Literature lovers should get ready to indulge in a week-long celebration of authors, readers and writing, as the 13th annual Iowa City Book Festival (ICBF) kicks off. This year’s festival runs from Monday, Oct. 18 to Sunday, Oct. 24, and unlike last year’s festival, which was entirely virtual because of the pandemic, it will have […]
COVID-19
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Eliza, Finn and the art of reinvention
There is this thing that humans — not all of them but, observationally, a sizable majority — do to suffering: They want it to mean something. We want that meaning to make the suffering noble, and we want that noble suffering to reframe that tragedy as beneficial for us. Just watch someone (your humble narrator, […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa schools will be able to keep mask mandates, as judge issues preliminary injunction
“It is in the public’s interest to allow local public school districts to exercise their discretion to adopt universal masking policies in an effort to inhibit the spread of COVID-19 and protect the children in their schools,” U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pratt wrote in his decision on Friday. Pratt issued a preliminary injunction against […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘Iowa City is weird, you know? And I was a weirdo.’ Artist Lauren Haldeman on ghosts, puppets and pandemic comics
Lauren Haldeman isn’t a mere double-threat, or even a run-of-the-mill triple-threat. No, Iowa City’s resident polymath has more tricks up her sleeve than I can count on both hands and a few spare toes. Working across mediums and forms — poetry, puppetry, animation, illustration, printmaking, painting, film and music, to name a few — she […]
Posted inCommunity/News
COVID-19: More than 9,800 new cases reported; anti-vaxxers rally at the Iowa State Capitol
After three weeks of reporting over 10,000 new cases in each of its weekly COVID-19 updates, the Iowa Department of Public Health reported 9,860 newly confirmed cases of the virus. Although it was it was a decline from the previous update’s total of 10,812 new cases, it also marked the seventh week with a rate […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Free at-home COVID-19 test kits now available at Iowa City Hall, Linn County Public Health
Free at-home COVID-19 test kits are now available at City Hall, Iowa City announced on Wednesday morning. These testing kits will be available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, according to a news release from the city. “The kits are supplied to the City by Johnson County Public Health and will be […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa City mask mandate extended, as state reports more than 10,000 new COVID cases and 81 deaths
Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague issued an order on Wednesday extending the city’s mask mandate that has been in place since Aug. 19. The new order doesn’t have an expiration date as the previous one did and “shall remain in effect until it is rescinded.” When he first issued the mandate, the mayor explained, “The […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Anvil Meat Market & Deli in Czech Village is closing
Anvil Meat Market & Deli in Cedar Rapids’ Czech Village will close its doors for the last time on Thursday, owner Steven Prochaska announced in a post on Facebook. “It is with regret that we are announcing Anvil’s closure as of Sept 30th,” Prochaska wrote. “There’s reasons, and I won’t bore you with all the […]
Posted inCommunity/News
New Iowa Poll finds majority approve of Gov. Reynolds’ overall handling of pandemic, but disapprove of her mask and vaccine policies
A majority of Iowans approve of Gov. Kim Reynolds’ overall handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they also disapprove of the governor’s actions on face masks and vaccines. Those seemingly contradictory results are included in the latest Iowa Poll published by the Des Moines Register. According to the survey of 805 Iowans, all 18 and […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Top Story
FilmScene celebrates the reopening of its Ped Mall location
There’s always a bit of nostalgia inherent in film. No matter the subject matter, films are in some small (or, often, in-your-face) way about how we engage with how we record and examine and understand our collective or personal past. Movies both trigger memories and forge new ones. So it’s with several layers of nostalgia […]
Posted inCommunity/News
COVID-19 hospitalizations hit a new high for the year, as more than 12,000 new cases and 81 deaths reported
Iowa set a record for hospitalized COVID-19 patients in 2021, as the rate of new cases continued to surge this month. In its weekly update on Wednesday, the Iowa Department of Public Health reported another 82 deaths from the virus and 12,163 newly confirmed cases during its seven-day reporting period. That’s an increase of 440 […]
Posted inCommunity/News
University of Iowa is adding a women’s wrestling team
The University of Iowa Athletics Department announced on Thursday morning it is adding a women’s wrestling program. The department anticipates the women wrestlers to begin competing in the 2023-24 season, according to a news release. UI Athletics said the addition would make it “the first NCAA Division I, Power Five conference institution to offer the […]
