A house fire in Council Bluffs early this (Saturday) morning resulted in the death of a young child. According to the Council Bluffs Police Department, the fire at 313 North 34th Street was reported to 9-1-1 just after 6-a.m. Neighbors say they were wakened by the sounds of Crystal Hatcher, the mother three children, screaming in the street. Officials say Hatcher, a six-year old and two-year old child were able to escape the home, but 4-year old Leland Johnson, of Council Bluffs was trapped in an upstairs bedroom. Fire officials said it took firefighters nearly 10-minutes to reach the boy, because of the heavy smoke and flames.

When they found the unconscious child, the boy was transported to Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs, where he died from his injuries. Hatcher and her two other children were provided with food and clothing following the fire, which remains under investigation. The blaze destroyed the house and a car parked in the driveway. The family was reported to have found shelter with area relatives.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A task force created earlier this year by the Iowa Legislature is proposing to raise the base pay for Iowa teachers by $7,000. The Task Force on Teacher Leadership and Compensation’s proposal would bump starting salaries for public school teachers from $28,000 to $35,000. Committee members say the increase would likely raise the average earnings of a first-year teacher statewide from $32,000 to $40,000. Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass says more than 190 of the state’s 348 school districts set their base pay at the state minimum of $28,000. The task force will discuss the proposal and others at its Sept. 21 meeting. Committee members will vote on which recommendations to include in an Oct. 15 report to the Legislature.

With KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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Two people from Red Oak and a woman from Griswold were arrested this (Saturday) morning, on drug charges. According to Red Oak Police, 18-year-old Dalton Paul Valentin, of Red Oak, and 21-year-old Alexandra Marie Sindt, of Griswold, were taken into custody on Possession of a Controlled Substance/Marijuana, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia charges. And, 22-year-old Courtney Nicole Orr, of Red Oak, was charged with Possession of a Controlled Substance/Marijuana. The trio were being held in the Montgomery County Jail on $1,000 bond each.

With KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

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Iowa Congressman Steve King said Friday, that he will be honoring Sioux City resident and wounded Vietnam Army Veteran, Dennis Roberts on Tuesday, August 21st, with medals Roberts did not formally receive previously for his service. The ceremony takes place at 12:30-p.m., in Congressman King’s office in Sioux City.  Roberts is slated to receive the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, the Air-, Army Commendation-, National Defense- and other, similar medals, in addition to his Combat Infantryman badge, and sharpshooter badge and rifle bar.

Roberts served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam from March 1969 to June 1970. During that year he was a reconnaissance scout assigned to search and destroy missions with the 101 St. Airborne Divisions.  On Christmas Day in 1969, his 25 member platoon landed and split up into groups.  The landing zone or “L-Z” was hot, with the soldiers came under enemy fire. In the fire-fight, Roberts came into contact with a booby trap. The explosion blew-off his right thumb. Shrapnel also pierced hit his right arm and lower back. Roberts suffers from permanent loss of hand motion as a result of his injuries.

Discussion between the driver of a pickup and her passenger Friday afternoon about a turkey in a field, resulted in a rollover accident southeast of Red Oak. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department says Mary K. Bailey and her passenger, Erica R. Jackson, both of Red Oak, suffered from minor injuries following the accident, which happened at around 6:30-p.m., near the intersection of 210th and K Avenue.

Officials say Bailey was driving a 1993 Chevy pickup southbound on K Avenue and speaking with Jackson. The discussion was about a turkey Jackson saw in a field on the east side of the road. When Bailey turned to look at the wild bird, she missed her turn onto eastbound 210th Street. When she realized her mistake and attempted to negotiate the turn, the pickup skidded off the south side of the road, entered a ditch and rolled onto its side. The damage was estimated at $3,000.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources says it has received scattered reports of dead deer around water sources this summer. D-N-R wildlife research supervisor, Willie Suchy, says they believe the dead deer are due to a disease called E-H-D. “Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease, ant it’s a virus that’s transmitted by a biting midge. And in dry years deer get concentrated around somewhat limited water and if they happen to be going to a water source where the midges are around and they get infected, then you can have a more significant die off than that local area and that’s what we’re seeing,” according to Suchy. He says they are asking the public to report any deer that are dead or don’t appear to be acting normally.

He says you should call your local D-N-R officer if you see something like this. “The other thing is we are always on the lookout for animals that are diseased and sick. And right now if it’s E-H-D there’s not much you can do, the disease will take its course. But there are other things we can monitor for,” he says. Suchy says the deaths due to E-H-D don’t pose a major threat to the deer population. “At this point it’s above what we normally would see and this is kind of what we would be expecting with the dry weather,” Suchy says. He says the last big outbreak of 1988 and deer numbers then were down a little bit, but he says they bounce back.

The disease has also shown up in Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Missouri and Michigan. E-H-D remains active until rain disperses the deer or a heavy frost kills the midges.

(Radio Iowa)

Some two-thousand volunteers will be painting several dozen homes in Council Bluffs and Omaha today (Saturday) as part of a community-wide beautification and weatherization effort. Tom Pettigrew is executive director of the 24th annual Brush-Up Paint-A-Thon. He says it helps low-income elderly residents and people with disabilities to maintain their properties. Out of some 210 applications, about 75 houses will be painted. Nearly 75 companies, businesses and individuals donated all the materials that are being used for the project.

Pettigrew explained the qualifications for getting your home’s exterior freshened up with a new coat of paint: You need to be over 62 years old or be permanently disabled at any age, you must own the home, no rentals, and meet certain financial guidelines. Some volunteers started earlier in the week with scraping off the old, flaking paint and getting the houses coated with a primer.
They’ll prime any bare wood, put down a top coat of paint and then caulk, too, to weatherize the homes. In the past 24 years, more than 24-hundred homes in the metro area have been painted by volunteers through the program.