Plymouth County Secondary Roads Department To Work On Two County Roads
(Le Mars) — County road crews will be working on two stretches of 14 miles of county roads beginning on today (Monday). Plymouth County Engineer Tom Rohe says milling of the roads will occur on county roads K-42 and on K-22.
Rohe anticipates the work will continue for nearly a month before the repairs are completed. He says work crews will focus on K-42 first, and then move to county road K-22.
Rohe says traffic will still be able to continue while the work is being conducted.
As for the construction project involving 150th Street, and Marble Avenue, or better known as the “landfill roads”, Rohe says the paving of the road is nearing completion.
The Plymouth County engineer says another paving project scheduled for this summer will be the paving of county road C-38, southwest of Le Mars.
AARP Calls For Mandatory COVID-19 Testing At Long-term Nursing Care Facilities
(Des Moines) — A-A-R-P of Iowa is calling for mandatory testing of all residents and staff in Iowa nursing homes after a case of COVID-19 has been identified. Brad Anderson is the state director for A-A-R-P.
Anderson says Iowans should be outraged by an Iowa Capitol Dispatch report showing employees with COVID-19 symptoms kept working in a Dubuque nursing home. Ninety-five percent of residents at the home tested positive for the virus and 11 residents died. Anderson notes 52 percent of all the Iowans
who’ve died of COVID-19 were nursing home residents.
Governor Kim Reynolds says she’s aware of the situation at Dubuque Specialty Care.
A week ago, Reynolds signed a law that gives businesses and health care facilities — including nursing homes — new legal immunity from most COVID-related lawsuits.
State officials define a coronavirus outbreak at a nursing home as when three residents test positive for COVID-19. The state website shows 28 Iowa nursing homes currently have coronavirus outbreaks. At one point this spring, 42 long-term care facilities in Iowa reported COVID-19 outbreaks.
…….
Traffic Projected To Be Down During Independence Day Holiday
(Des Moines) — The upcoming Independence Day holiday would ordinarily be a very busy one for vacationing Iowans, but a new estimate finds travel will be down about 15-percent this summer, compared to last year. Mark Peterson, a spokesman for Triple-A Iowa, says the COVID-19 pandemic has more people
itching to get out and go, but fewer of them are expected to hit the road, just to be on the safe side.
Airports in Iowa and at various destinations will be nearly vacant. Leisure air travel is predicted to be down 74-percent between July and September from a year ago. Worse yet, travel by rail, bus or cruise ship is expected to fall 86-percent for the quarter, compared to 2019. With people avoiding airports
and hotels, Iowa recreational vehicle dealers are reporting record sales and rentals.
While the interstates and highways are more sparsely traveled these days, he warns that’s not an invitation for motorists to ignore the speed limit.
Road trips in cars are still popular for those who are traveling, accounting for 97-percent of the favored modes of transportation. Car trips are expected to see the smallest decrease in travel volume of just three-percent year-over-year.
Memorial Service Held For Missing Television Reporter
(Mason City) — A private memorial service was held Saturday afternoon at the Mason City T-V station where Jodi Huisentruit (HOO-zen-troot) worked 25 years ago. Investigators believe she was kidnapped from the parking lot of her apartment complex as she left for work early on the morning of June 27th, 1995. Her body has never been found and the case remains unsolved. Kelly Boyle was a friend of Jodi’s who read a prepared statement from the Huisentruit family.
Huisentruit’s family is urging anyone who may have information about the case to call law enforcement.
Huisentruit’s family cited the case of a missing college student in Washington state. The young woman’s body was found a few days after she was reported missing, but that case wasn’t solved for 30 years.
Doug Merbach (MER-bawk) was the news director at K-I-M-T at the time of Jodi’s disappearance. He says there’s never been a time in the last 25 years that he thought the case wouldn’t be solved.
A state D-C-I agent and a Mason City police officer are still assigned to the case and regularly review leads.
Huisentruit was 27 at the time of her disappearance. Her clothes, shoes and a hair dryer were found dropped in the parking lot outside her apartment. Her red car was left there as well.
Des Moines Man Charged With Murder After Weekend Discovery Of Dead Body
(Des Moines, IA) — A 27-year-old Des Moines man faces murder charges after the weekend discovery of a dead body. Police say a man was leaving his job at the train yard Saturday night when he made the discovery. He says he honked his horn a few times, but there was no response – then, when he got
close, he realized the person might be dead and he called authorities. After interviewing witnesses and collecting evidence all night, Andrew James Hall was taken into custody. He’s being held in the Polk County Jail.
IDPH Reports 495 New COVID-19 Cases
(Des Moines, IA) — The Iowa Department of Public Health reports 495 new COVID-19 cases, as of Sunday. That brings the state’s total to 28-thousand-430 positive test results since the coronavirus pandemic began. There were no weekend deaths attributed to the virus and more than 17-thousand-500
Iowans have recovered. Nearly 296 thousand people have been tested for the coronavirus. There have been 704 deaths in Iowa.
Early Sunday Shooting Leaves 1 Dead, 2 Wounded
(Des Moines, IA) — The Polk County Sheriff’s Office reports an early Sunday shooting has left one dead and two wounded. Deputies were called to the Karma Bar just before 2:00 a-m when the bar’s staff asked for help dispersing a crowd of about 500 people. Twenty-nine-year-old Sir William Bekish of Des Moines died from a head wound. Forty-year-old Tamekia Crow and 33-year-old Telisha Young, both of Des Moines, were injured. Crow and Young were treated at a hospital and released.
