Iowa’s unemployment rate rose slightly to 3% in September from 2.9% in August, while the labor participation rate dropped by one-tenth of a percent.
Iowa Workforce Development spokesperson says the slight change is seasonal because college students who left the workforce went back to school.
A state licensing board is not disclosing the alleged wrongdoing that prompted an Iowa chiropractor with a history of sex offenses to surrender his license.
The Iowa Capital Dispatch reports the state has adopted a sweeping new policy. It treats as confidential all of the alleged “factual circumstances” that give rise to licensing board charges in disciplinary cases. That is a reversal of the state’s decades-long practice of treating those allegations as public information.
Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed carbon capture pipeline could come up for another hearing this fall. Utility regulators in North Dakota may hold a hearing no sooner than December. The state public service commission would meet to consider oral arguments about county ordinances that would restrict the pipeline’s placement.
That choice would conflict with Summit’s request for the commission to overrule two county ordinances without soliciting new input from opposing groups.
South Dakota Lawmakers on an interim committee studying long-term care plan to bring 12 proposals to the 2024 legislative session, according to the Argus Leader.
The proposals would support the long-term care industry in a state with an aging population. Problems in the industry have contributed to the closure of at least 18 nursing homes in South Dakota since 2015.
The committee wants to incentivize regionalization, expand and increase Medicaid reimbursements for in-home care services, and support more technology use in long term-care facilities, among other things.
The cost of those proposals would beover $9 million in the first year of implementation — if all bills pass as drafted.
“Batch and build” is a new way to address runoff that impacts Iowa water quality. Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig says the process involves working on several water quality projects together.
Naig says batch and build is part of an effort to scale up and accelerate the adoption of practices like bioreactors and saturated buffers in Iowa.
The bioreactors and buffers at the edge of fields help remove nitrates from the water as it comes off tile lines.
The University of Iowa says it’s the first Big 10 school to hire a mental health counselor specifically dedicated to working with student veterans.
UI has more than 22 hundred students who are veterans or military-connected, such as active duty Iowa National Guard members.
