(Radio Iowa) – The Office of the State Archaeologist has spent 12 days unearthing a mastodon skull in south-central Iowa’s Wayne County. State Archeologist John Doershuk says it all started when he got a call about a Facebook post. “It was a photo of this relatively young guy. Huge grin on his face, holding a Fred Flintstone-type, you know, 45-inch long, massive bone,” he says. That was the leg bone of a mastodon that led to the unearthing of the skull.

Doershuk would normally leave such things to paleontologists, but a sample came back approximating its age at 13-thousand-600 years old. That’s on the edge of when native American ancestors would have come into this area of Iowa. ” The last glaciation probably still had the northern part of Iowa under ice. But the southern part was ice free at the time and was starting to vegetate and animals like mastodons were coming in to browse and human hunters would have also found that a hospitable place as well,” Doershuk says.

This mastadon skull and other bones were recovered in Wayne County. (photo from State Archaeologist’s FB page)

So far no mastodon bone in Iowa bears cut marks consistent with human involvement, but Doershuk says he’s looking for that in this fossil. Doershuk says he was particularly excited about a two foot section of tusk recovered from the site. He called it a “goldmine” for answering all sorts of questions about the animal.  “Apparently there are techniques now to determine how many calves a female mastodon had that get recorded as a chemical signature because of the changes in the body chemistry during the pregnancy and the birth. And that gets recorded in the tusks,” Doershuk explains.

The team didn’t find any stone tools near the bones that might indicate there was some human interaction.

[Update] (Radio Iowa) – Governor Reynolds is seeking a waiver to use federal funds to provide boxes of food for low income Iowa kids NEXT summer. Reynolds turned down 29 million dollars in federal funding for a program THIS summer that would have provided an extra 120 dollars in grocery money for each child who qualifies for a free or reduced price lunch at school. Iowa was one of 13 states that did not participate in the program.

The money is distributed with Electronic Benefit Transfer or E-B-T cards that can be used at grocery stores where food stamps are accepted. The governor’s request is for Iowa to get the 29 million next summer and use it to provide boxes of groceries to feed an estimated 300-thousand children. Reynolds says her alternative will use bulk purchasing and provide healthier food to families, at lower cost.

Iowa Hunger Coalition spokesman Luke Elzinga says it’s not exactly what the group hoped for, but it acknowledges there’s a need to act because Iowa food pantries are overwhelmed. “We appreciate the state’s willingness to explore alternative options,” he says, “but we also remain steadfast in our belief that using Summer EBT to provide grocery benefits directly to families is the best decision for Iowa.”

Democrats have criticized Reynolds for refusing to accept the federal money to feed low income kids this summer. Some Democrats in the legislature say the governor now is proposing a new and untested way of distributing food assistance and she should, instead, use the same benefit system established for food stamps.

(Radio Iowa) – State officials say the latest report shows the closure of Tyson’s pork processing plant in Perry has had little effect on the state’s overall unemployment rate. Iowa’s unemployment rate was 2.8% in July, unchanged for the fourth consecutive month. Jesse Dougherty, a spokesman for Iowa Workforce Development, said less than half of the nearly 1400 workers who lost their jobs when the Tyson plant closed in June applied for jobless benefits in July. “We do know that there was around 200 that transferred to other Tyson plants. Some workers took time off. Some returned to their home country and have plans to return back to the area. Others we do know have found some jobs in similar fields,” Dougherty said. “We can’t tell exactly what that number is yet.”

Tyson was the largest employer in Perry. Tyson cited financial struggles within the pork industry as the main reason for closing the plant. The state set up a transition center at the plant to help the Tyson workers find another job and Dougherty said his agency is still evaluating data about how many are now employed elsewhere. “We don’t have quite the full picture of that yet,” Dougherty said. “…Layoffs are always a difficult situation, but because this was announced in March, we do think we were able to lessen some of that impact.”

About half the employees lived in Perry and the rest commuted to the work at the plant and Dougherty said that’s perhaps another factor in the lower than expected number of unemployment claims. “And I do think Perry does benefit from the fact that you’re also in between the Des Moines metro and Ames,” he said. “That has also helped a little bit.”

Today’s report shows there were about a thousand more Iowans receiving unemployment benefits in July compared to June. Dougherty said the unemployment rate stayed steady because jobs were added in some sectors of the economy. “We actually did have some smaller gains in non-durable goods factories. They were a lot smaller than the losses in Tyson, but they did offset that a little bit,” Dougherty said, “and we also had some gains in education and health care and then also leisure and hospitality.”

The sector that includes leisure, hospitality, entertainment and recreation businesses in Iowa added about 500 jobs in July. “Even though that has been hard hit across the country, it is a good indicator of spending,” Dougherty said. The education and health care sectors are lumped together in the monthly report and added 700 jobs. “Nursing and residential care facilities — that was most of the 700,” Dougherty said.

The total number of Iowans in the workforce has dropped in the past year, however. There were over 21,000 fewer Iowans working last month compared to July of 2023. The number of construction jobs in Iowa has declined by over 3000 since March and in July alone Iowa’s manufacturing sector shed 800 jobs.

(Radio Iowa) – The chairman of the Franklin County Republican Central Committee Larry Sailer is strongly condemning the content of flyers placed on the doors of Hispanic businesses in Hampton earlier this week. “To me, it’s a bit of a hate crime, and I just strongly condemn it. As chair of the Franklin County Republican Party, there’s just no room for this. It’s just a way to try to divide people, and that’s really not what we did now in small town, Iowa, we work pretty well together,” he says.

The flyers read in part: U-S-A Illegal Immigrant Hunting Permit, no bag limit and tagging not required and the bottom of the flyer reads: Trump 2024.

“People know what’s going on. This poster didn’t do either party, any party, any good, just not how we operate. We want to operate on the issues. Have a discussion. Talk to everybody,” Sailer says. Franklin County Democratic Party Chairperson Catherine Crooks has been asked for a comment, but has returned a call.

(Creston, Iowa) – Officials with Creston Police Department said at around 8-a.m. today (Thursday), they took a report of a shooting incident. Authorities say the victim drove themselves to Greater Regional Medical Center. A report on their condition was not immediately released. A person of interest in the incident turned himself in to law enforcement at around 10-a.m.

According to a Facebook post from Greater Regional Health in Creston, the facility was placed on lockdown at 8 a.m. on advice from police. The center said there was no threat to employees, patients or visitors at the time and that police felt it was an isolated incident. At around 9-a.m. Creston schools and Southwestern Community College also went on lockdown. The lockdown was lifted at around 10-a.m.

Additional information is currently not available.