Sen. Joni Ernst privately apologized to members of the Iowa Medical Society (IMS) for her suggestion that doctors are faking COVID-19 deaths to make money, but declined to say if she’d issue a public statement withdrawing her suggestion, Iowa Starting Line reported. Ernst made her remarks about doctors falsely attributing deaths to COVID-19 during an […]
Gov. Kim Reynolds
Posted inCommunity/News
As more Iowa cities and counties fall into the ‘red zone,’ Reynolds makes another call for ‘normalcy’
“I would continue to say, as we learn to live with COVID-19 until we have a vaccine, we have to learn to live with it,” Gov. Kim Reynolds declared at her news conference on Thursday. “And we have to start to bring some normalcy into our lives.” Reynolds said this in response to a question […]
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Judges reject requests from Iowa City and Des Moines school districts for injunctions against Reynolds’ school mandates
Judges in Johnson County and Polk County denied requests from school districts for temporary injunctions blocking the state from enforcing Gov. Kim Reynolds’ mandate that schools provide at least 50 percent in-person instruction, unless the Iowa Department of Education (DOE) decides the spread of COVID-19 in a school district is severe enough to allow more […]
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COVID-19: Fauci says Iowa is at risk of a post-Labor Day surge; more than 1,000 new cases and 23 deaths reported
Iowa was one of seven states Dr. Anthony Fauci singled out as needing to take precautions over the Labor Day weekend to prevent a further surge in COVID-19 cases. “There are several states that are at risk for surging, namely North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Illinois,” Fauci said in an interview with […]
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Gov. Reynolds defends ISU plan to have 25,000 fans at football opener just before ISU reverses decision
Iowa State University announced on Wednesday afternoon it will not be permitting spectators to attend its first home football game on Saturday, Sept. 12. The university had been widely criticized for its previous decision to allow 25,000 spectators to attend the game despite a spike in COVID-19 cases in Ames. The change in policy was […]
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Cedar Rapids Mayor Brad Hart issues face covering mandate
Nearly everyone in Cedar Rapids is now required to wear a face covering in public, according to a proclamation signed by Mayor Brad Hart on Wednesday. “For several months, I have been encouraging, even begging, for the voluntary use of masks by all residents in public in order to protect our residents and get us […]
Posted inCOVID-19
White House Coronavirus Task Force: Iowa has the country’s highest rate of new COVID-19 cases, and should have statewide mask mandate
Johnson County had another triple-digit increase in its number of COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, with the Iowa Department of Public Health reporting 138 residents had tested positive for the virus during the 24-hour period ending at 10 a.m. The department’s official 14-day average daily positivity rate for Johnson County increased to 23.4 percent on Tuesday. […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Elizabeth Moen debuts song criticizing Gov. Kim Reynolds’ disconnection from small-town Iowans
A new song shared by Elizabeth Moen on Monday afternoon takes aim at Gov. Kim Reynolds’ response (or lack thereof) to the needs of Iowans. It is the Iowa City singer-songwriter’s first “blatantly political” track, she told Little Village. “A Red State Handshake,” which Moen performs in a video posted to her Facebook and Instagram […]
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COVID-19: 188 new cases in Johnson County, 990 statewide; IDPH information appears to have a new problem
The Iowa Department of Public Health reported on Sunday that another 188 residents of Johnson County had tested positive for COVID-19 during the 24-hour period ending at 10 a.m. The department’s official 14-day average positivity rate for the county also increased to 22.3 percent. In its Sunday analysis of the spread of COVID-19 in metro […]
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Iowa City school board votes to start the year fully online amid COVID-19 spike in Johnson County
The Iowa City Community School District Board of Directors voted unanimously on Saturday to start the school year with two weeks of all online instruction. The decision was made possible by a waiver freeing the district from the 50 percent in-person instruction minimum Gov. Reynolds has mandated every school district in Iowa — except for […]
Posted inCOVID-19
COVID-19: Iowa City ranks high on list of surging U.S. cities as more than 500 UI students report testing positive
The surge of new COVID-19 cases in Johnson County continued on Friday, with the Iowa Department of Public Health reporting 258 new cases in the 24-hour period ending at 10 a.m., and the New York Times ranking Iowa City second on its list of cities where cases of the virus are have risen fastest on […]
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Gov. Reynolds tells two very different stories about derecho relief to Iowans, the RNC on Tuesday
Gov. Kim Reynolds’ Tuesday night speech to the Republican National Convention may have surprised anyone who listened to her news conference in Cedar Rapids earlier on Tuesday. During the news conference, Reynolds said she believes not all the federal aid she asked for to help Iowans recover from the Aug. 10 derecho will be approved. […]
