Iowa lawmakers are returning to Des Moines for a third week of overtime. The session was scheduled to wrap up May 3, but legislators continue to negotiate education reform, property taxes, Medicaid expansion, and other key issues.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he’s considering a run for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. He headlined a fundraiser for Iowa Republicans Friday night in Cedar Rapids.
He may be picking up where his father, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tx.), left off his 2012 campaign.
Republicans in the Iowa House say they hope to offer an alternative to Republican Governor Terry Branstad’s plan for insuring thousands of low-income Iowans. It’s part of the negotiating on health care, which is delaying adjournment of this year’s legislative session.
A fight is underway at the statehouse between petroleum marketers and petroleum refiners, and ethanol is in the middle of it. An upcoming change will result in a lot more blending of biofuels for sale at the pump. The fight is over who gets to do the blending, and there’s money at stake.
The Democratic-controlled Iowa Senate wants to expand Medicaid in the state. Republican Governor Terry Branstad does NOT and has introduced his own plan. Medicaid is the joint federal-state healthcare program for low-income people. As Iowa Public Radio’s Clay Masters reports the Republican-controlled House held a public hearing on the Senate’s expansion bill Tuesday night.
Kevin Wells has been genetically engineering animals for 24 years.
“It’s sort of like a jigsaw puzzle,” said Wells recently as he walked through his lab at the University of Missouri - Columbia. “You take DNA apart and put it back together in different orders, different orientations.”
