On Monday, retired diplomat Janice Weiner announced she is running for an at-large seat on the Iowa City Council. “I’m running because public service matters,” Weiner said in an announcement video on Facebook. Weiner grew up in the Iowa City area and attended Iowa City West High School, before going on to Princeton University and Stanford Law School. After 26 years in the U.S. foreign service,
Top Story
Posted inCommunity/News
Riverfront Crossings Park holds grand opening
Riverfront Crossings Park, the newest addition to Iowa City’s public park, will have its grand opening on Saturday. The opening day festivities are scheduled to start at 3 p.m., with an art project in the park’s Nature Play Area for kids to participate in, as well as other family-friendly activities.
Posted inCommunity/News
George’s Buffet is celebrating its 80th anniversary on Saturday
It wasn’t a surprise that George’s Buffet won “Best Home Away from Home” in the inaugural Best of the CRANDIC Awards last year. The Northside bar with its old-fashioned wooden booths, Skyscraper-Moderne style back bar, 60s-era flocked wallpaper and welcoming atmosphere seems like it’s always been a part of Iowa City.
Posted inCommunity/News
Sen. Joni Ernst says Trump’s tweets are racist, but that doesn’t change her support for him
Sen. Joni Ernst wants to make one thing clear: President Donald Trump’s latest racist statements haven’t diminished her support for him. “I’d love for you to make that clear,” Ernst told Politico on Tuesday. “While I don’t appreciate the tweets, but I still support the president.”
Posted inCommunity/News
Jury finds Gov. Terry Branstad violated the state’s LGBTQ discrimination laws, awards former employee $1.5 million
Gov. Terry Branstad illegally discriminated against the former Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner Christopher Godfrey when he slashed Godfrey’s salary in 2011 in an attempt to force Godfrey to resign, a Polk County jury decided on Monday. The jury agreed with Godfrey that Branstad had singled him out because Godfrey is gay, and awarded him $1.5 million in damages.
Posted inCommunity/News
BeerBurger closes its Iowa City location
BeerBurger has closed the downtown Iowa City location it opened six months ago. Its North Liberty location, which opened two-and-a-half years ago, will remain open. John Burchert, CEO of MAiNGREDIENT — which owns BeerBurger — announced the closure in a Facebook post on Wednesday. Burchert didn’t offer any specific reasons for shuttering the restaurant’s second […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Riverside’s ‘Men on Boats’ is sheer delight
In 1869, Major John Wesley Powell took a crew of nine other men on an expedition to traverse and map the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. In just over three months, six of them emerged on the other side of the canyon, having completed the journey more or less in tact.
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa sheriff’s department settles lawsuit filed by man arrested for rude Facebook post
A southwest Iowa county sheriff’s department has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by a man who was arrested in July 2018, because he called a deputy a “fucking pile of shit” and a “STUPID sum bitch” on Facebook.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Dan Hutchison’s Sump Pump Records is a hub for metal acts, DIY artists and vinyl nerds
Along with its wild abundance of musical talent, Iowa is also a treasure trove of top-notch record labels. As someone with a passion for lifting up local artists, I’ve been obsessed in recent years with discovering just what confluence of events has put all of these talented and discerning folk in positions to do just […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
HIDE’s Heather Gabel is taking a chainsaw to rape culture
Heather Gabel, one-half of the Chicago-based industrial EDM duo HIDE, has an affinity for the haunting, empowering and confrontational. You may have seen Gabel between flashes of strobe lights and clouds of dry ice in the Yacht Club basement during Mission Creek Festival 2019: glimpses of black-smudged lips yelling
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Iowa City black metal band Dryad on fighting fascism, channeling Tolkien and consuming music responsibly
Anger and outrage can be expressed through any musical genre, but metal has proven particularly contentious: From its inception, it found a place in working class culture — but, as the 2016 election exemplified, the revolutionary anger and discontent of the working class is often pushed toward the political right and into racist, nationalist and misogynist
Posted inCommunity/News
Fourth of July yoga event at Old Brick will raise funds for detained immigrants and asylum-seekers
Along with fireworks and competitive hot dog eating, the Fourth of July celebrates a determined group of people standing up to government tyranny. An event at Old Brick on Thursday morning offers a new twist on this.
