To Win Iowa, Trump Turns to Allies Like Marjorie Taylor Greene
With the former president busy defending himself in court from 91 felony charges, his campaign has deployed high-profile conservatives to help fill the gaps in Iowa. Read more in The New York Times >
Ramaswamy Repeats Call for Ballots to Be English Only
The tech entrepreneur has been frequently pushing for English-only ballots. The Voting Rights Act prohibits such ballots in many cases. Read more in The New York Times >
How DeSantis’s Ambitious, Costly Ground Game Has Sputtered
The Florida governor’s field operation, one of the most expensive in modern political history, has met challenges from the outset, interviews with a range of voters and political officials revealed. Read more in The New York Times >
Iowa schools shore up mental health services, thanks to $30M in CARES Act funds
Principal Chris Myers sought to make mental health counseling available to students in the rural district of Graettinger-Terril for nearly four years.
But each time he thought he might be close, money, or lack thereof, got in the way. Read more in Investigate Midwest > Or read it on Iowa Public Radio > Or read it in the Des Moines Register >
Whether you marched or not, it’s always time for a bigger, louder conversation
Last weekend, Oprah Winfrey sat across from seven of the women who helped start the Time’s Up campaign and asked, “Beyond raising awareness, how is this going to help the waitress, the farm worker, the factory worker, the caregiver?” Lucas Film president Kathleen Kennedy responded that “We have to maintain the momentum of this conversation, because they can’t.”
Talking at, over and around working-class women and then either speaking for them or ignoring them altogether has been going on forever. Talking to them, however, may just do the trick. Read more in the Des Moines Register >
The Chicago Board of Trade: 165 Years of American Ag Capitalism
In the grain markets, which follow the planting and harvest cycle, the old crop from last year’s harvest is ebbing and the new crop is coming in. Wearing brightly colored jackets, open outcry traders crowd the octagonal pits on the floor of the world’s largest futures exchange (see sidebar), shouting and using hand signals to buy and sell orders. Scraps of paper and sunflower seeds litter the floor, while electronic tickers and display boards constantly update with new trade data on the walls above.
One hundred and sixty-five years ago, this was a farmers market. Read more in Modern Farmer >
Asbestos bill would pull claims from court
WASHINGTON — Three years ago this week, Carolyn Benton of Greeley watched helplessly as her husband died of mesothelioma, a form of cancer often associated with asbestos exposure.
“It was devastating,” Benton said. Her husband, then 55, died 11 months after being diagnosed, leaving Benton to wonder if things might have turned out differently had simple precautions been taken to protect her husband from the asbestos he had worked with on a ship in the Navy while serving in Vietnam and as a pipe fitter in New York shipyards.
Now, she is doing everything she can to stop the Senate from passing the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act, a bill she and other opponents say is unfair. Read more in the Greeley Tribune >
Sixth Grader Killed and 5 Others Injured in Iowa School Shooting
A gunman killed a sixth-grade student and injured five other people at a high school in Perry, Iowa, early Thursday morning just as students were arriving back to school after their winter break.
Four of the injured were students, and one was an administrator, Mitch Mortvedt, assistant director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said at a news conference on Thursday. One of the injured victims was in critical condition. Read more in The New York Times >
A Day Later, the Iowa School Shooting Strikes an Intimate, Painful Chord
An armed 17-year-old student left one dead and five wounded at Perry High School. Read more in The New York Times >
Educators at Iowa’s ‘failing schools’ say they are used as part of political agenda
How do educators at 34 Iowa schools feel about spending the past year hearing elected officials say they are running “failing schools”?
Leaders at 13 schools explained the shortcomings of the metric that assigned them the “failing” label, as well as the unique challenges students and staff confronted — even before legislation introduced at the Statehouse singled them out as places where families could get state assistance to leave. Read more in Investigate Midwest >
Where did $30 million in CARES Act money for mental health go?
Iowa received $50 million in CARES Act funds, $30 million of which was allocated equally at $9.50 per capita to Iowa’s 14 Mental Health and Disability Services regions.
The details of how the money was handed slightly varied by region, but all 14 regions invited school districts and mental health providers to apply for funds. Read more in USA Today > Or read it in Investigate Midwest >
‘The Current 20 Year-Olds Make Me Nuts’: Retiring Farmers Sound Off
Modern Farmer: What have been the biggest changes you’ve seen since you started farming?
Ruth Campbell: One of the biggest changes, and the most positive, is an awareness in the general population about how things are raised and about the value of some of the older breeds and some understanding of how diversity is being compromised and how our whole food system is being compromised by an emphasis on cheap. Also, how the government and the subsidy programs and the policies of the government have helped to compromise our food system, so that if there was some biological terrorist activity, I think that our food system would be in terrible danger. And I think that’s how you subdue a population, by starving them.Two retiring farmers talk about the past, present and future of farming. Read more in Modern Farmer >
Knoxville’s cross: Where was outrage for vets?
At a small park in Knoxville, the threat of removing a cross that is part of a memorial to soldiers has sparked controversy, followed by a movement.
Residents of my hometown are rallying around the cross at Young’s Park. More than a thousand crosses have gone up in yards and at businesses across town, T-shirts are being made to support the cause, a rally is planned for Sunday, local and national media outlets are covering the issue and slogans like “Save our cross!” and “Be offended” echo everywhere.
But there’s something no one is talking about, looming in the background, right behind the black and white plywood cutout of a soldier kneeling before a cross. It’s the Knoxville Veterans Administration Medical Center, and it’s empty. Read more in the Des Moines Register >
Teacher coaxed music from town
Geoff Shultz never set out to be the most popular person in Knoxville.
He never thought of himself as a pillar of the community, a description generally reserved for those pictured on the front page of the local newspaper, receiving an award or giving out a scholarship, holding a fake handshake and a big smile for the camera. He was too busy to even think about his social standing — busy giving music lessons to his junior high band students, directing the church choir at the First United Methodist Church, playing the organ or piano at nearly every wedding and funeral in town, singing in a quartet, working on his farm outside Melcher-Dallas or, until her death, taking care of his elderly mother. Day after day, year after year, Shultz was busy being there, for anyone and everyone who needed him. And we all needed him. Read more in the Des Moines Register >
Fake tickets add sour note to Williams concert
Nearly 2,000 forged tickets to the sold-out Robbie Williams concert tomorrow have surfaced in the past five to seven weeks, according to the Garda, Ticketmaster and Croke Park officials.
The real tickets have a blue background and circular seal, while the fake tickets have an orange and purple background and oval seal.
"They look sophisticated but they're not," said Éamon O'Connor, managing director of Ticketmaster Ireland. Read more in the Irish Times >
Detroit Mayor Attempts to Bolster City With Property Tax Split
Michigan lawmakers will soon consider a Detroit property-tax plan aimed at reversing a half-century of decline by changing how the city taxes land use.
If approved by the state legislature, Detroit residents will see it on their ballots during next February’s presidential primary. Read more in Bloomberg Law >
Grocery Taxes Hang On as Some States Fear Losing the Revenue
Rising costs at the grocery store in 2021-22 and the end of federal pandemic-era food assistance benefits had some states starting the year with an eye on food tax changes to offer a bit of relief.
Of the 13 states that still levied grocery taxes as of January, nine debated changes and examined alternative revenue sources this legislative season. But as most lawmaking sessions close, only Alabama is poised to set tax rate cuts into law. Read more in Bloomberg Tax > Or read it in Bloomberg Law >
How Even Casual Sports Bets Complicate Federal Taxes: Explained
This tax filing season is on track to be the biggest yet for sports betting. Next year is on track to be even bigger.
Commercial sports betting notched its first $100 billion in annual revenue though January 2023, and Ohio’s new market set a single-month state record, according to the latest tracking from the American Gaming Association. Two of the biggest events occur at the outset of the year—Americans wagered an estimated $16 billion on this year’s Super Bowl and $15.5 billion on the recently concluded NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, according to the trade group. Read more in Bloomberg Tax >
Iowa rural educators say ‘student first’ proposal undermines them
Rural educators are bracing for the potential impact of the “student first scholarship” legislation that passed the Iowa Senate Wednesday night.
The legislation, Senate File 2369, would allow students who choose to attend private school to use tax dollars to pay for tuition.
Gov. Kim Reyolds proposes that 30 percent of Iowa’s per pupil funding for K-12 students who accept tax dollars to pay for private school go into a separate fund and be distributed equally to mostly rural districts with 500 or fewer students.
Iowa has 104 districts with 500 or fewer students, according to numbers from the Iowa Department of Education. There are 327 total public school districts in the state.
Chris Coffelt, the shared superintendent of Central Decatur and Lamoni districts south of Des Moines, said his school districts are an example of why the plan isn’t gaining traction. Read more in Investigate Midwest >
Wind Energy Isn’t a Breeze
Nearly 175 years ago, Lana Wanders’ ancestors settled in what would soon become the state of Iowa. The farm served as a stopping point for people heading west who had run out of money. Her forefathers would rent a piece of land to them for up to five years, so they could farm and earn a living to pay for their continued journey. “It was a handshake agreement,” she says while we sit on the porch of her classic white farmhouse, tucked just off a sloping gravel road between Pella and New Sharon in the southeastern part of the state.
But the land deals in this area today aren’t so straightforward and honest, she says. Wind development company RPM Access is currently constructing one of MidAmerican Energy’s newest projects, Prairie Wind Farm, less than two miles east of her home. Read more in Slate >
Hospital protesters lie down outside Dáil
Nearly 200 people lay down outside the Dáil yesterday in protest at what they described as overcrowded and unhygienic conditions in hospital A&E departments.
Janette Byrne, of Patients Together, said the aim of the protest was to "lie down and be counted" by Minister for Health Mary Harney and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
Organisers had hoped more than 495 people would protest - the highest number of people recorded on hospital trolleys in one day. Read more in the Irish Times >
Colorado kids plan model future city in U.S. contest
WASHINGTON — In the year 2150, a volcano erupted and wiped out Toriiyama. But the city has been rebuilt and is thriving, harnessing the power of the very volcano that buried it in lava and ash 100 years ago.
“Like the phoenix from the ancient mist, our city rises from the ashes,” said Reid Miller, an eighth-grader from New Castle, a community of about 2,000 people along Interstate 70 in western Colorado.
Toriiyama is Japanese for Bird Mountain, and the city’s thoughtful design won Miller and teammate Rebecca Tanner, also in eighth grade, a trip to Washington for the finals of the National Engineers Week Future City Competition. Read more in the Greeley Tribune >
Prosecutors narrow window for R. Kelly video
Prosecutors said Wednesday they have narrowed down the time frame during which a videotape was made that allegedly shows R&B artist R. Kelly engaging in sexual acts with an underage girl. Read more in the Times of Northwest Indiana >
“The profitability that newspapers sustained in this last century was an anomaly. Newspapers were not profitable for most of their lives. And as Warren Buffett would say, ‘when it was profitable, it was a toll booth,’” Katharine Weymouth, publisher of the Washington Post, said at a recent Poynter Institute gathering. “It was a brilliant model. If you were an advertiser and you wanted to reach the local audience, you had to advertise in the newspaper. So our classified section – for those of us local newspapers – were terrific and brought us in hundreds of millions of dollars.”
All other reports are available to members in the WAN-IFRA archive >