Don’t let hunger cut your museum visit short. These local eateries are mere blocks away from some of Iowa’s coolest culture centers. Listed hours are may vary. IOWA CITY Stanley Museum of Art 160 W Burlington St, Iowa CityAlso nearby: Old Capitol Museum, UI Museum of Natural History Le Gourmet Korean Restaurant 201 S Clinton […]
Emma McClatchey
Posted inCommunity/News
Rep. Josh Turek, Democrat from Council Bluffs, launches campaign for Ernst’s Senate seat
On Tuesday, State Rep. Josh Turek entered the race for the 2026 Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. In his announcement video, the Council Bluffs native and Paralympic gold medalist centers his status as an “underdog” — in sports, politics and life.
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UI announces end to Iowa Summer Writing Festival, Iowa Youth Writing Project
Months after the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program was forced to make drastic cuts following the loss of its federal funding, two other writing programs on the UI campus are coming to an end. The UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) announced Monday the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and the Iowa Youth […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Review: Riverside serves ‘Romeo & Juliet’ straight up for their 40th Free Summer Shakespeare show
The mini Globe Theatre in Iowa City’s Lower City Park reopened grander than ever on Friday, July 13 for the premiere of Riverside’s 40th Free Shakespeare show and 25th season on the festival stage.
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What’s the point of Pride? Trans/genderfluid Iowans discuss persistence, fear and how to spite the bigots in power
Dr. Emma Denney (she/they) is the community resource navigator at the LGBTQ Iowa Archives & Library in Iowa City. She regularly tracks anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the state legislature, traveling to Des Moines to speak against them. She holds a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Iowa and makes music under the name .em. V […]
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‘They said they’re going to break our spirits’: Summer campers toiled in the Iowa heat, endured abuse from church leaders at Shiloh
Titus Walker lived in Hawaii, but he flew to rural Iowa for summer camp. Growing up in an insular church community in the 1980s, it was a blast to hang out with kids his age, even if the Young Adult School of Prophets (YASP) wasn’t much of a vacation. “They would take us out into the fields below Shiloh,” the church’s township south of Kalona, Walker recalled. “At the time it was just plagued with these thorny-ass rose bushes. And we would remove rose bushes all day long.”
Posted inFood & Drink
Channel David Lynch at one of these Iowa diners
“I had a dream about this place…” —Dan, Mulholland Drive David Lynch was famously fond of Bob’s Big Boy, visiting the greasy spoon “just about every day” in the mid-’70s/early ‘80s. Classic American diners also feature heavily in his work, from Twin Peaks’ Double R to the dreamlike Winkie’s Diner in Mulholland Drive. “There’s a […]
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Shiloh’s popular fireworks show played cover for an abusive cult: ‘We were conditioned for so long to be obedient and submissive’
From 1990 to 2018, thousands of southeastern Iowa families flocked to an amphitheater south of Kalona for a high-budget, wholesomely patriotic Fourth of July show. The spectators (the vast majority, at least) didn’t know it, but the fireworks bursting in the sky, the near-professional song-and-dance numbers onstage and the very land they were gathered on […]
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Peak Iowa: Caitlyn Jenner’s alma mater in Lamoni
What do Mormon pioneers and Caitlyn Jenner have in common? Besides a tendency towards backwards beliefs and manslaughter, they share a deep connection to the southwestern Iowa city of Lamoni (pop. 1,974). Though she grew up in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, Jenner was recruited to Lamoni’s Graceland University, a small, private religious school, in 1969 — […]
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Peak Iowa: Earth’s first apex predator — and a beloved UI museum exhibit — was much chonkier than we thought
For the homecoming parade in October, the student advisory board for the University of Iowa’s 160-year-old Museum of Natural History (UIMNH) made a paper mache model of a nearly 400-million-year-old fish species. Held above the heads of two people by three wooden poles, the prop was about six feet long with a flat head and […]
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Peak Iowa: The birth of the Black Triangle and the fight for Waterloo’s soul
Responding to the prospect of decent jobs in the booming railroad, manufacturing and meatpacking industries, many Black Southerners migrated north at the start of the 20th century, hoping to escape Jim Crow — only to see a Midwestern mutation of that racist system take hold. Between 1910 to 1950, Black Hawk County’s Black population grew […]
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More than 100 local nonprofits making life in Iowa more livable
There’s nothing like a presidential election to remind voters in a minor, non-swinging member of the Electoral College like Iowa how little power an individual has over broken systems. Iowans are hungry, housing insecure and live under a near-total abortion ban. High nitrate levels in our waterways, caused by reckless Big Ag practices, endanger vital […]
