Republican Congressman Tom Latham says the budget deal he voted for earlier this month which cleared the U.S. Senate last week is a major breakthrough. “We’ve been going on with ‘Continuing Resolutions’ which just extend funding from year to year to year for the last four years and the bureaucracy has become extraordinarily arrogant because there’s no way to rein them in if you’re not doing appropriations and put limitations on their activities,” Latham says. “And so that’s what I’m going to be really focusing on, certainly, is to try to get the appropriations, the process going, to have congress actually function again.”

Latham is a member of the Appropriations Committee in the U.S. House. “I chair a subcommittee — Transportation, Housing and Urban Development — on Appropriations,” Latham says. “We will actually have numbers agreed to between the House and the Senate so that we can write bills for this fiscal year and next fiscal year, so that’s going to be a huge part of what my time is going to be consumed with.”

Latham announced last week that he will not seek reelection in 2014. Latham made his comments during a weekend appearance on the “Iowa Press” program on Iowa Public Television.

(Radio Iowa)

Being left out of the family dinner, opening presents and other Christmas activities is not a lot of fun, but the state’s top doctor says it’s important to stay away if you are sick. State medical director, Patricia Quinlisk, says it’s better to be safe instead of spreading something that will make everyone ill. “Think about your family, don’t go to Christmas dinner if you are really sick,” Quinlisk says. “Tell them that your Christmas gift to them is that you are going to stay home and keep your viruses to yourself.”

Quinlisk says you may spread your illness to some of the people who are least equipped to handle it.  “Especially grandma, grandpa, or even that new baby that your sister has — or something like that — because babies actually are most likely to be hospitalized with the flu out of all the groups we have in our population,” Quinlisk explains. Keeping away from others is one of the three C’s that Dr. Quinlisk advises when dealing with illness.

“Contain your viruses — so if you get sick stay home. Clean your hands…and when you do cough, cover that cough with your elbow or a Kleenex so you are not coughing the virus out into the air for someone else to pick up and get sick,” she says. A recent report raised concerns that antibacterial soaps and sanitizers may be doing more harm than good in preventing disease. Quinlisk says her instructions have always been about the amount of time you use to be sure you are washing away germs.

“And that’s really the answer, is you need that friction, you need rubbing, you need the warm water, running water to wash those germs off,” Quinlisk says. “They type of soap you use is really not as important as the fact that you actually do it with warm water and soap.” She always advises that you should spend the amount of time washing that it takes to sing the song “Happy Birthday” twice before you finish.  “If there’s not warm water and soap available — you can use the hand gels — just be aware that those hand gels do not work very well. In fact, may not work at all against some of the viruses that do spread around — including norovirus — which is the number one cause of diarrhea in Iowa,” Quinlisk says.

Family gatherings can have people confined into small areas, especially if it’s cold outside, and Quinlisk says that makes it easier to spread viruses.

(Radio Iowa)

ORANGE CITY, Iowa (AP) – A car stolen in 1999 has turned up in a northwest Iowa pond.  Sioux City television station KCAU says workers excavating the pond near Orange City found the car on Dec. 5. A member of the Sioux County dive team got into the icy water to hook a cable to the vehicle so it could be pulled out.

Jim Pottebaum, of the Orange City Police Department, says investigators aren’t sure how the car got into the pond but have learned that it was reported stolen at Dordt College in Sioux Center 14 years ago.

No injuries were reported following an accident that occurred at around 3-p.m. Monday, here in Atlantic. The Police Department says vehicles driven by Dennis Toepfer, of Atlantic, and Steven Scheuring, of Defiance, collided at the intersection of 7th and Olive Streets, when Toepfer rear-ended Scheuring’s vehicle, as both were traveling westbound on 7th. When Toepfer didn’t see the vehicle in front of him was stopped at the red light due to the sun blinding him, he ran into the rear of the vehicle, causing a total of $4,000 damage. Toepfer was cited for failure to maintain control and reduce speed.

The Atlantic Police Department reports three people were arrested Monday. 30-year old Randi Shafer, of Atlantic, was arrested on a Cass County warrant for Possession of a Controlled Substance. And, 29-year old Daniel Long, and 20-year old Taylor Short, both of Leon, were arrested on charges of Theft in the 2nd degree. All three of the individuals were booked into the Cass County Jail.

Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors explore the new Cass County Memorial Hospital Rehabilitation Center. Complete with a new pool and many other tools for assisting a rehabilitation patient, the team at the center have many areas of expertise including speech, occupational and physical therapy.

Pictured at the visit are Jane Kay, Tracy Milius, Becky Zinke, Ashley Williams, Erin Johnson, Ryan Legg, Carole Schuler, Dolly Bergmann, Pat McCurdy, Nedra Perry, Pat Markham, Mike Rohde, Whitney Welp, Nicole Schweigert, Sue Muri, Connie Wailes, Sara Nelson, Julie May, Christie Ladd, Haley Kickland, Rebecca Bowen, JoAnn Mueller, Steve Lewis, Bill Saluk, Doreen Ross, Russell Joyce, Rich Perry, Rita Willmont, and Linda Hemminger.

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The Iowa Department of Transportation plans to start a five-year plan to spread out the renewal dates for driver’s licenses. D-O-T Motor Vehicle Division director, Mark Lowe, says it’s part of the effort to transition from five-year to eight-year licenses as directed by lawmakers. “Right now we have really significant swings in our renewal volumes and we are in a peak year right now. They range from as high as 530-thousand in some years down to about 275-thousand,” Lowe says.

In order to spread out the renewals, licenses will be issued with four different lengths. “The system will assign a person a five, six, seven or eight year license according to the percentages we determine for each year,” Lowe explains. “By the time we get to the end of it starting in 2019, we will have a very even distribution across an eight-year renewal cycle.” The hope is the even distribution of renewals will also make it so the lines at the driver’s license station aren’t longer in one year than another.

“When we have those big swings, it really strains our service delivery in those peak years, and then in low years we are really understaffed,” Lowe says. “So by evening that out we’ll be able to even out our resource distribution and provided better service at the same time.” He says knowing how many staff to have on hand will save them money. There are some restrictions on the eight-year license as the regulations regarding drivers under 18 and temporary foreign nationals will stay in place. Some of the state’s oldest drivers will not be eligible for a long-term license.

“If you are 72 or over, then the maximum license we can issue you is two years,” Lowe says. He says that’s a safety issue as they find drivers over 72 start to have more accidents and they want to assess their overall condition to drive more frequently. Lowe says they will still face another peak period of license renewals before the plan starts to even things out. “We will see early on the predominance of five-year licenses and then in 2017 we are going to see a shift to a predominance of eight-year licenses,” Lowe says.

It doesn’t matter how many years you get on your new license, the cost will stay at four dollars for each year. The D-O-T estimates the changes will save drivers three-point-four million dollars annually in reduced travel and time to get licenses. And it’s expected to save the department about one-point-eight-million dollars annually in production costs for licenses. For more information, got to the Iowa D-O-T’s website at: www.iowadot.gov.

(Radio Iowa)

Many Iowans purchase lottery games to give away as presents over the holidays. Iowa Lottery spokesperson Mary Neubauer says she’s yet to hear from any of those gift givers who raised a dispute over a big prize. “We hear every year from people who say they got the ticket as a stocking stuffer or they got the ticket maybe in a holiday gift exchange and it ended up being a big winner and so far it doesn’t seem like the folks who gave the tickets didn’t have any hard feelings,” Neubauer says. “They were happy for the folks that they gave the tickets to.”

Some of the big winners this year might be young kids. “Here in Iowa the law says that you have to be 21 — at least 21 years old — to purchase lottery products, but you can be younger than 21 to play lottery products and if you were to win a prize in that case there’s a process where a parent or a guardian has to sign the claim form with you when you claim the prize,” Neubauer says, “so there certainly is a process in place for that.”

Neubauer notes that lottery games may not be an appropriate gift for anyone. “Certainly that applies to lottery tickets, but it could apply to a lot of things, you know, maybe the movie that you give somebody…or the video game that you give someone,” Neubauer says. “…Is it a violent game? Are you giving it to a small child? So we just want people to remember that, that certainly you are welcome to give whatever gift you would like, but some gifts may not be appropriate for certain people.”

(Radio Iowa)

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