Long before the Iowa DOT began bombarding our senses with messaging tortured enough to ensure that drivers’ eyes stay on the road, travelers along I-380 had just one source of entertainment to liven up their route: the Nesper sign. Cedar Rapids mainstay Nesper Sign Advertising sits just past the Highway 30 interchange, offering northbound drivers […]
Eastern Iowa
Posted inCommunity/News
Wanted: Donations of old gas and electric appliances for Waterloo’s Habitat for Humanity ReStore
Iowa Heartland Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Waterloo has launched its Winter Appliance Drive, seeking donations of electric and gas appliances that people and businesses no longer need. “Appliances must be in working condition and free of debris,” ReStore said in a social media post on the drive. “Sorry, we can’t accept propane or vented […]
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Holiday Market at Robert A. Lee Recreation Center canceled after NWS issues ice storm warning for Saturday
The Holiday Market at Robert A. Lee Recreation Center scheduled for Saturday has been canceled, the Iowa City Department of Parks and Recreation announced Friday morning. The cancellation came after the National Weather Service issued an ice storm warning for several eastern Iowa counties, including Johnson County. The ice storm warning runs from midnight to […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Mission Creek Festival announces lineup for their 20th fest, the final with Englert at the helm
Iowa City’s premiere music and literature festival, Mission Creek Festival, just announced its 2025 lineup. Mission Creek Festival 2025 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Festival and the last iteration produced by The Englert.
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Jim Leach, who put principle before party during his 30 years representing Iowa in Congress, has died
Jim Leach, who represented eastern Iowa in Congress for 30 years and later went on to lead the National Endowment for the Humanities, died on Wednesday. He was 82 years old. Even before he first ran for Congress in 1976, Leach demonstrated he was committed to upholding important principles rather than political or personal advancement. […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Review: ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ dissects the ways we disguise our pain
Currently on its 2024-2025 national tour, Dear Evan Hansen, which recently finished a run at Iowa City’s Hancher Auditorium, remains one of the most emotionally stirring productions to emerge from the recent wave of contemporary musicals.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
First-of-its-kind Iowa City Madrigal Dinner is raising yuletide spirits, funds for UAY this weekend
The Iowa City Madrigal Singers are set to celebrate the Yuletide season with a dinner to support United Action for Youth this coming weekend. The event consists of a-cappella and instrumental music and a four-course dinner with wassail.
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Gather under the gold dome Friday for euphonious euphoniums, hot cider and holiday cheer
A favorite bass-clef-based Iowa City tradition returns on Friday, as Holiday Tubas oompahs in the festive season on the steps of the Old Capitol. Robert Yeats, a University of Iowa music professor in the ’70s and founder of Holiday Tubas, called it “a lark” that became a tradition: brass musicians gathered to perform year after […]
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Peak Iowa: Astride her hobby horse, a Dubuque teen wins a new national championship
For those who love the idea of sports played with an extraneous stick-like object between their legs but find Quidditch too ideologically freighted, hobby horsing is the new trend sweeping through a very specific subset of the nation. This year marked the inaugural U.S. Hobby Horse Championships in Almont, Michigan, where Dubuque teen Gwen Maiers […]
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Tom Tomorrow wins Berryman Award for This Modern World comic strip
On Friday morning, the National Press Foundation announced Dan Perkins is this year’s winner of the Berryman Award for Editorial Cartoons. The name Dan Perkins may not instantly ring a bell, but Little Village readers definitely know his work. For almost 40 years, Perkins has been writing and drawing This Modern World using his pen […]
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Peak Iowa: Behold the most mesmerizing, ‘violently Midwest’ vibes on TikTok
Who will you really miss if TikTok is banned? Not the Hawk Tuah girl, surely. Not watching oversized Stanley cups fill with colorful liquids. Certainly not the clipped content from Jubilee, Logan Paul and Andrew Tate. No, you’ll miss those moments of magic captured by everyday people: A Boston cop plunging down on a metal […]
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Chase Strangio, Grinnell grad, makes history as the first trans person to argue a case before the Supreme Court
The issues before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday in the case of United States v. Skrmetti were of historic importance. Would the court adhere to its decision issued four years ago finding federal protections against discrimination on the basis of sex apply to transgender people as a matter of equal protection before the law? […]
