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Mahaska Health Hosts Annual ‘First Responders Day’ Celebration

Posted on by Sam Parsons

OSKALOOSA — Mahaska Health honored local First Responders at its Main Campus on Saturday, May 4th, with a gathering, food, and a commemorative photo. 

Mahaska Health partnered with the county to call attention to the dedication and selflessness of its 911 dispatchers, police department, sheriff’s office, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, emergency management, community emergency response team members, and volunteers. 

As of May 6th, 2023, the first Saturday of every May is Mahaska County’s official ‘First Responders Day.’ Last year, Mayor Krutzfeldt made the declaration for an annual date to honor the men and women who put their lives on the line to serve the Mahaska County Community every day. 

Five Hawgs food trucks, a favorite local BBQ business, served First Responders and their families’ lunch while Mahaska Health employees and volunteers gathered to express gratitude for all those working to keep the community safe. Mahaska Health also recognized the family and friends of first responders who provide support for their loved ones. 

“The efforts that our First Responders make is critical for the safety and health of our community,” shared Mike Lang, Emergency Services Director. “They play an essential, and irreplaceable role. To our first responders: we recognize the sacrifices you make and offer our sincere gratitude and appreciation.”

Mahaska Health is grateful to continue their tradition of honoring the community’s First Responders and expresses its ongoing thanks to those who serve and protect Mahaska County.

Actor Steve Buscemi is OK after being punched in the face in New York City

Posted on by Sam Parsons

NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Steve Buscemi is OK after he was punched in the face by a man on a New York City street, his publicist said Sunday.

The 66-year-old star of “Fargo” and “Boardwalk Empire” was assaulted late Wednesday morning in Manhattan and taken to a nearby hospital with bruising, swelling and bleeding to his left eye.

“Steve Buscemi was assaulted in Mid-Town Manhattan, another victim of a random act of violence in the city,” according to a statement Sunday from his publicist. “He is ok and appreciates everyone’s well wishes.”

The assault was first reported by the New York Post.

The New York Police Department put out a nameless statement on the assault Wednesday. Buscemi’s representative confirmed Sunday that the unidentified assault victim in the police statement was the actor.

The police department said there were no arrests and the investigation was continuing.

Buscemi’s “Boardwalk Empire” co-star Michael Stuhlbarg was hit in the back of the neck with a rock while walking in Manhattan’s Central Park on March 31. Stuhlbarg chased his attacker, who was taken into custody outside the park.

Regents approve university room and board increases, hear plan for tuition increases

Posted on by Sam Parsons

By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

The Board of Regents heard the first reading of proposed tuition increases for the three state schools and approved increases in room and board rates at their meeting today.

“The proposed based undergraduate resident tuition rates include a three-percent increase for the University of Iowa and for Iowa State University. The University of Northern Iowa has proposed a two percent increase for undergraduate residents,” Brad Berg from the Regents office explained the proposal. That amounts to a $270 increase at the UI and ISU, and  $168 dollars at UNI.

“This proposed annual tuition rate for next year is $9,286 at Iowa, $9,252 at Iowa State, and  $8,564 at Northern Iowa,” he says. They are also requesting a 3% increase in mandatory fees at UNI, a 2.5% increase at ISU, and 1.3% increase at the UI. The Board did not take any action on the tuition proposal. Berg says they will have the second an final reading of the proposed rates and will hear from students at their June meeting. The tuition increase comes after the Regents requested  $14.8 million more dollars in state funding and the Legislature approved a $12.3 million increase.

The Board took a final vote on the proposed increase room board rates. The rate for a double room at the University of Iowa is increasing by 4.8%, Iowa State University’s rate is going up 5.8% and there’s a 3.5% increase at the University of Northern Iowa.

Ottumwa Citywide Drop-Off Day set for May 18

Posted on by Sam Parsons

OTTUMWA — The City of Ottumwa and Bridge City Sanitation will hold the Citywide Drop-Off Day on Saturday, May 18, 2024, from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the Hydro Parking Lot. The Citywide Drop-Off Day is an annual event where residential solid waste customers have the opportunity to complete their spring cleaning by disposing of residential bulk items and solid waste for free. Customers should bring their items to the Hydro Parking Lot where they will be directed to dump their waste. Bridge City Sanitation will load the waste and haul everything to the Ottumwa/Wapello County Landfill.

Construction debris, hazardous material, tires, recyclables, yard waste, and commercial waste will not be accepted. All refuse must be bagged. Customers should be prepared to show a driver’s license with a City of Ottumwa address.

Marion County Development to Host Housing Summits Next Week

Posted on by Sam Parsons

KNOXVILLE — Marion County Development invites you to attend the release of the 2024 Marion County Comprehensive Housing Assessment findings on March 21 or March 22.  Maxfield Research who conducted the study will be presenting results at two identical meetings.  Please see the attached flyer for details and choose the date that works best for you.  Share this with others that may be interested in attending.

You will learn about housing demand from 2024 to 2035 in addition to housing trends impacting the area and demographic factors that will drive demand.  The data has been divided into five submarkets which provides customized information for each part of the county.  In addition, the study looks at the demands within rental housing, for-sale housing and senior housing.  The study provides insights on each segment of housing within those three categories.  Maxfield Research also completed the study that Marion County Development did in 2016.  The meetings are open to the public.

TikTok to start labeling AI-generated content as technology becomes more universal

Posted on by Sam Parsons

BOSTON (AP) — TikTok will begin labeling content created using artificial intelligence when it’s been uploaded from outside its own platform in an attempt to combat misinformation.

“AI enables incredible creative opportunities, but can confuse or mislead viewers if they don’t know content was AI-generated,” the company said in a prepared statement Thursday. “Labeling helps make that context clear—which is why we label AIGC made with TikTok AI effects, and have required creators to label realistic AIGC for over a year.”

TikTok’s shift in policy is part of an broader attempt in the technology industry to provide more safeguards for AI usage. In February Meta announced that it was working with industry partners on technical standards that will make it easier to identify images and eventually video and audio generated by artificial intelligence tools. Users on Facebook and Instagram users would see labels on AI-generated images.

Google said last year that AI labels are coming to YouTube and its other platforms.

A push for digital watermarking and labeling of AI-generated content was also part of an executive order that U.S. President Joe Biden signed in October.

TikTok is teaming up with the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity and will use their Content Credentials technology.

The company said that the technology can attach metadata to content, which it can use to instantly recognize and label AI-generated content. TikTok said it began to deploy the technology Thursday on images and videos and will be coming to audio-only content soon.

In coming months, Content Credentials will be attached to submissions made on TikTok, which will remain on the content when downloaded. This will help identify AI-generated material that’s made on TikTok and help people learn when, where and how the content was made or edited. Other platforms that adopt Content Credentials will be able to automatically label it.

“Using Content Credentials as a way to identify and convey synthetic media to audiences directly is a meaningful step towards AI transparency, even more so than typical watermarking techniques,” Claire Leibowicz, head of the AI and Media Integrity Program at the Partnership on AI, said in a prepared statement. “At the same time we need to better understand how users react to these labels and hope that TikTok reports on the response so that we may better understand how the public navigates an increasingly AI-augmented world.”

TikTok said it’s the first video-sharing platform to put the credentials into practice and will join the Adobe-led Content Authenticity Initiative to help push the adoption of the credentials within the industry.

“TikTok is the first social media platform to support Content Credentials, and with over 170 million users in the United States alone, their platform and their vast community of creators and users are an essential piece of that chain of trust needed to increase transparency online,” Dana Rao, Adobe’s executive vice president, general counsel and chief trust officer, said in a blog post.

TikTok’s policy in the past has been to encourage users to label content that has been generated or significantly edited by AI. It also requires users to label all AI-generated content where it contains realistic images, audio, and video.

“Our users and our creators are so excited about AI and what it can do for their creativity and their ability to connect with audiences.” Adam Presser, TikTok’s Head of Operations & Trust and Safety told ABC News. “And at the same time, we want to make sure that people have that ability to understand what fact is and what is fiction.”

The announcement initially came on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday.

TikTok’s AI actions come just two days after TikTok said that it and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, had filed a lawsuit challenging a new American law that would ban the video-sharing app in the U.S. unless it’s sold to an approved buyer, saying it unfairly singles out the platform and is an unprecedented attack on free speech.

The lawsuit is the latest turn in what’s shaping up to be a protracted legal fight over TikTok’s future in the United States — and one that could end up before the Supreme Court. If TikTok loses, it says it would be forced to shut down next year.

Rains wash away Iowa extreme drought for first time in 2 years

Posted on by Sam Parsons

By Dar Danielson (Radio Iowa)

The latest U-S Drought Monitor map of Iowa shows no red areas indicating extreme drought.

DNR Hydrologist Tim Hall says we’ve been seeing red for a long time. “The first time in almost two years that we’ve not had extreme drought somewhere in the state of Iowa,” Hall says. It is a big turnaround, but not all the color has washed out of the drought map. “We still have half the state are so impacted by drought conditions, but that area is shrinking all the time as we get these good rains,” he says.

Hall has continually said we need weekly rains every month to turn things around, and that’s the pattern we’re now in. “We’ve now had five out of the last seven months have had above normal precipitation and that’s exactly the recipe we wanted,” he says, “where you get month over month just above normal precipitation, and that’s what’s really helping us to get out of the drought,” Hall says.

He says depth of the drought is evident in the lack of any major flood issues. “Go back to this winter when we had all that snow in January that melted very quickly and we had no flooding. And we’ve now had a couple of above normal precipitation months, and yes, we got some flooding, but nothing even approaching a widespread or catastrophic flooding,” Hall Says. “So that really points to a couple of things, how dry the soil was, and the fact that the rain we have received has been fairly well spaced out.”

Half of the state’s annual rainfall usually comes in May through August, and Hall says if we are above normal in any of those months, we could go a long way toward pushing all the drought colors off the map.

Leaf Casting Workshop to be held Next Month

Posted on by Sam Parsons

OSKALOOSA — Join Master Gardener John Langstraat and other Mahaska County Master Gardeners for this hands-on two session workshop to create your own leaf casting. The first session will be held Monday, June 10 at 6 pm.

Leaf casting is a process that creates cement molds from plant leaves. The natural depressions and veins in a leaf are captured in detail in the cement.  The beautiful leaf castings that can be used as bird baths, stepping stones, or attractive garden ornaments.  Smaller leaf castings can even be used for nut bowls or other table decorations.

Materials and instructions will be provided for everyone to cast a leaf. Casting will occur at the Southern Iowa Fairgrounds.  Participants will also attend the second session Thursday, June 13 at 6:30 pm at the Extension office. 

Participants are encouraged to dress for our task and bring gloves for working with concrete.

Participants are to bring their own leaf.  Leaf possibilities include:  rhubarb, hosta, burdock, grape, elephant ear/caladium, cabbage, calla lily.  Please bring the leaf attached to the stem, with the stem in a bucket of water.  Cost of the workshop is $5 to cover the cost of the concrete.  Pre-registration is required and limited to 15.  To register, please contact Suzette Striegel by email  (striegel@iastate.edu) or phone 641-673-5841.   

Mahaska County Primary Election Info

Posted on by Sam Parsons

OSKALOOSA — All qualified electors of Mahaska County, Iowa are hereby notified that a Primary Election  will be held on Tuesday, June 4, 2024, for the offices of United States Representative District 1, State Senator District 44, State Representative District 37 or State Representative District 88, County Supervisor, County Auditor, County Sheriff and County Treasurer. Polls are open from 7:00 A.M. until 8:00 P.M. at which all eligible voters within the county may cast votes.

All polls in Mahaska County will open at 7am and close at 8pm. All locations are your primary/general election polling locations where you normally vote.

PLEASE NOTE: POLLING LOCATIONS FOR EAST DES MOINES PRECINT HAS CHANGED TO BEACON CITY HALL, OSKALOOSA WARD 4 HAS CHANGED TO OLD YMCA.

If unsure of your polling location, contact the Mahaska County Auditor – 641-673-7148 OR use this link to locate your polling location:  https://sos.iowa.gov/elections/voterreg/regtovote/search

Pre-registered voters are required to provide an approved form of identification at the polling place before receiving and casting a regular ballot. Voters who are not pre-registered, such as voters registering to vote on Election Day, and voters changing precincts must also provide proof of residence. A voter who is unable to provide an approved form of identification (or prove residence) if required:  

  1. May have voter’s identity/residence attested to by another registered voter in the precinct.
  2. Prove identity and residence using Election Day Registration documents, or
  3. Cast a provisional ballot and provide proof of identity/residence at the county auditor’s office by noon, Monday, June 10. 

Election Day Registrant attesters must provide an approved form of identification. For additional information about providing proof of identity and/or residence visit: https//sos.iowa.gov/voterid or phone 641-673-7148. 

Voter pre-registration deadline is 5:00 P.M. Monday, May 20, 2024 at the Mahaska County Auditor’s Office. 

Absentee ballots are available in the County Auditor’s office during regular business hours beginning Wednesday, May 15th. 

Any voter who is physically unable to enter a polling place has the right to vote in the voter’s vehicle. For further information, please contact the County Auditor’s office at 641-673-7148. 

For the Primary Election, voters will only be able to vote either a Republican, Democratic or Libertarian ballot. 

Ippei Mizuhara, ex-interpreter for baseball star Shohei Ohtani, will plead guilty in betting case

Posted on by Sam Parsons

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The former interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani has agreed to plead guilty to bank and tax fraud in a sports betting case in which prosecutors allege he stole nearly $17 million from the Japanese baseball player to pay off debts, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

The scandal surrounding Ippei Mizuhara shocked baseball fans from the U.S. to Japan when the news broke in March.

Mizuhara will plead guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of subscribing to a false tax return, the U.S. Justice Department announced. The bank fraud charge carries a maximum of 30 years in federal prison, and the false tax return charge carries a sentence of up to three years in federal prison.

The plea agreement says Mizuhara will be required to pay Ohtani restitution that could total nearly $17 million, as well as more than $1 million to the IRS. Those amounts could change prior to sentencing.

Mizuhara will enter his guilty plea in the coming weeks and is set to be arraigned May 14, prosecutors said.

“The extent of this defendant’s deception and theft is massive,” United States Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. “He took advantage of his position of trust to take advantage of Mr. Ohtani and fuel a dangerous gambling habit.”

Mizuhara exploited his personal and professional relationship with Ohtani to plunder millions from the two-way player’s account for years, at times impersonating Ohtani to bankers, prosecutors said. Mizuhara’s winning bets totaled over $142 million, which he deposited in his own bank account and not Ohtani’s. But his losing bets were around $183 million, a net loss of nearly $41 million. He did not wager on baseball.

Mizuhara helped Ohtani open a bank account in 2018 and began stealing money from that account in 2021, according to the plea agreement. At one point, Mizuhara changed the security protocols, email and phone number associated with it so that calls came directly to him, not Ohtani, when the bank was trying to verify wire transfers. Mizuhara impersonated Ohtani to the bank about 24 times, according to the agreement.

Mizuhara also admitted to falsifying his 2022 tax returns by underreporting his income by more than $4 million.

Mizuhara’s attorney, Michael G. Freedman, did not comment on the deal Wednesday.

There was no evidence that Ohtani was involved in or aware of Mizuhara’s gambling, and the player is cooperating with investigators, authorities said.

The Los Angeles Times and ESPN broke the news of the prosecution in late March, prompting the Dodgers to fire the interpreter and MLB to open its own investigation.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he had no comment on the plea deal Wednesday, adding, “I just hope it is more closure on the situation.”

MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from wagering on baseball, even legally. MLB also bans betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.

Mizuhara has been free on an unsecured $25,000 bond, colloquially known as a signature bond, meaning he did not have to put up any cash or collateral to be freed. If he violates the bond conditions — which include a requirement to undergo gambling addiction treatment — he will be on the hook for $25,000.

Ohtani has sought to focus on the field as the case winds through the courts. Hours after his ex-interpreter first appeared in court in April, he hit his 175th home run in MLB, tying Hideki Matsui for the most by a Japan-born player, during the Dodgers’ 8-7 loss to the San Diego Padres in 11 innings.

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