Category Archives: Iowa

Iowa rights groups sue over law banning LGBTQ+ books and discussion in school

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Suit by several families and organizations seek to have law declared as violation of students’ and teachers’ free speech

Several families are suing to stop Iowa’s new law that bans books from school libraries, forbids teachers from raising LGBTQ+ issues and forces educators in some cases to out the gender identity of students to their parents.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and Lambda announced the federal lawsuit on Tuesday, saying the law passed earlier this year by the Republican-led legislature and enacted this fall “seeks to silence LGBTQ+ students, erase any recognition of LGBTQ+ people from public schools, and bans books with sexual or LGBTQ+ content”.

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Florida governor Ron DeSantis rejects idea of Palestinian refugees in US

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At event in Iowa, governor conflates Palestinian civilians with Hamas, the terrorist group that attacked Israel a week ago

Republican presidential candidate and Florida governor Ron DeSantis has rejected accepting Palestinian refugees from Gaza to the US, speaking at a campaign rally in the US midwest on Saturday.

“We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees,” he said. “If you look how they behave … not all of them are Hamas but they are all antisemitic, none of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.”

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Authorities rescue nearly 100 goldendoodles from Iowa puppy mill

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The dogs at Paris Puppies Paradise, who were underweight and living in their own feces, were housed with a rescue organization

Iowa authorities rescued nearly 100 dogs from a puppy mill over the weekend, many of whom were living in their own excrement.

On Friday, a deputy from the Boone county sheriff’s office was conducting a welfare check on a missing woman and came across what appeared to be a puppy mill, the sheriff’s office said in a press release.

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‘Inhumane’: judge hears arguments about anti-migrant buoys in Rio Grande

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Court to decide whether to remove them as Greg Abbott and other Republican governors defend militarization of border with Mexico

A federal judge heard arguments on Tuesday about whether state authorities should remove huge buoys installed to stop migrants crossing the river that divides Texas from Mexico.

The court hearing in Austin came a day after Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, and a group of hardline Republican governors gathered on the riverbank to defend local militarization of the US-Mexico border – while also acknowledging that the 1,000ft (305-meter) floating barrier had been adjusted after complaints that it had mostly drifted into Mexican territory.

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Obscure Iowa non-profit produces new flyer calling Trump ‘trailblazer for trans’

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Second flyer sent to households in state by mysterious political group seeks to portray former president as LGBTQ+ advocate

An obscure non-profit political group in Iowa that has been attempting to portray Donald Trump as an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community is doubling down on its unlikely claim, producing a second flyer condemning the former president for “fighting conservatives” over trans rights.

The mailer repeats the messaging from the original communication that the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for next year’s election is a “trailblazer for trans”.

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Iowa Republicans consider six-week abortion ban during special session

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Bill faces few hurdles from being passed as state’s house, senate and governor’s office are all Republican-controlled

Iowa’s state legislature held a special session on Tuesday ahead of voting on a bill the same day that would ban most abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy, when most people don’t yet know they are pregnant. The state is the latest in the country to vote on legislation restricting reproductive rights after the overturning of Roe v Wade last year, which ended the nationwide constitutional right to abortion.

Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, called for the special session last week, vowing to “continue to fight against the inhumanity of abortion” and calling the “pro-life” movement against reproductive rights “the most important human rights cause of our time”. Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled legislature will debate house study bill 255, which was released on Friday and seeks to prohibit abortions at the first sign of cardiac activity except in certain cases such as rape or incest.

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Iowa Republicans to hold 2024 caucus on Martin Luther King Jr holiday

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Move to 15 January puts first votes of GOP primary a little more than six months away

Iowa Republicans announced on Saturday that their presidential caucuses will be held on 15 January – the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

The move puts the first votes of the 2024 election a little more than six months away, as Republicans try to reclaim the White House.

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Iowa meteorologist resigns after death threats over climate crisis coverage

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Chris Gloninger says he developed post-traumatic stress disorder and will resign from job after 18 years at Des Moines’s KCCI

An Iowa meteorologist says he is resigning from the television station where he works because he developed post-traumatic stress disorder after threats over his climate change coverage.

On Wednesday, Chris Gloninger, the chief meteorologist at Des Moines’s CBS TV station affiliate KCCI, announced that he will be stepping down from his position and leaving his broadcast career in July.

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Family confirms missing resident found deceased in Iowa building collapse

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Branden Colvin Sr is the first confirmed fatality in six-story apartment building that partially collapsed in Davenport last week

The family of Branden Colvin Sr confirmed on Saturday he was found deceased at the six-story apartment building in Davenport, Iowa, that partially collapsed on Sunday, 28 May.

Colvin’s 18-year-old son, Branden Colvin Jr, had been sleeping outside of the building awaiting news on his father. “I know my dad’s in there and there’s nothing I can do … wishing I could just run in there,” Colvin Jr. told ABC News on Wednesday.

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Rescuers in Iowa amputated woman’s leg to pull her from building collapse

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Quanishia ‘Peach’ Berry was trapped for several hours before rescuers found her in collapsed apartment building

A woman was rescued from a six-story building in Davenport, Iowa, which collapsed last weekend – but only after having a leg removed.

The 116-year-old building which housed 53 tenants partly collapsed in downtown Davenport on Sunday.

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No confirmed fatalities after Iowa apartment building collapse

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Eight person rescued Monday morning after part of six-story building collapsed but damaged structure remains unstable

Officials in Iowa are making plans to demolish a six-story apartment building a day after it partially collapsed, injuring at least one person and displacing countless residents and businesses.

There were no confirmed fatalities and no known people still trapped the morning after the incident in the eastern Iowa city of Davenport. The damaged structure remains unstable, authorities said on Monday.

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Republican Iowa governor rolls back state’s child labor law protections

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Change in law allows teenagers to serve alcohol in restaurants and could allow children to operate heavy machinery like power saws

Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, has signed a bill that rolls back several child labor law protections in the midwestern state, including how many hours children can work and at what type of establishments.

Iowa and several other states in the US have loosened regulations on child labor in response to some businesses complaining about a workforce shortage. The moves have been met with widespread criticism by Democrats and labor groups.

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DeSantis secures endorsements on visit to Iowa in preparation for likely 2024 bid

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Florida governor lands in crucial early-voting state in Republican nomination process after weeks of lagging behind Trump

Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, has rolled out a hefty list of endorsements from Iowa lawmakers as he visited the crucial early-voting state on Saturday in an attempt to garner support for his potential Republican presidential campaign.

The pro-DeSantis Super Pac Never Back Down announced endorsements from 37 Republican Iowa state senators and representatives, including the Iowa senate president, Amy Sinclair, and the state house majority leader, Matt Windschitl.

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Iowa teens plead guilty to beating Spanish teacher to death over grade

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Prosecutors recommend that Willard Miller, 17, receive 30 years to life and Jeremy Goodale, 18, 25 years to life for 2021 killing

Two teenagers in Iowa charged with beating their high school Spanish teacher to death over a poor grade have pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.

On Tuesday, Willard Miller and Jeremy Goodale admitted killing Nohema Graber, 66, at Fairfield high school.

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Ron DeSantis visits Iowa as presidential bid speculation intensifies

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Rightwing governor of Florida – and most likely rival to Trump for the 2024 nomination – promotes his book in the early voting state

The Republican Ron DeSantis greeted fans in Iowa on Friday, marking the Florida governor’s first visit this election cycle to the early voting state and intensifying speculation over when he might announce his 2024 presidential bid.

DeSantis delivered remarks to a full crowd at a casino in Davenport on Friday morning, and later appeared in Des Moines with the governor of Iowa, Republican Kim Reynolds, to promote his new book, The Courage to be Free.

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Iowa teen saves man and dog after vehicle falls into icy lake

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Joe Salmon, 17, was ice fishing when he saw a Jeep driven by Thomas Lee, 83, drop through the ice under a highway bridge

A 17-year-old, three-sport athlete from Iowa has earned acclaim as a hero after jumping into an icy lake to save a man in his 80s and a dog who were trapped in a car that had fallen in the water over the weekend – a dramatic rescue caught on camera by a drone.

The teen, Joe Salmon, was ice fishing with his mother and watching snowmobile races on East Okoboji Lake when he saw a Jeep driven by 83-year-old Thomas Lee drop through the ice under a highway bridge at about 3pm on Saturday, the local sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post.

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New York woman found breathing at funeral home after being declared dead

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The 82-year-old was pronounced dead at a Long Island nursing home, only to be discovered alive and then taken to a hospital

An 82-year-old woman was pronounced dead at a New York nursing home only to be found breathing three hours later at the funeral home where she had been taken, authorities said.

It was the second time in about a month something of the sort has happened in the US, according to officials.

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Two students killed and a teacher injured in ‘targeted shooting’ in Iowa

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Three suspects arrested following the incident at Starts Right Here, an educational program helping at-risk youth in Iowa

Two students were killed on Monday and a teacher was injured in what police said was a targeted shooting at a school in Des Moines, Iowa, that is dedicated to helping at-risk youth. Three suspects were arrested.

The shooting was at an educational program called Starts Right Here that is affiliated with the Des Moines school district.

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‘Can I go back to my regular job?’: US sports reporter’s weather dispatch goes viral

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Mark Woodley was sent by Iowa TV station to report on the bitterly cold conditions – and he did not like it that much

As a huge winter storm battered the US, a short-staffed TV station in Waterloo, Iowa dispatched a sports reporter to describe the scene outside.

Footage of Mark Woodley’s increasingly stressed video reports for KWWL, from a bitterly cold and snow-covered highway, duly went viral, registering 27m views by Saturday.

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Iowa police chief charged with fraud for allegedly selling machine guns for profit

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Bradley Wendt bought more than 90 machine guns and hosted public shootouts, charging participants to fire the guns

An Iowa police chief faces fraud charges for allegedly buying and selling machine guns for personal profit, despite stating the purchases were related to department business.

Bradley Wendt, 46 and the police chief of Adair, Iowa, bought more than 90 machine guns between 2018 to 2022, claiming the weapons would be used for “the official duties and responsibilities of the Adair police department”, the justice department said.

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