Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Republican Party officials are pondering the future of the state’s traditional straw poll for presidential favorites. Iowa GOP spokesman Charlie Szold confirms that a conference call has been set up for Friday, but declines to provide further details. The call was first reported in the Des Moines Register. Critics say the August 8th poll has become a costly sideshow.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Four Democratic presidential hopefuls will appear at an Iowa Democratic Party event next month. The state party organization announced Wednesday that their “Hall of Fame” dinner will be attended by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Virginia Senator Jim Webb on July 17th in Cedar Rapids.

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A West Des Moines man who served with the Iowa National Guard in Iraq has returned there on his own to help train Kurdish troops. Federal officials say the actions of Ryan O’Leary, a former National Guard corporal who served in Iraq in between 2007 and 2008, are legal. But they’ve urged against them over concerns of him being put in danger.

OXFORD, Iowa (AP) — Camping at a wildlife area in eastern Iowa has been halted after state officials say visitors were hosting parties and damaging the space. The state Department of Natural Resources says the temporary camping ban at Hawkeye Wildlife Management Area in Johnson County will be in place to give officials time to address problems with littering, drug use, underage drinking and unattended bonfires.

Researchers at Iowa State University say the common complaint that companies in Iowa and elsewhere they can’t find enough skilled workers doesn’t seem to hold up. Liesl Eathington says they found several factors contributing to hiring challenges, but a widespread lack of skilled workers is not one. “I think the take away from out study is that a lot of the evidence that’s being thrown to substantiate that there’s a skills gap, we think is pretty flimsy, because we really don’t have a lot of good data to describe the skills of workers. And we’re mostly stuck with rating them on the terms of their educational attainment. And that really isn’t descriptive enough,” Eathington says.

“Using the data available to us, we just couldn’t find a systematic shortage of middle-skilled or middle-educated workers in Iowa or nationwide,” she says. Eathington says it seems to be more of a problem of figuring out what businesses are really looking for in workers. “What our research concluded was that we need to do a lot better job of describing the particular skills that are needed and not just base it on secondary data. Even though the data are readily available, they are not very useful for policy purposes,” Eathington says. There’s been a push to get more training for Iowans to fill the so-called gap.

“The educational level that is most often talked about with the middle-skill gap debate is people with some college or associate degree. And we’re just not finding evidence that the number of those people in Iowa or in the nation is out of whack with what’s being demanded. Eathington and fellow researcher Dave Swenson in the I-S-U Economics Department, found that the amount of money employers are willing to pay is a factor in the lack of workers.

“Because if there was high demand for a kind of worker that wasn’t being met, wages should get bid up,” Eathington explains. “And then there should be a response to that by the supply — people would either move in or they would acquire the skills necessary to take advantage of that higher wage.” Eathington says researchers have looked for evidence of the wages being bid up and haven’t found it. She says the urban-rural factor also impacts the issue in Iowa.

“A lot of times we have trouble in some of our rural areas of getting people willing to live in these areas. Firms just simply can’t provide the wages that are competitive with urban areas,” according to Eathington. “And so that’s another part of it. We might kind of a rural-urban issue in Iowa.” With the continued increase in technology, Eathington says firms may have higher expectations than what the workforce can immediately meet.

“It’s possible that some of the skills that are required are a lot less transferable from one firm to another. And so, maybe firms used to be able to just hire somebody and have them up to speed pretty quickly, that may not be the case any more,” Eathington says. “So, expectations about the level of the on-the-job training that may be required — those might have to change.”

(Radio Iowa)

Hundreds of thousands of smartphone users in Iowa were jolted awake around 2 o’clock this (Wednesday) morning by an AMBER Alert. It’s the second time in two weeks the emergency warning system has gone off in the wee hours and it’s left some Iowans vowing to disable the feature. Sergeant Nate Ludwig, of the Iowa State Highway Patrol, says those cell phone alerts are vital and he hopes people will reconsider.

“I would advise them not to disable them,” Ludwig says. “If this was one of their kids or someone they knew or someone they might have clues about, they’re not going to be notified by this wireless alert.” The incident involved a father abducting his young son in Urbandale, both of whom are presumed to have died in a vehicle fire last night in northern Missouri. While the outcome in this case was tragic, Ludwig says he’s confident in how the AMBER Alert system is working.

“The two previous AMBER Alerts we had before that, the one up in Clay County and the one in Jefferson, as soon as the AMBER Alert goes out, they reach as many people as possible and the end result was, these kids were returned safely and they were returned quickly, within an hour after the AMBER Alert went out,” Ludwig says. The alerts are also going out in several other venues, like on Iowa Lottery ticket machines, the Iowa D-O-T’s roadside message boards and over weather radios. Still, people’s frustrations with the notifications early today were compounded by word the father and son were killed in the fire several hours before Iowans were even alerted to the abduction.

“In this case, people are jumping to conclusions,” Ludwig says. “They hear the child was missing since 11 o’clock yesterday and then the AMBER Alert goes out at 1:45, but they don’t hear the whole story. Like with anything, you’ve gotta’ hear the whole story before you realize what happened.” In this case, the father wasn’t expected to return the child until 8 P-M and it wasn’t until later that the mother reported the possible abduction. He says all procedures were followed and the alert was issued as quickly as possible. Ludwig notes, since the AMBER Alert program was initiated in 1996, a total of 767 children who were subject of the alerts have been safely returned to their homes.

(Radio Iowa)

Police in Council Bluffs responded to a reported home invasion an attempted armed robbery this (Wednesday) morning. Authorities say at around 10:08-a.m., officers were dispatched to 2606 7th Avenue, for the report of a robbery that had just occurred at that home. Officers learned that two juvenile females were home, when somebody forced open a rear door. The girls described an 18-year old white male who entered the house, armed with a silver colored semi-auto handgun. The man was about 5-feet 7-inches tall, 170 pounds,  had blonde hair, and was wearing an orange, beanie-style cap. The dark complected Hispanic male who remained near the rear door, was said to be 5-feet 5-inches tall, 150 pounds, had black hair and wore a black beanie-style cap.

Photo of the suspect vehicle as it turned westbound onto West Broadway from 35th Street.

They told the men to get out and said they were calling the Police. The two males then fled out the rear door. Nothing was taken and nobody was injured during the incident.

As Officers were responding to the call, they were given the description of an older maroon colored Dodge Ram pickup as a possible suspect vehicle. A vehicle matching this description was spotted near 5th Avenue and 22nd Street.

An Officer attempted to stop the vehicle, but it fled at a high rate of speed, leading the Officer on a pursuit. The vehicle was last seen heading westbound into Omaha on I-480. The vehicle’s tailgate was down at the time of the pursuit and the Officer was not able to get the truck’s license plate number.

Anyone with information on the robbery is urged to contact the Council Bluffs Police Department at 328-STOP. You can remain anonymous and your tip could be eligible for a cash reward.