Home News Tuesday Afternoon News, December 1st

Tuesday Afternoon News, December 1st

Pizza Ranch Celebrates 25 Years In Le Mars

(Le Mars) — The Le Mars Pizza Ranch restaurant held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday morning, as a way to mark their 25th anniversary of doing business in Le Mars. Owners Tyler Sickles, Brad Cleveringa, and Owner- Operator, Amanda Ruden say Le Mars has been a good location for sales. Sickles and Cleveringa acquired the Le Mars Pizza Ranch franchise more than
11 years ago.

Pizza Ranch is located at one of the major intersections in town, sitting at the southwest corner of Plymouth Street and Central Avenue. Brad Cleveringa says it certainly has benefited the restaurant to be in the middle of a vibrant downtown.

Amanda Ruden has been an employee, and now owner and operator, of Pizza Ranch for the past 14 years. She says it is tough to remain competitive with so many other pizza restaurants located in Le Mars. However, she credits Pizza
Ranch’s involvement with community events as a reason why people prefer Pizza Ranch.

Among the seven Pizza Ranch restaurants that are owned by Sickles and Cleveringa, they say Le Mars has the most active delivery services.

Amanda Ruden says they are constantly introducing new menu items, in order to remain competitive. One example is beginning this week, Pizza Ranch is now making breakfast pizzas. As part of the celebration of their 25th anniversary, Pizza Ranch is offering discounts on their buffet meals for the next couple of weeks.

 

 

 

Reynolds Says COVID-19 Case Numbers Are Decreasing

(Des Moines) — Governor Kim Reynolds says some steady signs of improvement have been detected with the number of positive COVID-19 cases across the state within the last week. However, Reynolds says more is needed to be done to mitigate the wide spread outbreak of the virus. Reynolds offered a week-
by-week status report for the month of November.

Reynolds says during the week of Thanksgiving, the state saw its first indication of the positive cases were beginning to drop.

Reynolds held a news conference this morning addressing the COVID-19 issue.
She says the number of patients admitted to hospitals have also begin to fall.

The Iowa governor says although the latest numbers are encouraging, we are a long ways off before we can begin to feel comfortable about the outbreak of COVID virus through out the state of Iowa.

 

 

 

Grassley Applauds Bipartisan Economic Stimulus Package Proposal

(Washington, DC) — A group of U-S senators will propose a massive economic stimulus package today (Tuesday) after many months of delays. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he’s encouraged that members of both parties are finally finding common ground in order to help the nation’s struggling economy
survive the pandemic. The 908-billion-dollar package is said to include 300 dollars a week in federal unemployment benefits, 240-billion for state and local governments, as well as a six-month moratorium on some coronavirus-related lawsuits. Grassley says if the issues already have bipartisan support, the measure has a much better chance of passing. He said “the
figure of 900-billion may be a little bit high but it sure sounds a lot less than two-and-two-tenths trillion is the last thing that Pelosi proposed.”

 

 

 

14 Iowa Counties Had Voter Turnout Over 80 %

(Des Moines, IA) –– The election results certified by the State Board of Canvass are record-breaking. More than one-point-seven million Iowans voted.
That’s nearly 76 percent of all registered voters. A million Iowans cast absentee ballots or about 59 percent of all the ballots cast in Iowa.
Fourteen of Iowa’s counties had turnout above 80 percent. In Harrison County, turnout approached 88 percent. The results of dozens of judicial retention elections were certified. It means four justices on the Iowa Supreme Court and four members of the Iowa Court of Appeals have won their retention votes. Another 87 district court judges won their retention elections as well. Secretary of State Paul Pate thanked all Iowans and poll
workers and county election officials for their hard work.

 

 

 

 

 

Tyson Lawsuit Alleges Waterloo Managers Lied to Interpreters About COVID Outbreak

(Waterloo, IA) — New allegations in a lawsuit against the Tyson plant in Waterloo claim managers lied to interpreters about the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak. The amended lawsuit by the families of three workers who died of COVID alleges that a manager and H-R director told interpreters in April that the facility had “no confirmed cases,” there was no outbreak, and “everything is fine.” The lawsuit says there were confirmed cases in the plant at the time and Black Hawk County health officials wanted to close the plant. A Tyson spokesman refused to comment on the new allegations. The Waterloo plant has about 20 translators that speak six languages.

 

 

 

Northern Iowa Man Sentenced to 1 Year For Threatening To Kill Police Officer

(Mason City, IA) — The sentence is one year in jail for a northern Iowa man who threatened to kill a police officer with a chainsaw. Forty-three-year-old Scott Thelke of Clear Lake pleaded guilty to first-degree harassment and assault on a peace officer. Thelke was arrested September 7th for public intoxication and told the officer he was going to hunt them down and kill them with a chainsaw. Thelke also spat in the officer’s face. He was also ordered to pay a 430-dollar fine.