DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The long, circular path taken by a prairie chicken has surprised Iowa researchers.  The hen was fitted with a GPS tracker and released April 4 near Kellerton in south-central Iowa. It has logged nearly 1,200 miles since, flying south into northern Missouri and back again, as far north as Guthrie County in Iowa. The bird seems to have settled down in Union County.

Jen Vogel is a research associate at Iowa State University who has monitored Bird No. 112. Vogel says researchers expected the bird to range across perhaps 50 miles. Vogel told The Des Moines Register that researchers “really didn’t expect this distance.”  Scientists have been trying to re-establish the birds in Iowa, where they once were plentiful. Bird No. 112 came from Nebraska.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – An economic index compiled from a survey of business leaders in nine Midwest and Plains states rose slightly last month, the first increase since March. The Mid-America Business Conditions Index hit 53.8 in August, compared with 53.5 in July.

Creighton University economist Ernie Goss oversees the survey, and he says the results point to growth for the final quarter of this year but at about half the rate of the first quarter. The survey results are compiled into a collection of indexes ranging from zero to 100. Survey organizers say any score above 50 suggests growth, while a score below that suggests decline.

The survey covers Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

A recently released report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows it’s not quite as costly to raise a child in the Midwest as it is in other parts of the country. The agency reports it took between twelve-thousand-six-hundred dollars ($12,600) and fourteen-thousand-seven-hundred dollars ($14,700) to raise a child in 2012 depending on the child’s age. Dr. Robert Post is with the USDA’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. “What we found in the period of 2011 to 2012 is that the cost related to health care, education, to child care as well as clothing actually increased,” Post says. “Those percentages increased and that constituted part of that 2.6-percent increase compared to (2011).”

That 2.6-percent increase was less that the average four-percent annual increase since 1960. Post credits smaller increases in costs related to housing, transportation and food in the period of 2011 to 2012. Mark Lino, an economist with the USDA, says costs also varied depending on where families lived. “We found that families in the urban Northeast spent the most on a child,” Lino says. “Where it was cheapest to raise a child, where families spent the least was in rural areas throughout the country. And the main reason for this was rural areas had the lowest housing costs.”

Kevin Concannon, the USDA Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, is hoping that healthier eating programs will reduce the health care costs of raising a child in years to come. This past year we successfully deployed a new set of meal requirements that are healthier for children,” Concannon says. “Most schools made that adjustment pretty successfully. Many of them very quietly, but effectively, and we’re looking forward to year two now.”

In fact, for the first time in decades, the CDC reports that obesity rates are declining among some young children. Prior to joining the USDA, Concannon was director of the Iowa Department of Human Services.

(Radio Iowa)

Back-to-school means back to practice season for Iowa’s student athletes. Some of those students will end up in emergency rooms with sports-related injuries. Liz Dorland, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, says that type of injury accounts for 20-percent of all E-R visits for young people. The agency is offering a series of courses which coaches, parents and others can take so they’ll know how to treat sport-related injuries.

Dorland, at the Red Cross office in Omaha/Council Bluffs, says there are several courses available in the online series, including one specifically geared for teens and adults who will coach at any level.  “It’s very highly-skilled,” she says. “It’s developed with the National Federation of State High School Associations. The course covers first aid skills, including breathing emergencies and serious injuries to muscles, bones and joints. We encourage everyone, but coaches especially, to take the CPR/AED course that we offer as well.”

Dorland says the courses were developed to inform those who are involved in sports to be prepared for emergencies. One class is labeled as the family first aid/CPR course. “Participants will be able to learn how to treat any type of cardiac event, breathing, first aid emergencies, until help arrives,” she says.

There is also a First Aid App that is free to download on smartphone and tablets which gives users instant access to information on how to handle all types of first aid emergencies. More information is available by logging on to redcross.org.

(Radio Iowa)

Police in Red Oak report the arrest Monday evening, of 37-year old Arturo Lemus-Ramos. Ramos, who’s from Red Oak, was taken into custody at around 7:30-p.m., for Violating the terms of his probation. He was brought to the Montgomery County Jail and held on $10,000 bond.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press…

LOGAN, Iowa (AP) — The cause of death of a 5-year-old boy found in a western Iowa ravine has not yet been released. An autopsy on the boy’s body was completed yesterday but the Iowa medical examiner’s office is conducting further laboratory tests before a definitive cause is released.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Farmers in central Iowa are finding more damage from a weekend storm that passed though Iowa with enough wind to flatten corn plants in some fields and damage trees. Farmers in Dallas County say the early Sunday morning storm brought an end to the recent heat wave but also packed strong wind. No injuries were reported from the storms, which brought a 20-degree drop in high temperatures to Iowa breaking the nearly week-long record setting heat wave.

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — A man mistakenly released on bond after he was convicted of making methamphetamine in a Davenport child daycare center, is back in custody. The Quad-City Times reports  Dale Sammy Blumer was returned to jail Saturday. Blumer, who is 35, shouldn’t have been released while awaiting an appeal of his conviction.

DYERSVILLE, Iowa (AP) — The Field of Dreams movie site in Dyersville has taken on the ghostly feel of the Kevin Costner movie shot at the field 24 years ago for an unusual night game. A team of ghost players emerged from the cornfield to play in the first night game at the field on Sunday. About 100 people attended the game at the field featured in the 1989 movie in which an Iowa farmer builds a baseball field and ghostly players from the 1919 World Series return to play.

Vandals caused nearly $1,000 damage to the Stanton Community School District’s softball and football fields over the Labor Day weekend. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office says sometime between 9-p.m. Sunday and 7-a.m. Monday, someone damaged the left field fence of the softball field. Five aluminum fence posts were bent over at ground level, causing an estimated $500 damage. A floater-type tire was also picked-up and rolled over some track hurdles, before being left on the football field.

Trash cans located along a walking trail were dumped over, and two picnic tables were rolled onto their tops. Officials say one of the tables had four metal straps bracing it to the concrete pad that was also damaged. In addition, a wooden bench in the gazebo at the south area of the walking trail was damaged by removing it from its base. The damage, including that perpetrated on the City of Stanton picnic tables, was estimated at $475 altogether.

Anyone with information about the incidents is asked to call Montgomery County Crimes Stoppers at 1-800-432-1001.

LOGAN, Iowa (AP) — The cause of death of a 5-year-old boy found in a western Iowa ravine has not yet been released. An autopsy on the boy’s body was completed today (Monday), but the Iowa medical examiner’s office is conducting further laboratory tests before a definitive cause is released. Dominic Lloyd Lee Elkins, who was found dead Saturday in rural Harrison County, had lived with a foster family near Logan for nearly three weeks. 17-year-old Cody Metzker-Madsen, who lived in the same foster home for nearly three years, has been charged with first-degree murder in the 5-year-old’s death.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — It used to be that a blood donation was worth a free cookie and a cup of juice but a new effort to attract donors makes a donation of blood or platelets worth a free haircut. The Council Bluffs Nonpareil reports that the American Red Cross and Sports Clips shops in Iowa and Nebraska are offering a free haircut in exchange for a blood donation through September.

Tricia Quinn, CEO of the Red Cross Midwest Blood Services Region says the offer is part of a national promotion. In Nebraska seven Sports Clips shops in the Omaha area and two in Lincoln are participating. In Iowa, two shops in Cedar Rapids are among those participating along with others in Coralville, Dubuque, and North Liberty.

Details are online at www.sportclips.com/redcross .