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 […]
Eastern Iowa
Review: Ever dreamed of hiding in a store overnight? Documentary ‘Secret Mall Apartment’ makes space for the anarchist in all of us
I can’t speak for everyone, but if teenage me found out that there was a secret Playstation clubhouse in my local mall, with an access panel hidden over a toilet, I would have gone through the looking glass in a heartbeat. This is a proposition that 2024 documentary Secret Mall Apartment presents, with Providence, Rhode […]
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 […]
‘I want clean water. I want clean air’: Democrat Nathan Sage brings Senate campaign to Iowa City
“At the end of the day, we’re all pissed off and we’re tired of what’s going on and we need a change,” Nathan Sage told the packed room at Big Grove Brewery and Taproom in Iowa City on Monday night. A steady drizzle of rain that grew into a booming thunderstorm didn’t discourage people from […]
Review: Orchestra Iowa conjures an anti-fascist classic in masterful Coralville concert
Orchestra Iowa (previously the Cedar Rapids Symphony Orchestra) presented their next-to-last concert of the season on Sunday, May 18 at the Coralville Center For the Performing Arts. I don’t think it was designed as a symphonic venue; the stage looks a little snug for a full orchestra. But as a venue, it has a lot going […]
Kitty-corner from the Old Cap is a social club so charming, you’ll want to take home the staff
The first cat café in the world opened in Taipei, Taiwan in 1998. Called Cat Flower Garden, it was born out of its founders’ love for local strays and from a desire to set their café apart from others in the area. All the cats are permanent residents of the cafe. The concept quickly spread […]
Judge cites lack of confidence in Homeland Security, issues injunction protecting four UI students in lawsuit
Stating that she has “little confidence” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will comply with its own regulations, a federal judge on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction protecting four University of Iowa students and graduates from deportation. The three international students and one international-student graduate are suing Homeland Security for revoking their status as students […]
‘Relatively minor’ and decreasing: Supervisors receive report on the status of Johnson County’s main groundwater source
The title of the report presented to the Johnson County Board of Supervisors during its work session on Wednesday was very technical: “Simulation of Groundwater Flow in the Silurian Aquifer, Eastern Iowa (2020–2045).” That was appropriate given the complex nature of its subject matter. But the report’s ultimate message about the groundwater supply much of […]
Review: Davenport horror fans cheered for iconic kills, scored live by legendary composer Fabio Frizzi
The gang at Void Church added something new to their repertoire by co-hosting Italian composer Fabio Frizzi at The Capitol Theater in Davenport on Thursday, May 8. Void Church typically aims for an audio-visual experience of goth and shoegaze based concerts complete with custom lighting, visuals, and the occasional fog machine as well as DJ-driven […]
Review: The Sam Ross Quartet and Michael Sarian channel Miles Davis and early electric jazz at the PS1 Close House
This is the first in hopefully many reviews I will write in the near future covering local, live musical performances. I hope that sharing my experience at these shows will give people some idea of what music in our own town sounds like and feels like. I am a lifelong musician in addition to being […]
The 25th Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival featured stories local, global and out of this world, all with an Iowa connection
Collins Road Theatres was positively buzzing the weekend of April 4-6, and not just because A Minecraft Movie had premiered. The Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival (CRIFF) returned to screen a new slate of original, Midwest-made films inside an unpresuming Marion shopping center. As the lights dimmed for my first film of the fest, I […]
‘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.”

