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Keep up-to-date with Fox News Radio, Radio Iowa, Brownfield & the Iowa Agribusiness Networks!
MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa – The Iowa Department of Corrections reports 64-year-old Kirk Priest Matlock, who was convicted of Robbery in the 2nd Degree in Story County, failed to report back to the Marshalltown Residential Center as required yesterday (Tuesday).
Kirk Matlock (IA DOC photo)
Matlock is a white male, six-feet tall, weighing 213 pounds. He was admitted to the work release facility on November 13, 2023.
Persons with information on Matlock’s whereabouts should contact local police.
DES MOINES, Iowa (Dec. 6, 2023) – The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) have confirmed a case of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in Mills County, Iowa.
The affected site is a backyard mixed species flock.
Commercial and backyard flock owners should prevent contact between their birds and wild birds. Sick birds or unusual deaths among birds should be immediately reported to state or federal officials. Biosecurity resources and best practices are available on the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship website. If producers suspect signs of HPAI in their flocks, they should contact their veterinarian immediately. Possible cases must also be reported to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship at (515) 281-5305.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the recent HPAI detections in birds do not present a public health concern. It remains safe to eat poultry products. As a reminder, consumers should always utilize the proper handling and cooking of eggs and poultry products, including cooking to an internal temperature of 165˚F.
(Dunlap, Iowa; Iowa Capital Dispatch) – An Iowa care facility considered among the worst in the nation has been cited for failing to adequately respond to fatal injuries sustained by a resident of the home. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports State inspectors allege the staff at Dunlap Specialty Care, run by one of Iowa’s largest nursing home chains, failed to inform a female resident’s hospice provider of a serious head injury sustained by a resident. The injury was allegedly caused by a fall about 8:30 a.m., Oct. 8, 2023, when the woman attempted to walk to the bathroom without the staff’s assistance.
According to inspectors, a worker found the woman found lying on the floor in a large amount of blood that appeared to be the result of a head wound. It wasn’t until 10:07 a.m. that the woman’s hospice nurse was notified. The nurse and the woman’s son arrived at the facility at 11:38 a.m., a full three hours after the fall, and saw lacerations on the woman’s arm and bruising on her head, with a softball-sized hematoma surrounding her left eye, which was swollen shut. The woman’s son allegedly complained to the staff that his mother should have been taken to the hospital immediately after the fall.
At about 5 p.m. that day, a physician provided an order for the woman to be evaluated at the hospital. It was there that the woman was diagnosed with subarachnoid hemorrhaging throughout the brain. The woman died about 24 hours later, with the hemorrhaging listed as the immediate cause of death. The woman’s son later told inspectors that when he first arrived at the home, his mother’s injuries were “bad,” and he showed the inspectors a photo of her eye swollen shut with a softball-sized lump on her head and dried blood on the left side of her face.
A worker at the home told inspectors she saw the woman shortly after the fall, sitting in her wheelchair and bleeding from her head wound. “It looked absolutely horrible,” the worker told inspectors. The staff had placed ice packs on the woman’s face to keep her comfortable, but her knee and head were bleeding and “she had a huge knot on her head,” the worker said. One of the home’s registered nurses, who was off duty at the time of the fall, allegedly told inspectors the woman should have gone to the emergency room sooner, and that she would have seen to it had she been working that day.
The state has proposed an $11,500 fine against Dunlap Specialty Care, which is being held in suspension while the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) determines whether a federal penalty should be imposed. In June of this year, CMS imposed a $45,075 against the home due to allegations of resident abuse and failure to keep residents safe.
In 2022, CMS fined Dunlap Specialty Care a total of $200,489. The home currently has a one-star rating from CMS – the agency’s lowest possible rating – for overall quality and staffing. At one point during the COVID-19 pandemic, 46 of the home’s 48 residents tested positive for the virus. According to CMS data, at one point the home had more resident deaths due to COVID-19 than any other nursing home in Iowa.
In late 2020, the home was cited for failing to adequately prevent the spread of infection by having COVID-positive employees working in the facility and for telling one resident’s family that if they wanted their loved one hospitalized, they’d have to pick him up and take him there themselves.
For the past six months, Dunlap Specialty Care has been on CMS’ national list of homes eligible for special-focus status due to the number and severity of violations. Homes that are designated special-focus facilities receive additional oversight and guidance from the state to help them improve care. However, homes such as the one in Dunlap, which are deemed eligible for that status without actually being named a special-focus facility, do not receive that additional level of scrutiny and assistance.
Dunlap Specialty Care is owned and managed by one of Iowa’s largest nursing home chains, the tax-exempt nonprofit Care Initiatives, based in West Des Moines. No one at Care Initiatives could be reached for comment Wednesday.
(Radio Iowa) – To some Iowans, it just isn’t the holiday season if there isn’t snow on the ground. If a white Christmas is on your wish list, you’ll have the best shot of finding flakes across Iowa’s northern-most counties. National Weather Service meteorologist Brad Small says they’ve studied the data spanning back decades and have compiled a map showing the probabilities of having snow on the ground on December 25th.
“Iowa can probably be generally weighted into four different tiers actually, with about a 60-plus-percent chance toward the Minnesota border, and then it steps down, Highway 20 corridor 50-percent, then 40, and then it gets down into the 30s as you get closer to the Missouri border,” Small says. “So it kind of behaves as you’d expect, with better chances the farther north you go.”
National Weather Service graphic
Since Christmas is still 19 days away, Small says it’s difficult to predict whether we’ll have a significant snowfall in Iowa by then. “It’s a little too far out to put too much on the end of the month,” Small says. “Probably the historical probabilities work better than anything else, at this point. There are some snow chances this weekend. Confidence in where that occurs and how much is pretty low, and it doesn’t look like to be a major system, so it’s potential, even if we do get snow this weekend, it could melt before Christmas.”
(Radio Iowa) – Four G-O-P presidential candidates will be on stage tonight (Wednesday) for the last scheduled debate before the January 15th Iowa Caucuses. Televised debates drew large viewing audiences before the 2012 and 2016 Iowa Caucuses, but University of Iowa political science professor Tim Hagle says former President Donald Trump’s absence is having an impact.
“At this point it does still seem that Trump is dominating the race and as result of that it means that some of these debate are just not as interesting to a lot of people,” Hagle says. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie WILL be on stage tonight (Wednesday).
University of Iowa political science professor Tim Hagle (UI photo)
“Really, I think at this point what a lot of folks would like to see is basically just Haley and DeSantis on the stage,” Hagle says, “because those seem to be the leading ones to be the alternative to Trump.” However, Hagle says Haley benefited from sparring with Ramaswamy in past debates. Tonight’s (Wednesday’s) debate is being held in Alabama and Hagle notes there’s been some grumbling that Iowa and New Hampshire, the states that will vote first in 2024, haven’t been a debate site.
“Sometimes having a debate in a particular location helps to generate interest, generate sort of excitement among the voters, which would make sense to have one right before the Caucuses here in Iowa. It’s not likely that will happen,” Hagle says. “I haven’t heard anything more specific except for people ruminating about it just in general terms.” Hagle says a wildcard for tonight (Wednesday) is that the debate is being hosted by NewsNation, a cable news network launched in early 2021.
“It’s going to make it, potentially, a little bit harder for some people to see,” Hagle says. “Now I will say that it’s apparently going to be over the internet and most people have the internet these days, so they can sit down in front of their computer.” The debate will be available on the NewsNation website and its subscription streaming service. The channel is available on many cable systems. NewsNation is also available on DIRECTV and DISH and streaming services like Hulu and YouTube T-V. Hagle plans to watch it on his T-V via Roku.
“I put it on mine. I haven’t actually tried it yet, so hopefully it works,” Hagle says. “If not, well, then back to the internet kind of a thing.” The Republican National Committee has arranged for the debate to be on Rumble, another online alternative.
(Creston, Iowa) – A collision this (Wednesday) morning in Creston caused no one to be hurt, but resulted in $6,000 damage. Police report a 2020 Chevy Malibu driven by 18-year-old Denton Paul Lane, of Creston, was stopped at the intersection of Elm and Prairie Streets at around 11:15-a.m., and a 2012 Chevy Impala driven by 88-year-old Ralph Edward Goddard, Jr., of Creston, was traveling north on Elm Street.
Goddard did not have a stop sign. Lane told Police he saw the Impala traveling north, and thought he had enough time to turn. When he failed to yield the right-of-way leaving the stop sign, his car was struck by Goddard’s vehicle on the rear, driver’s side door. Both vehicles were able to be driven away from the scene.
The report says no citations were issued.
(Creston, Iowa) – Police in Creston say someone stole a 2006 Ford F-150 Crewcab pickup from a residence late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, and went on a joy ride that left the vehicle with $3,500 damage. The vehicle was stolen from a property at 607 Levy Street, and driven recklessly around McKinley Park and the Cozy Campers Campground in Creston, before it smashed into four camp site signs, a picnic table and finally, and electrical box. The pickup was abandoned at the scene.
Police say the City of Creston’s electrical box sustained $3,000 damage.
(DES MOINES, Iowa) – The Iowa Finance Authority (IFA) Board of Directors today (Wednesday), announced the award of a total of more than $11.2 million in grants to 26 Local Housing Trust Funds to support local housing initiatives. The grant awards are made available through the Local Housing Trust Fund (LHTF) program and are expected to assist 2,824 families. The grant funds will support a range of initiatives aimed at developing or preserving housing for low-income households across the spectrum of housing needs. This includes the development and preservation of housing, infrastructure development, transitional housing, assistance for homeless individuals, rental assistance, homeownership support, bolstering the capacity of local housing organizations and other efforts that directly address local housing needs.
Among the area Housing Trust Funds receiving a grant, is:
View the entire list of grant recipients HERE. IFA Director Debi Durham says “The 2024 Local Housing Trust Fund awards represent the largest annual amount with the largest projected impact allocated through the program since inception. Today’s awards will support housing initiatives that will ensure that nearly 3,000 families have the ability to live, work and thrive in our communities.” 
The State Housing Trust Fund was created by the Iowa Legislature in 2003. The awards announced today will leverage an additional $3.3 million in other financing or $.30 for every dollar of Local Housing Trust Fund program funding. Since its inception, the State Housing Trust Fund has provided $123.6 million in affordable housing assistance to benefit nearly 38,000 Iowa families, leveraging more than $180 million in other funding resources.
The State Housing Trust Fund helps ensure decent, safe and affordable housing for Iowans through two programs. The Local Housing Trust Fund Program receives at least 60 percent of the SHTF allocation to provide grants for organizations certified by the Iowa Finance Authority as a Local Housing Trust Fund.
The remaining funding goes to the Project-Based Housing Program, which aids in the development of affordable single-family and multifamily housing. The Iowa Finance Authority administers both programs and provides technical assistance to housing-related organizations.
(Guthrie Center, Iowa) – Sheriff’s officials in Guthrie County today (Wednesday) released reports with regard to four accidents that occurred last week (11/27-12/2).
On Dec. 2nd at around 9:28-a.m., a 2019 Chevy Equinox SUV driven by 71-year-old David Gene Clawson,of Panora, was northbound on Highway 4. Clawson told authorities a southbound pickup truck crossed the center line of the road into his lane. Clawson avoided a head-on collision, by driving into the east ditch. His SUV sustained $5,000 damage. A passenger in his vehicle, 65-year-old Nancy Rae Clawson, of Panora, was uninjured. David Clawson reported pain and possible injury, but was not transported to the hospital.
On Dec. 1st at around 10-p.m, a 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee driven by 54-year-old Patrick James Connor, of Austin, MN, was traveling west on 200th Street near the Lake Panorama National Golf Course, when the SUV went through the T intersection with Sage Trail. The vehicle entered the ditch before going airborne. Once it landed, the SUV ran over a small boulder and rock garden before striking a tree stump and coming to rest a short distance away. No injuries were reported. The Jeep sustained $15,000 damage. Property owned by the golf course sustained $500 damage.
On Nov. 29th at around Noon, a 2014 Dodge Ram 2500 driven by 69-year-old Delmar Morris Frisbie, of Adair, was reported to have been broken down on Justice Road. When a deputy arrived, he discovered the pickup and a Disk Ripper it was towing. The wheel/axle of the M&W Earthmaster ripper had began to dig into the roadway surface, causing about $10,000 damage to Highway 44. Frisbie’s pickup sustained $3,000 damage.
And, at around 6:10-p.m. on November 27th, a 2017 Ford Explorer driven by 72-year-old Kenneth Alan Bahrke, of Panora, was eastbound on Highway 44, when the SUV collided with a deer that was on the road. The vehicle sustained $2,500 damage. Bahrke wasn’t hurt.
(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Court of Appeals has denied the appeal of a man convicted of murder following a 2020 bar fight in Harrison County.
Kristofer Erlbacher, of Woodbine, was found guilty of first-degree murder after hitting and running over Caleb Solberg of Moorhead three times with his pickup outside a bar in Pisgah. Erlbacher appealed, saying he was acting in self defense and that he was intoxicated. The Court of Appeals ruling says Erlbacher told police he was scared, but if that were the case, he could have just driven away.
The ruling also noted Erlbacher told others in the bar “I got this” before going to his pickup and running over Solberg, indicating he was not too intoxicated to carry out his plan.
Court records show Erlbacher and Solberg had been in a fight at a bar in Moorhead earlier in the night after Erlbacher put mayonnaise on Soldberg’s food.
Erlbacher is serving a life sentence.
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