(Radio Iowa) – Staff and students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade in the Decorah school district will have to mask up starting next Monday after the school board voted for a universal mask mandate at a special meeting last (Monday) night. Superintendent Mark Lane says the mandate will be in effect until four week after a vaccine for five to eleven year olds is readily available locally. The board made the decision in light of the news that Fizer will seek FDA approval to provide COVID-19 vaccines to children ages 5-11.

A federal judge recently halted enforcement of a state law which was passed in May which prohibited school districts from enacting mask mandates. Governor Reynolds has said the state will appeal that ruling. Decorah becomes the 11th school district in the state to enact some sort of mask mandate since the federal court ruling. Decorah and Linn-Mar have enacted PK through sixth grade mask mandates. Ames, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Davenport, Des Moines, Iowa City, Urbandale, West Burlington and West Des Moines all enacted PK-12th grade mask mandates.

(Radio Iowa) – The unemployment rate for August held steady at four-point-one percent and a spokesperson for Iowa Workforce Development says they anticipate the rate falling in the next couple of months. I-W-D Deputy Director, Ryan West, says things usually pick up in October and November as companies try to get things done before winter. “Iowa’s tied for 17th with Indiana as far as the unemployment rate — but we are seeing a lot of good things. The rate staying the same is obviously better than it going up, and we are excited where we are going to be in the next few months,” West says.

The number of people entering the workforce again had been steadily increasing — but made a slight drop in August. West says that can be attributed to one group in particular. “We had 13-hundred people who left the workforce this last month. A large group of those folks appeared to be male — and a lot of them look to have retired over the age of 65,” according to West. He says a lot of them are Baby Boomers who have retired — and there are still questions about why they’ve left the workforce now. “We weren’t really sure if a lot of them decided to retire, perhaps could have retired pre-COVID, but after COVID hit decided to say “You know what, I’m done for now,” West says. “Again, we still need a few more months to see where that ends up.”

He says there is a chance some of them may reconsider. “That Baby Boomer group makes up such a big part of the workforce, a lot of experience. Hopefully we can attract some of those individuals back into the workforce at some point,” West says. The labor force participation rate declined from by a tenth of a percent to 66-point-eight percent in August.

(Radio Iowa) – The non-profit that provides blood and blood products to 120 hospitals in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota is urging people to schedule appointments to give blood as soon as possible. Claire DeRoin, spokeswoman for LifeServe Blood Center, says supplies took a heavy hit in recent days after multiple hospitals in central Iowa performed transfusions on several patients. “Those people can receive 30 to 60 units of blood,” DeRoin says. “To put that in perspective, the average blood drive collects about 30 units, so to have one single patient receiving two entire blood drives worth of blood, that’s the reality and it puts us in a pretty scary place.”

A five-day supply of any given blood type is considered ideal, but DeRoin says it’s uncommon to have that much in stock. Supplies are now dangerously low. “A couple of our blood types are less than a two-day supply and that means it’s critical and sometimes it can even dip down to a one-day supply,” DeRoin says. “That’s when we reach out to the community and say, ‘This is an emergency, we are asking for your help, this is a critical appeal,’ so please, donate if you can.”

Blood of all types is welcome. “Really, any donor can help us out right now,” DeRoin says. “We are particularly low on O-negative and O-positive blood as well as platelets, in case there are any platelets donors. Platelets are just another component of the blood, in addition to red blood cells.”

Under a new program called “Thank The Donor,” some blood donors may later receive notes from the patients whose lives they helped to save. LifeServe has donor centers in Ames, Des Moines, Fort Dodge, Mason City, Marshalltown, Sioux City, and Urbandale. Call 800-287-4903 or visit www.lifeservebloodcenter.org.

(Radio Iowa)  – Republican Senator Joni Ernst says the proposed Global War on Terrorism Memorial in Washington, D.C. should be built in a place of prominence, near the iconic memorials on the National Mall honoring soldiers from Vietnam, Korea and World War II.  “How could we put the memorial for our nation’s longest war anywhere else?” she asks. Ernst is urging senators to override a 2003 federal law that prevents new memorials from being built in an area of the National Mall known as The Reserve.

“While nothing will ever restore the lives we’ve lost, this memorial would serve as a tribute to those brave men and women and their loves ones who have sacrificed in defense of our freedom,” Ernst says. “…This national memorial will provide all Americans a permanent place of reflection in the heart of our nation’s capitol.” In 2017, congress passed bipartisan legislation creating a Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation to begin planning for construction. Last (Monday) night, Senate Democrats blocked a vote on Ernst’s proposal to require construction on the National Mall.

Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, says erecting a memorial in D-C to honor soldiers who’ve served since 9/11 is a high priority, but Manchin says a law passed in 2003 prevents it from being located in “The Reserve” where 17 other memorials, monuments and museums are located. “I believe this precedent would reopen the fight to locate other memorials on the National Mall and create more controversy that will ultimately delay the construction of this memorial, which is much needed,” Manchin said.

Manchin says the Desert Storm and Desert Shield Memorial to honor soldiers who fought in the first Gulf War will be built in a high profile area near the Lincoln Memorial, but not in the area of the mall that’s been designated as The Reserve.

(Radio Iowa) – The leader of the Iowa Department of Corrections says the number of people who have been released from prisons and committed another crime in the last three years has dropped by almost one percent. Department director Beth Skinner says it’s a breakthrough after the increases in recidivism have been slowing.  She says it is the first decline in recidivism they’ve seen in six years.

Skinner tells Radio Iowa the results come out of numerous efforts to make a change in the individuals who come to the state’s prisons. )”It’s called building social and human capital — we have to address the reasons why people came into the system in the first place,” according to Skinner. “And we know that there’s major risk factors that drive people into criminal behavior. And that has been established in research for over 30 years.”

She says part of the program is to help prisoners deal with their negatives.”Such as antisocial behavior, impulse control, deficits in employment, in school, or poor leisure activities — things such as that that we can find our through a risk assessment that we can target our resources to reduce that risk,” Skinner says. She says they also try to build on the person’s positives — like family support — which can help them on the outside. “Historically mostly we just focus on deficits, like what’s wrong, and we have to do that, because we do need to address those issues that bring people to us and back to use again,” Skinner explains. “But at the same time, we also need to be building these protective factors that help mitigate that risk.”

Skinner says building up all these things makes the inmates more attractive to employers once they get released. “What we’re finding is that more and more we are developing a pipeline between our prisons and local employers who know there is such a high demand in some of these skilled fields that they are actually asking for these people before they even get out of prison,” she says.

Skinner says the employers see the benefit in the prisoners who have been given job and life training. “They know they are going to show up, they know they have certified skills in high-demand areas. They’re learning soft skills by coming to work every day and things like that,” Skinner says. “It’s a really great opportunity with us here at our institutions — and then what’s available on the outside for these individuals.”

The three-year recidivism rate was 38-point-seven percent — down point-nine percent.