(Atlantic, Iowa) – The Board of Supervisors in Cass County (IA) will meet Tuesday at 9-a.m., at their courthouse Board Room in Atlantic. During their session, the Board is expected to act on setting the date of Oct. 24th for a Public Hearing on Budget Amendments for Fiscal Year 2023-24.

They are also expected to discuss Capital Project priorities, and establish a schedule to develop a Capital Improvement Plan.

The meeting may be viewed via Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2899195216?pwd=R0hSa2FOOTh0NUdra1ZSdVhVWHpMUT09

Meeting ID: 289 919 5216
Passcode: 012064

Or, you may Call In: 312-626-6799, and press *9 to indicate you wish to speak.

(Cedar Rapids, Iowa/KCRG) – The Cedar Rapids Community School District has cancelled classes for today (Monday, October 2nd). According to KCRG-TV, the action is the result of a threat made on social media. The nature of the threat was not disclosed. The incident remains under investigation. All school sites in Cedar Rapids are affected by the closure.

In an email to families and staff the Cedar Rapids School District said “We understand that the news of school closure due to a threat made on social media by an unidentified person may concern you. We assure you that the safety and well-being of our students, staff, and community is paramount to us. Our dedicated team at CRCSD and the Cedar Rapids Police Department in conjunction with state public safety agencies and the FBI, has been working over the last 24 hours to investigate this threat.”

The district will have more information later this (Monday) afternoon.

(UPDATED) (Pottawattamie County, Iowa) – Firefighters responded to a train on fire late Sunday night (Monday), in Pottawattamie County. The incident occurred a little before midnight, near Hancock. The Oakland and Avoca Fire Departments were called-in for mutual aid. Officials say the fire was contained to the exhaust compartment of the train. The flames were quickly extinguished. The cause of the fire remained under investigation.

(Radio Iowa) – Head, heart, hands and health are the four principles on which 4-H was founded, and the organization devoted to helping youth develop skills they can use now and throughout their lives is celebrating its founding this week. Emily Saveraid is executive director of the Iowa 4-H Foundation and she says the program has more than a century of history in our state and it’s still very much alive. “We reach about 120,000 young people throughout the state of Iowa, so that is both in 4-H clubs, it could be during some after school specialty clubs, special camps, all those types of things,” Saveraid says, “so lots of different ways for young people to interact with the 4-H program.”

Saveraid says many Iowa 4-H clubs are holding events to celebrate this week. “One special thing that the foundation hosts during National 4-H Week is Iowa 4-H Giving Day,” Saveraid says. “It’s an opportunity for alums and friends to give back to either their local 4-H program or a special area of the 4-H program that they were really passionate about.”
Saversaid says she’s excited about the future of the program in Iowa. “Really it’s about giving young people an opportunity to find that spark,” she says, “and to create places where young people can gather and feel safe and feel like they belong and can really explore those passions.”

Learn more by contacting your nearest county I-S-U Extension and Outreach office or by visiting: https://www.iowa4hfoundation.org/.

(Radio Iowa) – A Cedar Valley community college has opened a robotics and automation center geared toward developing specialized skills for manufacturing jobs. Hawkeye Community College’s Automation and Robotics Center was five years in the making. The center, located in a refurbished Waterloo John Deere factory, hopes to train high school graduates in automated manufacturing technologies. Center director Kent Wolfe says he’s seen the need for the Cedar Valley manufacturing labor force firsthand. “There’s a tremendous need for more workers to fill those jobs,” Wolfe says, “but even more importantly, workers that have these skills to work in smart manufacturing.” The center has transitioned from a high school curriculum to a fully-fledged, three-semester adult learning program in just five years.

Thirty percent of participating area high schoolers went on to continue training in the manufacturing sector during those five years. Wolfe says that engagement with high schools laid the groundwork for the center and the future of area manufacturing. “That was kind of to fill an immediate need and to get that started in the high schools,” Wolfe says, “but we’re really focused on the current workforce, and that’s going to be our longer-term focus.”

This fall marks the first for the center’s adult-oriented curriculum.

(Radio Iowa) – One of the joys of fall in Iowa is going to an orchard to get apples freshly picked off the trees. I-S-U Extension fruit crop specialist, Suzanne Slack, says the drought has had some impact, especially for the growers who couldn’t irrigate their crop. One is the size of the fruit you see on the trees. “It looks like a lot of apples, but they’re really small. So the size isn’t good. They’ve also ripened up to three weeks early, which can be pretty detrimental, especially, you know, trying to get labor and operations up and running,” Slack says. Some apples are impacted in their appearance.

“Some cultivars, like honey crisp is a good one, they don’t transport calcium very well to begin with. And then whenever we have drought and hot conditions, they just don’t do it at all and we get a condition called bitter pit. So a lot of the Honeycrisp across the state have bitter pit this year, which is calcium deficiency,” she says. “It makes them ugly, it makes it makes them have little crevices, like a little pit. They call it bitter because it’s unfortunate and upsetting.” She says the smaller size and earlier maturation can impact taste as well. ” I think it makes them taste a little bit, not as strong of an apple taste, kind of like more of a mild apple taste,” Slack explains. “They’re still crunchy, they still have a good texture. But they might not have that, like, wham, pow apple flavor that some cultivars have. They also won’t be as juicy.”

Slack says getting the apples right out of the orchard is still the best way to ensure you are getting the freshest fruit possible. “Some of the apples that we’re eating this year from the grocery store might have actually been picked last year. The technology around storing apples is pretty impressive,” she says. “So we can store them for years with controlled environments. So the ones that you’d be getting locally were fresh picked this year.” She says finding an apple orchard in Iowa is not tough. )”According to my records, we have about 50, large to medium operations. But there’s a lot of smaller ones that may not be on my list. But pretty much if you live in Iowa, you live within about an hour from an orchard at least, most people live closer than that,” Slack says.

Slack says there are also a lot of people who grow their own from a couple of trees to bigger stands. “We have lots and lots of hobby growers with you know, there’s a couple of folks that have 50 to 100 trees and they don’t sell anything. So there’s every level you can think of,” she says. Slack says with the early maturation, you might want to get out sooner than later to find the best selection of fresh apples.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – A traffic stop near Highway 48 and Ratliff Road in Red Oak, resulted in the arrest of a woman from Pottawattamie County. Red Oak Police report 48-year-old Amy Pearl Hunter, of Council Bluffs, was pulled over at around 2:08-a.m. today (Monday). Upon further investigation, Hunter was arrested for having a suspended license through Iowa, with 17 withdrawals in effect. She was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $491.25 bond.

(Hampton, Iowa) – A collision Sunday afternoon in northern Iowa’s Franklin County resulted in a fatality and one person being injured. The Iowa State Patrol reports the crash occurred at around 3:20-p.m. near Hampton. A 2007  Columbia golf cart operated by 84-year-old Robert Norman Irwin, of Hampton, was stopped at Highway 65 on 170th Street, and failed to yield the right-of-way to a 2023 Harley Davidson motorcycle, operated by 54-year-old Corey William Spear, of Hampton.

As the golf cart began crossing east-to-west, it was struck by the motorcycle in the northbound lane of traffic on Highway 65. Robert Irwin died from his injuries at the Franklin General Hospital. Spear was injured and transported to the hospital for treatment.

The crash remains under investigation.

(Radio Iowa) – The president and C-E-O of the Interfaith Alliance says religion can be a positive force in our democracy, but only if there’s equality for all religious traditions. Reverend Paul Brandeis Raushenbush has been the national leader of the Interfaith Alliance for about a year.

“My message to Iowa is…will these policies being put forth benefit everyone from every religious tradition, from every racial background, from every gender and sexuality?” he asks. “Can we really talk about equality in Iowa and what kinds of policies will get us there?” Raushenbush will speak Thursday afternoon at a “Challenging Christian Nationalism” forum at a Des Moines church.

“The country is in a turning point, a crisis point,” he says, “and I feel very called to it.” Two Iowa based evangelical Christian groups have recently hosted forums featuring most of the top Republicans who’re running for president. Raushenbush says the Interfaith Alliance offers a different vision about the role of religion in society.

“No one religion under the establishment clause of the First Amendment…should have pre-eminence. That is the genius of America,” he says. “We are a nation for all religions, not just some and that people will be trying to figure out how we can deal with one another with the utmost respect regardless of background, specifically in regards to religious background.”

Raushenbush, who grew up in Wisconsin, is an ordained American Baptist minister who was the associate dean of religious life at Princeton. He’s also the founder of a religious column on the HuffPost website.