(Radio Iowa) – With the 4th of July weekend just ahead, many Iowans will be declaring their independence from the pandemic by taking vacations for the first time in many months. Meredith Mitts, spokeswoman for Triple-A Iowa, says people are packing up for road trips and jaunts via airplane. Nationwide, more than 47-point-7 million Americans are projected to be plotting getaways between July 1st and 5th. “That means that we are nearly recovered from the pandemic levels,” Mitts says. “This is the second-highest Independence Day travel volume we have on record, trailing only behind 2019 with just 2.5% fewer Americans traveling this year compared to 2019.”

The travel predictions for the upcoming holiday represent an increase of nearly 40-percent compared to last year, what Mitts says is a remarkable figure. “Some of it is just pandemic fatigue and staying home is really getting to people,” Mitts says. “The summer is nice. People are wanting to get back out. Part of it is just that desire to go see people and be able to see things again. It’s been a long time since many people have traveled.”

While all modes of travel will see increased demand this Independence Day, road trips will dominate this summer. Despite the highest gas prices in seven years, Triple-A projects more than 91-percent of holiday travel will be by car. Gasoline prices in Iowa are now averaging two-89 a gallon, a significant hike from two-oh-five a year ago. “So, quite a big difference between 2021 and 2020, but that’s to be expected as there weren’t people traveling last year, there wasn’t this demand,” Mitts says. “We’re back to basically the pre-pandemic levels. We always see an increase around a holiday weekend and during the summer as people are taking to the roads.”

Iowa’s cheapest gas is in Council Bluffs at two-85 a gallon, while it’s most expensive in Dubuque at two-96. The national average is three-oh-seven.

The 7:06-a.m. broadcast news, with Ric Hanson.

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(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Attorney General’s Office has released its report on clergy sex abuse within the Catholic Church. Attorney General spokesperson, Lynn Hicks, says the office started gathering information in 2018, and examined the records of 70 priests and 50 complaints. The statute of limitations has expired for all the cases reviewed. “Despite the fact that they fall outside the statute of limitations — we still think this was a good thing,” Hicks says. Hicks says the process led to 17 people who had never before reported allegations coming forward. “We think it was valuable even in that respect to allow people to come forward and tell their story,” Hicks says. “In many cases they were able to talk to a crime victims advocate in our office and we could offer them resources to see what they wanted to do going forward.”

The report also indicates that the four Catholic Diocese in Iowa have taken steps to address the issue. “Since 2002 — that’s when the U-S Conference of Bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children — there’s been very few, only about five reports since then involving Iowa priests,” Hicks says. “We note in our report that the diocese has become more responsive to victims and now reports all accusations to law enforcement authorities.” He says the changes put in place on give victims a chance to be heard. He says some of the diocese continue to get complaints and continue to investigate. “And we encourage people to come forward — even if a priest is no longer active, is deceased. We think that all of this is a good process and we hope brings healing to the victims,” Hicks says.

Hicks says they hope that victims will now know they will be heard. “We did hear that from some of the victims who came forward to us and said they felt they couldn’t come forward. They couldn’t trust the process,” he says. The four Catholic Bishops released a statement says the Attorney General’s review of cases will be studied for suggestions on how the efforts of the Catholic Church might be improved. It says the “Catholic Church is committed to do all that is humanly possible to protect minors from the sin and crime of clergy sexual abuse, and to promote healing.” The Catholic bishops of Iowa are Bishop Thomas Zinkula of Davenport, Bishop William Joensen of Des Moines, Archbishop Michael Jackels of Dubuque, and Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City.

A traffic stop at around 5-p.m. Wednesday in Montgomery County, resulted in the arrest of a man from Stanton. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports 19-year-old Lucas Swanson was taken into custody for OWI/1st offense. He was transported to the Montgomery County Jail and recorded a .125 Blood Alcohol Test. Swanson was held on $1,000 bond and cited for Possession of alcohol by a person under the legal age.

(Radio Iowa) – A year ago in the midst of the pandemic, the price spread between packers and cattle producers rose to 1500 percent and John Tupper, vice president of the U-S Cattlemen’s Association, says the four big meat packers still are making significant profits. “Packers have enjoyed unbelievable profits,” Tupper said, “harvesting around 120,000 head per day while cattle producers go out of business and consumers pay double or even triple at the meat counter.”

Tupper, an auctioneer and cow-calf operator from South Dakota, testified during a U-S Senate Ag Committee hearing Wednesday afternoon. Farm state lawmakers are considering bills that would give independent livestock operators more information about prices, as many cattle sales are now private. “There is a crisis in rural America. We are losing our producers at an alarming rate,” Tupper says, “all the while watching big corporate feeders, packers make record profits with the threat of verticle integration hanging over our head.”

There were about three-point-six MILLION head of cattle and calves in Iowa on January 1st, down more than 200-thousand from the previous year. Tupper says a steer is worth about 16-hundred dollars today. “Packers could buy that steer and sell it for beef alone, not counting byproducts, for over $2800 a head today,” he says, “for a gross profit margin of over 80%.”

The North American Meat Institute, a trade group representing meat packers, says prices are following market trends as supply for meat struggles to keep pace with demand. Iowa now ranks eighth among the states in cattle production.

One person suffered non-life threatening injuries during a motorcycle accident Wednesday night, in Atlantic. According to reports, the accident happened at around 9:10-p.m. in front of the Family Table Restaurant in the 600 block of W. 7th Street. The injured party suffered from a head laceration.

Cass EMS and Atlantic Rescue responded to the scene. Additional information was not immediately available.

A man from Exira died Wednesday from injuries he suffered during a motorcycle accident in Audubon County. The Iowa State Patrol reports 65-year-old Jed Bengard, Jr., was riding an Indian Challenger motorcycle north on Littlefield Drive just before 5-p.m. and entering a curve south of 310th Street, when for reasons unknown, the cycle left the road and entered a ditch.

The motorcycle overturned in the ditch, causing Bengard to fall from the machine. He died at the scene. The accident remains under investigation. The Patrol was assisted at the scene by Deputies with the Audubon County Sheriff’s Department.

(Radio Iowa) – The man who leads the union representing thousands of state employees plans to retire. AFSCME Council 61 president Danny Homan says he will retire at the end of his term and a new president will be elected at the union’s upcoming convention on July 24th. The 68-year-old Homan has been an employee of Council 61 for more than 33 years and was elected President in 2005.

Homan says in a statement that working for the union has been the “honor of his life” — and says while there is a lot of fight left in him –now is the time for new leadership to move the council forward. Homan joined AFSCME in 1986 when he worked as an officer with community-based corrections in Sioux City.

(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says she’s confident the new majority on Iowa’s Supreme Court will overturn a 2018 ruling that upheld abortion rights. The court ruled a 72-hour waiting period for an abortion violated the due process and equal protection clauses of Iowa’s constitution, but in the three and a half years since that ruling, Reynolds has appointed four of the court’s seven members. She is appealing this week’s district court decision that a 24-hour waiting period for abortions is unconstitutional.

“I absolutely don’t agree with that decision and that’s what the process is for and so we will be appealing that decision,” Reynolds says, “and we’re pretty confident that we can get the outcome that we’re looking for.” Rita Bettis Austen, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, says the district court judge’s opinion is consistent with the precedent set by the 2018 Iowa Supreme Court ruling.

“We would have no reason to think the court would reach a different outcome,” Bettis Austen says. Republicans in the legislature are proposing an amendment to the state constitution that says the document does not recognize the right to an abortion or public funding of the procedure, but it has to clear more hurdles before it would be put to a statewide vote.

Some Republicans are hoping the legal dispute over a 24-hour waiting period for abortions in Iowa could be appealed all the way to the U-S Supreme Court and be the means by which Roe v Wade is overturned. In May, the U-S Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

One person suffered a laceration to their hand, during a collision Wednesday evening near the Atlantic Fire Station on southwest 7th Street. The collision occurred at around 5:07-p.m. Cass EMS and Atlantic Fire and Rescue responded to the scene. Both lanes of traffic – east and west bound – were blocked for about 20-minutes.

According to Atlantic Police Lt. Devin Hogue, the driver of a 2021 Chevy 2500 pickup was attempting to pull out onto southwest 7th Street from 1307 southwest 7th, when they failed to see an approaching southbound 2004 Grand Am. The two vehicles collided in the middle of the highway.

Cass EMS transported the driver of the Grand-AM to Cass Health for treatment of possible minor injuries. The pickup driver wasn’t injured. The accident remains under investigation. More details will be released on Thursday.