The Iowa City Community School District Board of Directors voted unanimously at its meeting on Tuesday night to create a universal face mask policy for district schools, to combat the spread of COVID-19. The policy requires students, staff and visitors to mask up when in school buildings. The mask mandate also applies outdoors on school […]
Gov. Kim Reynolds
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Cedar Rapids schools will require face masks starting Wednesday
The Cedar Rapids School District will “reinstate a mask mandate for all staff, students, and visitors during compulsory education hours (school day) as well as our daycare environments,” Superintendent Noreen Bush said in an email to district families and staff on Tuesday. The mandate goes into effect on Wednesday. CRCSD, like other large school districts […]
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Iowa’s ban on school mask mandates halted by federal judge
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on Monday afternoon that stops the Reynolds administration from enforcing its law prohibiting Iowa school districts from creating their own face mask mandates. “Iowa’s mask mandate ban makes it dangerous for disabled or immunocompromised children to attend school, but several pediatricians opine it is dangerous for […]
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‘This is Iowa’: State spends millions in federal pandemic aid to promote tourism; school kids now have state’s highest percentage of new COVID cases
Despite the fact that Iowa is experiencing the highest rate of new COVID-19 cases seen since January, Gov. Kim Reynolds feels now is the right time to encourage non-Iowans to visit the state and consider moving here. And the governor is spending $3.7 million of the pandemic relief funds the state received from the federal […]
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Biden announces aggressive plan to fight COVID, Reynolds immediately rejects it; cases and hospitalizations continue increasing in Iowa
President Joe Biden announced a new six-part plan to “turn the corner” on the COVID-19 pandemic during a speech on Thursday evening. Before the president was even halfway through the speech, Gov. Kim Reynolds released a written statement denouncing the plan as “dangerous and unprecedented steps to insert the federal government even further into our […]
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‘A very clear disability discrimination situation’: ACLU and 11 Iowa families sue over state ban on school mask mandates
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Iowa filed a lawsuit in federal court on Friday, seeking to overturn the ban on school mask mandates Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law earlier this year. The national ACLU and the Iowa affiliate were joined by Disability Rights Iowa and the Arc of Iowa, an […]
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Reynolds says she wants to give ‘the public reliable information’ about COVID, before cutting off questions at news conference
“I believe the government’s role in a public health crisis is to provide the public reliable information, so that they can make and form their own informed decisions,” Gov. Kim Reynolds said during a news conference on Thursday. “I also believe that this approach is more effective than mandates that attempt to dictate other people’s […]
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A loophole in Iowa’s anti-mask law? Linn County Board of Health makes a suggestion as Delta spikes, especially among kids
“This is serious,” Dr. Pramod Dwivedi, health director of Linn County Public Health, said of the impact of the Delta variant in Linn County. “Last week, 605 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in our county,” Dwivedi said during Wednesday morning’s news conference with Linn County Supervisor Stacey Walker and Leslie Wright, chair of the […]
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‘It’s simply unacceptable’: U.S. Department of Education launches investigation of Iowa’s ban on mask mandates in schools
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has launched an investigation into whether Iowa’s prohibition on mandating face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 put students at risk in a way that violates their rights. “Specifically, OCR will examine whether, in light of Iowa’s prohibition on local school districts and schools […]
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Mask mandate issued for all Iowa courthouses by Chief Justice Susan Christensen
Chief Justice of the Iowa Supreme Court Susan Christensen issued a face mask requirement for all of Iowa’s courthouses on Friday afternoon, which requires everyone entering a courthouse to wear a mask, regardless of vaccination status. “This requirement applies statewide and does not depend on a particular county’s or area’s positivity rate or transmission status,” […]
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Rally against voter suppression Saturday will gather activists, elected officials and candidates on the Pentacrest
There will be a rally on the Pentacrest in Iowa City on Saturday protesting attempts at voter suppression that proliferated in the wake of the 2020 election, as well as constant lies about voter fraud spread by Donald Trump. “Between January 1 and July 14, 2021, at least 18 states enacted 30 laws that restrict […]
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COVID-19: Reynolds sued over ban on masks in schools; more than 7,000 new cases reported in latest update
One day after a lawsuit was filed against the state over the new state law barring school boards from requiring face masks in schools, IDPH published an update showing another 7,112 Iowans tested positive for COVID-19 during its most recent seven-day reporting period. The new cases included in the Wednesday update pushed the total number […]
