U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said the House could vote as early as next week on a measure related to the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. The vote could force the Department of Justice to release all materials related to the Epstein investigation.

If the measure makes it to the Senate, Majority Leader John Thune would then decide whether to bring it up for a vote in that chamber. Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley declined to say how he would vote.

“You know, I've been trying to get transparency on this stuff for a long time,” Grassley told reporters Friday. “I think we're going to wait and see what Sen. Thune does before I make a decision of how I would vote.”
 
Republicans hold a 53–47 majority in the Senate, and it would likely take 60 votes for the measure to pass. If it passes the Senate, it would then go to President Donald Trump, who could veto it.

A nonprofit focused on safety ratings for hospitals across the U.S. ranked Iowa hospitals near the bottom. The nonprofit LeapFrog placed Iowa 48th in the country when it comes to hospital safety. 

LeapFrog ranked 30 Iowa hospitals on a wide range of safety measures based on publicly available data. One Iowa hospital received a "B" rating. Most hospitals received a "C" or "D" rating, while three received an "F" rating.

Iowa is one of just four states where no hospitals received an "A" grade. 

Katie Stewart, director of health care ratings at LeapFrog, said it often doesn’t take a lot of resources for hospitals to improve. She said change begins with top leadership. 

“What we know is that it starts with really that commitment to patient safety that has to start at that C-suite level,” she said.

Stewart encourages Iowans to review their hospital’s ranking and ask what it is doing to improve safety.

The Iowa National Guard will continue to help carry out federal immigration enforcement efforts through September of next year.

In August, Gov. Kim Reynolds said that national guard members would serve until Nov. 15. The Quad-City Times reported that their service was extended through Sept. 30, 2026.

In total, 16 Iowa National Guard members have been helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with administrative and logistical work, so ICE officials can reportedly continue their work outside of the office.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem asked the governors of all 50 states to mobilize their national guard members to support federal immigration efforts, though only Republican-led states have agreed to the request.

The Iowa Natural Resource Commission approved leasing a 575-foot stretch along the Mississippi River to a fertilizer plant in southeast Iowa for $1,421.40 a year.

Managers of the Koch Fertilizer plant in Lee County told state officials they plan to load and unload barges along that part of the river. Two years ago, Koch Ag & Energy Solutions paid $3.6 billion to buy the Iowa Fertilizer Plant near Wever.

A member of the Iowa Natural Resource Commission said during Thursday’s commission meeting that he appreciates Koch’s investments in Iowa, but the panel is concerned that the fee to lease the land along the river is well under the fair market value of the property. Another commissioner said when he first saw the fee amount of $1,421.40, he thought it must have been the monthly fee.

After an extended discussion of the state law used to calculate the fee, five of seven commissioners approved the lease, but several called for the law to be updated so fees for similar leases in the future will be higher.

Koch representatives who attended the commission meeting said their company didn’t set the fee, and the company’s application to lease the land followed state law.

The commission-approved lease for Koch will run for five years.

A former employee is suing the Knoxville Community School District for wrongful termination after she was fired over her comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. 

Stacey Sumpter, a former special education associate at the district, allegedly made a post on her personal Facebook account that included criticism of Kirk and a statement saying, “since I never wish to see you again, to you I say goodbye.”

Kirk, a right-wing activist, was assassinated while speaking at a public event at a Utah college in September. 

Sumpter said she was fired for making the post after the Knoxville school district received complaints from community members. Now, she’s suing the district for First Amendment violations, claiming her post was a private expression of her viewpoint and protected by free speech laws. 

Sumpter also said she wasn't properly notified about potentially being fired or given an opportunity to defend herself. 

She’s the third Iowa educator to sue a former employer for wrongful termination over comments related to Kirk’s death. 

Madeleine King

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Iowa Public Radio

As NextEra Energy looks to reopen the Duane Arnold nuclear plant in eastern Iowa, some members of the public are concerned about waste storage and water use.

The Iowa Utilities Commission (IUC) held an informational meeting Thursday night, where representatives of NextEra spoke with members of the public. 

Rich Patterson, who lives in Cedar Rapids, said he wants to know more about the potential impacts on the water supply during a drought if a data center is built nearby. Though Google has not announced plans for a data center near the plant, NextEra did sign an agreement to provide Google with most of the plant's energy. 

“We have droughts. I remember 1988, you know, there will be droughts. We are going to want to drink water and make coffee and take showers,” Patterson said.

Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell said restarting the power plant would provide an economic boost to the surrounding community and the state. 

“Here in Linn County, we'll see the benefits firsthand, from new residents and families putting down roots to local businesses, restaurants and service providers thriving with increased demand,” O’Donnell said. “The plant will also generate millions in local tax revenue.” 

To start construction next year, NextEra Energy needs approval from the IUC.

Read more.

The Iowa Board of Regents tabled a vote on proposed bylaws for the new University of Iowa Center for Intellectual Freedom, saying the rules need more work.

The bylaws would establish executive and scholar committees within the center’s advisory council to handle different academic and advisory duties. At their meeting Thursday, the regents expressed concerns about the makeup of these committees.

The Iowa Capital Dispatch reported that Regent Christine Hensley suggested tabling approval of the bylaws until the center’s advisory council has time to discuss them and then “determine next steps” from there. The advisory council is scheduled to hold its first meeting Nov. 18.

Democrats in the Iowa House and Senate are urging industrial manufacturer Case New Holland to keep its Burlington plant open.

The company said earlier this month it would close the plant, citing a drop in demand for some of the key products manufactured there, including the loader backhoe. As a result, hundreds of workers will be laid off next year, many of whom have worked there for over a decade.

In the letter Democratic state lawmakers sent to the company, they said CNH Industrials has been a cornerstone of Burlington’s identity and economy. They also said it’s time for the company to step in and take care of its workers, who they said have supported CNH Industrials’ growth for nearly a century.  

The federal funding package that reopened the government also included a one-year extension for certain Farm Bill programs, bringing some temporary relief to farmers.

The extension of the 2018 Farm Bill reauthorized many of the rural development and conservation programs expiring this fall and winter. Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, said the extension is a small step in the right direction. 

“We are long-overdue for a permanent Farm Bill — three years overdue,” Lehman said.

The One Big Beautiful Bill that passed earlier this year addressed some key Farm Bill policies, including boosting safety nets for farmers. But Lehman said it also did a lot of damage because of massive cuts to nutrition programs and other parts of the Farm Bill that were left out.

Gov. Kim Reynolds announced that flags will continue to be flown at half-staff Thursday to honor a Marshalltown lawyer who served in the Iowa Senate for a dozen years. Flags were already lowered in honor of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who died Nov. 3.

Former state Sen. Larry McKibben died Sunday at the age of 78. He graduated from the University of Northern Iowa in 1970 with a political science degree and earned a law degree from the University of Iowa in 1972. He then returned to his hometown of Marshalltown to practice law.

McKibben was first elected to the Iowa Senate in 1996 and served three terms before retiring from the Legislature in early 2009. McKibben later served six years on the Board of Regents and led a task force that examined tuition costs at the three state universities.

McKibben’s funeral was Thursday afternoon at the First Methodist Church in Marshalltown. Flags nationally will remain lowered until sunset on Nov. 20, the day of Cheney’s funeral.

Iowa’s six regional food banks received enough donations to meet the governor’s $1 million state funding match. The state pledged to match financial gifts to the food banks starting at the beginning of the month.

Organizations like the Food Bank of Siouxland in northwest Iowa saw a sharp spike in demand after Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits expired during the federal government shutdown.

Associate Executive Director Valerie Petersen said many seniors were affected because they’re living on fixed incomes.
“They’ve planned for retirement,” Petersen said. “They’ve planned for their future, and yet, with the rising cost of things, they’re not able to make ends meet.”

Petersen said the Siouxland community was lucky to receive such an outpouring of support for vulnerable families. She witnessed many people step up, but she warned that relying on local support may not be sustainable.

A mayor has been chosen for a small northwest Iowa town after a tie in last week’s election.

Incumbent Willard McFarland and challenger Michael Bohlke tied for mayor of Westfield during last Tuesday’s elections, with 22 votes each. The Plymouth County Board of Supervisors had to draw lots to determine the new mayor of the westernmost town in the state.

During their meeting Wednesday, Supervisor Doug Manley picked one of two pieces of paper from fellow Supervisor Craig Anderson’s cowboy hat — and Manley pulled out Bohlke’s name, making him the next mayor of Westfield. His term begins in January.

Madeleine Charis King

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Iowa Public Radio

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will likely be issued to all Iowa participants by Friday now that the federal government shutdown ended, according to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services.

A department spokesperson said some SNAP recipients may be able to access November benefits as soon as Thursday.

Last month, the federal government told states to not issue SNAP benefits for November because of the government shutdown. It was the first time in SNAP’s history that benefits were paused. Around 270,000 Iowans have gone without their usual food assistance for two weeks.

The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services is recommending that SNAP recipients check their EBT card balances before purchasing food. 

Lucius Pham

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Iowa Public Radio

All four of Iowa’s U.S. House representatives voted with their Republican colleagues — and a handful of Democrats — to reopen the federal government.

Iowa’s 4^th District Rep. Randy Feenstra said in a written statement issued after the vote that Democrats were pushing an “out-of-touch agenda.” He said the shutdown was “a political stunt that caused unnecessary harm to Iowa families, farmers, seniors and small businesses.”

Third District Rep. Zach Nunn said the deal that the House sent to President Donald Trump’s desk was “on the table more than a month ago” and his “Democratic colleagues need to understand” the gridlock of the past 43 days cost Iowans who missed paychecks, lost access to services and worried about how to feed their families.

Iowa’s 1^st District Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks said that she voted to “keep the government open” because in a shutdown, nobody wins and the American people lose. She also said she’s “relieved this senseless shutdown is finally over.”

Second District Rep. Ashley Hinson released a video statement Wednesday on the step of the U.S. Capitol, where she blamed Democrats for the shutdown.

“Democrats kept us shut down for over 40 days. They left our military and their families in the lurch. They forced air safety officials to go without pay,” Hinson said. “All while attempting to use people’s health care as ‘leverage.'”

Democrats had been pushing for a deal to include health care subsidies for Americans with higher incomes who live in states where insurance costs are high. Hinson said she’s ready to address that issue now that the spending bill has been signed by the president.

“Now that the government is reopening, I think we should all be working together on some bipartisan solutions and reforms that will actually lower premiums,” Hinson said in the video.

The top House Democrat said House Republicans “are burying their heads in the sand” and “failed to address the affordability crisis” faced by millions of Americans buying insurance policies for next year.

The Senate’s Republican leader has promised to hold a vote in the Senate on that issue by the second week of December.

Dave Bushaw for Congress

A northeast Iowa labor organizer, farmer and musician jumped into the race for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District.

Dave Bushaw, 31, is running as an independent. He has been involved in anti-war activism and labor organizing since the early 2010s. In 2019, he became a rural field organizer for Bernie Sanders in Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina.

Bushaw said he’s advocating for universal health care, building incentives for infrastructure development and pro-labor policies. 

“We've only ever had less than 2% of working-class people occupying seats of Congress,” he said. “I am the working class, and you know, that’s why I’m running, is to increase that number from above 2% up to 10%, because we are the majority here.” 

Bushaw lives on a farm just 10 minutes from his childhood home in West Union. He said he has seen rural Iowans face neglect and abuse from what he said are misguided decisions made in Washington, D.C.

If elected, he hopes to put major issues to voters — such as term limits, banning stock trading in Congress and limiting big donors to political campaigns — through national ballot referendums.

Read more.

Madeleine Charis King

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Iowa Public Radio

A bill passed by the U.S. Senate that would end the federal government shutdown includes a new restriction that would severely limit the amount of THC in hemp products.

The bill would cap the amount of THC to 0.4 milligrams per container for hemp products. Currently, Iowa law allows up to 10 milligrams of THC per container. 

Ashley Lambson, founder of The Happy Can in Urbandale, said if the restriction goes into effect as written, it would end her business. 

“It's going to wipe out everything: ointment, CBD, we offer gummies, we offer chocolates, we offer beverages,” she said. “It would eliminate every one of our SKUs if it went as it is today.”  

Lambson said if the restriction is signed into law, it would give sellers of hemp products like her a year before it goes into effect. In that time, she hopes to work with federal lawmakers to agree on a less restrictive limit.

The Iowa Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a case related to the murder of a corrections officer. In 2021, two inmates at Anamosa State Penitentiary murdered corrections officer Robert McFarland and a nurse.

McFarland’s wife, Sara Montague, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against 26 state employees, ranging from the director of the Iowa Department of Corrections down to Anamosa prison employees. Montague alleges that they knew about inadequate training and policies that led to her husband’s murder.

The state is asking the court to rule that the lawsuit isn’t valid. Patrick Valencia, with the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, told the Iowa Supreme Court that Montague didn’t follow the rules for filing claims against all 26 employees.

“Compliance with the rules is key because that’s what the Legislature has said you must do to take advantage of the limited waiver of sovereign immunity,” Valencia said.

Montague’s lawyer, Robert Rehkemper, claimed the state withheld information that would’ve allowed them to name defendants earlier in the process.

The Iowa Board of Regents decided to move forward with proposed bylaws for the new Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa. The bylaws are a basic framework for how the center will be run. The Iowa Legislature created the center earlier this year with the goal of promoting free speech on public university campuses. 

During the board’s meeting Wednesday, Regent Robert Cramer said one of the long-term goals of creating the center is to bring more students with diverse political mindsets to the university. 

“I think the great benefit will be to attract more people of diverse political thought or just different ideas, to come to our university,” he said.
 
Some Democrats in the Statehouse have criticized creating the new center, calling it “ideologically motivated.”

The center’s advisory council will meet next week to discuss how to measure its success over time. 

Courtesy National Weather Service

Many Iowans were able to witness a rare weather phenomenon Tuesday night as the bright greens, pinks and reds of the Northern Lights were visible for several hours. Meteorologist Alex Gibbs, with the National Weather Service in Davenport, said there may be a repeat performance Wednesday night.

Social media accounts remain clogged with dazzling photos of the lights Wednesday morning, with many people noticing how their smart phone cameras seemed to capture even better images than they could see with their eyes.

“Your camera can get more light into it than our eyes can,” Gibbs said. “But last night was so good that I didn’t need my camera to see the Northern Lights at all, especially once I got outside of the light pollution.”

Forecasters expect conditions may be favorable to see the famed aurora borealis again Wednesday evening, if weather permits. While the forecast calls for partly to mostly cloudy conditions for much of Iowa, Gibbs said Iowans may still be able to see the swirls of color in the patches of open sky.

If you decide to venture out to catch a glimpse of the lights, astronomers suggest looking toward the North, preferably with a clear horizon, after the sun sets at 4:57 p.m.

The Iowa Board of Regents selected David Cook as the next president of Iowa State University. 

Cook has served as president of North Dakota State University since 2022, following two decades at the University of Kansas as a professor and administrator. 

Cook grew up in Ames and is an ISU alumnus. 

“I am deeply humbled by this opportunity — a bit speechless, candidly,” he said. “It’s a lot to take in, especially when you’re born here at Mary Greeley, went to high school here, went to school here and have family that are so embedded here. This is an institution that means so much to my wife and I.”  

Cook plans to start his new position in March. He’ll take over for ISU President Wendy Wintersteen, who plans to retire in January.  

The number of local workers detasseling Iowa’s seed corn has decreased, while the number of temporary migrant workers doing the job has grown, according to data since 2018 from the Iowa Workforce Development.

The data also showed that 33 detasseling contractors working with domestic labor have lost their contracts. That includes Mark Arends, whose contract was canceled by Corteva Agriscience last year.

Arends estimated that 20% of Iowa’s detasseling is still done by local teenagers.

“I would say, until the last five or six years, it was all local youth for what we saw around,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nebraska’s Department of Agriculture reported in September that local laborers — mostly teens — made up about 60% of its 2025 detasseling workforce.

Read the full investigation from The Midwest Newsroom.

States have taken different approaches to messaging about SNAP delays as the government shutdown continues. In some cases, that looks like partisan finger-pointing on government-run websites.

Nebraska’s Health and Human Services website displays a message from the governor that blames Democrats for the shutdown. In Illinois, a message on a state website states that President Donald Trump and Republicans are to blame.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture homepage says Democrats shut down the government to give, “health care to illegals.”

Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, said some of the language could run afoul of federal anti-lobbying laws.
“We're not paying taxpayer money to get the agencies to turn around and then put pressure on Congress,” he said. “We're not paying for lobbying firms — for PR machine — we're paying for services.”

Some states also have laws to prohibit the use of state resources to promote political causes.

Read more from Harvest Public Media’s Molly Ashford.

The Sioux City school board placed Superintendent Juan Córdova on administrative leave after a closed session meeting Monday.

The board did not give the reason he was placed on leave. A spokesperson said it is a confidential personnel matter, adding that the action was consistent with district policy.

Córdova started as superintendent in July. He was previously placed on leave for several days at the beginning of the school year.

James Kelley

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Iowa Public Radio

Iowa’s 1st District Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks held an in-person town hall Monday for the first time since winning reelection. Constituents criticized her over the government shutdown, deportations and her support of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
   
Many people asked about the Republican’s plans for health care since enhanced premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act are set to expire at the end of the year. 

Other questions centered around the impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 16 million more people will become uninsured by 2034 because of the law.

“Why did you allow your committee to put in place the largest cuts to Medicaid in the program’s entire history?” one constituent asked to loud applause.

“Thank you for the applause for the Energy and Commerce Committee voting to strengthen and preserve Medicaid,” Miller-Meeks responded, to boos and jeers.

Two people were escorted out of the room after making loud statements, and Miller-Meeks canceled a meeting with the press scheduled after the event.

Read more.

The University of Iowa College Republicans are leaving the oldest conservative youth organization in the country, the College Republican National Committee (CRNC).

UI’s chapter made a joint statement with the Boston University College Republicans stating that the CRNC faces allegations of misconduct and has run into “disrepair.”

Newsweek reported last month that multiple groups of young Republicans branched off from the CRNC in recent years, each of them trying to become the dominant faction.

The UI and Boston young Republicans are joining the College Republicans of America, which was founded in 2023. They encouraged other groups across the country to do the same. 

Western Iowa Tech Community College in Sioux City agreed to a third settlement in a case involving international students who accused the school of human trafficking.

Western Iowa Tech has faced ongoing legal issues over a visa program that brought students to the U.S. In two previous lawsuits, students from Chile and Brazil said they were offered free tuition to enroll in the program, but instead were forced to work food processing jobs to pay off the cost. 

The college’s board of directors has now approved a $2.5 million settlement with 21 former international students who intended to file a third lawsuit. 

In all, the community college has paid nearly $8 million to resolve disputes over the visa program. 

In a message to employees, Western Iowa Tech President Terry Murrell said by settling, the college avoids spending even more time and money defending against another lawsuit.
 
He said the college continues to deny claims about the program.

Lucia Cheng

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Iowa Public Radio

The federal trial for Ian Roberts, former superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, was postponed to March 2026. Roberts’ trial was set to begin Dec. 1, with a pretrial conference on Monday.

Court records show that Roberts' attorney requested the delay, which a federal judge approved without objection. The new schedule set the trial to begin on March 2, with pretrial motions due Dec. 15.

Roberts was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in September. The Department of Homeland Security said Roberts did not have work authorization and was given a final order of removal by an immigration judge in May 2024.

Lucia Cheng

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Iowa Public Radio

In 1975, former Iowa Gov. Robert Ray was the only U.S. governor to respond to pleas to resettle the Tai Dam people, an ethnic group with roots in southern China and northwestern Vietnam.

The group had undergone multiple migrations due to persecution over the two previous decades and ultimately ended up in a refugee camp in Thailand. But, in November of that same year, 633 Tai Dam refugees arrived in Iowa on the first wave of flights. Within two years, the state resettled around 1,200 Tai Dam immigrants.

Today, the population numbers in the thousands and makes up the largest population of Tai Dam outside Asia. Now, with older generations dying, and fewer people speaking the language, many worry that their traditions and histories are at stake.

Some members of the younger generation who were looking to strengthen their ties to their family’s heritage turned to traditional dances. As the Tai Dam community celebrated its 50^th anniversary in Des Moines, IPR’s Isabella Luu looked behind the curtain to see what it takes to keep their culture alive.

Read more.

Applications for a new Literary Arts Fund opened Monday. The fund, supported by seven major foundations, will award at least $50 million over the next five years to support writers, publishers and literary programs across the country.  

The funding could benefit local organizations, like the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature, which plans to apply. Executive Director John Kenyon said the opportunity came at a critical time.  

“It is something that we really feel [is] necessary to pursue because we want to continue to deliver the same types of programs and services that we always have and are doing so at a time when costs are increasing and that funding is really flattening,” he said. 

According to nonprofit information service Candid, organizations dedicated to literature received just 1.9% of the $5 billion in arts grants awarded in 2023.  

Sheila Brummer

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Iowa Public Radio

Nearly 200 scientists at colleges and universities across Iowa endorsed a statement spotlighting the connection between climate change and insurance costs.

Bill Gutowski, professor emeritus of meteorology at Iowa State University, pointed to decades of data showing the burning of fossil fuels increased greenhouse gases, which trapped heat in the atmosphere. In Iowa, this has led to more frequent bursts of heavy rain, large hail and flooding in the spring.

“For the U.S. as a whole, the number of billion-dollar disasters continues to grow, and Iowa has not been immune from some of those events, especially severe storms last spring,” Gutowski said.

The 15th annual Iowa Climate Statement said stronger building standards in Iowa could help protect homeowners and renters against extreme weather events. The scientists also called for a faster transition to renewable energy, like wind and solar.

Read more.

Workers and leaders of the United Auto Workers are fighting the closure of a CNH Industrial manufacturing plant in southeast Iowa. CNH Industrial confirmed the decision last week after saying last year it was planning to close the Burlington plant. 

Marcques Derby, chairman of the local union chapter, has worked at the plant for over a decade. 

“They wanted us to fight for that protection, that opportunity, to continue to provide for their families,” Derby said, referring to union workers at the plant. “I mean, you got people out here that bought homes, bought cars, you know? They’re tied to the community. They don’t want to go. Their kids might be in high school, in middle school, they have to — what, are they going to have to find a new job? Find new friends?” 

The United Auto Workers hosted a packed rally near the plant Friday to protest the closure. Union President Shawn Fain, U.S. Senate candidate and state Sen. Zach Wahls and U.S. House 1^st District candidate Taylor Wettach were a few of the high-profile figures who attended. 

CNH Industrial said it plans to close the plant in the second quarter of next year.

A local law enforcement agency in Iowa is partnering with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help enforce federal immigration laws.  

The Marion County Sheriff’s Office is the second agency in the state to have an agreement under the 287(g) program. The Iowa Department of Public Safety formed an agreement with ICE under the same program in April. 

Joe Henry, state political director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, known as LULAC, said these types of agreements have a chilling effect on people interacting with law enforcement.  

“It's going to be much more difficult for people from the immigrant community and those connected to the immigrant community to report crimes because they will be fearful that they then might be questioned whether or not they have legal status or their citizens,” Henry said.

In Marion County, only one officer was approved to work with ICE. Deputized officers can question people they suspect don’t have legal status while carrying out routine duties, like traffic stops. They can also issue arrest warrants and immigration detainers.   

“This isn't something where you put on a mask, kick in a door or something like that,” said Marion County’s deputized officer, Lt. Reed Kious. “This is somebody [that] comes across somebody with a detainer order, or someone commits a bad crime against somebody else.” 

A nonprofit launched a mobile clinic in central Iowa to fill maternal health care gaps for underinsured and uninsured people with reproductive care.

EveryStep’s Suitcase Clinic sends a nurse to community spaces, like human services agencies, food banks and faith-based centers, to provide free care. 

EveryStep’s Maternal Child Health Program Director Becky Borgman said the nurse can provide people with reproductive care support — like birth control or testing for sexually transmitted infections — but the options go beyond just direct care. 

“It's connecting them to a doula, connecting them to a nurse or a case manager who can come to that house regularly, or connecting them to Medicaid when they didn't know they qualified,” she said.

Borgman said EveryStep launched the clinic in response to more Iowa hospital OB-GYN units and reproductive health clinics closing. 

The Suitcase Clinic operates in Polk, Dallas, Madison and Warren counties.

Katarina Sostaric

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Iowa Public Radio

Three Democrats running to represent Iowa in the U.S. Senate said Senate Democrats shouldn’t give up on their health care demands to end the government shutdown. The candidates were speaking at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice Dinner in Des Moines Sunday when news broke of a potential deal to reopen the government.

Nathan Sage said he was “flustered” to learn some Senate Democrats would vote to reopen the government without including an extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits. He said millions of Americans are going to lose their health care.

“People need a life where we can actually make it in this world,” Sage said. “People need a life where they can actually afford the food and afford the health care they need, and it seems like we don’t have leadership that’s willing to fight for that.” 

State Rep. Josh Turek and State Sen. Zach Wahls, who are also running for U.S. Senate, said there shouldn’t be a deal without a guarantee that health care subsidies will be extended.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota promised a vote on the ACA tax credits, but the details aren’t clear.

Refugees in Iowa started to learn they’re no longer eligible for federal food assistance. That’s because the One Big Beautiful Bill included new restrictions for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that started to take effect.

Emily Kresowik, a board member of Des Moines Refugee Support, said she recently helped a family from Afghanistan submit paperwork to recertify their SNAP benefits. But then a state health official said the family was no longer eligible because they don’t have green cards.

The tax and spending law passed by Congress this year, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, blocked refugees, people granted asylum and many other categories of immigrants with legal status from getting food assistance.

Kresowik said the Afghan family she worked with has six children, and the father works full-time. They applied for green cards over a year ago, but still haven’t received a decision.

“And so, for many families, even if they’ve had the resources to file, they just haven’t been approved yet, and so now they’re not eligible for food stamps,” she said.

The federal government’s order to start enforcing these restrictions came as SNAP benefits are delayed for all participants during the government shutdown.

Read more.

Iowa’s 4^th District Rep. Randy Feenstra said his first priority if elected governor would be to do something about the economy.

He spoke to a group of business leaders Friday at the West Des Moines Chamber of Commerce. One of the attendees asked Feenstra what his first bill would be if elected governor.  

“Well, number one, it’s going to be with the economy and what we can do,” Feenstra said. “Whether that be property taxes, whether that be reducing regulation on businesses, these are, to me, the key components to making us the most business- and ag-friendly state in the country.”  

He said his other priorities are making sure Iowa is delivering a “world-class education” and affordable, accessible health care. Feenstra also wants to help small businesses by lowering input costs for things like health care premiums and utilities.   

Madeleine Charis King

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Iowa Public Radio

This month marks the start of open enrollment for the nearly 137,000 Iowans who purchase their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. But this year, many Iowans will see significant jumps in the cost of their premiums as enhanced tax subsidies for ACA plans — which have been in effect since 2021 — are set to expire at the end of this year.

The end of the tax credits will have an impact on most enrollees. Around 92% of Americans enrolled in ACA plans use them, according to Katherine Hempstead, a senior policy officer with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“For some people, they'll go away completely,” she said. “People with a little bit higher incomes are going to get a big increase in what they're asked to pay, and a lot of people are predicted to drop coverage.”

It’s estimated that people on ACA plans will see their premiums increase on average 75% with the end of the enhanced tax credits. Hempstead said that means some people will go into debt or avoid getting care.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated 4.2 million Americans will become uninsured due to the end of these tax credits. The issue has been at the forefront of federal politics as the government enters the second month of its shutdown.

Read more about how rising premium costs could impact Iowans.

Madeleine C King

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Iowa Public Radio

The Iowa Supreme Court is allowing a lawsuit to go forward claiming Davenport city officials were negligent in the 2023 collapse of a downtown apartment building.

In a ruling issued Friday, the court denied an appeal for qualified immunity for the city of Davenport and two employees. The city was appealing a lower court ruling that had also denied qualified immunity for a city building inspector and a supervisor. 

Three residents died when their apartment building partially collapsed two years ago. Dozens of survivors are part of the class action lawsuit against the building’s former owner, the city of Davenport and others.

A new report from the American Lung Association found that much more needs to be done to end the devastating burden of lung cancer on Iowa families.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in Iowa, while the report ranked Iowa 39th in the nation for its rate of new lung cancer cases.

American Lung Association Director of Advocacy Kristina Hamilton said the State of Lung Cancer report looked at 10 primary categories. She said Iowa is below average in several of those categories, including smoking rates.

The report found more than 16% of Iowa high schoolers use tobacco or e-cigarettes.

“We’re particularly concerned about the smoking rate, given cigarette smoking has declined over the past several decades,” Hamilton said. “But unfortunately, Iowa is still higher than the national average, and it is the leading cause of lung cancer and preventable deaths.”

Hamilton said initiatives will be pushed in the 2026 state legislative session to help discourage smoking in Iowa, including increasing the tax on cigarettes. She said e-cigarettes are the only tobacco product sold in Iowa that are not subject to a tax.

A bright spot in the report

While the report gives Iowa a thumbs-down grade on five of the 10 key categories, Hamilton said the state is doing at least one thing that’s worthy of praise.

“The Legislature and the governor now require insurance plans to cover comprehensive biomarker testing,” she said. “And that is a very significant advancement for lung cancer treatment and treatment of other chronic conditions.”

Biomarker testing looks for changes in a tumor’s DNA. The results of the test can show biomarkers that help determine what treatment options would be best for an individual patient.

Insurance coverage of biomarker testing is important for removing a cost barrier to people with lung cancer, but coverage for biomarker testing is only required in some states. The report found that Iowa does require insurance coverage of comprehensive biomarker testing.

A state senator sent a letter to three members of the Cedar Rapids school board asking them to resign. It came after the district’s $117 million bond fell just short of the 60% approval it needed to pass during Tuesday’s election.

State Sen. Molly Donahue, D-Cedar Rapids, said the board lost the public’s trust under their leadership by not being transparent enough. She called on Cindy Garlock, David Tominsky and Jennifer Neumann to step down.

Now that the bond has failed, she said students face years of delay on critical improvements to their schools. Donahue said the board needs new leadership to restore trust and move the district forward. 

Courtesy of Iowa State University

Iowa State University is down to two finalists to replace university President Wendy Wintersteen, who is retiring in January. 

Benjamin Houlton is the dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University in New York.

At a public forum this week, Houlton said he wants ISU to lead in AI research. He said the university should take what he called a “deeply people-centered approach” to AI. Houlton also sees ISU working closer with the U.S. Department of Defense, including by helping the U.S. develop a critical minerals industry. 

The other finalist is Dave Cook, the president of North Dakota State University. Cook is from Ames and holds degrees in political science and organizational communication.

He said one of his priorities would be building strong relationships with the Board of Regents, as well as state legislators. He would also focus on identifying other forms of funding in the private sector as federal research money disappears.

The Board of Regents will name its pick for president on Nov. 11.

A federal judge dismissed one of the lawsuits filed against the Des Moines Register and former political pollster J. Ann Selzer, but not the one brought by President Donald Trump. 

Selzer and the Register were sued by Trump over a poll released before the 2024 election that showed Democrat Kamala Harris had an advantage with Iowa voters. 

A separate lawsuit was backed by the conservative Center for American Rights. It claimed in part that the poll was fraudulent because it was so different from Trump’s margin of victory. The judge in the case dismissed the group’s claims, saying they were based more on speculation than evidence.  

Trump’s lawsuit over the Selzer poll is still working through the courts. 

The head of the Des Moines International Airport warned that travelers could start seeing major flight delays and cancellations by the middle of the weekend.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced a 10% cut to air traffic at the nation’s 40 busiest airports that will take effect on Friday. Duffy said the cuts are meant to “alleviate the pressure” on air traffic controllers, who have been working without pay since the government shutdown began.

Brian Mulcahy, CEO of the Des Moines Airport Authority, said he’s heard the emphasis will be on maintaining flights between major hub airports.

“So, that would leave more [of] the multiple frequency trips that I think are the high-risk trips. So, maybe if we have three flights to Dallas every day or four flights to Chicago, they might try to take a frequency away there,” he said. 

Mulcahy said anyone flying through Des Moines this weekend should closely monitor any messages they receive from their airlines.

The Polk County Board of Supervisors is giving food banks $1 million to fill the gap left by suspended federal food assistance.

Because of the government shutdown, funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is being withheld from about 42 million Americans, including around 270,000 Iowans.

Polk County Supervisor Matt McCoy said local families — including approximately 25,000 in Polk County — are caught in the middle, and the county can’t afford to pick up the slack.

“At the local level … those 25,000 households represent $9 million per month, and local government has no ability to fill that whole gap,” he said.

McCoy said the county will try to find more money if the shutdown continues. On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund SNAP by Friday. 

Lahn for Governor Facebook page

A fifth Republican has entered the Iowa governor’s race. Zach Lahn launched his campaign Thursday. In a Facebook post, he said he’s a businessman and a farmer, and that he’s his “own biggest donor” who “cannot be bought.”

Lahn’s campaign website states that he wants to break up agriculture monopolies, defend independent farms and ensure teachers aren’t pushing political views. He has worked for the Libertarian conservative political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity.

Lahn and his wife, Annie, have seven kids and live on a farm near Belle Plaine.

Four other Republicans are campaigning for their party’s nomination for governor: state Rep. Eddie Andrews, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, former state Rep. Brad Sherman and Adam Steen. Two Democrats — State Auditor Rob Sand and Julie Stauch are running for governor.

Read more.

A former Johnson County official is suing the county for wrongful termination.

Former executive director for the Board of Supervisors Guillermo Morales said he faced racial discrimination when he was terminated in September 2024 and that he wasn’t given proper notice of his standing ahead of his firing.

County Supervisor Rod Sullivan said at the time that Morales had acted in a self-serving and adversarial manner with other county officials. Morales' lawsuit alleges his relationship with some county officials changed after he publicly supported censuring the county attorney and supported the campaign of a now-current supervisor.  

Rachel Cramer

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Iowa Public Radio

The City of Perry officially opened its new wastewater treatment plant. The $30 million facility is designed to cut nutrient levels from treated water before it’s discharged into the North Raccoon River. It can also handle more wastewater as the city grows.

“This new plant uses state-of-the-art biological treatments to meet all the current Clean Water Act requirements,” said Kayla Lyon, director of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. “It also goes beyond the basics of removing both nitrogen and phosphorus, consistent with the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy.”

The state’s strategy requires large municipal and industrial wastewater treatment facilities to reduce their nutrient discharge as part of renewing their permits.

The latest data shows just over 40% of the wastewater plants in Iowa have met their nitrogen targets. Nearly a quarter have met their goals for phosphorus.  

Read more.

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors approved a year-long moratorium on data center construction in unincorporated parts of the county. The moratorium prevents any building permits or rezoning applications related to data centers from being approved.

The resolution states that data centers have the potential to create an excessive burden on an area’s water and energy resources. The supervisors also said data centers can impact the character of the surrounding area.

The county can end the moratorium at any time before it expires on Nov. 8, 2026. 

Gov. Kim Reynolds announced Wednesday that the state submitted an application to receive federal funding for an initiative to improve rural health.

The state is asking for $1 billion over a five-year grant period from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Rural Health Transformation program to fund what it’s calling the “Healthy Hometowns” project.

The project aims to address rural health issues by expanding telehealth care, recruiting more health care providers and increasing cancer care through a hub-and-spoke model.

State officials said they expect to hear if the proposal will be funded by the end of the year.

Rachel Cramer

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Iowa Public Radio

After a fertilizer spill killed hundreds of thousands of fish in southwest Iowa last year, some locals started testing streams and rivers. Now, they’re trying to build a network of citizen scientists and advocates for clean water.

In March 2024, a valve left open at the NEW Cooperative facility in Red Oak released 1,500 tons of liquid nitrogen fertilizer into the East Nishnabotna River. Wildlife officials in Iowa and Missouri estimated 800,000 fish died from the 60-mile spill, which reached the Missouri River near Peru, Neb.

Over a year later, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office announced a settlement. NEW Cooperative would pay a $50,000 fine, along with $50,000 to the Montgomery County Conservation Board.

Courtesy of the Iowa DNR

Many locals were frustrated by the lack of communication from NEW Cooperative and the state in the lead-up to the settlement. They wanted to do something in response to the fish kill and other water quality challenges in the region.

In March 2025, they formed the Nishnabotna Water Defenders. The group aims to improve water quality in a watershed that spans a dozen counties in southwest Iowa.

Shortly after forming, the Nishnabotna Water Defenders encouraged locals to give public comments about DNR treatment plans for lakes with high phosphorus levels, which contribute to harmful algal blooms. They also organized a creek clean-up in Red Oak with high school students.

The water defenders also partnered with the Izaak Walton League to connect people to the Nitrate Watch program, which offers test strips to measure nitrate levels in surface water, private wells and tap water and a national dashboard to share results.

Read more about the group’s hands-on approach to building awareness around water quality issues in the region.

The state of Iowa agreed to pay $600,000 to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit from a former public health spokesperson.

Polly Carver-Kimm was the communications director at the Iowa Department of Public Health from 2007 to 2020. She claimed she was forced to resign for attempting to comply with Iowa’s open records law.

State officials aren’t admitting wrongdoing by entering the settlement agreement. The three-member State Appeal Board approved the settlement with a 2-1 vote.

Carver-Kimm said state public health officials removed and restricted her job duties as she fulfilled records requests from news outlets during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she was told in July 2020 that she could resign or be fired due to “restructuring.” Carver-Kimm has said the department had no legitimate reason to fire her.

Read more.

Farm equipment manufacturer Case New Holland confirmed plans to close its plant in Burlington. The company has been facing declining demand. 

Case New Holland provided more details in a statement about its plan to stop production at its Burlington plant by mid-2026. The company said it has seen a nearly 50% drop in demand for its loader backhoe, a key product produced at the plant. It also said Burlington was the lowest-utilized and highest-costing plant to maintain. 

The company said 200 employees will be let go, and that it’s working out separation packages that will include severance, continued health insurance and replacement assistance. 

The company said it will keep engineering teams and a testing ground for equipment in Burlington. It also said the decision comes after the end of a bargaining process with United Auto Workers. The union is hosting a rally at the end of the week to protest the company’s decision. 

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said it will take time for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to work out how it will distribute partial Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for November.

President Donald Trump threatened to withhold money to fund partial SNAP benefits Tuesday, but the White House later said the administration would comply with a judge's order and release $4.5 billion from a contingency fund.

Grassley said he’s been hearing from Iowans on the food assistance program who are suffering.

“Yesterday [Monday], I had the report of one mother in Marion bursting into tears at the very cash register when she realized she wouldn't be able to afford groceries for her family because she presented her food stamp card to the cash register person, and there just wasn't any money on that card,” Grassley said.
 
Grassley said his office has been in contact with Iowa food banks, who reported that demand has roughly doubled.

International student enrollment at the state’s three public universities dropped by just  44 students this year. The slightly lower numbers are driven by a long-term drop in students from China, according to a report from the Iowa Board of Regents. 

In total, there are nearly 4,500 international students enrolled at regents universities this year. 

Iowa State University currently has the most international students out of all three schools, however, both ISU and the University of Iowa saw slight decreases this year. Meanwhile, the University of Northern Iowa’s number of international students went up by nearly 30% to a total of 259.

Linn County is donating $80,000 to the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, the area’s regional food bank.

County supervisors unanimously agreed to give the entire annual amount it can provide through the Witwer Trust Grant Program. It comes after Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program benefits were paused at the start of the month due to the government shutdown. The state has pledged to provide up to $1 million in matching funds to food banks. 

County Supervisor Brandy Meisheid said she’s grateful to Gov. Kim Reynolds for matching the funds. 

“I think the best thing we can do is take advantage of that match program by allocating the full $80,000,” Meisheid said. “We have an opportunity to make an impact here locally, and with that match, we can make a bigger impact.”  

On Thursday, the Polk County Board of Supervisors will discuss giving $1 million to the Food Bank of Iowa, the Des Moines Area Religious Council and other food access programs in the area. 

This post was updated at 9:15 a.m. on Nov. 6.

Iowa health officials are working to calculate partial Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for this month, but it’s not yet clear when Iowans will receive money for food.

The federal government froze funding for SNAP benefits on Nov. 1, citing the government shutdown. Courts have directed the Trump administration to use contingency funds to pay for food assistance, which is enough to pay for about half of the typical amount people receive through SNAP.

Alex Murphy, a spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said the state received guidance from the federal government Tuesday on issuing partial benefits.

Murphy said each household’s benefit must be manually recalculated before funds can be loaded onto Iowans’ EBT cards. He said Iowa HHS is still working on a timeline for when benefits will be loaded onto cards.

The current president of North Dakota State University is being named as the only other finalist in the search for the next president of Iowa State University.

David Cook has been president of NDSU since 2022, and while he got his master’s and doctorate degrees at the University of Kansas, Cook earned his B.A. at ISU in 1992. Much of his previous work experience was at the University of Kansas, most recently as vice chancellor.

Cook will visit the Ames campus Thursday to meet with faculty, staff, students and community members, as well as to take part in a public forum.

The other finalist is Benjamin Houlton, dean of the College of Agriculture at Cornell University.

The Iowa Board of Regents will meet in closed session Nov. 11 to hear from the search committee co-chairs, interview the finalists and pick a new president to replace Wendy Wintersteen, who’s retiring.

Voters in five cities in Johnson County — Iowa City, North Liberty, Coralville, Oxford and Shueyville — approved adding a Local Option Sales Tax of 1% to most goods and services. It will exclude essentials like groceries, gas and utilities.

The money will be pooled at the county level and redistributed according to a state-set formula that accounts for population and property tax levies. Estimates calculate that the tax will generate roughly $22 million each year.

By law, cities must use 50% of funds generated by LOST for property tax relief. They get to decide how the other half is used.

Read more.

Lucia Cheng

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Iowa Public Radio

Des Moines voters passed a $265 million bond measure to help renovate school buildings and redesign education programs.

Residents in Des Moines agreed to pay more in property taxes over the next 20 years to provide funds the district can use to modernize classrooms.

The threshold to pass the bond was 60%, and voters approved it with 74% of the vote.

Des Moines Public Schools Interim Superintendent Matt Smith said the win shows just how much people believe in changing education.
“That’s not just a victory, that is a decisive victory,” he said. “That is a decisive vote that folks want to invest in the education of 30,000 kids and the 30,000 kids of tomorrow.”

Voters broadly supported the bond measure just off the heels of former Superintendent Ian Roberts’ arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Smith said the bond proposal was built around the community and the results reflect that.

Read more.

Four schools in the Cedar Rapids school district will not receive large-scale renovations after a defeat at the ballot box Tuesday. Voters in the district narrowly rejected a $117 million bond that would have financed remodels to make the schools safer and more accessible.

School officials said the district is working to tighten its belt, and the bond would have helped finance its reorganizing efforts.

The measure received support from around 59% of voters, according to unofficial results. That falls just under the 60% threshold it needed to pass.

“The majority of people were in favor, we just didn’t quite hit that 60% mark yet,” said Cedar Rapids Superintendent Tawana Grover. “So that means that people do care about our schools, and we have to figure out how to get this done for our students.”

Officials with the district said they’re waiting for official results before requesting a recount.

Voters rejected a similar bond in 2023 that was almost twice as expensive.

Read more.

A Des Moines School Board member who was part of former Superintendent Ian Roberts’ hiring board has won reelection for an at-large seat.
 
Maria Alonzo was the only Des Moines School Board candidate on the ballot this year who was in office when Roberts joined the district. Roberts was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in September. He is facing federal charges for claiming citizenship when he was hired. 

Voters reelected Alonzo to one of two at-large seats on the Des Moines School Board. The other at-large seat went to Sara Hopkins. 

In other results, Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell won reelection after taking more than 70% of the vote over challenger Myra Bradwell. 

In Des Moines, Mike Simonson won reelection to an at-large seat on the city council. Rob Barron won a seat on the council representing Ward 1 in northwest Des Moines. The Des Moines Register reported that Barron is the first Latino elected to the city council. 

The dean of the College of Agriculture at Cornell University is one of the two finalists to replace Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen, who is retiring.

Benjamin Houlton is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, as well as global development, at Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y. Houlton co-founded a company that works with landowners to remove carbon dioxide from the soil, and he directs a 100-acre project on carbon sequestration.

“For the past 15 years, I have built a program focused on global environmental sustainability and most recently been thinking about how we can deploy carbon capture in working lands — that is farmlands and ranching land — to catalyze negative emissions and help produce food in a way that is more resistant to climate change, as well as more nutritious,” he said in a video for Cornell’s College of Agriculture.

Houlton was born and raised in Wisconsin. He earned a degree in water chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, a master’s degree in environmental engineering science from Syracuse University and a doctorate from Princeton University in ecology and evolutionary biology.

He previously served on the faculty at the University of California, Davis before his appointment at Cornell in 2020. ISU, Cornell, UC-Davis and UW-Stevens Point are all land-grant universities.

Houlton will visit the ISU campus Wednesday and participate in a public forum in the late afternoon. The hour-long forum will be livestreamed on the Board of Regents’ website.

The name of the other finalist for ISU’s presidency will be released Wednesday morning. That person is scheduled to be on the Ames campus Thursday.

October ended up being much warmer and drier than usual, according to state climatologist Justin Glisan.

“Overall, the temperature was about 57 degrees, and that’s about six degrees above average,” he said. “So, around the 13th warmest on record with 153 years of records.”

As for precipitation, Glisan said rain showers were few and far between last month.

“About 6/10 of an inch below the average,” Glisan said. “There was a swath from southwest through central to north-central Iowa in which we saw above-normal rainfall, and a lot of that rain fell in the last week of October.”

As for the month ahead, he said there are strong signals in the forecast through the first half of November indicating warmer-than-normal temperatures and near-normal precipitation.

Natalie Krebs

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Iowa Public Radio

President Donald Trump endorsed Iowa’s 1st District Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in her race for a fourth term in the U.S. House.

This is the first time since 2020 that Trump has endorsed Miller-Meeks. In a post on social media, Trump called Miller-Meeks “a distinguished medical doctor and Army veteran” who backs his America First policies.

Miller-Meeks said it’s “an incredible honor” to have Trump’s backing, and she’ll keep working with him “to make sure America’s best days are ahead.”

Miller-Meeks faces a rematch next year with GOP primary opponent David Pautsch, who finished 12 points behind her in 2022. She’s likely to face-off in the general election against Christina Bohannan, a Democrat she has faced twice before. A recount of their 2022 race saw Miller-Meeks win by about 800 votes. Bohannan, a University of Iowa law professor, faces two Democrats in the 2026 primary.

Some Midwest soybeans are headed to China. But farmers still need other buyers

China has reversed course and committed to buy 12 million tons of U.S. soybeans this year — that’s about half of what the country typically imports. Some farmers are sending their soybeans to be processed domestically. But it’s not enough to fill the gap.

In recent years, American companies have built up what are known as crushing facilities to turn beans into oil and meal. There are nearly 70 processors in the U.S. and that number is growing, including in Iowa.

Still, domestic soybean crushing can’t make up for what China isn’t buying this year, according to Tanner Ehmke, an economist with the ag lender CoBank.

“China buys, traditionally, about half the soybeans we export, and we can't replace that amount with domestic usage. It's impossible,” he said. “Even if we did, we would have a tremendous amount of soybean meal that we need to find a home for.”

Ehmke said farmers in the upper Midwest will be hit hardest by the trade war, and many will opt to store their soybeans until the markets improve.

Read more from Harvest Public Media’s Will Bauer.

James Kelley

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Iowa Public Radio

Across the country, low-income households that rely on federal assistance to help pay for food are now turning to food pantries. Money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was paused because of the government shutdown, and the federal government stopped providing benefits on Nov. 1. 

Ryan Bobst, executive director of the North Liberty Community Food Pantry, said he expects more people in the community will turn to food banks to feed their families this month.

“I think there's a lot more neighbors that are seeking assistance now, in anticipation of the SNAP cuts going into effect because of the government shutdown,” he said. “So, now that they are experiencing that, we will see what this week brings, but we’re anticipating a surge in demand.” 

Over 270,000 Iowans receive SNAP benefits each year. The Trump administration has agreed to use emergency funds to support roughly half of the usual amount for SNAP benefits in November. 

Read more.

The City of Des Moines had to close its wait list for Section 8 housing vouchers after receiving thousands more applications than expected. It’s the first time the city has had to close the wait list in two decades.

Chris Johansen, director of Neighborhood Services for Des Moines, said the city received about 7,500 applications for its Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program this year. That set a new record and is roughly 3,000 more than last year.

Johansen said the high need for housing might be caused by COVID-19 aftereffects. Since the pandemic, he said there has been a large increase in the cost of rent.
“We've seen, over the last two years, our average housing assistance payment has increased by about $150,” he said. “That’s a straight correlation with the rise in rental rates.”

Johansen said the city is already having trouble meeting the need, and federal funding isn’t covering as many families as it used to.

Des Moines Area Community College is working with Iowa’s congressional delegation to try to revive an online course that had nationwide reach after the Trump administration paused it earlier this year.

Since 2011, DMACC has contracted with the federal government to provide a Homeland Security certification program to the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) screeners at the Des Moines International Airport. The program proved to be very successful over the years and expanded, eventually offering the training online.

“In 2017, the head of TSA flies in from D.C., summons us to the airport, tells us they’ve got 80 colleges and universities doing this training around the country for their particular airports, but they were so happy with DMACC’s program that they terminated 78 of the contracts and gave DMACC 36 states, 220 airports and 24,000 agents to train,” said DMACC President Rob Denson.

In 2019, the federal government gave DMACC the contract for training in all 50 states. Denson said it made 44,000 TSA agents at 440 U.S. airports eligible for the training.

“TSA [paid] their way through the certificate,” Denson said. “If they don’t have a two-year degree, TSA has been paying their way through DMACC online. We have about 500 TSA employees a term working in our online program.”

Students who voluntarily enrolled in the certification course reviewed national security issues, safety concerns and how TSA interacts with other federal agencies, like the U.S. Border Patrol.

Earlier this year, federal officials notified DMACC it was temporarily pausing its support of the program.

“We had six faculty that we had to reassign, but we just don’t have any money, and Sens. Ernst and Grassley and Rep. Nunn are all trying to help us get over this hump because this was a great program,” Denson said. “Clearly good for us, but good for these screeners because we should want them to have Homeland Security expertise as they’re working with the individuals that pass through the airports.”

Madeleine King

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Iowa Public Radio

A new statewide initiative is launching that will help support community gardens that donate fresh produce. The Iowa Donation Garden Network is designed to reach and connect garden organizers through expert-led education, shared resources and collaborative programming.

Alicia Herzog, the Iowa Master Gardener program manager with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, explained how it will work.

“The overarching goal of this network is to empower and connect community donation gardens across Iowa,” Herzog said. “It can feel like you’re an island sometimes, trying to do this work of raising fresh produce to be donated to food pantries in the area and battling food insecurity in the local community.”

There are dozens — perhaps hundreds — of community gardens across Iowa that are helping to feed people in their immediate areas. Through this new network, Herzog said they hope to get a handle on roughly how many gardens are doing this good work across Iowa and how much produce they’re donating.

“We’ll be asking the member gardens to provide us some basic annual reporting metrics that then we can help create a statewide map,” Herzog said. “And we can show all of the communities, all of the counties, that are impacted by these different gardens.”

She said the exact locations won’t be published, as they don’t want gardens to be overrun.

Funding will end this year for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education, referred to as SNAP-Ed, so Herzog said the new network fills a critical gap in statewide support for donation gardens.

“I’m sure that we won’t catch every donation garden that exists in Iowa, but we’re really trying to cast that net wide and far and let any donation garden that exists know that we want you to be a part of this story,” Herzog said. “We want to help tell your story about the good work that you may already be doing in your community and how that fits into the puzzle.”

Informational Zoom sessions to introduce the Iowa Donation Garden Network will be held Tuesday at 9 a.m., noon and 6 p.m.

As the government shutdown continues, the status of a heating assistance program for low-income residents in Iowa is up in the air. Local groups that administer the federal program still don’t know how much money they’ll receive this year.

During past shutdowns, continuing resolutions have helped keep money flowing to fund the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The program helps qualifying households pay their heating bills. 

Danna Buls, executive director of Matura Action Corporation, a group that serves low-income residents of southwest Iowa, said the continuing resolutions helped groups like hers know how much money they could expect.

Now, things are unclear. But Buls said even if funds come later, people who receive LIHEAP will still be safe from having their heat shut off. 

“Even though money might not come to the utility vendor, they know that these people are approved,” she said.

In April, President Donald Trump fired the federal staff that runs LIHEAP, which could lead to more delays in funds going out. 

Many corn and soybean farmers apply fertilizer to their fields in November after the harvest. Agronomists say that timing is key to prevent nutrients from flushing into streams and rivers.

Roughly 25% to 50% of the total anhydrous ammonia fertilizer applied to fields across Iowa occurs in the fall, often to save time around the spring planting.

“Our goal, when we apply nitrogen in the fall, is to do it when the soil temperatures are below 50 degrees and on a downward trend. The reason why we do that is because when you get below 50 degrees, microbial activity in the soil really drops off,” said Richard Roth, a nutrient management specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach.

When the soil is warm and moist, microbes convert ammonium into nitrate. And without living roots to absorb nitrate, it can easily move with water and accumulate downstream.

Agronomists say cover crops planted after harvest can significantly reduce nutrient runoff.

Read more.

The Iowa Board of Regents announced that one of the three scheduled finalists for the Iowa State University presidential search has withdrawn from the process.

Two finalists are scheduled for on-campus visits to ISU next week. They will meet with faculty, staff, students and other stakeholders, then hold a public forum.

The forums are Nov. 5 and Nov. 6 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. each day. A livestream will be available on the Iowa Board of Regents’ website. 

Each finalist’s name and curriculum vitae will be released 24 hours prior to their day on ISU’s campus. The Board of Regents will meet in closed session on Nov. 11 at ISU to select a new president, who will be introduced to the public that evening at 6 p.m.

Current ISU President Wendy Wintersteen will step down in January.

Food access leaders in Johnson County said there will be wide-reaching impacts of the federal government pausing its food assistance payments for low-income families. 

Federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is set to run out because of the government shutdown. The federal government provides around $45 million in SNAP benefits to Iowans each month, including roughly 10,000 Johnson County residents. 

Members of the Johnson County Food Access Network are urging Congress to reopen the government. 

“I think the long-term challenge is that we cannot raise $1.7 million every month to replace SNAP,” said Ryan Bobst, executive director of the North Liberty Food Pantry. “The long-term solution is SNAP benefits and our neighbors having access to the best possible food access possible.” 

Gov. Kim Reynolds pledged $1 million in matching funds from the state for food banks, but some county leaders said it's far from enough.

“Requiring a financial match to secure those funds adds an unnecessary hurdle that will only delay urgent support,” said John Boller, director of the Coralville Community Food Pantry. “This $1 million equates to roughly 2% of funds statewide. This miniscule allocation wouldn’t even cover the monthly cost of SNAP in Johnson County alone.” 

Read more about SNAP funds expiring and state support.

Madeleine Charis King

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Iowa Public Radio

Gov. Kim Reynolds is calling on Iowans to help the state fill the gap from a pause in federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The state will match cash donations to Iowa’s six regional food banks up to $1 million starting Saturday.

Reynolds said Iowa’s Medicaid-managed organizations have already committed to giving $300,000. The donations will be counted once made after Nov. 1.

Reynolds also said the government has an important role to play, but she said people should chip in too. 

“We shouldn't rely on government alone to do a job that we're all called to do,” she said. “We each have a personal responsibility to the people in our communities, especially those in need.”

The governor said people with leftover balances on their SNAP cards can still use those funds. If the government reopens sometime in November, she said people will then receive their full benefits for the month. 

On Friday morning, a federal judge sided with dozens of states arguing the Trump administration must use emergency funds to support SNAP. Iowa Democratic leaders said Iowa should be part of the lawsuit, but Reynolds called it “a waste of time.”
“I think it's ridiculous. I think it's ridiculous and a waste of time. I’m going to say it again, pretty darn simple – five United States senator Democrats need to vote with 53 Republicans and open the government. That’s what they need to do.”

Read more.

Bats often get a bad rap, especially around Halloween. But they eat untold amounts of pests every night, which helps to keep crops healthy and saves farmers money. On some farms, bats might be able to play an even bigger role.

At Swift River Pecans farm in central Texas, small brown bats called evening bats fill the sky each night, collectively eating tons of insects. Troy Swift, owner of the pecan orchard, said bats are essential for his farm.

“Really, what we’re trying to do is figure out what agricultural pests they’re eating,” Swift said. “And we have found they eat a lot of them.”

Researchers have been working on Swift’s orchard to prove that bats are eating pests that destroy his pecans, like the pecan nut casebearer moth. A team of researchers collects samples of bat guano and sends it off to a lab for DNA analysis.

Embracing bats for pest control is part of a broader effort by Swift to produce better pecans by improving the health of his trees and soil. And he’s hoping other farmers follow his example.

“Our job is to work with Mother Nature instead of against her to make the best pecans money can buy. That’s the way we see it,” Swift said.

Swift didn’t always take this more organic approach. When he first bought his orchard in 1998, he protected his trees the way many farmers do: with plenty of chemicals.

Read more about his switch to a natural pest control method from Harvest Public Media’s Michael Marks.

Ailes Detasseling

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Provided

The summer job of seed corn detasseling has become a political issue in Nebraska. Contractors who hire local teenagers claim that seed companies, like Monsanto, prefer migrant workers with H-2A visas over local workers.

The H-2A visa program was introduced in 1986 in response to farm labor shortages, mostly in fruit and vegetable harvesting, that require large amounts of manual labor for extended periods. It allows agricultural employers to bring in foreign workers on temporary visas if they can prove that domestic labor isn’t available.

But current and former contractors said detasseling isn’t like other farm jobs in the country. There are only a few weeks in the summer when the tassels of seed corn plants can be manually removed to ensure proper pollination, and local teenagers on break from school have traditionally done that work.

A 2019 meeting with Nebraska’s then-Gov. Pete Ricketts, Monsanto representatives and contractors marked the beginning of a political effort to keep detasseling in the hands of teenagers and the sourcing of that labor under the control of local business owners.

To address the accusations that seed companies violate H-2A rules by hiring contractors that use H-2A crews instead of available local labor, the Nebraska Legislature passed a law in 2024 with the goal of increasing transparency in detasseling labor practices.

One year after its passage, it’s not clear that the law is working as intended.

Read more about detasseling and how the rules differ in Iowa.

The Iowa and Wisconsin departments of transportation announced a free car ferry service will start Nov. 3 across the Mississippi River between Lansing and Crawford County, Wis.

The 94-year-old Black Hawk Bridge closed to traffic earlier this month as construction on a new bridge continues. The opening is scheduled for fall 2027.

The 12-vehicle ferry will operate seven days a week, with revised schedules on holidays.  It will be open to cars, motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians. Two-axle trucks under 10 tons can also use the ferry.

Crews are dismantling the Black Hawk Bridge and plan to bring down some of the spans with explosives in December. 

For those who don’t want to take the ferry, there are marked detours in both states. The nearest highway bridge is 30 miles south of Lansing.

The Iowa Court of Appeals upheld a $1.8 million penalty against a Texas-based pipeline company that transports products like propane and natural gas.

In 2023, state regulators said Enterprise Products had operated roughly 750 miles of pipeline and underground storage facilities without permits for two decades.

Enterprise claimed the state regulators were wrong about the number of permits it needed, treated Enterprise differently than other pipeline companies and did not have the authority to impose a penalty of more than $200,000.

The Polk County District Court dismissed these claims.

Food banks across the country are trying to stock more food. They’re expecting increased demand because the federal government shutdown has interrupted benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Last year, SNAP enrollment averaged around 260,000 people in Iowa. In November, people enrolled in the program will not receive their monthly stipend to help buy food.

Celia Cole, who leads the statewide food bank group Feeding Texas, said she’s treating it “like any major disaster.”

“We are just doing what we can to bring in the most resources to our network, and like I said, hoping the shutdown will be resolved,” she said.

Cole said food banks are especially looking for canned foods, like vegetables, tuna and chicken, as well as peanut butter, rice and beans.

A group of governors and attorneys general from 25 states recently sued to force the Trump administration to use federal reserve dollars to fund SNAP for November.

Read more from Harvest Public Media’s Michael Marks.

Madeleine Charis King

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Iowa Public Radio

Open enrollment begins Saturday for Iowans who purchase health insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace.

The cost of premiums is set to more than double because federal subsidies for ACA plans expire at the end of this year if Congress doesn’t approve a plan to extend them.
 
On top of that, the Iowa Insurance Commission said insurance carriers are reporting overall premium rate increases going up to more than 25%.

Katherine Hempstead, with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said many people are expected to become uninsured due to a sharp increase in their coverage. 

“At the same time that the tax credits are going away, the insurers are reacting by increasing their premiums because they're expecting that the market is going to get selected against a little bit because healthier people will drop out first,” she said.

Nearly 137,000 Iowans purchase health insurance through the ACA Marketplace.

Open enrollment goes through Jan.15. Here’s what to know before you enroll.

Johnson County is considering possible locations for a proposed jail and law enforcement facility. County supervisors agreed to move forward with plans for a 120-bed jail that could expand by another 20 beds in the future. The facility would also house the sheriff’s office.

Johnson County Board of Supervisors Chair Jon Green said he hopes the county can find a location as soon as possible. 

“We need to identify the location. We need to begin negotiations with whoever owns these sites to come to a purchase agreement,” Green said. “I'm hopeful that whatever location we settle on, we can acquire that property pronto.” 

Green said the money used to purchase the property would be separate from the proposed $99 million bond that the county would put toward building the new facility.

County officials hope to put the bond referendum on next year’s ballot. An estimated $83 million would be used on the facility, and the rest would go toward affordable housing solutions. 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China agreed to buy 12 million tons of U.S. soybeans this season and at least 25 million tons per year for the next three years.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig called the agreement “great news.” In a statement, Naig said the purchase will make a meaningful impact at a tough time for the farm economy.

Iowa is the second-largest producer of soybeans, a crop that relies heavily on export markets. But U.S. soybean shipments last week were roughly half of typical seasonal volumes, according to the University of Missouri Extension.

China is typically the top purchaser, but stopped shipments of U.S. soybeans earlier this year in response to escalating tariffs between the two countries.

Trump told reporters after a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that he would lower tariffs on Chinese products by 10%.

Iowa Soybean Association President Tom Adam said the announcement “addresses many concerns” farmers had around access to China’s markets after months of uncertainty.

“This is great news for American agriculture and for soybean farmers, who have been eager to reestablish a stable and long-term relationship that positions us for success moving forward,” said Adam, who is also a soybean farmer from Harper. “We are very grateful to President Trump for making soybeans a priority in negotiations with China.”

The Iowa Soybean Association said China purchased 22.9 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans during the 2024-2025 marketing year. Over the last decade, exports to China ranged from 28 to 36 million metric tons.

This story was updated to show the state moved up the date it will begin matching cash donations to Iowa food banks to Saturday, Nov. 1 instead of Monday, Nov. 3.

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Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said the state will match cash donations to Iowa food banks up to $1 million starting Nov. 1. She’s also directing state agencies to recruit and deploy volunteers to help at food pantries and food banks, and she has ordered the Iowa National Guard to prepare for state active duty to conduct food distribution missions statewide.

The federal government is withholding funding for November food assistance for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) because of the government shutdown, which affects about 270,000 low-income Iowans. Food banks and pantries have warned that it will cause an unprecedented spike in need during what is typically their busiest month of the year.

Reynolds blamed Democrats in Washington, D.C., for the shutdown because they are withholding support for a Republican funding bill to push for an extension for health care tax credits. 

“It's ridiculous that they're putting Americans and Iowans' lives at risk,” Reynolds said. “It's ridiculous that we've got millions of people that are going to be impacted nationwide.” 

Reynolds said Iowa can’t fund the $45 million a month needed to provide SNAP benefits to Iowans.

The Iowa Department of Education is recognizing four schools for high achievement and for making large improvements in test scores. The Iowa Blue Ribbon Schools awards were given to schools in Albia, Dubuque, Little Rock and Cedar Rapids. 

This is the first year that Iowa is running the initiative. The Blue Ribbon awards were a national program under the U.S. Department of Education, but the department ended it in August as part of a plan to return education to the states.

Jay Pennington, with the Iowa Department of Education, said the agency looks at criteria like test scores, graduation rates and chronic absenteeism to determine the top contenders.

“My team at the Department of Education has had the privilege to nominate schools for the Blue Ribbon Schools award each year,” Pennington said. “We're really excited to take the reins this year, now that the Blue Ribbon Schools as a state-run initiative.”

Chalkbeat reported that the federal government has tried to shut down the program before. Nearly 30 years ago, Congress defunded it, but ultimately brought it back after an outpouring of calls and letters. 

Hundreds of Iowa families won’t have access to their usual child care providers next week because of the government shutdown.

Grants for two Head Start programs in Iowa are expiring this month, and federal workers at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can’t sign off on a renewal during the shutdown.

Lori Ferris, executive director of Iowa Head Start Association, said these programs are important, especially for Iowans living in child care deserts.

“The goal is to break the cycle of poverty, and it really is a multi-generational program,” Ferris said. “So not only do we support the children, but we also empower the parents to better themselves.”

Families enrolled in Head Start programs in eastern and south-central Iowa will need to find other options if school partnerships can’t step in.

Iowa’s birth rate has been falling, along with the national average, since the 1950s, when it peaked. Iowa currently has a rate of 1.7 births per woman. Experts say a rate of 2.1 is needed to sustain the state's population over time.

At the same time, more young people are leaving the state. In recent years, immigration has played a big part in sustaining the state’s population, particularly in its rural communities.

The long-term drop in the birth rate is due to increased opportunities for women and more people focusing on careers, according to David Peters, a sociologist at Iowa State University. But the sharp drop in the last decade has been mostly due to economic strain.

“High housing costs, high mortgage interest rates, all mean that young ... couples looking to start a family, the cost of housing is prohibitive,” he said. “Child care has also gotten very expensive.”

Because of this, immigration has been key to sustaining the state’s population.

Read more.

Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia are suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture for withholding contingency funds for federal food assistance. Federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for low-income families runs out Nov. 1.

Iowa’s 1st District Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks called the lawsuit “political theater.”

She said the best way to fund SNAP is for Democrats to vote for a Republican-led continuing resolution that would reopen the government. Miller-Meeks said the next best way is for them to pass a bill she introduced Friday that would fund SNAP during the shutdown.  

Sen. Chuck Grassley said a third term for President Donald Trump would require a change to the Constitution that could not happen in time for 2028.

While taking questions from reporters on a trade mission to Asia this week, Trump said he loves the idea of serving a third term and added he hadn’t thought about it. In fact, he has floated the idea before, and former top advisor Steve Bannon told a journalist last week that there’s a “plan” to keep Trump in office.

Speaking to reporters, Grassley said Congress would have to amend the Constitution to allow a third term.

“If we would pass something right now, which would take a two-thirds vote in the United States Senate, and you know you would not get a two-thirds vote in the United States Senate ... But let's just say we did, it takes about three and a half years for the whole process on an average to get a constitutional amendment through the three-quarters of the state Legislatures,” Grassley said.
 
The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, limits the number of terms a president can serve to no more than two. Grassley characterized the idea of Trump serving a third term “all talk and not serious."

Madeleine Charis King

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Iowa Public Radio

A long-running Halloween tradition in central Iowa is coming to an end this year. Beggars’ Night, where kids in the Des Moines metro trick-or-treat on Oct. 30, will officially move to Halloween night.

Bad weather last year pushed trick-or-treating to Oct. 31 for the first time since 1938. Clive Mayor John Edwards said many residents decided they liked it better that way.

“There had been concerns over time about Beggars’ Night and the timing of it,” Edwards said. “And with what happened last year, with the weather and it was moved to Halloween, that seemed to be a success for many of the communities.”
A metro-wide survey found Halloween drew nearly twice as many votes as holding trick-or-treating on Beggars’ Night.

Read more about the origin of Beggars’ Night.

A federal judge ruled in favor of a man in the U.S. without legal status who was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs in northwest Iowa.

Armando Garcia Picazo sued the Woodbury County sheriff and federal officials after he was denied release on bond. He has been held in a jail in Sioux City since early August.

Garcia Picazo’s attorney, Guy Weinstein, said his client doesn’t have a criminal record and has a strong case to stay in the country legally.

“What this administration is doing is making it really, really challenging for anyone who's caught up in immigration detention to be released,” Weinstein said.

Judge Leonard Strand ruled that Garcia Picazo should be out on bond while he awaits a hearing before an immigration judge.

Weinstein said his client came to the U.S. from Mexico nine years ago and that he has worked in the Sioux City metro as a mechanic.

Second District Rep. Ashley Hinson said President Donald Trump’s trip to Asia this week to hold trade talks with the president of China shows his commitment to American farmers.

China has stopped buying American soybeans because of trade disputes between the two countries. But officials from the U.S. and China said they’ve made progress toward a deal.

Hinson, who is running for U.S. Senate in 2026, said Trump has been working nonstop to put America first on the world stage.

“It’s great to see things moving in the right direction for our soybean farmers — promising news when China’s potentially agreeing to buy substantial amounts of our soybeans,” she said. “And as we wait for more details on that deal, I will continue working with the administration to expand market access for our Iowa farmers and secure new trade deals.”

Democratic Senate candidate Josh Turek said Trump’s tariffs are chaotic and are causing a “farmageddon” in Iowa. He said farmers need markets to sell their products, not government handouts to make up for lost profits.

“Our farmers are the very best in the world here in Iowa. We’ve got a long history of feeding the world and doing it better than anyone else. And it is due to these chaotic tariffs that we’re seeing our farmers have an inability to make a living for themselves,” Turek said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley said prices for supplies are squeezing farmers at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. The Republican questioned representatives of the seed and fertilizer industries about consolidation and competition.

Grassley said he often hears farmers say they don’t have real choices when it comes to seeds and fertilizers.

“We want better yields, healthier soils, quality products, and we’ve been vastly improving in that area for the last 40 years,” he said. “But we also want competition that’s fair, transparent and local competition that a farmer can expect when he or she sits down to make a purchase.”

Three companies dominate fertilizer production in North America, according to Farm Action.

The Fertilizer Institute’s President and CEO Corey Rosenbusch said higher prices in recent years are due to sanctions, tariffs and higher demand from U.S. corn growers.

Grassley is cosponsoring the Fertilizer Research Act, which would require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct a study on competition in the fertilizer market and its impact on price.

Iowa State University

The Iowa Board of Regents announced the dates of the public forums where finalists to be the next president of Iowa State University will address the public.

The ISU Presidential Search Committee conducted interviews with eight semifinalists last week and recommended four finalists for campus visits. Three candidates accepted and will appear at forums at ISU’s Memorial Union Nov. 4 - 6 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Each candidate’s name will be announced publicly 24 hours prior to their day on ISU’s campus.  At that time, the candidate’s curriculum vitae will be made available on both the Board of Regent’s website and the ISU presidential search website.

ISU’s Office of the President will provide a live stream of each public forum next week.

NextEra Energy signed an agreement to supply Google with nuclear power generated at the Duane Arnold Energy Center in eastern Iowa. The deal comes as Google is growing its cloud and AI infrastructure in the state. 

In a joint statement, NextEra Energy and Google said the 25 year agreement will help meet growing energy demand for artificial intelligence. It's estimated to create 400 full-time jobs and generate over $9 billion in economic benefits for Iowa. 

Under the agreement, Google will purchase power from the 615 megawatt Duane Arnold facility, which produces nuclear energy. The plant was decommissioned after the 2020 derecho, but NextEra hopes to have it open again by 2029 and is awaiting federal regulatory approval. 

Earlier this year, Google announced a $7 billion investment in Iowa. The company is in the process of building a data center in southwest Cedar Rapids. Linn County supervisors said Google has approached them about building another data center near the energy facility as well. 

The first forum featuring all five Republican candidates running in Iowa’s 4^th Congressional District took place Monday night. The event was held by Iowa’s Faith and Freedom Coalition in Treynor. It started with a prayer, followed by a discussion of issues important to Christian conservatives.

The five candidates gave answers on topics like the growing national debt, abortion and property rights.

The field of five includes four who have never served in office before: Chris McGowan of Sioux City, Ryan Rhodes of Ames, Christian Schlaefer of Lakota and Douglas Jensen of Silver City.

Former Iowa House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl of Missouri Valley focused on his political experience.

“For all the successes we've had in Iowa, we can do the same thing in Washington, D.C.,” Windschitl said. “But we need somebody that knows how to get the job done on day one and can figure out how to build those consensuses. I've been doing it.”

The candidates appeared to support each other as they each stressed why Republican voters should pick them to win the June primary.

The Democrats looking to move on to the general election are former state lawmaker and prosecutor Dave Dawson of Lawton, stay-at-home mom Ashley WolfTornabane of Storm Lake and Stephanie Steiner of rural Sutherland.

Lucia Cheng

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Iowa Public Radio

Iowa’s 4th District U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra officially launched his campaign for governor.

The Republican from Hull was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020, and he previously served in the Iowa Legislature.

In a statement Tuesday, Feenstra said as governor he would have a “workhorse mentality.” He said he will work with President Donald Trump to advance his “America First agenda in Iowa” and to defend conservative values.

There are three other Republicans running for the GOP nomination for governor, and a fourth is still exploring a potential campaign. The winner of the Republican primary is expected to face Democratic State Auditor Rob Sand in 2026.

Read more.

While the number of grain elevators nationwide has dropped by more than 2,000 in the past 25 years, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture grain stocks reports, Ely's grain elevator in Nebraska has stood since 1896. It’s helped sustain the local farming community for generations and grown its operation, even as its town of Guide Rock has lost residents and businesses.

Now, in a year of market uncertainty and grain surplus, the elevator is growing again.

This year’s supply is predicted to surpass traditional upright grain storage capacity in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, according to a CoBank analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Ely’s, along with other elevators in the region, is setting up temporary storage to make up for the shortage. And, low crop prices are expected to delay sales, prolonging storage needs.

The USDA is projecting a record-breaking corn harvest and a higher-than-expected soybean yield per acre. John Ely, the elevator’s fourth-generation owner, said favorable weather conditions in the Midwest and increased corn acres have pushed production even higher.

Read more.

Since Congress has not agreed on a spending bill, federal funding for SNAP will run out soon. Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who represents Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, introduced a bill that would fund the program until Congress reopens the government. She says it would cost roughly $9 billion a month.

“As the shutdown persisted, we wanted to allow Americans and children to receive SNAP benefits and to provide access to emergency funds, and also, importantly, to give the Secretary of Agriculture authority to restore missed benefits,” Miller-Meeks said.

Miller-Meeks said Democrats are holding the government hostage by demanding an extension of enhanced premium tax credits for people who buy health coverage through an Affordable Care Act marketplace. Those tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year.

Aaron Brecht, with the Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, said demand at the Cedar Rapids food bank has increased since it became clear SNAP benefits would run out in November.

“People are going to need food and we’re trying to address that as much as we can. So one of the ways is to purchase more inventory,” Brecht said. “All of us are tipping over every can to see where there might be more food donations.”

Brecht said one of the food bank’s partner agencies saw around 20 walk-in customers in the last week, up from around six in a normal week.

It is peak pumpkin season. From pumpkin spice lattes to pumpkin pies, our love affair with this orange gourd is bigger than ever. But few people devote more time and attention to them than the thriving community of Midwestern growers raising giant pumpkins.

These often-amateur horticulturists work in their patches for hours a day to grow the heaviest pumpkins possible. They do it for the love of growing, for the smile pumpkins put on people’s faces, and – for the elite – even a bit of money.

Joe Adkins has won the Illinois Giant Pumpkin Growers Association's annual weigh-off – along with the $1,000 cash prize – multiple years in a row. Last year, he also cracked a personal milestone: his first 2,000 pound pumpkin.

During the summer growing season when pumpkins can pack on more than 50 pounds in a single day, caring for these behemoths is basically a full-time job.

“It's literally like four or five hours a day,” Adkins said. “I've got a schedule on Sundays and Tuesdays, I do about eight hours, and all the rest of the days, I have to do a minimum of two to four hours.”

Growers like Adkins hone their craft for years, hoping to someday hit the perfect combination of the best seed in the best soil in the best weather and land the white whale: a world record-setting pumpkin.

Read more.

A soybean disease with no cure yet has reached Minnesota for the first time.

Red Crown Rot broke into the Midwest in Illinois in 2018. It has since been detected in Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin.

It’s a fungus that rots soybeans' roots, creating a toxin that destroys the bean's leaves. So far, scientists haven't found a way to stop it.

Dean Malvick, a University of Minnesota Extension specialist, said his team doesn't yet know how the disease spreads or where it could be next.

“That's one of the challenges. If we knew exactly how it's spreading, we could focus our efforts more in that way, but we don't know yet,” he said.

Malvick said because Red Crown Rot was detected in Minnesota in the fall, it gives his team time to study it and prepare for the spring planting season.

Alex Watters, a northwest Iowa city council member and disability advocate, said he isn’t running for reelection, in part because of the current political climate.

He said things have changed since he was first appointed to the Sioux City City Council in 2017.

“You're seeing inflamed dialogue and people, you know, making claims that they can't back up or coming to city council meetings and being unruly and unreasonable,” Watters said. “The disrespect that we are really experiencing in, not only political discourse, but just conversations today, is very different than when I started eight years ago.”

Two other council members, Dan Moore and Matthew O’Kane, will not be on the ballot next Tuesday. This means a majority of the Sioux City Council will be new.

A spinal cord injury left Watters a quadriplegic in his first year of college. He said he plans to continue advocating for people with disabilities.

A district court judge issued an injunction Friday preventing the removal of materials from the State Historical Society’s research library in Iowa City. The decision is the result of a lawsuit filed by 17 historians and donors of historical artifacts.

Judge Kevin McKeever also denied a request from the Department of Administrative Services and the State Historical Society to dismiss the case.

The Department of Administrative Services is seeking to close the Iowa City facility because of an $800,000 budget shortfall. But, historians and former employees say Historical Society buildings in Des Moines lack the space to house all the artifacts, and they worry parts of the collection could be privatized or destroyed.

Earlier this month, Iowa Prison Industries workers were seen loading boxes from the Iowa City building onto a truck.

Iowa’s state climatologist is helping cover some of the gaps left by the government shutdown. Justin Glisan said the National Weather Service continues to prioritize protecting life and property despite the shutdown and recent budget cuts that also include the USDA.

“Morale is low and you put on top of this the government shutdown, these are professionals and they do their job whether they get paid or not,” Glisan said.

He said some National Weather Service employees have been furloughed, and he has been helping fill media requests and provide data for the weekly crop report. Fortunately, Glisan said, the weather has been calm this fall.

Glisan made his comments during IPR’s River to River.