(Shelby, Iowa) – The Shelby County Emergency Management Agency says “Due to the continuation of the discolored water, the City of Shelby is under a bottled water advisory until sample results become available. Tap Water can be used for bathing and other uses, but bottled water should be used for drinking, food prep, and similar uses. Bottled water will be provided to the Citizens of Shelby at the west side of the FireHall today after 10 am, 2 cases per family.”

Residents of Shelby have been dealing with pink-colored water caused by high levels of manganese since Sept. 7th. The water has also been brown at times, according to some residents.

Shelby’s water supervisor, Chad Gordon, told KETV in Omaha, the discolored water began appearing when two of the town’s four water pumps didn’t re-engage. He said the water flow was cut in half, but the chemicals treating the water weren’t. On Sept. 8, the City said on social media, that an excess of potassium permanganate accounts for the unusual color, but the water has been tested and is safe to drink.

In February, the water in Shelby was undrinkable due to high levels of manganese.

(Radio Iowa) – Iowa-born astronaut Peggy Whitson is scheduled to command another two-week mission to the International Space Station next year. At 64 years old, Whitson is considered America’s most experienced astronaut. The Beaconsfield native flew on three NASA long-duration space flights and the Axiom 2 Mission in May of last year. She’s spent a total of 675 days in space, more than any other U-S astronaut or woman astronaut in the world.

Peggy Whitson (Axiom photo)

The next Axiom mission, AX-4, will use a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and a Dragon spacecraft, launching from Florida. Whitson’s commanding an international crew of four, with the other three astronauts hailing from India, Poland and Hungary. Axiom says the mission will emphasize scientific research, technology demonstrations, and the commercialization of space.

Axiom has not released a specific date for the launch, only saying it’ll be in the spring of 2025.

(Radio Iowa) – A Norfolk, Nebraska organization delivered 15 sets of washers and dryers to Sioux City Tuesday for families who lost those appliances in the flooding. The Community Action Agency of Siouxland is coordinating recovery efforts and Katie Logan is part of the agency’s long-term recovery group. “We have been working for the past couple months to help all victims of the flood figure out what their unmet needs are and get them connected to the resources,” she says. “We are very fortunate that Orphan Grain Train reached out to us right away when the flood hit our area.” She says they told the Orphan Grain Train they had several families that needed washer and dryers and they quickly responded.

Logan says they are still taking requests for items to help flood victims. “Our long term recovery group will be banded together for as long as it takes us to get everybody taken care of. I urge any family that still has an unmet need in our county to please call us at the Community Action Agency of Siouxland and we will get them hooked up with whatever they might need,” she says. Logan says other requests have come in for refrigerators, freezers, lawn mowers, drywall and insulation from flood victims.

Woodbury County residents can contact the Community Action Agency of Siouxland to seek help.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Cass County Auditor Kathy Somers reports the Cass County Board of Supervisors will attend an Economic Development and Community Planning meeting, Thursday morning. The meeting takes place at the Whitney Building (222 Chestnut Street), beginning at 10-a.m.

Somers says there may be a quorum of the Board present, but no deliberations among the Board members, or action, will be taken.

(Greenfield, Iowa) – The Board of Supervisors in Adair County, today (Wednesday), approved a request from Adair County Auditor Mandy Berg, for a wage increase, as it pertains to Maintenance Worker Scott Roberts. The increase brings his hourly wage to $20.67.

The Board also approved publishing of the Adair County FY 24 CASH Annual Financial Report. Auditor Mandy Berg…

The Supervisors authorized Board Chair Jerry Walker to sign the final pay voucher for the N-17 (Richland Township) Culvert Project, in the amount of $132,425.
And, they heard a weekly report from Adair County Engineer Nick Kauffman, who said a crew will be in the county the next couple days applying pavement markings on various highways.

The Adair County Engineer’s Office and Secondary Roads Department asks residents to be patient and give the road painting crews some space, and avoid passing the paint truck if possible to prevent paint transfer.

DES MOINES, Iowa – A Des Moines businessman pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation and attempted sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography. Officials with the U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa, said today (Wednesday), that according to public court documents, 61-year-old Jeffrey Walter Gray created and possessed child sexual abuse material. Gray, from as early as approximately 2005 to at least approximately 2016, used minors to produce child sexual abuse material. Some of the material was created at the photography business Gray owned and operated in the Des Moines area—Wicked Imagery.

The material included images from hidden cameras placed in the changing rooms at Wicked Imagery to capture videos and/or images of minor children undressing. In November 2023, investigators recovered a hard drive which was later determined to contain child sexual abuse material, including at least fifteen minor victims, from Gray’s residence.

Gray is scheduled to be sentenced on January 8, 2025, and faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and maximum sentence of 30 years for the sexual exploitation charge. Gray also faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the possession of child pornography charge. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the United States sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the case with the assistance of the Des Moines Police Department. The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc. For information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the resources tab.

(Radio Iowa) – There’s big excitement over tiny turtles in central Iowa. A new program pairs the Iowa D-N-R, Iowa State University and Des Moines’ Blank Park Zoo to raise what are known as Blanding’s turtles, a species native to Iowa that’s classified as globally endangered. Chris Eckles, the zoo’s chief engagement officer, says trained I-S-U students have tagged several turtles with radio transmitters and any pregnant turtles the students find are brought to the zoo. “We’ll then do an x-ray on the turtles to see how many eggs there are, and then we will induce her and have her lay her eggs here at the zoo,” Eckles says. “As soon as she’s done with that, we give the female back to the Iowa State student to take back to where they found that turtle — that’s really important to go back to where they know is home.”

Blank Park Zoo photo

Four pregnant turtles were recently found and their eggs were incubated, which produced a crop of 57 baby turtles. They’re all being cared for at the zoo, for now. “They have little containers that they’re in, like a little setup of water and food and all that sort of stuff, and they are marked so we know who came from what mother, so that we know when we put them back in the wild, we know that we’re going to put them back in the area where the female was found,” Eckles says. “So they have little markers on them, so we can identify who goes where.” The dozens of turtles will be set free next spring in the spots where their mothers were discovered. The turtles were about the size of a quarter when they hatched, and they’ll be about three to four inches in diameter when released.

“It was very exciting when they hatched. I think we were all just very giddy. It just feels good that we can have some success, knowing that hopefully we can add population back to Iowa, and hopefully get them back into a rebound situation and bring the populations back up,” Eckles says. “There’s a lot of bad news out there some days, and then this is one of those days where you feel really good about what we do and why we do it, and it makes our mission really matter.”

Releasing 57 turtles from four mothers is a big deal, Eckles says, as adults in the wild typically will only be able to raise one or two hatchlings to adulthood. Some of them may live as long as 70 years.

(Creston, Iowa) – A man from Creston was arrested Tuesday evening at a residence on N. Division Street, in Creston. According to Creston Police, 55-year-old Charles Leon Harris, was charged with Failure to Appear for an Initial Appearance in court. Harris was brought to the Union County Jail and held, . Bail in the amount of $1000 cash or surety was posted.

(Atlantic, Iowa) – Officials with Cass Health, in Atlantic, are welcoming Dr. Jill Pollpeter and Dr. Jeals Brines to the Family Medicine team.

Dr. Pollpeter, an Omaha native, is a board-certified family medicine physician who received her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Creighton University, and her Doctorate of Medicine from the Creighton University in May of 2021. She completed her Family Medicine Residency at Unity Point Health Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines in June. Dr. Pollpeter provides the full scope of family medicine care, and her special interests include women’s health, procedures, and preventative medicine, with her main goal being to treat each patient as an individual and provide the care that will help them reach their health-related goals.

Dr. Brines

Dr. Pollpeter

Dr. Brines is a board-certified family medicine physician who grew up in Leon, Iowa and received her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from Northwest Missouri State University, and her Doctorate of Medicine from the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine in May of 2021. She completed her Family Medicine Residency at Unity Point Health Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines in June. Dr. Brines provides the full scope of family medicine care, and her special interests include women’s health, rural health, and nursing home & geriatric care.

Both Dr. Pollpeter and Dr. Brines will begin seeing patients in mid-September in Atlantic. To make an appointment, please call 712-243-2850.

(Iowa Capital Dispatch) – Two of Iowa’s state universities will not request any additional general education dollars for the next fiscal year, according to Iowa Board of Regents documentation. The University of Northern Iowa will request incremental general university funding of $2.5 million for fiscal year 2026, according to the state appropriations request the board of regents is set to discuss next week. The University of Iowa and Iowa State University will keep their general appropriations requests flat compared to their appropriation in fiscal year 2025. If approved by the regents, the UI will request about $223.5 million, ISU will request nearly $178.5 million and UNI will request about $104.4 million in general university appropriations, bringing the total to $506.3 million.

General education appropriations increased by 2.5% at each university for fiscal year 2025, coming out to $12.3 million compared to the $14.8 million requested. UNI would use these additional dollars to “support efforts to differentiate UNI tuition from that of research intensive universities,” the document stated. “State’s investment is critical to keeping a four-year degree within reach for Iowans,” the document stated.

Tying their requests together under the motto of “service to Iowans,” each of the universities are also seeking state appropriations to launch or expand special programs, from rural health care and economics initiatives to partnerships with community colleges.

The UI is requesting $10 million in fiscal year 2026, with more funding requests planned in future years for a total of $50 million, for its rural health care initiative. The university is also seeking economic development appropriations from the state for its John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center and nurse innovator program. With the remaining $50,000 split between the center’s venture school training program and Hawkeye Ventures Fund, $25,000 will go to expanding the school to two new locations and the rest will be put toward supporting a financial analyst, student interns and marketing efforts for the ventures fund.

ISU is seeking increased funding for its agricultural experiment station and its extension and outreach service with the goal of strengthening Iowa’s rural economy, according to the board of regents document. If approved, the university will request $3.75 million in incremental funding for the experiment station and an additional $1 million for the outreach service. The funds would support technological advances, workforce and entrepreneurship and economics and policy in the agriculture sector, according to the document. The university is also requesting $1 million in funding to create scholarships for its veterinary early acceptance program and $4 million to establish a manufacturing pipeline. The scholarships would provide in-state tuition for students entering the College of Veterinary Medicine through the ISU Production Animal – Veterinary Early Acceptance Program with the requirement of them working in rural Iowa after graduation for at least five years.

ISU is also asking for a $36,005 increase in economic development funding for its Biobased Products, Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics, and Digital and Precision Agriculture bioscience platforms in order to have them funded at $3 million annually, a goal set in 2017. The university is also requesting economic development state appropriations of $250,000 to support staff and operations focused on entrepreneurship, according to the document. The only university to request increases in agricultural and natural resources appropriations, ISU is asking for an additional $1.5 million for its veterinary diagnostics lab and $250,000 more for livestock disease research.

With federal funding predicted to run out by the end of 2025 due to growth and need, UNI is seeking $1.63 million in state appropriations for its UNI@IACC program, which opens students who have received an associate’s degree from a partner community college to earn their bachelor’s degree from UNI remotely. UNI is also looking to establish a center for civic education, and is requesting $1 million for its launch. The university is also requesting $3 million in economic development dollars to offer students from states that share a border with Iowa the same tuition and fees as in-state students, as, according to the document, 40% of UNI graduates from border states stay in Iowa.