TIME TO VISIT FEMA DISASTER CENTERS WINDING DOWN
FEMA is urging Iowans impacted by damaging weather and floods this spring to visit their disaster recovery centers. FEMA Spokesman John Mills says they’ve helped some six-thousand people already.
Mills says there have been other payouts as well.
Mills says they encourage anyone who hasn’t visited a FEMA disaster center to stop by.
The time to get help from those centers for the earliest disasters is winding down this week.
This applies to residents of 14 central and southwest Iowa Counties hit by damaging thunderstorms.
Mills says it has been a rough year for Iowa.
Mills says his Midwest crews have been very busy.
Disaster Recovery Centers remain open in northwest Iowa. The centers in Rock Valley, Sioux City, Cherokee, Shedlon, and Rock Rapids are open Monday through Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m..
SUNDAY’S TALLEY MAY PUSH STATE FAIR ATTENDANCE TO A RECORD LEVEL
The Iowa State Fair wrapped up its 11 day run Sunday night, and attendance could set a record. Over a million people came through the gates in the first 10 days of the fair. Saturday’s attendance – 123-thousand – set a one-day record. Attendance dropped below 100-thousand last Tuesday and Wednesday, when rain was a factor. Numbers climbed back above that mark on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
FATAL PLYMOUTH COUNTY CRASH
Two people, including a Le Mars resident, were killed in a two-vehicle crash late Saturday at the intersection of two Plymouth County roads.
The Iowa State Patrol says a pickup driven by 43 year old Julio Cesar Pena of Le Mars, was eastbound on C12, when it failed to stop at the intersection of K22, and was struck by a southbound ambulance. The ambulance was making a non-emergency transfer. Killed in the crash was Pena, and the patient in the ambulance, 94 year old Ernest John Petty of Elk Point, South Dakota. The driver of the ambulance, 21 year old Courtney Nicole Johnson of Sioux City, and a passenger, 54 year old Lisa Marie Wise of Sioux City, were injured, and transported to the Hawarden Hospital. Both were wearing seat belts. The accident occurred Saturday around 10-30 pm.
THREE CAR ACCIDENT INJURES THREE
An accident Friday evening near Boyden injured three people. The Sioux County Sheriffs Office says two vehicles stopped at a stop sign in a road construction zone, waiting for a pilot car. A third vehicle failed to stop and struck the rear of one vehicle, pushing it into a second vehicle. The accident happened a mile east of Boyden. The drivers received minor injury, and declined further medical treatment. The driver of the third vehicle, 17-year-old McKenna Wallin of Paullina, was cited for failure to stop within a safe distance.
US HOUSE COMMITTEE HOSTS HEARING AT THE STATE FAIR
A U-S House committee hosted a hearing at the Iowa State Fair Friday to tout Trump-era tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of 2025. Congressman Randy Feenstra is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, that panel that held Friday’s hearing about the Trump-era tax cuts.
Steve Sukup, president and C-E-O of Sukup Manufacturing in Sheffield, says the tax reform law of 2017 was a shot in the arm to the manufacturing sector.
Sukup also urged congress to address a tax policy which had allowed 100 percent of equipment purchases to be claimed in the year they’re made.
The standard deduction and child tax credit doubled in 2017 and are set to return to previous levels at the end of 2025. Sarah Curry of Glenwood is the mother of three boys and most of the services for her youngest, who has been diagnosed with autism, are not covered by insurance. She says the increased child tax credit and standard deduction for each child has made a difference.
Curry, who is the research director for Iowans for Tax Relief, says if she and her husband pay more in federal taxes, they’ll likely pay more in state income taxes. That’s because federal taxable income is the starting point for calculating how much is owed in state income taxes.
The three other Iowa Republicans who serve in the U-S House also attended the hearing.
PADDLEFISH TO BE REINTRODUCED TO THE IOWA LAKES
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is planning to reintroduce paddlefish into the Iowa Great Lakes. D-N-R Fisheries Biologist Mike Hawkins says paddlefish are native to the area.
Paddlefish eat microscopic plants and animals called plankton. They thrive in slow-moving, deep freshwater and Hawkins says paddlefish could grow quite large in the Iowa Great Lakes.
Paddlefish look a bit like a shark with a gray body and a blade-like snout.
The head of a paddlefish is covered with pores that can detect electrical signals in the water and Hawkins says that’s how they find the plankton they feed on. The D-N-R has acquired paddlefish from Missouri and they’re being raised at the state fish hatchery at Lake Rathbun. About 19-hundred will be stocked in the Iowa Great Lakes in the next month or so.
While Paddlefish have been absent from Iowa’s largest natural lakes for over a century, the D-N-R says Paddlefish can be caught in the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers that form the west and east borders of Iowa AND near the points where the Des Moines, Iowa and Skunk Rivers drain into the Mississippi.
EARLY HALLOWEEN CANDY SALES
How early is too early? It’s still the heart of summertime, yet many Iowa grocery stores are already offering spooky Halloween decorations and big bags of trick-or-treat candy. Some stores had the orange-and-black boxes of sweets on display in July. Professor Peggy Stover, who directs the University of Iowa’s Marketing Institute and spent 25 years in the grocery industry, says stores are looking for any angle they can find to scare up profits.
Back-to-school sales started at some Iowa retailers in June, and Stover says she wouldn’t be too surprised if we saw Christmas ornaments appear on the shelves soon.
Some Iowans might buy Christmas gifts early and hide them until December, but Stover says nobody’s buying Halloween candy in mid-August who’s intent on saving it until late October.
Consumers may be mystified when they run across holiday items so far out of context, but she doubts few would actually file a complaint with the manager, not that it would likely have much impact — or would it?
She says the best way for Iowans to send a message about Halloween in summer sales is to resist buying the products.
