(Radio Iowa) – The monthly survey of supply managers in Iowa and eight other Midwestern states shows both the state and regional economies took big falls during July. Creighton University economist Ernie Goss says it’s a warning sign for the economy in the months ahead, as the overall Business Conditions Index indicates a significant slowdown is looming in the Midwestern manufacturing sector.

Despite some recent optimism about the U-S economy’s overall performance, the survey shows the region’s supply managers estimate there’s almost a 50-50 chance of a recession in the second half of this year. Goss expects what he’s calling “a rolling recession” to impact certain sectors of the economy, especially commercial real estate and manufacturing.

(Radio Iowa) –  The Iowa D-N-R says a sample from a road-kill deer in Marshal County has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). D-N-R biometrician, Tyler Harms, says it’s the first detection there and the 16th county overall in the state with the disease. Harms says the D-N-R will increase surveillance efforts in Marshall County to try and determine how widespread the disease might be by getting more samples from hunters.

The next step for counties that have a new case of C-W-D are informational meetings to makes residents aware of what this disease is. They also talk about ways to manage this disease like proper carcass disposal, and not doing things to artificially congregate deer like bait piles or mineral blocks.

The D-N-R has scheduled two meetings to update the public on chronic wasting disease surveillance and management efforts in Jasper, Marshall, and Grundy counties. They are scheduled for 7 p-m on August 29th at the Baxter Public Library, and October 10th at 7 p-m at the Wellsburg Memorial Building.

(Omaha, NE) – Twenty-eight organizations, three business leaders and 12 high school seniors across Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and South Dakota were recently selected by an independent panel of business and community leaders as 2023 Better Business Bureau (BBB) award and scholarship recipients.

The BBB Students of Integrity Scholarship program recognizes high school seniors who personify values, leadership and integrity. Annually, 12 seniors are awarded $2,000 scholarships to further their education. The 2023 Students of Integrity Scholarship recipients from the Omaha and Southwest Iowa areas include:

• Megan Wells — East Mills High School, Malvern, Iowa
• Nina Marie Kudlacz — Ralston High School, Ralston, Nebraska
• Trista Swain — Griswold High School, Griswold, Iowa

“These students, leaders and companies exemplify the highest standards of ethics,” said BBB President and CEO Jim Hegarty. “These awards embody BBB’s mission of advancing marketplace trust. Join us in celebrating these incredible award winners at our upcoming luncheon. Our communities can be proud to have such strong leaders that put integrity into action.”

(Council Bluffs, Iowa/updated)- Residents of Pottawattamie County, Tuesday, went to the polls to determine if the method of determining how their Board of Supervisors are elected will change, or not. Three plans were on the ballot. Plan One was to keep the members elected essentially At Large, meaning each member of the Board of Supervisors is allowed to reside anywhere in Pottawattamie County and the voters of the county elect all five members of the Board of Supervisors. Unofficial results show that Plan was approved by 5,224 votes.

Plan Two garnered just 545 vote. If that had passed, Pottawattamie County would have been divided into five districts of roughly equal population. Plan Three received 2, 357 votes. That would have also divided Pottawattamie County into five districts of roughly equal population, but voters would elect the one Supervisor who resides in the same district as the voter and would not vote for the other four Supervisors in the other four districts. As previously mentioned, the Pottawattamie County Board of Supervisors approved the special election on June 6 after private groups gathered and submitted a petition with nearly 4,000 signatures to allow county residents to choose between three options for county supervisor elections.

According to the Iowa State Association of Counties, 49 counties elect supervisors by that at-large system. About 81-hundred people voted in Pottawattamie County’s August 1st Special Election. During this spring’s legislative session, the Iowa Senate passed a bill that would have required Iowa’s five largest counties to elect supervisors by districts rather than in at-large or countywide elections. It would not have applied to Pottawattamie County, which is Iowa’s 10th largest county. House Republicans changed the bill so it applied only to Black Hawk, Johnson and Story Counties where the state universities are located, but the bill was tabled.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa State University quarterback Hunter Dekkers has been accused of betting on one I-S-U football game and 25 other Cyclone sporting events. Dekkers was last season’s starting quarterback for the Cyclones and expected to be the starter this coming season. The Des Moines Register was first to report that the Story County Attorney’s Office has filed a criminal complaint charging Dekkers with tampering with records by trying to conceal his identity in electronic sports wagering records.

The complaint accuses Dekker’s parents of engaging in a scheme to make it look like the bets were coming from Dekker’s mother. The document alleges Dekkers used a DraftKings account to place 366 bets and 80 percent of those wagers were made when Dekkers had not reached the legal gambling age of 21. The I-S-U football game Dekkers is accused of betting on was against Oklahoma State in 2021. Dekkers was the back-up quarterback and did not play. Under N-C-Double-A rules, college athletes caught betting on games that involve their own teams face a lifetime ban from college sports.

Two other I-S-U athletes — both sophomores — face a similar charge of tampering with records related to sports gambling. One is on the Cyclone wrestling team. The other is an offensive lineman who’s accused of placing a dozen bets on I-S-U football games. This spring, Iowa State announced approximately 15 students on the university’s football, wrestling and track teams were suspected of violating N-C-Double-A rules by betting on sports.

The University of Iowa also announced 26 students on Hawkeye football, basketball, baseball, wrestling and track teams were suspected of alleged gambling violations. A lawyer representing Dekkers released a statement saying: “Hunter Dekkers denies the criminal charge brought against him. He will plead not guilty to that charge because he is in fact not guilty of that charge.”

(Radio Iowa) – Seven Iowans are in southwest Montana, working for the U-S Forest Service to fight a fire that’s already consumed 17-hundred acres in a national forest. Three other Iowans are in Texas right now, dealing with wildfires there. Gail Kantak is the fire supervisor for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. She says for the most part, these are NOT D-N-R employees, but contractors the D-N-R has trained and hired to be short term employees of the U-S Forest Service.

“It’s a whole variety, big spectrum of folks who are interested in expanding their knowledge and skills in fire,” Kantak says. “We offer National Wildfire Coordinating Group training to anybody who’s interested.” The Iowans fighting the wildfire in steep, rugged Montana terrain will be there for up to three weeks. Kantak says they are patrolling fire lines and creating new ones to prevent the fire’s spread.

“When you see pictures of wildland fire fighters in the west digging lines, that’s what they’re going to be paying attention to,” Kantak says. The Iowans in Texas will be there for two weeks as part of what Kantak calls an ending crew. “An ending crew is made up of three to five people that work in tandem with an engine and water and hoses,” Kantak says.

A state-owned fire engine was deployed to Texas along with the Iowa firefighters. Each person who’s been hired to fight fires in Montana and Texas has gone through at least 40 hours of training in Iowa. Texas officials say since the beginning of the year, about two-thousand wildfires have burned through 50-thousand acres.

The Iowans in Montana are fighting a fire sparked by lighting on July 20th. At the beginning of this week, officials said that fire was only three percent contained.

(Radio Iowa) – A state report on three men killed in a Davenport apartment building collapse describes their deaths as accidental. The building partially collapsed May 28th. The bodies of 42-year-old Brandon Colvin, Senior; 51-year-old Ryan Hitchcock and 60-year-old Daniel Prien were recovered in early June.

According to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, all three men had suffered mechanical asphyxiation. That description indicates they could not breathe because of the way their bodies were positioned or because they’d been crushed by the rubble. The report said all three suffered blunt force injuries.

Several lawsuits have been filed accusing city officials and building owner Andrew Wold with failing to protect the safety of residents living in a dangerous building.

Clarinda, Iowa – Iowa Department of Corrections officials, Tuesday, said 65-year-old Terry Lee Chevalier was pronounced dead due to an unexpected medical emergency, at 8:20 a.m. on Friday, July 28, 2023. Chevalier died at the Clarinda Correctional Facility. An autopsy will be conducted by the State Medical Examiner to determine cause of death. No foul play is suspected.

Chevalier had been serving a 10-year maximum term for the crime of Criminal Mischief 1st Degree from Des Moines County. His sentence began on October 21, 2019.

DES MOINES, Iowa – On August 1, 2023, an Ames man was sentenced to 48 months in prison for making a false statement to a financial institution and possessing firearms after having been previously convicted of a felony.
In early September 2021, Aaron Christopher Lindsey, 34, purchased a 2018 Dodge Durango GT from an Ames car dealership using the fictitious identity “Kevin Grant”.

Lindsey provided the dealership that false name as well as a false Iowa driver’s license, false social security number, and false date of birth. The false information that Lindsey provided the dealership was also submitted by Lindsey as part of his credit application to obtain financing for the vehicle and caused a local Ames credit union to approve a vehicle loan for more than $42,000.

In late September 2021, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Lindsey’s Ames residence. Officers located eight firearms and ammunition at the residence, including a loaded pistol in the Durango. Lindsey possessed each of these eight firearms and ammunition. Lindsey had been previously convicted of two felonies: a forgery conviction in Marshall County, Iowa in 2017 and a forgery conviction in Story County, Iowa in 2017.

At Lindsey’s residence, police also found counterfeit credit cards, blank checks in the names of multiple purported third-persons, counterfeit driver’s licenses, hundreds of blank magnetic strip cards, hundreds of blank EMV “chip” cards, a magnetic strip card encoder, printers, computer equipment, a card cutter, a laminator, laminate papers, and holograms of various state seals.

Following his prison term, Lindsey will be on supervised release for five years. There is no parole in the federal system. United States Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. The case was investigated by the Ames Police Department and the Iowa Department of Transportation. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

(Radio Iowa) – The first acting administrator of the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration says carbon capture pipelines are not new and will be regulated like any other liquid pipeline. Brigham McCown recently served a couple of years as chief executive of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which carries oil.  “We’ve had CO2 pipelines in the country since the 1970s,” he says. “There are about 4,500 miles of CO2 pipelines currently.”

McCown says the federal agency that regulates pipelines has the same mission as the Federal Aviation Administration, to make the transportation system as safe as possible. “The safety regulations are very robust and CO2 is treated as a liquid pipeline just like any other liquid pipeline,” McCown says. “…When pipelines are built by qualified people, they’re constructed properly and they’re maintained properly they have a 99.999% safety record. That’s better than any other type of transportation and you are far more likely to be struck by lightning multiple times than you are ever to be ever be affected by a pipeline incident.”

Pipeline opponents cite safety concerns about liquid carbon and point to the 2020 rupture of a carbon pipeline in Mississippi. That incident sent 45 people to the hospital and required the evacuation of about 200 nearby residents. McCown says regulations were beefed up after that incident and the pipeline operator was fined.  “In that case, very unusual rainfall occurred and it’s called a geohazard. It’s something pipeline operators are supposed to plan for, but the ground shifted and that caused the pipeline to break open,” McCown says.

Supporters of three proposed carbon pipeline projects in Iowa say they will allow the ethanol industry to remain competitive in the years to come, as requirements for a carbon neutral product are put in place. Opponents object to the use of the government’s eminent domain authority to seize private property from landowners who do not want the pipelines on their property.