The Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will induct more honorees this holiday weekend in the Iowa Great Lakes region. Doris Welle is one of the organizers behind the concert and celebration at the hall in Arnold's Park.

"We're inducting not just bands but radio stations, DJs, the support staff," Welle says. This year, they're inducting a support staff person from the legendary Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake. She says they're also honoring "women who rocked" and other individuals, in addition to ballrooms.

Welle says one of the bands that'll be inducted into the state's Hall of Fame this year was popular in the 1960s, The Surfinks, from Jewell. The band will be peforming starting at 5 PM Sunday during the concert/awards ceremony in the Roof Garden Ballroom in Arnold's Park.

Other inductees this year will include: Deputy Dawg Band, Con Brio, XL's, Morning After, The Impacts, The Charades, Crow, Melody Mill Ballroom, Darrell Winkie - disc jockey, Genuine John's, Lou & Red Berry and the Bel-Raves, and Natural Color.

Welle says anyone who attends the ceremony and concert will be able to bid on some one-of-a-kind items, from autographed photos to guitars. She says there will be a memorabilia auction that includes items famous people from all over the world have signed and sent in to raise money for the museum. Since the first ceremony, nearly 800 people have been honored by being inducted into the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Sunday bash runs until midnight. For information on tickets, visit: www.iowarocknroll.com .

Republican candidate Bob Vander Plaats says if he's elected governor, he'll ensure private schools and home schoolers have as much say in crafting state education policy as those who're involved in public schools.

"It's about educating all children and about celebrating the education of all children," Vander Plaats says.

Vander Plaats -- a former teacher, coach and principal in four different public school districts in Iowa -- graduated from Hull Western Christian High School in Sheldon. "I was raised in the private school system, the Christian school system, but came back to Sheldon to serve as their high school principal," Vander Plaats says.

Vander Plaats pledges to appoint a home schooling parent to the state Board of Education. "It's the parent's right and privilege to raise and educate and nuture their children, not the government," Vander Plaats says.

Vander Plaats says he'd appoint a representative of the state's private K-through-12 schools to the Board of Education, too. The current, 10-member state Board of Education currently includes a private school representative. Sister Jude Fitzpatrick is the retired superintendent of schools for the Des Moines Catholic Diocese.

The impact is still not known for the property tax forgiveness the Linn County Supervisors approved this week for flood victims. The supervisors voted to forgive the property taxes for thousands of flood victims who were not able to use the flooded property. The loss of tax revenue hits schools at a time when their budgets are already tight.

The Cedar Rapids School District says it supports the tax abatement, but district director of business Steve Graham says they aren't sure how it will affect their bottom line. Graham says, "We don't know what the impact is going to be financially at this point in time and we're very hopeful that in mid-October we're going to know with some specificity what that's going to be."

Part of the problem is that flood victims must apply for tax abatement, and it's unknown how many will apply. Taxes will only be forgiven for however long the property wasn't used. The decision will likely means millions of dollars in lost revenue for the city of Cedar Rapids as well.

City councilman Chuck Wieneke says the recently approved local option sales tax could help recoup some of the cost but not all of it.

"This disaster affected this entire city and this is an example of how this entire city is going to be paying for a portion of the recovery of this city and I think that's forgotten sometime by folks that were not directly affected by the flood," Wieneke says.

Representatives from Cedar Rapids, the county, and school district say they will ask the state legislature to compensate them for the revenue lost to the floods.  

Despite the economy and the fact the school year is underway, the Iowa State Patrol is still expecting plenty of traffic this holiday weekend. Trooper Scott Miller, who works at the Council Bluffs post, says the highways and interstates will be busy.

"Even if people stay close to home and camp at a local campground, they're still going to get on the road," Miller said. "Even if it's a shorter trip than normal, there will still be quite a few people out there." Miller is encouraging Iowans who are making a trip this weekend to allow plenty of time to get to their destination.

"The other biggie is...don't be a distracted driver. Don't use your cell phone while you're driving and definitely don't text while you're driving," Miller said. "If you can, pull over to the side of the road or wait until you get to your destination." In addition, motorists are advised to expect road construction delays.

"Everyone knows there is quite a bit of road construction still going on and that could cause some delays, especially with the heavy traffic volume we're expecting," Miller said. The Iowa State Patrol has added extra troopers to monitor roads through Monday. During the Labor Day enforcement effort in 2008, the Iowa State Patrol arrested 47 motorists for O.W.I. and issued over 2,000 citations for speeding.

Authorities in Oklahoma have arrested a man wanted for a February murder in western Iowa. Twenty-year-old Luis Trujillo-Mendez will be charged with first-degree murder for the death of 27-year-old Lorenzo Nambo Garcia of Denison.

Garcia's body was found in a ditch near Dow City in late February. Crawford County Sheriff James Steinkueler says Garcia disappeared on January 5th.

"On this date, a witness reports seeing...an acquaintance of the victim driving by the residence on two occasions," Steinkueler says. "...The witness left the area on personal business and never saw the victim again."

The sheriff says about a week after Garcia's body was found authorities obtained a warrant and searched Trujillo's residence in Denison."In Luis Trujillo's residence, a pistol and ammunition were recovered. A wallet belonging to the victim was also recovered during the search," the sheriff says. "On March 16, 2009 a vehicle belonging to the relative of Luis Trujillo was identified as the vehicle Luis Trujuillo was driving the night the victim disappeared."

That evidence was processed at the state crime lab. "It was determined that the ammunition found in Luis Trijuillo's residence was consistent with the bullets found in the victim's body. Ballistics of the bullets found in the victim's body matched those of the pistol found in Luis Trijuillio's residence," the sheriff says. "Inside the vehicle...DNA was recovered that positively matched that taken from the body of the victim."

Crawford County Attorney Michael Mundt says putting all those pieces together is a credit to the law enforcement officials involved. "For weeks before they found the body, I frankly (had) little hope that they would be able to unravel this case," Mundt says.

Trijuillio faces life in prison without parole if found guilty on the first degree murder charge. He's currently being held in Oklahoma and will have to be brought back to Iowa to face the charge. If you have any information in this case you are asked to call the Crawford County Crimestoppers Hotline at (712)263-4050.

Some Hawkeye fans hoping to avoid traffic congestion in Iowa City are hopping the train to get to the game. Iowa Northern Railway rents its so-called "Hawkeye Express" to the University of Iowa athletic department for use on Saturdays during the football season.

The six-car, double-decker train can haul up to 6,000 fans to each game. Riders board the train in Coralville, near Highway 6 and the Coral Ridge Mall, and they are delivered to the base of Kinnick Stadium.

Sabin says the Hawkeye Express is not exclusively for Hawkeye fans. "We see a lot of the visiting fans using the train now, and it's always a lot of excitement. There’s a sound system on so the pre-game show is on and if anyone gets on while the game is still on they can be listening to the football game on the loudspeakers and everybody has a pretty good time," Sabin says.

"It's a great way to go in for the excitement of the football game." Tickets to ride the train are 10 dollars for adults. Children 12 and under ride for free. Departures from Coralville start three hours before kick-off and it takes about eight minutes to ride from Coralville to the stadium.

While many Iowans are planning a barbecue for the last summer holiday, others are putting together millions of meals to feed the hungry.

Bruce Nelson is one of the organizers of the Meals from the Heartland effort that's underway at Hy-Vee Hall in downtown Des Moines.

He says they have funding to package 3.6 million meals, and need about 45-thousand more dollars to reach their goal of four million meals.

The meals are sent to starving people in South Africa, Haiti, and Jamaica. The volunteers are putting all the ingredients for the meals into bags that can then be cooked. Nelson says the meals have a rice base, a vitamin caplet, a hydrated vegetable mix and a protein mix that are all put into the package and will feed six people. He says with the volunteer help to put them together, they can help feed thousands at a very low cost.

Each bag costs $1.50 and that breaks down to 25 cents per meal for the six people. This is the second Meals from the Heartland effort and Nelson says the response has been even better than the first time around.

Nelson says they have been overwhelmed with volunteers from across Iowa coming to the event. Last year they had 12,000 volunteers and this year they have over 14,000 volunteers helping to package the food.

Nelson says they could still use donations to get them to four million meals. He says you can donate to the effort by going to Meals from the Heartland website , and a donation of $25 will help feed 100 people. Nelson says they can also use more volunteers to help with the packaging which runs from 9 A.M. until 8 p.m. through Monday. Nelson says volunteers can go to Hy-Vee Hall and come in through the Vets Auditorium entrance.

The President of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation is heading to Washington today to meet with U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

 Craig Lang says with so many farmers struggling to make ends meet, he wants to talk to the former Iowa governor about how to bring back profitability to the ag industry. He says it's been especially tough for livestock farmers.

"Especially the pork and dairy industry and you'd have to throw the cattle industry in now too, because the amount of loss per animal going on and it continues to happen and the price hasn't adjusted in the way we think the price should adjust to bring some profitability back to those livestock sectors," Lang said.

He plans to press Vilsack about finding more places for producers to sell their beef, pork and milk. "The need to move ahead on bilateral trade agreements because we think those are so important. Colombia, Peru, let's strengthen South Korea, let's get the China market open back up," Lang said.

Lang also plans to discuss what he calls the "heavy regulatory burden" handed farmers by the federal government. Adding to the concerns of Iowa farmers this year, Lang says, is the severe hail storm that ruined crops in large portions of the state.

A southwest Iowa woman who worked at a Red Oak video store has been arrested, accused of stealing nearly $40,000.

Wendy Sue Fisher was arrested for embezzling $38,624.08 from her Movie Gallery employer. Red Oak Police met with Timothy Patterson, Movie Gallery's Regional Loss Prevention Manager, on Thursday afternoon. Patterson told police he had records proving Fisher had stolen money, dating all the way back to August of 2007.

Fisher made a written statement admitting she had committed the crime by taking cash from daily deposits. Fisher is charged with first degree theft, a class C felony. She was taken to the Montgomery County Jail and held on a $10,000 bond.

One of the three teenage girls in a van involved in a roll-over accident near Iowa City last night died.

The accident happened at about 8:45 Thursday night on Interstate-380, near the Iowa River, in Johnson County. A 15-year-old from North Liberty driving north on the interstate lost control of her van. It rolled and wound up on its top in southbound lanes of traffic.

A 16-year-old girl from Tiffin who was riding in the van was killed. Another 16-year-old passenger who is also from Tiffin and the van's 15-year-old driver were seriously injured. Both were taken to University Hospitals in Iowa City.

Police across the state are reminding motorists about the traffic laws around school buses. In Cedar Rapids alone, school bus drivers recorded 28 violations of laws by other motorists during the first eight days of the school year. Iowa Department of Public Safety spokesperson Jessica Lown says there are several different laws to obey depending on the number of lanes of traffic and if you're approaching the front or rear of the bus.

"I just tell people the rule of thumb is if you see a school bus, start looking for flashing lights. If you see flashing lights, you need to slow down and be prepared to stop," Lown said. According to Iowa law, on a two-lane road, it's illegal to pass a school bus from behind when its yellow lights are flashing. When a bus is stopped, oncoming and following motorists must also stop. The unlawful passing of a school bus carries a fine of $195 with court costs.

Lown says it's also a good idea to slow down in school zones. "You need to be aware that there are going to be small children, maybe even darting in and out between cars," Lown said. School zone speed limits are usually around 20 miles per hour. Rural roads can be especially dangerous just before and after school. For instance, unsuspecting motorists may not realize a school bus is stopped just over the crest of a hill.

"Unfortunately, a couple of years ago, a teenager - during School Bus Safety Week in fact - ran into the back of a school bus and lost his life," Lown said. "It's a tragic thing that happens, so you just need to be paying attention anytime you see a big yellow school bus." 

Two top officials in the Environmental Protection Agency who've never visited an American farm were in Iowa today, at Senator Chuck Grassley's invitation. They toured Grant Kimberly's farm near Maxwell.

Kimberly said he sensed the D.C. folks were apprehensive when they arrived, but after they climbed aboard a high-tech combine and got their first-ever look at Midwestern corn and soybean fields, Kimberly thinks they were hooked.

"I could see that they were certainly engaged and listening and very excited to be here once the conversation got started," he said.

The dialogue between the farmers and the E.P.A. officials was "warm" according to Kimberly and covered everything from raw commodities to renewable fuels.

"They kept asking lots of questions and they really didn't want to leave," he said.

The E.P.A.'s Gina McCarthy heard presentations on everything from manure management to the latest global positioning system technology.

"We've heard information that will be valuable for us and we want to make sure that we understand everything that we can about the decisions that we'll make and the impacts they'll have," McCarthy told reporters.

Land use rules under consideration at the E.P.A. are staunchly opposed by the state's ethanol industry and McCarthy's agency is also considering new fuel standards which would boost the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent.

"We're still in the process of learning," McCarthy said. "Our comment period are open on the renewable fuels standard and we're going to have some follow up."

Senator Grassley says he wants to make sure the E.P.A. uses sound science and considers the economics of its decisions. Margo Oge, the top E-P-A administrator dealing with air quality issues, admits the agency's decision on ethanol is controversial.

"We know a lot about what's going on in the United States, but the controversy has been, you know, how the fact that we're going to export less corn in 2022 will impact other countries that will grow this corn and by doing that, will you increase greenhouse gas emissions?" Oge told reporters in Iowa. "And the data is not there."

Kimberly, the man who hosted Oge and McCarthy on his farm, believes today's visit "opened a door" for farmers to make their case to the E.P.A.

"We built some mutual respect and some positive relationships off of these visits and they actually asked us to come out to D.C. and visit with them further to talk about some of these issues we have with agriculture and the biofuels industry," Kimberly said during a telephone interview with Radio Iowa. "So the door is now open for us and that is a great success for us."

Kimberly said the visit to his homestead was designed to give the E.P.A. a look at a "modern farm" -- from the ground up. Kimberly said he explained how things work:  "Soybeans sink nitrogen in the soil; they don't use nitrogen. How the physiology of the plants work, how we use technology, global positioning to improve fertility (and) to manage our costs."

Kimberly is a fifth generation farmer. His family manages a 4000 acre operation and he lives on the farm his grandfather bought in 1950. The two E.P.A. officials also visited an Iowa State University research farm this morning and they toured a biorefinery in Newton this afternoon.

(Additional reporting by Jim Turbes of KWBG Radio in Boone, Iowa.)

 Iowa's unemployment rate has been slowly inching up and that's put more of a drain on the fund that the state uses to pay unemployment benefits. Iowa Workforce Development spokesperson Kerry Koonce says the state now needs to make an adjustment to charge employers more to cover the unemployment trust fund.

The fund currently has a balance of 508-million dollars, but the state has paid out over $709-million in the last 12 months. Koonce says there's been a higher number of people on unemployment for a longer period, so on January 1st of 2010 they will change the contribution rate table for employers from table six to table four. There are eight tables with table one having the highest rates of contribution.

Koonce says not every business will have to pay more. She says roughly 56% of the businesses in Iowa will see an increase in their rate, and the amount of increase depends on the number of charges for unemployment in the last five years. Koonce says the Iowa code requires the rate table review once a year to keep the unemployment trust fund solvent.

Koonce says if the unemployment fund runs too low, it could end up costing more money to pay unemployment benefits. Koonce says:"We don't want to get to the point where we were in the early 80's when the trust fund actually went into the negative and we had to borrow money from the federal government. Because then we have to pay that back with interest."

Koonce says there are a lot of variables that will determine the impact on a business. She says if the increase was averaged across all employers, there would be a roughly eight-tenths of a percent increase, and a company with 10,000 employees would have to pay $10,000 more a year. But Koonce says there are nearly 32,000 employers who have a zero contribution rate. Iowa if doing better than other states that never fully recovered from the recession of 2001 and find their unemployment funds depleted.

Eighteen states are currently borrowing from the federal government to cover unemployment benefits. Missouri's trust fund deficit is two-point-six-billion dollars. Officials in Kansas announced in early August that its unemployment trust fund would be in the red by November and they will have to start borrowing from the federal government.

Florida used up its trust fund on Monday of last week and got a federal loan to fill the gap. One of the provisions of the federal economic stimulus package made federal loans to the trusts funds interest-free through 2011.

Authorities have released a photo of the vehicle suspected of hitting and killing a bicyclist on Sunday in south-central Iowa. The photo was taken from surveillance video near the scene of the accident on Highway 28 in Norwalk.

The Warren County Sheriff's office describes the vehicle as a white 1980s GMC or Chevrolet pickup with a roll bar and attached off-road lights. The front of the truck has a white sign with black lettering. A small piece of the sign was found at the crash site.

The pickup is suspected of hitting 54-year-old Mark Grgurich of Des Moines. Authorities says he was thrown more than 100 feet from the bicycle into a ditch. Grgurich died at the scene. Witnesses said the pickup driver was speeding and did not stop to offer help.

Every Iowa household will be receiving a postcard in the mail later this month from the Iowa Department of Public Health .

I-D-P-H spokesperson Polly Carver-Kimm says the postcard contains information about influenza and the H-1-N-1 flu virus.

"We wanted to really concentrate on the personal actions that folks can take to prevent the flu and what they can do to fight all kinds of viruses," Carver-Kimm said. "So, our message is remember the three 'C's' - cover your cough, clean your hands and contain germs by staying home when sick."

Right now, the H-1-N-1 flu is not as widespread or severe as the regular, seasonal flu. But, health experts say the new virus could spread and become more dangerous.

"On the back of the postcard, there's also a message from (state epidemiologist) Dr. Quinlisk advising folks to get the seasonal flu vaccine and also talk to their health care provider about the H1N1 vaccine when that becomes available," Carver-Kimm said. State health officials are printing and mailing over 1.5 million postcards.

The mailing carries a price tag of nearly $200,000, which is being paid for by an H-1-N-1 grant from the federal government. Iowa may be the only state in the nation conducting a postcard campaign. "I don't know if any other states are doing a postcard mailing," Carver-Kimm said.

"I know about every state is preparing some sort of media campaign, but I have not heard of any doing a postcard." Iowans can expect to receive the postcards sometime around the end of September.

A northwest Iowa man will spend 22 months in federal prison for selling a gun that was used in an attempted murder/suicide. This past May 31-year-old Hilario Valverde-Gonzales of Sioux City pled guilty to one count of possessing a firearm while being a felon and a fugitive from justice.

Prosecutors say he sold a .45 caliber pistol to a gang member. The gangster gave that gun to another man who used the pistol to shoot his wife and then commit suicide. Valverde-Gonzales had been convicted of marijuana possession in California back in 2000, but he fled before he could be sentenced and he was considered a fugitive.

Federal agents tracked this gun sale back to him and he's going to spend a little less than two years in prison on the gun crime charge. 

A survey of Iowans on food safety released Wednesday at Drake University showed support for a fee of $500 on food processors to fund increased food safety efforts. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat who chairs the ag committee, says such fees are a possibility.

Harkin says the system has to be changed, but the fees and how much they would be are not known. He says the fees could go to help improve the inspection system, but that isn't known either.

Harkin says the main thing is people want to ensure that food is safe. He says producers have shown interest in fees if they help with the safety issue. He says the Vegetable Growers Association of America is supportive of the bill, because they realize an outbreak of food poisoning like happened with tainted spinach can harm everyone, and they want a national system of inspections and preventative measures in place.

"So I don't think you're going to get a real big push back from agriculture on this, as I said, they're supportive of it," Harkin says. The U.S. House has passed a food safety bill and Harkin says they'll have to end up in a conference committee to work out differences once the Senate completes its bill.

Harkin says the big hurdle is how they combine the F.D.A. jurisdiction and with the jurisdiction of the U.S.D.A. Harkin says the U.S.D.A. does a good job with the things they have put in place for the inspection of meat over the last 10 to 12 years. Harkin says the incidents where people get sick from tainted spinach, salad or other foods have been increasing, and that erodes the public confidence in the system.

Harkin says we are importing more and more foods from overseas that are inspected like the food the U.S. grows, and he says people are rightfully concerned about the safety of food. Harkin made his comments following a discussion of food safety at Drake University in Des Moines. 

Thousands of Linn County residents received property tax bills last month and were shocked to learn they were being asked to pay taxes on land they weren't able to use because of last year's flood. This week, the Linn County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to forgive property taxes for however long the land wasn’t used. Supervisor Brent Oleson (OHL-son) calls it a moral decision.

"If you, by an act of God...are deprived of the quiet enjoyment and use of your property, then it's immoral to tax you for it," Oleson said. The decision means the county and some cities and schools will lose millions of dollars in revenue. However, Oleson says the board will seek retroactive relief from the state legislature when it meets in January.

"It could have a ripple effect though our entire social services that we provide citizens," Oleson said. "So, we need to try to spread that cost to the rest of the state and federal government to the extent that they can help." Some taxes will not be abated. Exceptions include property owners who have been reimbursed for that cost or for those delinquent on their taxes.

The tax forgiveness is different in Palo, which was largely destroyed by the flood. The supervisors decided to gradually forgive the taxes there over five years. They say doing it all at once would have eliminated that city’s government. 

The C.E.O. of the Iowa Egg Council says producers in the state are not using inhumane production practices, despite what was shown in an undercover video shot by the group Mercy for Animals at the Hy-Line plant in Spencer. The video showed male chicks being separated out and being thrown into a grinder.

Kevin Vinchattle says the methods used to destroy male baby chicks as part of the egg production process are approved and standard operating procedure in the industry. He says there is no market for the male chicks.

"We're in egg production, and boys don't lay eggs and girls do, and so if you could tell in the shell which was going to be a male and which was going to be a female, you'd never even incubate the male eggs and they would get diverted to different use. Right now we don't have the ability to do that," Vinchattle says.

He says the male chicks don't have enough meat on them to be economical as a meat bird, and the euthanasia process is designed to be instantaneous and that is accepted by the industry in the U.S. and Europe.

Vinchattle says Hy-Line North America has always been a good producer, and follows proper and humane practices in their production. For that reason, Hy-Line has started an investigation, and they are questioning the video that shows inappropriate actions. Vinchattle says this is not the first time Mercy for Animals has done an undercover video and says some groups have people who go across the country shooting videos. "My understanding is it's not always depicting things exactly as it happened that some things may in fact be more or less staged, and you can only determine that on a case-by-case basis," Vin Schittle says.

He says in the Hy-Line case they need to check things out and find out if the video is reality. Vinchattle says Mercy for Animals is a vegetarian group whose agenda is to destroy the animal agriculture industry. He says they are not sure who is funding the organization.

See the Mercy for Animals video here.

U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says administrators in his agency have found more money to buy pork products for government feeding programs, like the free and reduced-price school lunch program.

In August, Iowa Governor Chet Culver, the governors of eight other states and pork industry leaders asked the U.S.D.A. to buy more pork. A few days later Vilsack said the U.S.D.A. had used up most of the money it had to buy commodities. Today, Vilsack announced his agency has found more money for pork purchases.

"I asked the team to take a look at other pods of money that might be underutilized to see if we could put together some other resources," Vilsack said during an interview with Radio Iowa. "They were able to find $30 million for additional purchases, which puts the total this year to $147 million of purchases of pork products by U.S.D.A."

Vilsack, who served as Iowa's governor from January 1999 to January of 2007, became U.S. Ag Secretary this past January. He said by buying $30 million worth of pork, the U.S.D.A. will help support the "depressed" pork market. The pork will be used by food banks and in government programs that provide meals to the elderly as well as in school lunch and breakfast programs.

"I know that schools have been a little bit reluctant in terms of pork purchases because of the misunderstanding about H1N1 and how the major media characterizes it," Vilsack said. "But hopefully with this purchase we'll be able to reassure school officials that pork is safe and reassure families and consumers that pork is safe."

The commodities the U.S.D.A. buys for government feeding programs must meet quality guidelines and are normally required to be low in fat, sugar and sodium. Vilsack says pork is a high-protein-content item that fits within those guidelines.

"This purchase will help schools provide a more balanced and nutritious meal and at the same time help out our family farmers and not necessarily break the budget," Vilsack said. "So it's a good solution and I appreciate the hard work of the folks at U.S.D.A. to figure this out and hopefully pork producers around the country and the governors who wrote to us, including Governor Culver, are pleased with our action."

Vilsack made his comments late this morning during a telephone interview.

................