DES MOINES, Iowa — The 81st birthday of a famous battleship bearing the state’s name was celebrated today (Friday) at the Iowa statehouse with a first-of-its-kind honor.
The award was presented Thursday to Jeff Lamberti, a former state lawmaker. It’s called the USS Iowa Lamberti Service Award, meant to promote ideals of service, preservation of history, and love of Iowa.

Jeff Lamberti

In 2007, Lamberti spearheaded efforts to save the USS Iowa. He helped secure donors and galvanized lawmakers to spend money on continuing its legacy. Lamberti is the owner and president of the indoor football team Iowa Barnstormers.

The USS Iowa, which is now a museum in Los Angeles, is the city’s fourth most visited museum, according to pacificbattleship.com.

USS Iowa (BB-61) port-side view (Pacificbattleship.com)

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – Iowa’s long-running drought has eased since a month ago but is still by far the worst it’s been leading into the growing season in the past three years, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The area of the state that is suffering from extreme drought — the second-worst classification of the Drought Monitor — is about half what it was in December but still encompasses a vast area of northeast Iowa. That includes some or all of more than two dozen counties.

About three-quarters of the state has some measure of drought. The exceptions are a wide area of northwest Iowa and parts of far southern and far eastern Iowa. Drought conditions have persisted in the state since July 2020 — the longest stretch since the 1950s, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. The dryness peaked in September 2023.

Many Iowa rivers have very low flow, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. In Osceola, residents have been urged to conserve water as the town’s water supply — West Lake — has dwindled. But the city reported early this month that the lake’s level had stabilized.

The area of extreme drought in Iowa has shrunk considerably in the past month. (Courtesy of U.S. Drought Monitor)

DES MOINES, Iowa [KCCI] — Year-round sales of E15 at the gas pump are delayed until 2025. The EPA published its order Thursday. It follows a request from eight Midwest governors, including Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, to expand sales of the higher ethanol blend beginning this summer.

E15 is currently restricted in the warmer months over smog concerns. The biofuel industry says those concerns are unfounded. Governor Reynolds says she’s not giving up her fight to permit sales this summer and says she is pursuing a waiver.

(Radio Iowa)- The governor has proclaimed this (Friday) as the Day of Kindness in Iowa, as residents are encouraged to intentionally do something nice for someone, even if it’s a small act. Kara Matheson, a vice president at the West Des Moines Chamber of Commerce, says they launched this project a few years ago as a way to make a positive impact on the community and it’s grown into a statewide event. The chamber’s holding what it’s calling the Socks of Love campaign. “We call upon the community, businesses, schools, families, and everyone in between to come out to the West Des Moines Chamber and bring any amount of new socks that they would like to donate,” Matheson says, “and then we are going to pass them along to West Des Moines Human Services to be distributed from there.”

While most Iowans can’t make the drive to West Des Moines today to donate socks, they -can- hop online and make a donation of as little as ten dollars to have several pairs of socks delivered to the effort. Last year was the debut year for the socks campaign. “We were hoping for around 100 pairs of socks in our first year, and the community really showed up and we actually ended up with 865 pairs of socks,” Matheson says, “which was incredible.” Matheson is hoping people will take this day to heart and try to do something more than pay for the hot beverage of the person behind you in the drive-through lane.

Several members of the West Des Moines Chamber with the 2023 haul of socks

“The sole purpose of Day of Kindness is to encourage the public to do any simple act of kindness,” Matheson says. “You hear of those Pay It Forward lines at coffee, but any act, even writing a kind note, giving a nice compliment to a stranger, these little acts of kindness truly go a long ways.” She says studies show acts of kindness benefit not only the receiver, but also the giver.

(Creston, Iowa) – Creston Police report the arrest at around 9:30-p.m. Thursday, of 28-year-old Chelsey Mae Madison, of Creston. Madison was taken into custody at the Creston/Union County Law Enforcement Center on a charge of Operating While Under the Influence1st offense.  She was taken to the Union County Jail and later posted a $1,000 cash or approved surety bond, before being released.

(Omaha/Valley, NE) – The National Weather Service in Omaha says the warm weather we’ve been experiencing the past few days in southeastern Nebraska and Southwestern Iowa, is here to stay through the weekend. The Weather Service said also, a “Very high fire danger will persist for the next few days.”

In the Hazardous Weather Outlook issued by the NWS in Des Moines, officials said dry and breezy conditions will lead to potential very high fire danger conditions in at least a portion of the area each day. The highest potential may be in southeast Nebraska on Monday, where some areas may see extreme fire danger.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety reports only Harrison County in our listening area, has a Burn Ban in place. That order was issued in late September, 2023, and remains in effect until further notice.

(Radio Iowa) – Hopes raised in January for a turnaround in the state drought situation went away as February turned dry. Iowa D-N-R Hydrologist, Tim Hall says the latest Drought Monitor Report shows that. “There’s a significant chunk of the state of Iowa right, now about almost 20 percent of the state that’s rated by the drought monitor as extreme drought in northeast Iowa,” Hall says. He says that runs from Linn and Benton County north all the way up to the Minnesota border. And 56 percent of the state is rated in severe drought.

“In the wintertime when nothing’s growing and we don’t think about water use, it’s kind of easy to stop remembering where we are. But we still have more than half of the state rated in severe drought. And that’s a problem moving into the spring months and the growing season,” Hall says. He says the January snow was good, but when it melted in February, it illustrated how dry things are. “We had two feet of snow in the state over large parts of the state, and it all melted fairly quickly, and we saw zero instances of flooding,” Hall says. “And that just tells me that the soils are so incredibly dry.”

Hall says the dry soil sucked up most of the snow melt and there was not a lot left to refill empty streams and rivers. “To have that amount of snow melt off and have no even localized flooding is a very surprising thing,” he says. The snow came in January which was one inch above normal for precipitation. But Hall says all that surplus has gone away in what may end up being the driest February on record. “So the pattern of wet month, dry month, wet month, dry month, that doesn’t help us much. We need wet month, wet month, wet month, wet month,” Hall says.

He says we typically get a lot more rain in the spring months, and we’ll need that to work toward getting rid of the drought.

(Radio Iowa) – A new course is being offered at Iowa State University this semester which aims to teach students how to incorporate small habits into their lives that will bring them joy. Amie Zarling, an I-S-U professor of human development and family studies, is teaching the course she created called “The Science and Practice of Happiness.” “It’s so important because not only is there science and research to back all this up, that allows us to learn and know about the data that’s coming out about how to be happy,” Zarling says, “but then also it’s important to learn how to apply that to ourselves, because that can be one of the best ways to actually learn about the topic.”

Zarling says there are 85 students participating in the course’s inaugural semester from a variety of different majors across campus. “We started off by learning about and practicing gratitude, and learning about how to express gratitude in a way that works for each person individually,” Zarling says. “The students have really loved incorporating gratitude into their life and have reported that it’s working to increase their happiness.”

They’re also studying the importance of social connections and how much social interaction is needed every day. Zarling says she’s encouraging students to seek out wonder and awe, as well as self-compassion — treating ourselves with kindness. “We have also talked about being present and mindful in our daily lives, and we’ve practiced that in a few different ways,” Zarling says, “one of which is savoring positive experiences, really relishing those experiences, and squeezing them to their last drop and appreciating those positive emotions that we experience in our lives.”

Zarling says the course offers students a vital respite in an existence that’s often filled with negativity, politics, war and hatred. “We could all use a little positivity and happiness in our days, and so much of the world isn’t focused on that right now,” Zarling says. “I tell the students, that doesn’t mean that we completely stick our heads in the sand and ignore all the negativity. We can’t necessarily do that. However, we can add some positivity and happiness to our life with these small habits.”

Zarling says a lot of jobs and careers are stressful, so learning how to manage that stress and be resilient can truly help people. She plans to offer the course again in the fall.