The ACLU of Iowa has sent letters to city councils in five communities, asking councilmembers to update their city codes and remove language classifying performances by male and female impersonators as “adult entertainment” banned or restricted by local law. ACLU of Iowa staff attorney Shefali Aurora said during an online news conference on Wednesday that the […]
Community/News
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Street closures for Iowa Arts Festival start early Friday morning
Streets in downtown Iowa City will be closed to traffic starting at 6 a.m. on Friday morning as crews begin to set up this year’s Iowa Arts Festival. The three-day fest kicks off at 5 p.m. on Friday and runs through Sunday afternoon. It’s the first weekend-long event of Iowa City’s annual Summer of the […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Text scam tries to get people to turn over banking info to settle phony traffic fines
A phishing scam using phony texts that tell recipients they are facing penalties, even prosecution, due to unpaid traffic fines has reached Iowa, according to a news release from the Iowa Department of Transportation. “Fraudulent text messages appearing to come from the Iowa DOT or ‘DMV’ are targeting recipients with false claims of unpaid traffic […]
Posted inCommunity/News
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 […]
Posted inStatewide
Western Iowa Democrat J.D. Scholten is running for U.S. Senate
“Here’s my pitch,” J.D. Scholten said in a video posted online Monday, in which he announced he’s running for U.S. Senate. “I’m a baseball-playing, monopoly-busting, beer-drinking, Bible-reading, working-class proud prairie populist, who is sixth-generation Iowan from right here in Sioux City. And I fundamentally believe that we deserve more than a GoFundMe broken healthcare system, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Sen. Ernst mocks critics of her ‘Well, we all are going to die’ remark, suggests they seek Jesus
After capturing national headlines on Friday for her response of, “Well, we all are going to die,” to an Iowan worried cuts to Medicaid in the Republican budget bill will cause untimely death, Sen. Joni Ernst decided to respond to critics of her dismissive response by mocking them in a passive-aggressive video posted as two […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Peak Iowa: 100 years ago, central Iowans embraced gender-nonconforming immigrant and fortune teller Heroda Kaiji
Heroda Kaiji, when he sensed that he was dying, asked his friends to take him from his rooming house apartment in Stuart to a shady hill beside the South Raccoon River near Dexter. He wanted to spend his final moments looking out across Dexfield Park, the amusement park where he had performed as a palmist […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Federal court dismisses Iowa company’s attempt to overturn 40-year-old wetlands protection law
On Thursday, a federal judge in Cedar Rapids rejected an attempt by the owner of a farm in Delaware County to overturn a 40-year-old law protecting wetlands. Judge C.J. Williams, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, issued a summary judgment in the case after determining the company […]
Posted inCommunity/News
More than 3 million people would lose SNAP benefits under GOP bill, nonpartisan report says
The massive tax and spending bill passed by U.S. House Republicans would likely result in 3.2 million people losing food assistance benefits, and saddle states with around $14 billion a year in costs, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Democrats have argued the bill, which the House passed, 215-214 early […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Des Moines Register responds to Reynolds’ lawsuit by once again requesting documents she refuses to turn over
Last month, Gov. Kim Reynolds took the extraordinary step of filing a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register, asking for an injunction to stop the newspaper from continuing to request copies of four emails written by her staff. The governor asserted the emails were covered by executive privilege, and therefore not subject to being released […]
Posted inEastern Iowa
Bob Krause is making another bid for Congress. The other Democrat running in District 1 has thoughts.
Perennial candidate Bob Krause announced on Monday he is running for Congress in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. Krause, a Democrat from Burlington, served in the Iowa House in the 1970s. “I will lead by fighting for issues that you care about,” Krause said in his campaign launch video. “Not like Miller-Meeks. She votes like Trump’s […]
Posted inCommunity/News
David Pautsch, founder of the Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, is once again running against ‘Trump hater’ Rep. Miller-Meeks
Promising “at least three major town halls and dozens of public stops,” Republican David Paustch announced on Friday he’s launching a tour of all 20 counties in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. The 71-year-old Pautsch, best known as the host of the annual Quad Cities Prayer Breakfast, is running for the House seat currently held by […]
