(Creston, Iowa) – A man from Creston reported to Police Monday morning, that his 2019 H&H flatbed trailer was stolen from near his residence in the 500 block of S. Vine Street. The trailer was valued at $2,000. It was found at around 11:46-a.m. on Quail Avenue, in Afton.

(Creston, Iowa) – Police in Creston say no injuries were reported following a collision Monday evening at the intersection of Sumner and Adams Streets. Authorities say a 2000 Dodge Durango SUV driven by 36-year-old Shaun D. Lott, of Creston, was traveling south in the inside lane or Sumner/Highway 25, and passing through a green light at the intersection. A 2019 Chevy Malibu driven by 25-year-old Bridgette M. Ahrens, of Evansdale, was traveling north on Sumner/Hwy 25.

Ahrens proceeded to turn left onto Adams Street, when her car was struck by the SUV. Lott told police he didn’t have time to stop when he saw the car turning in front of him. Ahrens said she didn’t see the approaching SUV prior to making the turn and didn’t have time to stop. The collision happened at around 5:10-p.m.

Damage from the accident amounted to $7,000. No citations were issued.

(Radio Iowa) – State climatologist Justin Glisan says snow in March made for a split in temperatures in the state. “We had across the state if you look at temperatures, near normal conditions in eastern Iowa, and then slightly cooler conditions as we move northwest where we had more snowpack,” Glisan says, “so the statewide average temperature came in right about 34 degrees, and that’s about two and a half degrees below average.”There wasn’t enough snowfall though to help March hit its average for precipitation. “About one and a half inches of snow liquid equivalent and then rainfall and that’s about a half inch below average,” he says.

Glisan says the long-term outlook as we start April shows the potential for more rain.”For the month of April, we’re looking at an elevated signal for wetter conditions across basically much of the eastern three quarters of the state — equal chances along the western border. Temperature wise, no clear guidance there,” he says. “Slightly elevated for cooler conditions across northern Iowa and then E-C (equal chances) for the rest of the state.”

Glisan says there’s a short-term indication of drier conditions in April — which would help farmers itching to get into the fields.

(Atlantic, Iowa/KJAN) – The month of March in Atlantic came to a close with weather stats averaging lower than normal. High average High for the month in Atlantic (as recorded here at KJAN), was 47.8-degrees, which was cooler the norm of 48.3. The average Low for March 2023 in Atlantic was 22.6-degrees, which came in a little less than 4-degrees below normal. The warmest day of the month was on the 31st, at 75-degrees. The coldest morning was on the 18th, when the thermometer bottomed-out at 8-degrees.

And, precipitation for the month amounted to 1.01-inches (including rain, melted snow and mixed precip.), compared to the norm of 2.38-inches. We received a total of 6-inches of snow, with the greatest amounts occurring March 8th & 9th.

(Red Oak, Iowa) – Police in Red Oak, Monday evening, arrested 18-year-old Kaiden Dale Jarvis Schooling, of Red Oak. He faces charges that include: Public Intoxication; Possession of Drug Paraphernalia; Disorderly Conduct – fighting, and two-counts of Simple Assault. Schooling was being held in the Montgomery County Jail on a $300 bond.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Atlantic Police Chief Devin Hogue, Monday night, issued a statement with regard to a report on Sunday of a text message that was sent out, making a threat to do harm at an Atlantic Community School District building on Monday, April 3rd. The Chief says ” After investigating the incident, it was found that the threat was not credible and students and staff were not in immediate danger to attend school the following day. However, due to the seriousness of the threat and the disruption to the school and learning  environment, a 13-year-old juvenile was taken into custody on April 3, 2023 and charged with Threats of Terrorism and transported to a juvenile detention center.

“Additionally,” Hogue said, “On April 3, 2023, the Atlantic Police Department received a report of a threat made on a social media page to do harm at an Atlantic Community School building. An investigation was made into this incident as well and found the no students or staff were placed in immediate danger. However, due to the seriousness of the threat and disruption to the school and learning environment, a 12-year-old juvenile was taken into custody charged with Threats of Terrorism and transported to a juvenile detention center.

“The Atlantic Police Department” Chief Hogue said, “Worked alongside the Atlantic Community School District during the investigation and was assisted by the Cass County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa Governors School Safety Bureau.

“No other details are being released at this time. If you have information regarding the incident(s), please call the Atlantic Police Department at 712-243-3512.”

Note: A criminal charge is merely an accusation and the defendant(s) are presumed innocent until proven guilty” in a court of law.

(Radio Iowa) – Senate Republicans say their overall target for state spending in the next budgeting year matches the one Governor Kim Reynolds proposed in January — but they’re still working on the details. Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee have voted to advance four bills with a general outline of WHERE money might be spent in dozens of state agencies, but no mention of HOW MUCH money should be spent.

Senator Tim Kraayenbrink, a Republican from Fort Dodge, says the goal is to come to some agreement on these bills with House Republicans, who are proposing slightly more spending in certain areas. “Our first intent would be to come to an agreed upon amount as well as language,” Kraayenbrink says, “so that we could may substitute or amend or whatever needs to be done to get it off the floor and get out of here in a timely manner.”

Senator Janet Petersen, a Democrat from Des Moines, says with the governor’s major realignment of state government operations underway, more scrutiny is necessary. “I believe the public should have a chance to weigh in once they see the budget numbers,” Petersen says, “once they see which staff will be working for the state of Iowa and which won’t.”

Senate Republicans say they’ve met with agency leaders to ask questions, get answers and set up a budget framework — but they’ll figure out the spending details later after negotiations with House Republicans and the governor.

House Republicans released more detailed budget numbers last week and have held some public meetings with state officials to discuss government operations.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa’s spring turkey hunting season is scheduled to start soon. Nate Carr, a conservation officer with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says Iowa’s youngest hunters will fire the first shots. “Youth season is going to get us kicked off April 7th,” Carr says. “It’ll go on for a few days and then we’ll get into our regular spring turkey hunting seasons which is broken up into four different seasons.” Those seasons start April 10th, 14th and 19th, with the final season running April 26th through May 14th.

Carr says the turkey has a storied past in Iowa as the pioneers had to hunt to survive. “Back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, early settlers were pretty hard on our wildlife here in Iowa, turkeys included,” Carr says. “They were actually extirpated from the state, which means they were completely wiped out within the state of Iowa and the last wild turkey was seen around 1910.” Carr says it was a lengthy recovery process for the big birds, which vanished from our soil for more than five decades.

“It was a long road to get them back in the ’60s through different reintroduction efforts,” Carr says. “We were able to get some birds from Missouri who really had a similar issue, but they were starting to see their wild population come back. So we transplanted some birds from Missouri, up into Iowa in different locations and have really seen them be fairly successful throughout Iowa.”

The D-N-R usually issues around 50-thousand tags for spring turkey hunting season, with roughly 22-percent getting filled, which equates to a harvest of around 11,500 birds. Learn more at www.iowadnr.gov.

(Radio Iowa) – Preliminary reports from the National Weather Service office in the Quad Cities shows at least 16 tornadoes touched down in eastern Iowa Friday. Lead Meteorologist, Justin Schultz, says that number could still go up as they continue looking at damage. “The vast majority of the tornadoes that we surveyed were of the E-F-zero to E-F-two range. So that’s the bottom portion of the Enhanced Fujita tornado strength scale,” he says. The strongest tornado
traveled through Keokuk and Washington counties.

“That was rated as an EF-four. The E-F-four is not as the highest on the Enhanced Fujita scale goes, that goes up to five,” Schultz says, “but still a very powerful and very violent tornado, that particular one.” He says that tornado started on a smaller scale in Wappello County before traveling into Keokuk County. “When it was in Wappello County down by Ottumwa — it was an E-F 2 at that time,” he says..

The E-F-four tornado had a width of 600 yards by the time it hit its peak, and did lots of damage. “There were several severely damaged homes near that Keota, Iowa, in fact, wiping one house completely off its foundation,” Schultz says. “So, in addition, a car was lost in the air and toss about one thousand feet into a nearby field and trees were completely debarked and only stubs are the largest branches for remaining. So that kind of gives you a glimpse at the damage that we saw.”

The N-W-S says there were nine people confirmed injured in the tornadoes — and no one was killed. Schultz says that’s because many of the twisters had a short life. “A lot of these tornadoes were actually fairly short lived, only on the ground for a few minutes or maybe up to 10. But that E-F-four, that was actually on the ground for close to 50 minutes. So that was a very long-track, long-lived tornado,” he says. That tornado had estimated peak winds of 170 miles an hour. Schultz says many of these tornadoes appeared darker as they pulled up dry ground and debris into them as they moved along.

(Radio Iowa) – The monthly survey of supply managers and business leaders in Iowa and eight other Midwest states finds the economy’s numbers slipped slightly during March, compared to February. Creighton University economist Ernie Goss says recession warning signals have been flashing for three straight months, but there are now also signs of slow growth — while inflation also continues climbing.

“What I think we’re in right now nationwide is what we call sometimes called a rolling recession,” Goss says. “In other words, recessions in construction, and in other areas like finance, real estate, and also in certain states that specialize in banking and finance.” On the zero-to-100 scale, a score of 50 is considered growth neutral, and the region’s economy fell from 56-point-one in February to 50-point-eight in March.

Iowa’s Business Conditions Index for March also fell, from February’s 53-point-two to 49-point-four in March, that’s below growth neutral. Supply managers across the nine states were asked about their outlook for the rest of the year, and the biggest challenges they see ahead.  “Four out of ten said supply chain disruptions. No surprise there since these are supply managers so they’re concerned about that,” Goss says. “Three out of ten said labor shortages, which was also not very surprising. Two out of ten said higher interest rates, and only one out of ten said higher inflation.”

Hiring rates for the region were relatively steady, in what Goss describes as a case of “labor hoarding.” “In other words, individual companies are just very reluctant to lay off workers, to fire workers, to get rid of workers,” Goss says. “They’re, in fact, hiring workers even in cases where they don’t really have that significant demand, just to guard themselves against an upturn in the economy and in their businesses.”

The report included a look back at last year for Iowa. The state’s top three exported manufactured goods for 2022 were: 1) Machinery at $4.0 billion, 2) Processed food at $3.9 billion, and 3) Chemicals at $3.0 billion.