(Radio Iowa) – The start of school is an exciting time for students but it can be a confusing, stressful trial for our pets. Cassandra Johnson, animal enrichment supervisor at the Animal Rescue League of Iowa, says after a full summer of undivided attention from their kid companions, our animals will soon see their routine switch to hectic mornings and long, lonely days.  “It’s definitely a little bit of a struggle for our cats and dogs once everybody leaves,” Johnson says. “They’ve been there almost every single day if not every day for three months and it’s just like a quitting cold turkey.”

Cassandra Johnson. (ARL photo)

It’s important for pets to have time to themselves and Johnson says it can help to make back-to-school time less traumatic. “I’m very much one of those, even if it’s a puppy or an adult dog, that we start working on alone time,” Johnson says. “Whether that be productive alone time or just alone time with you physically, there in the house or outside of the home. Gradual is always better versus, you know, ‘Hey, I’ve been with you 24 hours a day for three months. I’m just going to suddenly do a 12-hour day or 10-hour day.'”

She suggests leaving a radio or T-V on in the house during the day, or even tuning in one of the dog- or cat-specific channels on cable.  “Most people, not everyone, when they’re home alone, there is some sort of background noise,” Johnson says. “Very rarely are we having complete and utter silence, so for some of our animals, it’s kind of off-putting.” Animals that are stressed may show symptoms like: depression, lethargy, destructive behavior, and a decrease in eating and drinking. She says simple things might help.

“If you have the ability in the morning, take the dog on quick walk, get some physical exercise in there,” Johnson says, “or even after you get home to kind of get an outlet there for them to decompress a little bit from you being gone.” In some cases, pet owners might consider hiring a petsitter to check in on the animals to ease their loneliness and make sure they’re okay.

(Radio Iowa) – The 9-8-8 National Suicide Prevention Lifeline launched in the middle of July and the volume of calls and texts from Iowans seeking assistance has grown significantly. Peggy Huppert is executive director of the Iowa chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “We thought it would take some time to build to a higher level. They were saying within six months or maybe a year we would expect to see a much higher volume of calls and texts,” Huppert says, “but it’s like this is just literally right off the bat.”

Two Iowa providers that had been handling calls and texts to a suicide prevention hotline began getting 9-8-8 contacts when the national number launched July 16th. Since then, the text service reports more than 535 Iowans have chatted via text with a counselor. According to the contractor handling phone calls, 56 of the people who dialed 9-8-8 from Iowa in July were at high risk of suicide.

“That is what we suspected is we would start getting calls that previously would have gone to 911 of someone in imminent danger or who has taken the pills or taken an action to end their life and then calls this number,” Huppert says. Huppert says 9-1-1 operators are trained to dispatch emergency personnel, while the staff on the 9-8-8 system are trained to provide counseling and assess what services the person may need.

“They are estimating 80-90% of calls and texts that come in, they’re going to be able to handle either on the phone or through texting and they’re not even going to have to send out mobile crisis response,” Huppert says. “That’s huge.” In the month of July, 9-8-8 counselors who received calls referred 325 Iowans to other mental health providers.

“The 988 counselors stay on with the caller or the texter until the situation is resolved,” Huppert says. “They stay on as long as is necessary and, in some cases, that might be hours.” Huppert says Iowa was better positioned than other states for the national launch of 9-8-8 service because CommUnity Crisis Services in Iowa City and Foundation 2 Crisis Services in Cedar Rapids had been handling suicide prevention hotline texts and phone calls.

(Radio Iowa) – An eastern Iowa trucking company has announced a 525 MILLION dollar transaction that will make it the nation’s eighth largest trucking fleet. Heartland Express is based in North Liberty. Contract Freighters Incorporated — or C-F-I — is based in Joplin, Missouri. Heartland Express is acquiring C-F-I’s logistics unit in Mexico as well as C-F-I’s truckload unit. C-F-I has facilities in Missouri, Michigan, Arkansas, Texas, Florida and Mexico. The addition of those six locations will give Heartland Express ownership of 30 terminals in the U.S. and Mexico.

After the acquisition is complete, Heartland will have 55-hundred semi tractors and nearly 18-thousand trailers in its fleet. However, C-F-I vehicles and terminals will continue to operate under the C-F-I brand and executive management.

Heartland Express began in 1955 as a hauler of Whirlpool washing machines. According to a news release from the company, adding C-F-I to its roster of companies means Heartland Express will have total assets of nearly two BILLION dollars and generate an estimated one-point-three BILLION dollars in annual revenue.

(Radio Iowa) – A Maurice, Iowa, native who has lived in Ukraine for more than 15 years, is back in the area to connect with her family and her mission supporters. Miranda Heytsi and her husband and their church in Tyachiv ministered to refugees fleeing the country when the Russian invasion started six months ago. “Hundreds of people kept passing through our community trying to escape in to go into different countries. Many came in and left because they just needed places to spend a couple of nights maybe get a meal or they went to the borders and had problems and they had to come back.

They needed a place to stay.” So we had many, many people,” she says. Now they work with refugees who stayed there. “Finding places for them to sleep, finding mattresses, finding bedding. We don’t have any places to rent in our town,” she says. “So pretty much even stores we had old stores we made them into places to live — put carpet down, mattresses on the floor. Then again it was in the winter, so we’ve got the whole issue of heating and water and food, clothing, hygiene, everything, everything that’s needed for life.” The church with 30 adult members is providing for some 200 refugees in their care.

Miranda Heytsi

“It was chaotic. It was like calling everybody that we can think of drive around town looking for any place we could think of for refugees. And you have to remember it’s not just us looking for refugees, a whole town looking for a place,” according to Heytsi. “So we’re overpacked. We were ten thousand people in our town and there were like four-thousand refugees with no additional infrastructure and then no preparation. Bam. So everybody had people living with them.”

Miranda Heytsi attended school in Sioux Center and Orange City and first traveled to Ukraine in 1999 while a college student. Miranda married her husband Vasya in 2006 and has lived in that country ever since.

(Radio Iowa) – A man escaped catastrophe when he was rescued from a grain bin Monday morning in Appanoose County.

The Appanoose County Sheriff’s Office says it received a call at 10:39 a.m. with reports of a man trapped in a grain bin in rural Moravia. The Moravia Fire Department arrived at the scene and extracted a 58-year-old male from the grain bin that was half full.

The man, who has not been identified, was airlifted to a hospital in Des Moines where he is reportedly in stable condition.