republican groups. They argued that elections officials in both counties erred when they sent absentee ballot request forms out with personal information filled in. The rulings mean about 57,000 ballots requests returned in Linn County and 14,000 in Woodbury County are not valid, and voters will have to resubmit requests on standard, blank forms as directed by Republican Secretary of State Paul Pate.

(Associated Press) – The Polk County Sheriff’s Office has agreed to release reports and video of crimes and other incidents it investigates when there is an open records request. The court settlement in the lawsuit filed by the Iowa Freedom of Information Council was released Monday. The sheriff’s office had refused to release officer video and reports of the July 2018 fatal shooting by a deputy of Isaiah Hayes, of Wisconsin.

The sheriff’s office promises to release the Hayes case information and similar information in other cases moving forward.