(Radio Iowa) – While retailers nationwide are bracing for a shopping extravaganza on this Black Friday, locally-owned merchants across Iowa are hoping for a bigger boost tomorrow. Jayne Armstrong, director of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Iowa District Office, says Small Business Saturday is a crucial day for the state’s consumers to “Be Loyal, Buy Local.” “It’s just a special day where we get to put the spotlight on small business and say we recognize how important you are,” Armstrong says. “We really want to encourage people to get out and support you this holiday season but really every day is Small Business Saturday.”

Armstrong says 97-percent of Iowa’s businesses are small businesses and embracing them improves the backbone of our state. Armstrong says, “If we really want to get out there and support our economy, we need to be supporting small businesses 24/7, 365 days of the year.”

If you’d like to support Iowa’s wealth of merchants who are outside of your immediate area, dozens of businesses are now offering their wares at shop iowa dot com, which Armstrong says makes it easy to patronize even more hometown heroes in -other- Iowa towns. “ShopIowa has become very popular,” Armstrong says. “A lot of retailers have really put themselves out there online through ShopIowa.com. With the excellent customer service and everything that they provide, we see a lot of people going through that to buy Iowa-made products.”

The website covers a wide array of goods, including artwork, furniture, food, toys, t-shirts, beauty care products, jewelry and more, all crafted in the Hawkeye State.

https://www.shopiowa.com/

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks says research is showing psychedelic drugs have the potential to be a mental health treatment option for veterans. Miller-Meeks, a Republican who represents Iowa’s first congressional district, is chair of the U-S House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Health. She led a recent congressional hearing about psychedelics — drugs that cause hallucinations.

We are not advocating for the legalization or the casual use of psychedelics,” Miller-Meeks said. “What we are discussing is the clinically administered dosage of these substances, in combination with targeted therapy sessions in a clinical setting.”

The hearing focused on clinical trials being conducted in Veterans Administration hospitals and clinics — using psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, or M-D-M-A drugs like ecstasy as treatment for mental health conditions like post traumatic stress disorder. “Psychedelic-assisted therapy is a ground breaking clinical procedure that has the potential to transform the way we look at health care,” she said.

Miller-Meeks, an eye doctor, is a 24 year Army veteran. “As a physician who practices traditional medicine, I never thought I would enter congress to then be advocating for emerging, breakthrough therapy,” Miller-Meeks said, “but I think the science is leading the way.”

Miller-Meeks says if the F-D-A approves the use of psychedelics, the Veterans Administration should move quickly to make appointments for veterans who would benefit from the therapy. “For many veterans, this treatment is life saving, but more work needs to be done,” Miller-Meeks said. “It is a sad reality that 17 veterans a day will lose their lives to suicide. One life lost to suicide is one life too many and our fight must continue.”

Miller-Meeks describes psychedelic-assisted therapy as a long process. “A licensed clinician carefully examines a veteran prior to administering a dose…A veteran must go through two or three sessions, during which intense psychotherapy is overseen by a licensed medial professional assisting the veteran throughout the experience. These sessions last about eight hours, the full duration of the drug’s effects,” Miller-Meeks says. “…Based on the most recent clinical trials, patients experienced positive therapeutic responses, resulting in a reduction of their symptoms if not remission altogether.”

V-A officials say there is still much to be learned and understood about the benefits of psychedelic compounds. Advocates say traditional medications for moderate to severe P-T-S-D have significant side effects, prompting some people to quit treatment.

(Radio Iowa) – Tomorrow’s Black Friday shopping extravaganza, followed by Small Business Saturday, marks a vital kickoff to the holiday shopping season, which a University of Iowa College of Business professor says could be make-or-break time for countless Iowa merchants.

Professor Peggy Stover, who directs the UI’s Marketing Institute, says some businesses may have a so-so 11 months and they rely on this weekend’s events to kickstart consumers for December to meet their margins and stay afloat.

“They’re very important, especially for the small retailers in Iowa, since so many of them are competing against your big box retailers,” Stover says, “and then you have, of course, the online retailers who have managed to carve out a significant market share of the holiday shopping.”

Not too many years ago, a majority of stores opened on Thanksgiving Day to beat the Black Friday deals, but there was a backlash that returned the holiday’s focus to family, reserving Friday for the shop-’til-you-drop enthusiasts. Now, very few retailers are open on Thanksgiving, and even many grocery stores will be closed.

“I think it’s both a great PR move by retailers, but it also comes on the heels of consumers just really realizing that the unsung heroes during the holiday season are the retail workers,” Stover says. “They oftentimes are not able to enjoy the holiday season, much like the rest of us, because they have to work.”

Many factors may impact the shopping season ahead, including high interest rates, inflation, record credit card debt, and the restart of student loan payments. Stover also says there’s a demographic change and a shift in mindsets coming, for which retailers will need to brace.

“You have Gen Z and then the younger Millennials, who they would prefer to pay for an experience versus goods or a product,” Stover says. “Another thing to take into account is that Gen Xers are starting to retire, so now you’re losing a consumer base that could have had more disposable income.”

One regional economist predicts holiday sales may rise three to four percent, but when inflation is factored in, retailers may only see a boost of between zero and one-percent compared to last year.

(Radio Iowa) – Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa is using a half a million dollar federal grant to expand its cybersecurity training. Andy Alderson is an associate professor of cybersecurity and systems administration at the college. “We hope to be able to put more students through the program and get more students to actually graduate into the technical field,” he says.

The college already offers an associate degree in cybersecurity and systems administration. Alderson says the program is being restructured, so students could earn an associates degree in I-T fundamentals within nine months. “Part of the grant is to help us develop a second learning track after they complete the nine months,” Alderson says. “They’ll have a choice of either going to the systems administrator track or the cybersecurity track.”

The cybersecurity curriculum will be wide ranging. “We’re going to cover things like cyber law and ethics, digital forensics, server configurations and hardening — making those harder to infiltrate,” Alderson says, “how data transmits from place to place and being able to identify that and finding anomalies in it.”

Alderson is helping to plan so-called “Capture the Flag” events at area high schools, giving students a chance to compete to solve computer security puzzles and — hopefully — get them interested in pursuing a degree. “Give a little insight into what it means to be a cybersecurity professional, trying to mitigate some of these malicious attacks,” Alderson says.

Government reports indicate there were 700-thousand unfilled cybersecurity jobs in the United States this summer — and there will be a 20 percent increase in the number of cybersecurity jobs within two years.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – The Red Oak Police Department reports a woman was arrested this (Thursday) morning, on a Theft charge. 39-year-old Jodie Michele Vanhouten, of Red Oak, was arrested for Theft in the 4th Degree. She was taken into custody in the 1500 block of N. 8th Street at around 9:30-a.m.  Authorities say her arrest concluded an investigation of theft coming from the self-checkout lane of Hy-Vee.

Vanhouten was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $1,000 bond.