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KJAN News can be heard at five minutes after every hour right after Fox News 24 hours a day!
Keep up-to-date with Fox News Radio, Radio Iowa, Brownfield & the Iowa Agribusiness Networks!
The Creston Police Department reports a local man was arrested Monday night on a Union County warrant. 30-year-old Alex Cunningham, of Creston, was taken into custody at around 9:45-p.m., on a warrant for Failure to Serve Court Ordered Jail Sentence, on the original charge of Violation of Protection Order. Cunningham was being held in the Union County Jail until the balance of his sentence is served.
An accident involving an ATV in northern Iowa’s Winnebago County, Monday night, claimed one life and resulted in injuries to another person. The Iowa State Patrol says a 2021 Can-Am ATV wad traveling through a field west of Forest City at around 10:10-p.m., when the vehicle went off of a terrace and began to roll. An occupant in the vehicle was ejected and died at the scene. He was identified as 49-year-old John Eugene West, of Forest City. The second occupant, 23-year-old Terence Jacob West, also of Forest City, suffered non-life threatening injuries. He was flown by LifeNet helicopter to Mercy Hospital in Mason City. Neither man was wearing a seat belt.
The Patrol said it wasn’t immediately clear who was driving the ATV. The accident remains under investigation.
(Radio Iowa) – State officials say liquid manure from a cattle operation near Remsen turned the water in a nearby creek brown and killed fish for several miles downstream. Department of Natural Resources staff were on site Monday, monitoring clean-up and conducting a count of dead fish. According to a news release from the agency, Louis Pick, who owns LCNJ Farms, filled a tanker with manure Saturday night, but a valve on the tanker apparently failed.
Manure ran into a road ditch, then into a tributary of Whiskey Creek near Remsen. Pick discovered the spill Monday morning and took steps to stop the flow of manure into the ditch and recover pools of liquid manure in the area.
The news at 7:07-a.m., w/News Director Ric Hanson.
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Perry, Iowa – April 6, 2021 – Alliant Energy and the city of Perry have reached an agreement to install a 1-megawatt solar facility on a 7-acre site on the western edge of the city. On April 5, a lease for the project was approved during the City Council Meeting. Sven Peterson, City Administrator for the City of Perry, says “The City of Perry looks forward to hosting a solar energy project in our community,” said . “Our collaboration with Alliant Energy on this facility will provide financial, environmental and educational benefits to the city and area residents.”
By hosting the solar facility, the City of Perry will receive significant revenue from lease payments for 25 years. The city will also obtain renewable energy credits from the project to offset their greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions and help them progress toward their sustainability goals. Mason Adams, Alliant Energy key account manager, says “We are excited to partner with the city of Perry to support the community and bring more clean energy to our customers. This is the first Alliant Energy® Customer Hosted Renewables solar facility in the state of Iowa. This project is a win-win that will benefit the local economy and the environment for many years to come. It represents our vision to provide a clean energy future for our customers and the communities we serve.”
The solar facility will be located on a remediated brownfield site that the city of Perry has worked to put a renewable energy project on for several years. Alliant Energy will oversee construction of the solar facility and will own, operate and maintain it. There are no upfront, financing or other costs to the city of Perry. It is expected to be operational by mid-2022.
(Radio Iowa) – The man wanted for last week’s murder of a Mason City man was arrested on Monday afternoon after a standoff with authorities in Algona. The Mason City Police Department says at around 4 o’clock, 38-year-old Benjamin Gonzalez was taken into custody on a first-degree murder warrant.
Benjamin B. Gonzalez
He’s accused of the shooting death last Wednesday night of 36-year-old Michael Creviston in the area of 3rd Northwest and North Jefferson. Gonzalez is being held in the Cerro Gordo County Jail on $1 million cash-only bond pending an initial court date. If convicted of first-degree murder, Gonzalez would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the opportunity for parole.
Police are still seeking more information about the case, and if you have information, you are asked to contact the Mason City Police Department at 641-421-3636.
The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office reports six recent arrests. Last Saturday (4/3/21), Deputies arrested 49-year-old Mario Santay-Hernandez, of Schuyler NE, following a traffic stop along Highway 191 north of Portsmouth. Upon further investigation, Santay-Hernandez taken into custody for operating while intoxicated 1st offense, and failure to have a valid driver’s license. He was transported to the jail without incident and released a few hours later after posting a cash bond.
Last Friday (4/21), 24-year-old Bret Michael Schutles, of Carroll, was arrested following a traffic stop in Shelby County. Schultes was taken into custody after further investigation and charged with operating while intoxicated 2nd offense, speeding violation, no insurance, and failure to display license plate. He was transported to the jail without incident and released the following morning after posting bond.
Authorities say three people were arrested on separate charges, March 30th:
On March 29th, 35-year-old Bryce William Messinger, of Harlan, was taken into custody after a traffic stop along Highway 59 in Shelby County. Upon further investigation, Messinger was transported to the Shelby County Jail and charged with prohibited acts, possession of controlled substance (marijuana), possession of drug paraphernalia, and driving while license suspended. He was released on his own recognizance on the local charge, but transferred to another county upon release for an active warrant for failure to pay child support.
(Radio Iowa) – Faculty numbers at the three state universities are on the decline and the number of professors being considered for tenure is the lowest its been in five years. The board that governs the three public universities takes the final vote that grants tenure. Iowa State University officials are asking the Board of Regents to approve tenure for 59 faculty members. Tenure is recommended for 45 University of Iowa faculty members and University of Northern Iowa administrators recommend tenure for 17 faculty.
Republican lawmakers this year proposed and advanced bills to end the tenure systems at the state universities. While those proposals failed to clear last week’s procedural deadline, key Republicans say rather a ban on tenure, next year they may propose limitations or new guidelines for tenure.
The number of overall faculty at the University of Northern Iowa has dropped eight percent in the past year. At the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, faculty positions dropped three percent.
(Radio Iowa) – A spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Education says a social justice and equity conference for educators has been postponed in response to a bill in the Iowa Legislature. The House bill bans so-called “divisive concepts” in government diversity training and school curriculum — including teaching that the U-S and the state of Iowa are “fundamentally or systemically racist or sexist.” A retired education department official, Tom Rendon, was supposed to give a presentation at the conference.
“What concerned me was that the work we do here in education-and equity, I think is an important part of it, especially in early childhood-is being hindered even before this House File 802 becomes law,” according to Rendon. Simpson College assistant professor, Katrina Cummings was also supposed to speak at the equity conference. “If teachers aren’t prepared to be responsive to diversity, to differences, because there’s a lack of training, or limited scope of training, I think that could have a great impact on teacher competence, as well as the experience of their students,” Cummings says.
The bill passed out of the House without any Democratic support and was sent to the Senate. Republican Representative Steven Holt of Denison said during debate he believes that teaching or applying a certain characteristic to a certain group of people based on color is the very definition of racism. Holt said, “the way I was raised, that’s un-American.”
Representative Henry Stone, a Republican from Forest City, is an Asian American who told his colleagues he’s been called every racial slur you could imagine, but Stone said he does not believe there is “systemic racism” in the United States or in Iowa. The Education Department says they’re rescheduling the conference for this fall.
(Radio Iowa) – A bill that seeks to equalize workplace benefits for adoptive and biological parents as cleared the House unanimously, but awaits a Senate vote. If the House bill becomes law, Iowa businesses that give parents time off after the birth of a biological child would have to give the same benefit to parents who adopt a child under the age of seven. Representative Brian Lohse of Bondurant and his three siblings were adopted.
“I think it’s very important that we tell parents of adopted children that they are the same in every way and should be treated the same in every way as those who have biological children,” Lohse says “In my mind, there’s no difference between an adopted child and a biological child.”
More than 11-hundred adoptions have been finalized in Iowa over the past 12 months. Representative Bob Kressig (KRESS-ig) of Cedar Falls says more than half of those adopted children were above the age of six. “The transition of being a foster child and going through the adoption process, which I haven’t experienced, but I’m sure it can be kind of traumatic for the family and for the child,” Kressig says.
While Kressig would like to see time off and other workplace benefits for parents who adopt of child up to the age of 18 be equal to those for the parents of a newborn, he supported the bill when it passed the House. The legislation cleared a Senate committee in mid-February, but has not yet been passed by the full Senate.