Noisy cicadas have been buzzing around Iowa for weeks and now cicada-killing wasps are also circling our yards, picking off the big bugs. Entomologist Jody Green says the wasps are not aggressive like bees or hornets, but they are hunters and it’s only the female of the species that goes after cicadas.”She’s gotta’ fly out and hunt and catch them. They catch the cicada and paralyze it with their venom. She drags it back to the burrow and she’ll lay an egg on it. The larvae will emerge, consuming that cicada as food, keep eating over the winter and emerging the next fall. Circle of life.”

The cicada killers may be up to two inches long with black with yellow markings on the body and rusty-colored wings. They’re the largest wasps in Iowa. Green says the male wasps typically aren’t the attackers but they might give you a good scare. “The males are fakers, they’re aggressive though and they’ll fly right up in your face,” she says. “They’re territorial so they’re defending their territory from other males and they’ll attack them. It looks like they’re attacking humans but they really have nothing behind that stinger. The female, on the other hand, does have venom behind that large stinger but she uses though that for prey, not for people.”

This type of wasp burrows into the ground, sometimes as deep as two feet. “When there are a lot of cicadas and a lot of (wasp) nests, sometimes people want to control them but it’s really difficult,” Green says. “I’d recommend they do that at night and they treat each individual burrow with a pyrethroid dust, but normally, there’s no control necessary.”

A better course of action is just to leave the wasps alone and they’ll usually treat you likewise.

(Radio Iowa)

A call Tuesday morning about a disturbance in Minden resulted in the arrest of a woman on a warrant for Parole Violation. The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office reports 22-year old Ashley Nicole Duncan, of Council Bluffs, was taken into custody at around 10:15-a.m., and held at the Pott. County Jail for other authorities.

More area and State news from KJAN News Director Ric Hanson.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.3MB)

Subscribe: RSS

DES MOINES, Iowa — The Iowa State Patrol and the Des Moines Police Department are investigating a stabbing at the Iowa State Fair.  At approximately 10:25 PM, Tuesday, a 21-year-old male was stabbed near the SW corner of the fairgrounds.  The victim was transported to Mercy Hospital in Des Moines in a critical, but stable condition.  The investigation is ongoing and more details will be released as they become available.

SERGEANT BLUFF, Iowa (AP) – A northwest Iowa school superintendent is facing an October trial on accusations of drunken driving. Dickinson County court records say Sergeant Bluff-Luton Community School District Superintendent Rod Earleywine entered a written plea of not guilty Monday. The charge: operating while under the influence, first offense. His trial is set to begin Oct. 10.

Earleywine was arrested Aug. 5 in Spirit Lake. The records say Earleywine’s blood alcohol was above the legal limit in two tests. The school board president has declined to comment about the case. The district website still lists Earleywine as superintendent.

The area’s top news at 7:06-a.m., w/KJAN News Director Ric Hanson

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.5MB)

Subscribe: RSS

A crowdfunding campaign is underway this month to keep a program afloat that helps sexual assault victims in Iowa. Adam Robinson, executive director of the Iowa City-based Rape Victim Advocacy Program, says they’ve seen severe cuts in state and federal funding in recent months. Robinson says, “In total, RVAP’s budget last fiscal year was about $1.4 million and we’ve lost about $400,000 this fiscal year.”

The deep cuts forced the office to slash its workforce, eliminating 15 of the 30 part- and full-time staff members. “One of the key programs that we’ve been running since 1999 is the Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline,” Robinson says. “That program provides 24-hour, confidential, free support to anyone impacted by sexual violence and that particular program was defunded.”

Even though that hotline was defunded, Robinson says the 800-number is still active and is being staffed by the remaining personnel and volunteers. While the office lost some 400-thousand dollars in funding, the modest goal for the month of August was to raise ten-thousand dollars via the crowdfunding effort. “We’ve raised $7,300 so far, which is tremendous,” Robinson says. “We have a lot more money to raise to try to recoup the dollars we’ve lost in funding but it’s been a great start.”

The fundraiser will help to sustain some services that would otherwise be at risk of vanishing. To donate money or time as a volunteer, visit the Rape Victim Advocacy Program website: rvap.org.

(Radio Iowa)

An R-V carrying some of the state’s historical artifacts is parked at the Iowa State Fair this week. Officials call it a “mobile museum” and they’ve assigned the phrase “Iowa History 101” to describe the experience of touring the interior. Mary Cownie is director of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs. “The State Historical Society of Iowa maintains more than 200 million documents and artifacts,” Cownie says, “but they’re only valuable if people can see them.”

The R-V already has traveled to 24 counties, with the goal of making stops in each of Iowa’s 99 counties by the end of 2019. The mobile museum is parked near the livestock pavilion on the state fairgrounds from now through Friday. Governor Kim Reynolds says it’s one way to share Iowa’s legacy with the state’s citizens. “If you get a chance, be sure to walk through the RV and see some of the highlights,” Reynolds says, “things like a patch from astronaut Peggy Whitson with her spacesuit, a jersey from Lynne Lorenzen’s glory days in six-on-six basketball and, one of my personal favorites, the pen that Governor Harding used to sign the 19th Amendment in 1919 — and this made Iowa the 10th state to ratify the 19th Amendment and give women the right to vote.”

The mobile museum will be parked at the Clay County Fair in Spencer from September 9th through the 17th. It’s next stop, though, is this Sunday in northeast Iowa. It will be at the Parkersburg Historical Home on August 20th.

(Radio Iowa)

If you wish to hunt deer this season, don’t forget to pickup your license. The Iowa DNR says licenses to pursue Iowa’s world class deer herd went on sale Tuesday, Aug. 15th, at more than 700 license sales agents statewide and online at www.iowadnr.gov.

Resident Iowa hunters may purchase one any deer license for a gun season, one any deer license for archery season and one county specific antlerless deer only license. The number of county specific license quotas for antlerless deer only has changed for 22 counties – 11 counties quotas increased and 11 counties quotas decreased. Hunters may purchase one antlerless only deer license until Sept. 15, then as many as they want until the season ends or quotas fill.

The price of an Iowa deer license is $28.50. Excluding fees for license vendors and required $1 fee to fund Help Us Stop Hunger, the price of an Iowa deer license has remained the same since 1991.

The man sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for killing Pottawattamie County Deputy Mark Burbridge in May during an escape attempt was still plotting a get away as he waited for his trial. Twenty-year-old Wesley Correa-Carmenaty changed his pleas to guilty for first-degree murder, attempted murder, escape and other crimes before his sentencing. Major Tony Wingert of the Woodbury County Sheriff’s Department says Correa-Carmenaty didn’t cause problems while being held in the Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City — but he also didn’t give up on plotting another escape.

“He was a quite prisoner. He’d make comments that he just wanted to get this behind him so he could get to Oakdale,” Wingert says. Wingert says Correa-Carmenaty said in his mail that he wanted to get to Oakdale so he could try another escape, and that information has been passed down to the Department of Corrections.

Oakdale near Iowa City is where prisoners are taken for an evaluation to determine where they will be sent in the state prison system. Wingert says the shaved Correa-Carmenaty’s head after obtaining information that he may have freed himself from handcuffs at the Pottawattamie County Jail by hiding a lock pick in his long dreadlocks.

Wingert says the state D-C-I agents warned them of that his hair was a possible hiding place for the lock pick. “We were able to get a full body x-ray machine — a portable one — brought into the jail. And the state had a search warrant written up,” Wingert explains. “If the x-ray tech saw anything on the x-rays that they didn’t know for sure, we were going to take his hair.” He says during the course of the x-ray the technician saw a spot that he couldn’t confirm that there wasn’t something there, so his hair was cut by jail staff.

The hair was turned over to the State division of Criminal Investigation as evidence. Major Wingert says the haircut prompted a new threat from Correa-Carmenaty. “He was not happy with that,” Wingert says. “He made several comments that he was going to kill the D-C-I agent if he ever got the chance. He was not happy with losing his hair.”

Correa-Carmenaty was held in the Woodbury County Jail as he awaited legal action to avoid any problems that might have occurred by returning him to the Pottawattamie County Jail where the escaped and shootings happened. Correa-Carmenaty escaped that jail shortly after appearing in court May 1st and being sentenced to 45 years in prison on a murder charge.

(Radio Iowa)