Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa’s congressional delegation are calling the agriculture secretary to relocate USDA research projects to central Iowa. Iowa was not included in the plan released this summer that would shift most USDA employees out of the Washington, D.C., metro to cities in five other states.

Reynolds, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and Iowa’s four U.S. representatives have signed onto a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, citing Iowa’s low cost of living for employees who might move from the nation’s capital, as well as the real-world experience USDA researchers would find in Iowa’s fields.

Grassley said Ames is a prime location because of its existing relationship with the USDA.

“Ames has the means and the USDA relationship needed to provide a very smooth transition since it’s already got a large concentration of USDA facilities and employees,” Grassley said.

Rollins said she plans to start shifting functions at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland to other sites and permanently close the facility in a few years.

“The current facility in Maryland is named after a native Iowan and former Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace,” Grassley said. “Seems very fitting because of Henry Wallace, locate some of that facility’s ag research to its namesake’s home.”

Four units of the Agricultural Research Center are already located in Ames, including its National Animal Disease Center. Grassley said Iowa State University works closely with those facilities and USDA researchers use ISU’s high-performance computing services.

“Ongoing projects at the Beltsville Research Facility in Maryland, right outside of Washington, align with the efforts that have been happening at Iowa State University for decades,” Grassley said.

The Johnson County sheriff is trying to build a new jail without help from Iowa City officials. Both the county and the city agreed to move forward with discussions about the new facility, but Sheriff Brad Kunkel recently said he doesn't see a path forward.  

The county will need 60% approval from voters — a threshold that has not been met when bonds for a new jail have appeared on the ballot before. But Kunkel said he’s optimistic that people will support the measure if it goes to voters next November.

“I really think the climate has really changed on this, in the county, especially since the last failed referendums,” Kunkel said. “One of the loud messages that came from that was the public wanted to see more work done in the world of jail diversion.” 

Diversion is when law enforcement connects individuals who have encountered the justice system with community agencies and services. Kunkel said both utilizing diversion strategies and making sure law enforcement has the appropriate resources to do its job are important. 

Construction of the new jail is expected to cost roughly $80 million.

Sheila Brummer

/

Iowa Public Radio

Former Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts has been moved out of the Woodbury County jail in Sioux City and transferred to federal custody, according to the Woodbury County Sheriff’s Office.

Roberts was being held at the northwest Iowa county jail since Friday, when he was arrested in Des Moines by immigration agents.

The Woodbury County Sheriff’s Office said Roberts was taken into custody by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on a federal warrant for his arrest. The DOJ didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa said it has no public information to provide at this time.

A fundraising effort in eastern Iowa this month will feature dozens of straw-stuffed scarecrows with the goal of scaring up awareness and donations to help feed the hungry.

Cynthia Freese, director of Made in Iowa, said Cedar Rapids will host the Scarecrow Festival on Oct. 18 at Hawkeye Downs.

“We do the Made in Iowa markets, and this year we decided to incorporate a Scarecrow Festival,” Freese said, “And we’ve had just over 50 people sign up to bring their scarecrows down. So I’m pretty excited that it’s turning out well.”

The Scarecrow Festival is modeled after the Festival of Trees, where each individually crafted holiday tree is put on display and auctioned off for charity. The Made in Iowa market will feature 150 vendors with a variety of handmade goods, treats, crafts and one-of-a-kind art. There will also be a series of contests to judge the crop of scarecrows.

Freese said 10% of all ticket proceeds go to support Together We Achieve, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting hunger in eastern Iowa. Admission is $5.

Joshua Foo Photography

/

Courtesy of The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy and Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium are partnering to conserve native habitat in Iowa while improving animal care.
 
Zoo staff are cutting and removing invasive trees and shrubs at the Nature Conservancy’s Folsom Point Preserve, a 281-acre remnant prairie near Council Bluffs.
 
The harvested branches are then fed to elephants, giraffes, macaws and other zoo animals. Animal welfare experts said providing “browse” helps promote natural feeding behaviors and diversifies the animals’ diets.

The Sioux City International Film Festival has been left scrambling after the movie theater where it hosts its events closed unexpectedly Wednesday.

Festival President Leslie Werden said the staff is waiting to hear if the theater can reopen for the festival Thursday night. A note on the theater’s door stated that the landlord took possession of the building because the tenant didn’t pay rent.

“The initial shock was like, ‘OK, what’s next?’” Werden said. “I mean, I didn't even stop for a second to say, ‘Oh no, this is terrifying, we're not gonna have the film festival.’ My question to myself and to my board was, ‘Where do we go from here and what do we do?”

Werden said the film festival will still go on, even if it has to find a new venue.

Kathleen Masterson

/

Harvest Public Media

Homeland Security is expected to ramp up immigration enforcement on agricultural worksites in the coming months. Legal experts say there are steps employers can take ahead of time.

Kristiana Coutu, senior counsel for the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation at Iowa State University, recommended farmers work with an attorney to develop a plan for potential immigration actions. That plan could include designating someone to engage with immigration officers, asking for identification and knowing what’s allowed under different warrants.

“And then be able to understand how to then communicate that to either the owner or the attorney, or whoever else, I think is just really good practice for all employers,” she said.

Employers cannot impede an investigation or tell employees what they can or can’t say. But Coutu said they can document the immigration officers’ activities and ask where employees are being detained to share with their emergency contacts.

Read more.

Iowa’s Republican-led congressional delegation is calling for an end to the federal government shutdown that began at midnight.

Sen. Joni Ernst said that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is the “non-essential government employee of the year” for “silly government shutdown shenanigans.” And Sen. Chuck Grassley said the shutdown is meant to “appease radicals” in the Democratic Party.

Iowa’s 4^th District Rep. Randy Feenstra said Democrats are making “unreasonable demands” and 1^st District Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks called it “political theater.”

Iowa’s 2^nd District Rep. Ashley Hinson said the shutdown is creating chaos, and 3^rd District Rep. Zach Nunn used the phrase “D.C. dysfunction” to describe the situation.

Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said the Iowa Republicans in Congress are failing to address “a looming health care crisis” by refusing to extend tax credits for up to 130,000 Iowans who buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn and Feenstra announced they will forgo congressional pay during the shutdown. Most members of Congress receive a $174,000 annual salary, a level set in 2009. The U.S. House issues paychecks to members and staff on the final day of the month, so their last paycheck was the day before the shutdown, on Sept. 30.

Mary Bennett

Seventeen historians and collection donors are suing the State Historical Society of Iowa to stop the closure of the Iowa City archives.

The Department of Administrative Services is closing the research library because of an $800,000 budget gap. Petitioners said there’s not enough room for the whole collection in Des Moines and they’re worried parts of it might be privatized or possibly destroyed.

Donors of these collections said state administrators have violated their contracts to protect their artifacts. 

Naomi Delkamiller/The Midwest Newsroom

Federal authorities are allowing protesters back onto a portion of the lawn outside an immigration enforcement office in Cedar Rapids. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security reopened a section of the lawn for people protesting President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda after officers blocked it off in recent weeks.  

Alejandra Escobar, the lead organizer of the immigrants’ rights group Escucha Mi Voz, said being on the lawn means they can better communicate with people waiting in line for their check-ins with immigration enforcement authorities.

“They are giving us crumbs. This is crumbs,” Escobar said. “But for now, we’re going to keep you safe, and we’re going to have to agree with this today. Not always.” 

Another organizer with the group said he was able to learn that one person had been detained at his check-in appointment because the lawn had been reopened.

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office said the deadly shooting of a man in August by officers in western Iowa was justified.

A trooper tried to stop 48-year-old Michael Broyles of Missouri on Interstate 29 on Aug. 27. Investigators said he kept going and when he stopped a few miles down the road, he pointed a double-barreled shotgun at the trooper. Broyles took off and then stopped near an overpass near Council Bluffs. Officers used pepper ball guns to try and take Broyles into custody.

The Pottawattamie County attorney held a news conference Wednesday saying five different officers fired their weapons after Broyles fired at them.

Broyles was convicted of another armed stand-off in Alaska in 2012. He told family members he would force law enforcement officers to kill him before going back to jail.

Madeleine Charis King

An environmental group has started a crowdfunding campaign to keep a statewide water monitoring system up and running. The monitoring system is run by the University of Iowa, but its funding is set to run out next year.

The Iowa Water Quality Information System provides real-time data on water quality in Iowa’s lakes and waterways, including nitrate levels.

Dale Braun, president of the Iowa Division of the Izaak Walton League of America, said the organization wants to keep the program running for at least another year.
“That cost is approximately $500,000 per year, which works out to about $8,500 per monitoring station,” he said. “There's about 60 that the University of Iowa has — these water monitoring stations — all around the state of Iowa.”

At one time, the university operated up to 60 sensors, but there are currently 50 that are up and running.

The program was funded by the Iowa Nutrient Research Center at Iowa State University, but that money was diverted in the 2023 state budget and funding will run out in July 2026.

High nitrate levels in the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers led to a multi-week lawn watering ban in the Des Moines metro area this summer. Braun said that demonstrates why the system is needed now more than ever.

Lucia Cheng

/

Iowa Public Radio

The Des Moines School Board unanimously approved Superintendent Ian Roberts’ resignation at a special session Tuesday. The decision came after Roberts’ attorney shared his resignation letter stating that Roberts did not want to distract from educating Des Moines Public Schools students.

DMPS Board Chair Jackie Norris said the school board gave Roberts the chance to provide more information through his attorney to back up his claims around his citizenship. She said Roberts did not provide the requested information and instead submitted a letter of resignation. 

Norris called the situation “sad” and “troubling,” but said the board had to fulfill their duties. 

“As Des Moines School Board members, we have a responsibility to uphold the law, to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and to lead the district forward in the best way possible,” she said.

A day earlier, the board placed Roberts on unpaid administrative leave after the State Board of Educational Examiners revoked his educational license on Sunday.

Roberts was arrested by U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Des Moines on Friday.

Read more.

Naomi Delkamiller

/

The Midwest Newsroom

Iowa law requires public school districts to test for radon by 2027, but it does not contain enforcement measures or include private schools.

Early tests show radon levels in some classrooms reached as high as 10 times the EPA-recommended action level. Those schools have mitigated the radioactive gas, according to the nonprofit Energy Association of Iowa Schools, which facilitates the process for hundreds of districts. But many districts have yet to test their buildings.

State Rep. Ken Croken, D-Davenport, said he will push new legislation this winter to enforce compliance and cover private schools, too. Croken backed a similar measure last year with additional safety requirements that failed.

“That, perhaps, made the issue too complicated,” he said. “And this year, I’d like to try an approach that singles out radon in a separate bill.”

Croken said he began drafting legislation to strengthen the existing law after he was contacted for this report.

Read more from The Midwest Newsroom’s Nick Loomis.

Lucius Pham

/

Iowa Public Radio

Des Moines Public Schools learned Tuesday that the district is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for “race-based employment practices” that the DOJ said may be discriminatory.

In a letter to Interim Superintendent Matt Smith, the department points to the district’s affirmative action plan from 2021 and the district’s strategic plan, which discuss hiring and retaining more teachers of color.

The department also points to a partnership with local colleges aimed at recruiting and hiring more “minority” teachers in Des Moines schools.

The DOJ letter does not mention Ian Roberts, but comes days after his arrest by federal immigration officers. IPR News asked the DOJ if there was any connection with the new investigation. The DOJ responded that it had no further comment. Roberts was the district’s first Black superintendent.

Soybean producers across the country are harvesting their crop. But China, their biggest international customer, hasn't placed a single order for the upcoming market year.

China buys over half of all exported American soybeans, and its absence has sent soybean farmers scrambling for options to sell their beans. One option is storing the beans until spring, which farmers like Caylor Rosenau from North Dakota said carries its own set of issues. 
“I've talked to many neighbors now, and they've said, if we get filled up, our bins get filled up with beans and corn, we can't store both of them,” he said.

Instead, producers could sell to local crushers that process the beans into oil and meal and then sell it to other countries directly. But Rosenau said it’s a Band-Aid to a problem where the only cure might be a deal with China.

Read more from Harvest Public Media’s Tadeo Ruiz Sandoval.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley voiced skepticism about a proposal from the Trump administration to use revenue from tariffs to fund a farm aid package.

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case challenging President Donald Trump’s authority to unilaterally impose tariffs. Grassley cautioned that if the court rules against the administration, tariff revenue would have to be paid back.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Grassley said he also didn’t agree with how a $28 billion farm bailout was funded during Trump’s first term.

“The money came out of the Commodity Credit Corporation in the Department of Agriculture,” he said. “That may have been legal, I'm not questioning the legality of it. But I want to change that back so that this help has to come as an act of Congress.”

Grassley was also critical of how the Biden administration used the Commodity Credit Corporation.

He said he has spoken to Secretary of Agricultural Brooke Rollins, who wants to find help for family farmers “one way or another,” and he supports those efforts.

New data shows clinician-provided abortions in Iowa dropped 39% when comparing the first half of 2025 to the first half of 2024. 

The Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, also found the number of people traveling to Iowa for abortion care dropped from about 150 to zero in that same time frame. 

The shift happened after a state law went into effect in July of last year banning abortion when cardiac activity is detected, which can be as early as six weeks of pregnancy. The law has exceptions for rape, incest, life of the pregnant person and fetal abnormalities. 

Isabel DoCampo with the Guttmacher Institute said six weeks is not a lot of time for a person to identify that they are pregnant, make a decision and take action.

“It is really a quite restrictive measure that I think really impacts people's ability to get care,” she said. “So this is a real problem for folks in Iowa looking to access this type of care.”

Anti-abortion rights supporters have celebrated the state’s drop in abortions, saying the law is saving lives. 

Iowa schools have seen a big jump in the number of students participating in work-based learning.

The Iowa Department of Education recently reported 45% of the class of 2025 took part in work-based learning. One northwest Iowa school district has been embracing that approach for more than a decade.

Vance Dudley, a senior at West High School in Sioux City, has explored his passion for podcasting at a studio located in the district’s Career Academy. The academy is where students from the region learn about 30 different career pathways and can even earn college credit and intern with local businesses.

“The work you want to go into, you're not going to know what it's like by just learning about [it],” Dudley said. “You're going to know by working the work you go into, and this gives you an opportunity to do that and to see if you like it.”

Dudley said he dreams of attending The Juilliard School in New York to study acting or Duke University for law. Either way, he said the skills he is learning while hosting a podcast as an intern for the Sioux City Community School District will help.

Lucius Pham

/

Iowa Public Radio

Ian Roberts is resigning from his position as superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools after he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week.

His attorney, Alfredo Parrish, provided the resignation letter Tuesday at a news conference. The letter states that Roberts doesn’t want to distract from educating DMPS students.

The Des Moines School Board previously said it would meet to discuss terminating Roberts’ contract Tuesday evening if they did not receive more information from Roberts’ lawyers by noon. The board is still planning to meet because the resignation does not take effect until the board approves it.

The board met Monday to place Roberts on unpaid administrative leave after the Iowa Department of Education revoked his license.

Parrish said he’s filing a motion to reopen Roberts’ immigration case in addition to a motion filed Monday to stay Roberts’ deportation.

“I’m going to share a letter that was received from the prior attorney telling his case has been closed successfully, and he was under the impression that it had been,” Parrish said.

Parrish said he’s still trying to “dig through” whether Roberts was authorized to work in the U.S. when he was hired by DMPS in 2023. He said he still doesn’t have access to Roberts’ full immigration file.  

Read more.

Madeleine Charis King

/

Iowa Public Radio

At high schools across Des Moines, students are walking out of class Tuesday to protest Superintendent Ian Roberts’ detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The walkouts started with Des Moines high school students from Central Campus marching up to the governor’s mansion. The crowd stretched for blocks down the street and cars honked as the students walked and chanted things like, “We want justice, not just ice.”

Some students spoke in front of their peers, including one who said they’re taking time out of school to speak up against what they see as illegal ICE detentions. They said protesting is a way to stand up for the rights of every person, no matter their race or identity.

More than 100 students at Hoover High School joined the walk-out Tuesday morning. Teachers and school administrators monitored traffic in front of the school as the student protesters walked up and down the block chanting anti-ICE slogans.

Read more.

Madeleine Charis King

/

IPR News

The Des Moines City Council is considering giving the metro area’s largest homeless shelter a one-time grant to add more beds. The grant would fund 20 more beds for Central Iowa Shelter and Services in downtown Des Moines.

At the same time, the council is looking at stricter enforcement of the city’s ban on camping in public areas. The change would end an exception to the rule when shelters are full or when a person cannot afford the $15 fine.

Council member Chris Coleman said the change would help persuade more people to use the resources available to them.
“We want them to believe that we think there's a better place for them than living on the unhealthy and unsafe streets of Des Moines,” he said. “We want them in shelter. We want them in services where they can begin to turn their life around.”

Council member Josh Mandelbaum voted against the changes because more people experiencing homelessness could have citations on their records.

The items passed 5-2 on the first vote, but they must pass two more times to take effect.

The Cedar Rapids Community School District ended its partnership with a local organization that aims to help students of color achieve their academic goals.

In a letter sent to families and staff, the district said its 30-year partnership with the Academy for Scholastic and Personal Success was ended to comply with federal directives issued last week.

The U.S. Department of Education also told the district to make sure no hiring or recruitment incentives would be offered to employees on the basis of race. The district said any hiring incentives in the future would be in line with federal laws.

Superintendent Tawana Grover said in a statement she regrets if any past practices caused confusion about the district's goals to provide educational opportunities for everyone. 

Naomi Delkamiller/The Midwest Newsroom

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security taped off part of the public lawn outside the Cedar Rapids Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office multiple times this month without a permit from the city. 

Immigrant rights group Escucha Mi Voz Iowa said the action undermines city ordinances and disregards residents’ constitutional rights. The group routinely gathers outside the office to support immigrant families at check-in appointments. 

Earlier this month, the perimeter has pushed the gatherings into the street and the Cedar Rapids Police Department was called to manage traffic. 

The city of Cedar Rapids met with DHS Tuesday morning, according to Escucha Mi Voz organizer David Goodner. The group also sent a letter outlining their concerns to the city Monday, but has yet to hear back. 

The University of Northern Iowa is kicking off the year-long celebration of its 150th anniversary this week with a series of events for students, staff, alumni and families.

Randy Pilkington, co-chair of UNI’s Sesquicentennial Celebration, said the first in a long list of festivities on the Cedar Falls campus was the premiere of a ceremonial bell that was rung for the first time Monday morning in Commons Plaza.

University of Northern Iowa

“The Sesquicentennial Bell is a special bell that was cast just for our 150th anniversary,” Pilkington said. “This will be a ceremonial bell that will be close to our Campanile and used for special occasions, like the beginning of the school year, the end of the school year and other celebrations.”

The grand opening of a sesquicentennial exhibit at the campus’ Rod Library was also held on Monday. The exhibit showcases UNI’s evolution over its 15-decade history.

“Starting with the Orphans’ Home after the Civil War, moving to the State Normal School, which was started in 1876, and then all the way up to the university we have today,” Pilkington said. “It’ll be a great opportunity for those who went to the Iowa State Teachers College or the State College of Iowa to go in and look at the artifacts and the history and everything that happened at UNI over the last 150 years.”

This week’s signature events include the Sesquicentennial Kickoff and Homecoming Bash on Friday, which Pilkington said will be a campus-wide celebration filled with rallies for Panther pride. The plan is for the celebration’s momentum to carry on into the fall of 2026.

“We’ll be celebrating the entire year going forward, and then next year, on Homecoming on Oct. 10, we’ll have the big celebration and the culmination and the ending of our 150th year,” he said. “Everything wraps up next year, but between now and then, we’ll be having a lot of events.”

He said the sesquicentennial is not only a milestone for the campus, but for the entire Cedar Valley and the state of Iowa.

The city of Lansing in northeast Iowa wants everyone to know that it will be open for business during a two-year stretch without a bridge across the Mississippi River.

The Blackhawk Bridge carries an estimated 2,200 vehicles each day from Lansing to Crawford County, Wis. Construction on a new bridge — just to the north — has caused structural issues with the 94-year-old Blackhawk Bridge, leading the Iowa and Wisconsin departments of transportation to move up the scheduled demolition to mid-October.

Jackie Cooper, with the group Main Street Lansing, said the initial news of the closure devastated business owners. But learning that there will be a car ferry beginning this fall provided some relief.

“It's kind of giving everyone an, ’OK, we can survive this. It'll be OK. People still can cross the river,’” she said. “It will be hard, don't get me wrong. But the biggest message is just to stay positive. We are open and now is the time to come and support Lansing and the surrounding communities as well.”

Cooper said local businesses are holding a Makers on Main event on Oct. 5 as one of several events planned to help support the local economy.

The new $140 million bridge is scheduled to open in the fall of 2027.

Some environmental experts said restarting a nuclear plant in eastern Iowa could have a negative impact on the environment and on efforts to expand renewable energy sources.

NextEra Energy has been filing paperwork to reopen the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Palo, citing growing demands from the tech sector. The nuclear power plant was operational for 45 years before it was decommissioned after the 2020 derecho.

The Sierra Club of Iowa held a news conference on Monday with environmental experts from around the country. They discussed Next Era’s process of restarting the plant and said the company should explore wind, solar and water power opportunities instead of nuclear, which is not a renewable energy source.

Don Safer, co-chair of the Sierra Club’s nuclear free team, said Duane Arnold's design is outdated and it’s difficult to determine the integrity of certain components inside the reactor. 

“The possibilities of component failure and a serious accident increase as these reactors age, and the compounding problem of disuse for an over five-year period now, but it’ll be many more years, if ever, before they could get that reactor going again,” Safer said. 

NextEra gained approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in August to abandon three proposed solar plants and instead reconnect Duane Arnold to Iowa’s electricity grid. The company expects to spend $50-100 million by the end of this year to have the proposed plant open in 2028. 

A quarterly trade report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture no longer includes a written analysis to explain its data. The change has some economists worried about transparency.

The Outlook for U.S. Agricultural Trade is a forecast of imports and exports for products, such as rice and coffee, that is assembled by the USDA. Some economists say that omitting the analysis makes these reports less useful, including Carlisle Ford Runge, an economics and law professor at the University of Minnesota.

“It would seem to me that it reduces the value of the information that is available to analysts of all kinds,” Runge said.

The two most recent reports only included the data. Politico reported that the Trump administration delayed the May report because it showed the agricultural trade deficit going up.

A USDA spokesperson said the department is reviewing the report and others to "determine the best way to publish these datapoints" in the future.

Read more from Harvest Public Media’s Michael Marks.

Hundreds of people gathered in downtown Iowa City last Friday to protest federal immigration officers violently detaining a grocery store employee the day before.

Federal officers chased Jorge Gonzalez, 27, into the middle of the Bread Garden Market in Iowa City before pinning him to the ground and threatening to shock him with an electric Taser. Videos of the arrest were circulated widely on social media. 

The immigrants’ rights group Escucha Mi Voz organized the protest demanding Gonzalez be released. Gonzalez’s partner, Mary Laura Castro, said she doesn't understand why he was arrested. Emily Sinwell with Iowa City Catholic Worker translated for her. 

“I’m here today because I don’t want this to happen again,” Castro said in Spanish. “I want them to stop violating our rights as immigrants.”

Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague said Gonzalez arrived in Iowa last November to reunite with his partner and infant son. Gonzalez is currently being held in the Linn County jail on federal immigration charges.

Kyle Larsen for Congress

One of the five Republicans running for Iowa’s 4^th Congressional District dropped out of the race and threw his support behind another Republican candidate.

Kyle Larsen, a farm and land appraiser from Humboldt, said that trying to win an election takes more money and time away from family than he can spare.

He plans to help advise Republican candidate Chris McGowan with agricultural issues instead. McGowan is the head of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce in Sioux City.

The other Republicans in the race are state Rep. Matt Windschitl of Missouri Valley, Iowa Tea Party Founder Ryan Rhodes of Ames and Christian Schlaefer, a farmer and software consultant from Lakota.

Three Democrats are running in the 4^th District: former state lawmaker and prosecutor Dave Dawson of Lawton, stay-at-home mom Ashley WolfTornabane of Storm Lake and former nurse Stephanie Steiner of rural Sutherland.

Incumbent U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra is expected to announce if he’s officially a candidate for governor soon.

Lucia Cheng

/

Iowa Public Radio

Supporters of Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts gathered in Des Moines Friday after Roberts was arrested by ICE agents.

At a protest outside a downtown federal building, protesters chanted “Free Dr. Roberts.”

Des Moines resident Isaiah Stegman, 45, said Roberts has contributed a lot to many different communities. He said even if Roberts did violate laws, detaining him isn’t the way to handle the situation.
“Regardless of what might’ve been the circumstances of how he first came here or where he was born, he is one of us,” he said.

Later that night, hundreds of people crowded inside Corinthian Baptist Church in Des Moines to show solidarity with Roberts. Activists, elected officials and clergy members called on people to commit to long-term advocacy on behalf of immigrants. At one point, the crowd started chanting “Release Dr. Roberts”

Des Moines schools graduate Trinh Le-Coulter has two young kids in the district. She said they both admired Roberts, especially after a fundraiser where the prize was to race against the former Olympic sprinter.

Read more.

The Iowa Board of Educational Examiners revoked Des Moines Superintendent Ian Roberts' license following his arrest by ICE officers Friday.

The Iowa Department of Education said Roberts stated he was a U.S. citizen on his application for an administrator’s license. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Roberts was given a final removal order last year.

The Iowa Department of Education said it’s a district’s responsibility to confirm an employee is eligible to work in the U.S. Des Moines Public Schools said it’s cooperating with requests for information.

Gov. Kim Reynolds commented on Roberts’ arrest in a statement Saturday, calling it shocking. She said she would not comment on the details while the investigation is underway, but said “laws must be enforced.” She also said that people “who believe immigration laws are optional are dangerously wrong.”

Read more.

Lucius Pham

/

Iowa Public Radio

The Des Moines Public Schools School Board voted to put Superintendent Ian Roberts on paid administrative leave following his arrest by federal immigration officers.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained Roberts Friday morning in Des Moines. Federal authorities said he does not have authorization to work in the country and was issued a final removal order by an immigration judge in May 2024. 

Following the unanimous vote at Saturday’s special meeting, DMPS School Board President Jackie Norris said the arrest came as a shock to the school district, as it had taken steps to verify Robert’s employment eligibility. 

“No one here was aware of any citizenship or immigration issues that Dr. Roberts may have been facing,” she said. “The accusations ICE has made against Dr. Roberts are very serious and we are taking them very seriously.”

Roberts, who was born in Guyana, has led the state’s largest school district since 2023.

Read more.

Sheila Brummer

/

Iowa Public Radio

A few dozen protesters stood outside the Woodbury County Law Enforcement Center in Sioux City Saturday afternoon to show support for Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Ian Roberts.

Roberts is being held at the jail after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested him Friday for being in the country without legal status, according to federal authorities. The Department of Homeland Security said Roberts, a native of Guyana, received a final order of removal by an immigration judge in May 2024.

Jeanette Hopkins, a retired teacher from Sioux City, said what’s happening to Roberts isn’t fair.

“Parents like him, the teachers like him, the students like him — I just want to know what's the truth and why was it done to this degree,” she said. “You know, why was it made such a national issue?”

 A vocal group of supporters held up signs and chanted, “No ICE, no fear, immigrants are welcome here.”

Protesters were concerned with what appeared to be two snipers on top of the roof of the jail during their protest. Additionally, barricades were put in place that morning to keep the group away from the front of the building.

Democrats in Washington, D.C., said they won’t go along with plans to keep the government funded unless Republicans agree to health policy changes.

The Iowa Democratic Party is calling on the state’s Republican members of Congress to roll back Medicaid cuts and extend enhanced tax credits that help people pay for Affordable Care Act health insurance.

Nick Larson, a farmer from Walker in eastern Iowa, spoke at an Iowa Democratic Party news conference Friday. He said his family of five buys health insurance through the ACA marketplace, and he could pay at least $3,000 more in taxes next year if the credits aren’t extended.

“The ACA allows millions of self-employed Americans like me to use tax credits to offset the increasing cost of health insurance for their families,” he said.

KFF estimates 100,000 Iowans would see their health insurance premium payments double if Congress doesn’t extend the tax credits.  

An ICE detainee being held at the Woodbury County Jail filed a lawsuit asking for his release.

Armando Garcia Picazo was arrested on Aug. 8 in Sioux City. He’s suing the Woodbury County sheriff and others, claiming he’s being held despite an immigration judge setting bond in his case.

Court documents state that Garcia Picazo has no criminal record and has been in the U.S. for nine years. The documents also state that agents conducting surveillance on Garcia Picazo took him into custody because he looked like a person they were searching for.

Other defendants in the case include President Donald Trump and other top federal officials.

Sheila Brummer

/

Harvest Public Media

The popcorn harvest will start soon across the Midwest. While many towns hold popcorn festivals this time of year — and even claim to be the popcorn capitals of the world — data shows fewer than 1,000 popcorn farms exist today.

Towns like Sac City in western Iowa draw tourists with its display of the World’s Largest Popcorn Ball. But the Iowa pride for popcorn does not translate to an abundance of popcorn farms in the state.

Iowa used to be a leader in the country’s production of the crop. The state held the top position until the mid-1940s, when Iowa lost out to Illinois and Indiana. Then in the mid-1970s, Nebraska took the lead. More recently, the top producer has popped between states.

“There have been cases where they flip back and forth, but Indiana and Nebraska are the top two popcorn-producing states,” said Dan Quinn, an extension corn specialist at Purdue University and an assistant professor of agronomy.

The university, located in West Lafayette, Ind., has deep roots in the development of popcorn. The famous Orville Redenbacher, who revolutionized the industry, was a Purdue graduate.

While people love eating the snack, Quinn said most people don’t think much about the crop.

“There's a lot of people who go to the movie theater that I think they just don't understand the magnitude of where popcorn is grown, the importance of it to a lot of farmers and also the amount of research and work that goes into it,” he said.

The U.S. popcorn industry as a whole is worth about $3 billion, with the National Popcorn Board projecting the market to reach more than $4 billion by 2030.
Read more about popcorn farms from Harvest Public Media’s Sheila Brummer.

Gov. Kim Reynolds said the One Big Beautiful Bill’s tax provisions will reduce state revenue by more than $400 million this fiscal year. This comes as Iowa is already dipping into reserves to cover a budget gap caused by state tax cuts. 

Iowa law is set up to automatically adopt some changes to the federal tax code. This year, the major tax and spending bill approved by Republicans in Washington, D.C., made a lot of changes that will affect the money coming into state coffers, like income tax deductions for tips and overtime pay.  

The Iowa Department of Revenue projected a $440 million drop in state revenue this fiscal year and a $350 million hit next year.

Reynolds said Iowa is in a good position to handle this because the state has saved $6 billion to make up for lost revenue.

“So, we’re in a good position to weather some of the … effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill. But we also have to continue to be mindful as we move forward,” she said.

Anne Discher, executive director of Common Good Iowa, said using one-time surplus money to cover budget gaps isn’t a good long-term solution.

Lucia Cheng

/

Iowa Public Radio

This is a developing story and will be updated.

—

The superintendent of the largest school district in Iowa has been detained by federal immigration officials.

Superintendent Ian Roberts of Des Moines Public Schools was taken into custody Friday after fleeing a traffic stop initiated by ICE agents, according to the Iowa Department of Public Safety. 

DMPS Board Chair Jackie Norris notified the district of his detention. She has not confirmed why Roberts was detained or what the next steps will be. 

Roberts was named superintendent in 2023. A district profile for Roberts states he was born to immigrant parents from Guyana and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
Associate Superintendent Matt Smith was appointed to serve as interim superintendent.  

Read more.

Sheila Brummer

/

Iowa Public Radio

A body recovered from the Missouri River has been identified as a western Iowa man who has been missing since Memorial Day weekend.

Colton Boynton of Blencoe disappeared when his boat crashed into a barge in May. His body was found Monday several miles south of the accident near Blair, Neb.

Investigators believe the crash happened because Boynton’s boat was having mechanical problems and that he jumped into the water before the collision.

His family is pushing to improve safety in the Missouri River near the Huff-Warner Access Area. A petition with more than 3,500 signatures calls on authorities to close the ramp to the public and come up with ways to prevent a future tragedy from happening.

The family said moored barges in the river can create dangerous water currents and suction that may pose a risk to boaters.

The Iowa Finance Authority awarded $1.3 million to homelessness prevention programs to help fill the gaps left by expiring federal COVID assistance.

The Muscatine Center for Social Action runs programs in eastern Iowa that prevent families from being evicted and helps people experiencing homelessness find shelter.

Executive Director Emily Harvey said the center is losing over $600,000 in federal funding for its services. The new state Homelessness Prevention Fund is stepping in with $104,000 funding.
“This is really key, and especially at a time when there's so much uncertainty around funding,” she said. “And HUD [U.S. Housing and Urban Development] funding, federal funding sources …  This is a really important partnership.”

Harvey said the Iowa Finance Authority funds help her organization distribute more money to programs that need it most.

Argentina temporarily suspended an export tax on soybeans this week, allowing China to purchase several large shipments from that country. The move is more bad news for U.S. producers, who are shut off from their largest customer — China — because of a trade dispute with the Trump administration.

Joe Janzen, an agricultural economics professor at the University of Illinois, said while it’s another gut punch for U.S. farmers, Argentina’s policy change won’t have a big impact in the short term because domestic demand remains strong.

Janzen said, absent a trade deal with China, the outlook for U.S. farmers depends on recently announced deals with other countries, which are short on details, like export numbers and enforcement mechanisms.
 
“All of those kinds of real specifics that would need to be there for the market to take that to the bank and indicate higher prices for U.S. soybeans, now and in the future, just aren't a part of the trade negotiations and the outcomes of the trade negotiations that we've seen,” he said.
 
Janzen pointed to a deal with Taiwan announced last week that would keep ag exports to that country where they’ve been for the last five years.    

Federal immigration enforcement officers arrested a worker Thursday in a grocery store in Iowa City.

In a video captured by a member of the immigrants' rights group Escucha Mi Voz, Jorge Gonzalez is seen being tackled to the ground by three officers in the middle of the Bread Garden Market, a grocery store in downtown Iowa City.

The officers were not wearing masks or uniforms and only identified themselves as federal agents. When Gonzalez resisted arrest, the officers threatened to shock him with a Taser, holding his arms behind his back as he laid on the ground. 

In a statement, Escucha Mi Voz called the incident not only an attack on Gonzalez’s family, but on the entire Iowa City community. It’s unclear under what charges Gonzalez was detained or where he was taken.

The latest Iowa Farmer Poll found that concerns about water quality and support for related conservation practices remain high, but have decreased over the last decade.

Researchers at Iowa State University sent the same set of questions to Iowa farmers in the spring of 2014 and 2024.

The majority agreed that farmers should do more to reduce nutrient and sediment runoff, but it dropped from 84% to 74%. The number of farmers concerned about agriculture’s impact on water quality also decreased by 6%.

J. Arbuckle, a professor and extension sociologist at Iowa State University, is the author of the Iowa Farmer Poll report.

“We, as an agricultural community, just really have to up our game and help support farmers to adopt conservation practices and then keep on using those conservation practices,” he said.

Arbuckle said that effort will need to include new strategies to overcome perceived barriers to conservation adoption.

Iowa Legislature

Iowa Senate Republicans elected Mike Klimesh of Spillville as their new majority leader. Klimesh replaces Sen. Jack Whitver, who announced he was stepping down from the position earlier this month. Whitver was diagnosed with a brain tumor last year.   

Klimesh called it an honor to be named majority leader and said he looks forward to working to expand the economy and return Iowa schools to being top in the nation. He was first elected to the Iowa Senate in 2020 and has served as the majority whip since 2025.

Gov. Kim Reynolds congratulated Klimesh and said she’s looking forward to working with him to further their “conservative agenda.”

Read more.

Des Moines UnityPoint Health nurses who are trying to form a union called on the health corporation's leaders to stop what they said are anti-union efforts. 

Nurses at three metro hospitals said UnityPoint management is not addressing their staffing and safety concerns. The nurses are set to vote in October on whether to form a union. 

Heather Torrence, who has worked as a UnityPoint nurse for 14 years, gathered with other supporters outside the company’s West Des Moines headquarters Wednesday. She said that she’s concerned management is hiring consultants to persuade nurses to vote no.  

“They like to highlight and bring up that what we could lose getting a union — by losing weekend package pay, losing shift differential and things like that,” she said. “And our response to them is: UnityPoint could take that away from us at any time.”

A UnityPoint Des Moines spokesperson said in a statement that it believes working directly with its nurses is the best path and it has hired labor experts focused on educating its nurses about the process and impact of unionization. 

Gov. Kim Reynolds said public university staff who celebrate the killing of Charlie Kirk should be fired.

Last week, the Board of Regents directed Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa to investigate controversial social media posts by staff related to Kirk’s fatal shooting. 

Reynolds said if those investigations find employees celebrated the taking of a human life, they should be fired.

“Anybody that celebrates the execution of a human being, it’s disgusting and unconscionable, and it’s just not acceptable,” she said. “Political violence should never be accepted, period. Period. End of story.”

The Gazette reported Wednesday that ISU has fired a financial aid adviser for writing on social media that Kirk “got what was coming.”

Katarina Sostaric

/

Iowa Public Radio

Gov. Kim Reynolds said public school performance is improving as a result of her administration’s policies.

The Iowa Department of Education launched a new system for evaluating school performance last year. Officials said this year, more than 40% of schools moved up in the ratings, while 17% moved down. The department reported almost all of the lowest-performing schools in the state improved with help from new school improvement teams.

Reynolds said this all shows “progress towards restoring educational excellence” in Iowa.

“Honestly, this level of improvement is almost unheard of,” she said. “These successes say a lot about Iowa’s dedicated teachers and our school administrators, but they also say a lot about a strengthening partnership between Iowa schools and the Department of Education.”

Reynolds said her early literacy bill passed last year has already led to an 11-percentage point increase in reading proficiency for third graders. She also said she believes her bill on math instruction passed this year will do the same for math proficiency.

An Iowan nominated by President Donald Trump to serve in the U.S. Department of Education said American universities must be reformed.

David Barker, an economist and real estate developer from Iowa City, has been nominated to be assistant secretary for the Office of Postsecondary Education. He has served on the board that governs the three state universities since May 2019.

“In my years on the Iowa Board of Regents, I’ve battled a liberal university establishment. But I needed facts to do that,” Barker said. “Universities are slippery. They’ll convince you, ‘Oh, we’re not liberal at all. We’re all fair.’ But I matched our employee list with voter registration data and found that Republicans are extremely rare on the faculty and in university administration.”

Barker’s current term on the Board of Regents expires in the spring of 2031.

The U.S. Senate has not yet scheduled a hearing on his nomination to serve in the Trump administration. If confirmed, Barker would oversee federal financial aid programs for students and accreditation of colleges and universities. 

Barker is a member of the Iowa Republican Party’s central committee and co-chair of its finance committee. 

Gov. Kim Reyonlds announced a special election to fill former state Rep. Mike Sexton’s seat Dec. 9.

Sexton’s seat opened after he was appointed state director for USDA Rural Development by President Donald Trump earlier this month.

Sexton is a Republican from Rockwell City and represented Iowa House District 7. The area covers Calhoun, Pocahontas and Sac County and part of Webster County.

He was first elected to the Iowa House in 2014 and recently served as chair of the House Agriculture Committee.

Photo courtesy of Bur Oak Land Trust

An eastern Iowa nonprofit that does land restoration is bringing on a new crew of AmeriCorps members.

Back in April, 10 service workers at the Indian Creek Nature Center in Cedar Rapids had their jobs cut by President Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency. At the time, the workers were in the middle of removing invasive species that emerged after the 2020 derecho.

It’s unclear how many members will return, but the nature center will be continuing with that work until mid-November as part of an AmeriCorps program that places young adults around the country to help with environmental stewardship and disaster response. 

Flock Safety

An eastern Iowa city has decided to use a controversial camera technology as a law enforcement tool after residents called it a violation of their privacy.  

The Coralville City Council spent hours debating on Tuesday whether to move forward in the process of installing automated license plate readers owned by Flock Safety. The cameras use AI technology to pick up license plate data, as well as a vehicle’s make, model and color.  

Residents at the meeting said the readers would violate their privacy since their data can be uploaded to a national database. Tara McGovern, a Coralville resident, spoke at the meeting.

“How do you reconcile the idea of freedom of movement in a democratic society with a system that creates a detailed, searchable log of where every vehicle has been?” they said.  

Ultimately, the council voted 3 to 2 to pass a new policy that puts guidelines in place for the city’s police officers using the technology.

__

This post was updated at 9:15 a.m. Sept. 25.

This month, state wildlife officials have confirmed bird flu in Canada geese, mallards and a red-tailed hawk from central and northcentral Iowa, as well as Dubuque. The Iowa DNR said these detections are more than two months earlier than last year.

Symptoms of the H5N1 virus in wild birds include irregular head and neck movements, tremors or swimming in circles. The public is encouraged to avoid direct contact and prevent pets from interacting with sick and dead birds.

Iowa’s last confirmed case of bird flu in poultry was reported in April. Commercial producers and people with backyard flocks who see signs should contact their veterinarian immediately.

Earlier this month, the USDA confirmed bird flu in a dairy herd in Nebraska and commercial poultry operations in Minnesota and the Dakotas.  

A nonprofit in Iowa City is launching a $100,000 grant program promoting freedom of expression through art.

Public Space One announced the project on Monday in response to speech restrictions and censorship proposed on university campuses by state and federal governments. 

The program is funded by a New York-based foundation that focuses on diverse voices and civil discussion.

The program will continue through spring 2027. It aims to present challenging or banned artworks and connect local artists and activists with students and Iowa City residents.

A southeastern Iowa man is suing the Trump administration for keeping him in immigration enforcement custody.

Noel Lopez De La Cruz, 23, filed a lawsuit alleging a new federal policy prevented him from getting a bond hearing. It states the policy orders mandatory detention for people accused of entering the U.S. without permission. The Immigration Policy Tracking Project said that policy went into effect July 8. 

De La Cruz’s mother, Mercedes, said that her son has built a life in Mount Pleasant in the 22 years he has lived there.

“He deserves to be here with his fiancé, his family, his friends ... he’s made his whole life here,” Mercedes said through a translator. “He should be here. There’s no reason for him not to get a bond.” 

De La Cruz is currently being held in the Linn County Jail. He was first charged with possession of a controlled substance in Washington County in late June before being released into immigration enforcement custody. His case is being considered in federal court after he filed a temporary restraining order asking to be released from ICE custody.

Thirty-four state and local law enforcement agencies in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska are now working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement under a program known as 287(g).

The program offers financial incentives and allows local and state officers to enforce certain immigration laws. Local ICE agreements have swelled from 135 to over 1,000 nationwide since President Donald Trump returned to office. 

Kathleen Bush-Joseph, with the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said this kind of expansion is strategic for ICE.

“They’re recognizing that ICE alone does not have enough personnel to be attempting to carry out Trump’s mass deportations campaign.”

The Trump administration stated goals of 3,000 deportations a day and 1 million a year. 

Read more from The Midwest Newsroom’s Naomi Delkamiller.

A new community land trust aimed at creating more affordable housing for low-income Iowans now has funding from local governments in the Des Moines area.

The nonprofit HOME Inc. will set up the Central Iowa Community Land Trust by building and acquiring houses. When a low-income family buys one of the houses, HOME Inc. will still own the land. That allows the buyer to pay a lower price, and in exchange, they are required to keep the price low when they eventually sell.

The trust helps homeowners plan their finances before and after they buy a home, and takes care of any critical maintenance needs.

Polk County Board of Supervisors Chair Matt McCoy said the trust can explore affordable housing solutions that the county can’t on its own.

“That excites me because so much of what we do is so constrained and regulated, and this would be a different method of delivering those services in an unregulated environment,” he said.

Polk County, Des Moines and West Des Moines are putting in $125,000 to start the trust. Once fully operational, the project will be Iowa’s only active community land trust.

The University of Iowa has dropped out of the U.S. News & World Report’s top 100 universities for the first time since 2004, according to The Gazette.

The report, released Tuesday, ranks the university at 102^nd overall. Last year, it ranked 98th overall.

But the latest report shows the university is still recognized as a top public writing school, tying for 10th in writing at all levels. Among public universities, it also ranked in the top 10 for undergraduate nursing and insurance.

The U.S. News & World Report uses several measures in its rankings, including student outcomes, academic resources and reputation. 

Iowa State University was ranked 117th overall.

State Rep. Shannon Lundgren is running for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District. The Republican from Peosta is touting her early support of President Donald Trump in her campaign. 

Lundgren said she’s running to represent northeast Iowa on an America First agenda. To her, that means deporting people who are in the country without legal status, protecting Social Security and Medicare and ending discussions around gender identity. As a small business owner, she said she would be a strong advocate for workers.

Lundgren was first elected to the Iowa House in 2016 and is currently the chair of the House Commerce Committee. 

Lundgren joins state Sen. Charlie McClintock, former federal housing administrator Joe Mitchell and former U.S. Rep. Rod Blum in seeking the GOP's nomination. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, who currently represents the district, is running for the U.S. Senate, leaving her House seat open in 2026.  

Read more.

Burlington Trailways is laying off nearly 80 workers at facilities in West Burlington, Davenport, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines.

The transportation company will lay off 47 workers in West Burlington — the most at any of the impacted facilities. The company is closing six of its offices, according to data reported to the state.

It did not make an official statement about why it’s closing the offices, but told multiple news outlets in August that providing rural intercity bus routes has become financially unsustainable.

The layoffs will go into effect on Oct. 18. 

The Senior Companion program in Waterloo is back up and running after its federal funding was restored.

The program receives funding through AmeriCorps. Services were paused after its federal funding was cut in June. Now, the funding has resumed.

The program pairs volunteers who are 55 or older with elderly adults to help them with housekeeping, meal prep and transportation.

Vicky Buss has volunteered with Senior Companion for almost fourteen years. When the program paused its services, she kept meeting with her clients on a weekly basis. Buss said when she told her clients she could return to work full-time after the funding was restored, they were thrilled.

“I think that there’s a lot of people that are out there that are really needy, that need the companionship and need our support, because they don’t have it, they don’t have family,” Buss said.

Sonya Carlson is the program director at Hawkeye Community College.

“After everything that we’ve been through in the last few months, I’ve really recognized how important it is for us to get that message out to our community that this is extremely valuable and necessary for seniors to live well, whether they’re serving or receiving that service,” said Carlson.

The program runs out of Hawkeye Community College, which received over $400,000 for three years to keep the program running. All of the volunteers are expected to be able to return to work. This year is the program’s 50th anniversary.

A food bank that serves rural parts of the state is trying to help people who live in food deserts.

The Food Bank of Siouxland in northwest Iowa is seeing a 10% increase in the number of people looking for food assistance, with more retirees than normal.

Executive Director Jacob Wanderscheid said they work hard to get food into areas without grocery stores or access to nutritious foods.

“All the employees as we talk, know that every day that we do something that we can go home knowing that that retiree, that working mom, that child gets fed by the actions that we do,” Wanderscheid said. “So that's the thing that keeps our battery charged.”

Wanderscheid says Perdue Farms is donating 80,000 pounds of chicken this week to help with the growing crisis of food insecurity.

The Food Bank of Iowa reports rising and record numbers of people who have needed help for the past three and a half years. They issued a statement saying they were upset to find out the federal government plans to end its annual report that measures household food insecurity.

Gov. Kim Reynolds announced Monday the head of Iowa’s largest state agency has resigned. Iowa Department of Health and Human Services Director Kelly Garcia will step down next month.

Reynolds did not give a reason for Garcia’s departure, but she said Larry Johnson, the current director of the state Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing, will replace Garcia. Johnson and Garcia will work together on the transition over the next few weeks.

Reynolds appointed Garcia in November 2019 to head the state's Department of Human Services. That department merged with the state health department in 2022 to form Iowa DHHS, which employs about 4,500 people.

In a statement, Garcia said leading the agency has been a profound privilege and thanked Reynolds for the opportunity.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said the killing of Charlie Kirk will add momentum to the conservative movement he supported.

Ernst and other Republican lawmakers mourned Kirk Saturday at a fundraiser for the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition before Sunday’s memorial service in Arizona.

Ernst tied Kirk’s death to what she called a “loss of faith” among Democrats.

“What can bring us together is the knowledge that his voice, while it was already loud, it will continue to be amplified many times over with his passing,” Ernst said.

The White House has also looked to tie Kirk’s killer to left-wing organizations, but NBC News has reported investigators have not found evidence to make that connection.

Other high-profile Republicans were also in attendance at the fundraiser, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who touted the administration's deportation efforts. She said at the event that some 1.6 million people who were in the U.S. illegally have now left voluntarily.

Read more.

Some early fall storms could bring large hail and damaging winds later this afternoon through the overnight hours.

Mike Fowle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Des Moines, said right now the greatest risk of severe weather is in western and northern Iowa, with a slight risk in central and southern parts of the state.

Fowle said it’s too early for people in the upper Midwest to write off the chance of severe weather.

“The thunderstorm season is going to hang on for a little while here,” he said.

Patchy dense fog in the early morning hours tomorrow could also make driving more hazardous. Much of the state will see scattered showers and storms during the day Tuesday.

Compared to last year, it’s been a quiet severe weather season in Iowa. However, the state has had tornadoes as late as December.

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst says her decision not to run for reelection is the “right one,” for several reasons.

In an interview with Radio Iowa, Ernst brought up her 2014 campaign pledge to serve no more than two terms in the U.S. Senate. She said it weighed heavily on her mind.

“I felt I would be breaking my commitment to Iowans if I tried to secure that third term,” Ernst said. “People have a lot less trust in politicians than they did many years ago and I want people to know that there are politicians that still honor their commitments.”

Ernst said her daughter was her main sounding board as she wrestled with the decision.

“She knew where my heart was and the time that I need to give to my family is more significant than some of the other factors that weighed in there,” Ernst said.

The U.S. Senate’s Republican leader and other top Republicans had been encouraging her to run.

“I was getting a lot of pressure from the White House to run for that third term and the president didn’t speak to me for about a week after that,” Ernst told the crowd, laughing. “He called last Thursday. He’s O.K. We’re good again.”

Ernst will host her final “Roast and Ride” fundraiser for veterans groups on October 11.

State Rep. Mike Sexton, R-Rockwell City, is taking a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the agency’s director for rural development in Iowa.

As part of the move, Sexton is resigning from the Iowa House effective immediately. Sexton was first elected to the House in 2014 and in recent years chaired the Agriculture Committee.

In a statement, Sexton said it was an honor to represent District 7 in northwest Iowa. House Speaker Pat Grassley thanked Sexton for his work on agricultural issues in his time in the Legislature.

A cyberattack targeting airport check-in technology designed by Collins Aerospace has disrupted flights in multiple European cities.

The Associated Press reports the Cedar Rapids-based company says the issue was limited to electronic check-in and baggage drops, and it was working to resolve the issue over the weekend. Experts say it’s unclear if the attack was done by hackers, criminal organizations or state actors.

The disturbances were first reported at airports in Brussels, Berlin and London. That includes dozens of cancelled or delayed flights, as well as long check-in lines where airline workers were forced to write baggage tabs by hand.

A new tool from the federal government will bring together data on drought and flooding in the Mississippi River Basin.

A coalition of mayors along the river unveiled the new dashboard in Minneapolis last week.

Stacy Kinder, mayor of Cape Girardeau, Mo., said this year disasters have had serious impacts.

“Spring and summer this year have brought renewed challenges to our corridor in the mid-Mississippi River,” Kinder said. “That area sustained record spring rainfall, ending with six out of 10 Mississippi River states now experiencing drought.”

The mayors say this new tool will help cities prepare for coming extreme weather.

The dashboard shows large parts of the Great Plains and lower Midwest are currently experiencing historically dry soil conditions.

The coalition also says as Congress is drafting legislation to reform the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the reform should include funding for green infrastructure like wetlands to reduce flooding.

“There's a lot of moving parts with FEMA right now, where all those moving parts are going to land, don't know,” said Colin Wellenkamp, executive director of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative. “But as the mayors pointed out, we know what we have as our priorities, and that is the systemic reduction of risk over large landscapes.”

The USDA’s September outlook indicates this year’s U.S. corn harvest could set a record.

Chad Hart, an Iowa State University Extension economist, said the boost is largely due to more acres planted this year, rather than yields. He says the USDA’s report in October will reveal how much disease and drought affect U.S. corn production.

As for trade, Hart says corn exports are running at a record pace — despite the tariff turmoil. However, soybeans are facing a downturn and uncertain future.

“Our soybean export sales are off nearly 34% compared to last year at this time,” Hart said.

The big gap is China, which has stopped all official purchases of U.S. soybeans since February in retaliation to U.S. tariffs.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig said he’s advocating for market expansion with the Trump administration.

“What we want to see are those short-term biofuels wins and also to really move rapidly to secure those trade agreements with some key trading partners,” Naig said.

Soybean and corn prices remain below production costs.

Read more.

Local health officials say they’re feeling encouraged about new recommendations for the COVID-19 shot passed by a federal panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Friday.

The CDC currently recommends the shot for most adults. The new recommendations say people should consult with their doctor about the risks and benefits of getting the vaccine.

“There will just need to be a lot of work making sure that our providers are prepared to provide that individual counseling, and that our residents know where they can go to help make that informed choice with a healthcare provider,” said Juliann Van Liew, the director of the Polk County Health Department.

She added that the new recommendations are less restrictive than anticipated.

“I do believe there's a way forward with these guidelines to make sure that folks in our community still get access to the vaccines that they need, in the places where they need them,” Van Liew said.

According to state data, 15% of Iowans received a COVID shot last year. The CDC director needs to sign off on the panel’s recommendations before they can go into effect.

If you’ve noticed a surprising number of acorns pummeling your roof or covering your yard this fall, there’s a reason for it.

Many Iowa oak trees are experiencing what is known as a mast year, when the trees produce an especially large quantity of acorns.

Iowa State University Extension Horticulture Specialist Aaron Steil said one idea about why trees do this is that they are trying to adapt to animals that eat their seeds.

“And so these big years kind of overwhelm all those squirrels and other things, mice and all sorts of things, that would actually eat this seed and actually allow for some potential germination,” he said.

Steil discussed the phenomenon on IPR’s Talk of Iowa. He says mast years can also occur for other types of trees such as maples and walnuts.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said the First Amendment is important but not absolute, as public universities investigate social media comments made by staff about Charlie Kirk’s killing.

Bird’s office advises the Iowa Board of Regents on legal matters. This week, the board told the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, to put employees on administrative leave during these investigations.

Bird said she won’t comment on the specific cases.

“I would say each one is individualized and has to do with the employment policies of the university and the types of rules they have for their employees that are paid for with taxpayer dollars. So it’s very different — someone’s speech rights at an employer than someone’s free speech rights in the public square. They’re very different analyses.”

She also said colleges shouldn’t use increased security costs for events as an excuse to limit free speech.“I want to be sure that colleges and universities aren’t going to use security costs to exercise an assassin’s veto over conservative free speech on campus, that any security fee … would be without regard to the message of the speaker — whether it’s a conservative or liberal, political or nonpolitical.”

Bird made her comments Friday during a taping of Iowa Press on Iowa PBS.

Several Des Moines area suburbs are conducting special censuses to count their rapidly growing populations. These cities are growing so fast they’re leaving state tax money for road maintenance on the table.

If the city of Johnston waits until the next official census, administrators calculate they will lose out on over a million dollars. Assistant City Administrator John Wilwerding said that makes it worth the $500,000 price tag to hold a special census.

“We're expecting about $300,000 a year in additional revenue,” he said. “So within a year and a half, we would have that investment paid back.”

Wilwerding says the extra funds would mainly go towards street repairs.

Bondurant held their special census last year and found the city grew by almost 30%. City spokesperson Katie Klus said an accurate population count also helps qualify cities for larger grants.

“These types of numbers have, for example, helped with a library renovation and helped with, you know, purchasing large equipment, like a snowplow,” Klus said. “So, things that directly get reinvested in our community.”

Residents fill out an online survey for the census. Workers will knock on doors to count those who don’t respond online.

Other areas holding a special census include Grimes, Clive, Altoona and West Des Moines.

An Oskaloosa art teacher who was fired over social media comments about Charlie Kirk’s death is now accusing the school district of violating his free speech rights.

Matthew Kargol posted on his personal Facebook account “1 Nazi down,” in response to Kirk’s assassination.

The Oskaloosa school board ended Kargol’s teaching contract at a special meeting Wednesday night.

In a federal lawsuit, Kargol’s attorney claims that decision violates the First Amendment, and calls the post a “blunt personal reaction.”

Oskaloosa Superintendent Mike Fisher has said the post was disruptive and harmful to the district.

Read more.

Sixty-eight cases of Legionnaires’ disease are now confirmed in Marshall County, including one death, and the exact cause has yet to be pinpointed, even after two weeks.

Marshall County Public Health director Sydney Grewell said they’ve tested a dozen cooling towers in Marshalltown and they’ve all been remediated. The test they’re running is called an environmental sample.

“The environmental samples do take a long time to grow and Legionella itself is just a hard bacteria to grow in general, so we haven’t found our smoking gun yet,” Grewell said. “But all of those remediated towers, everybody’s been working well with us and helping stop the spread of Legionella.”

Grewell says they’re almost certain a cooling tower on the north side of Marshalltown is the culprit.

“We are focusing on the cooling towers and the CDC is in line with that,” Grewell said. “People like to go down those rabbit holes of like, ‘Well, what if it’s not that?’ Most of the time it is that cooling tower and that’s what we’re really focused on because of what we’re seeing.”

As people begin to break out their humidifiers for the winter season ahead, she suggests they give the devices a good cleaning before use. Grewell says it takes between two and 14 days for people to start showing symptoms of Legionnaires’ disease, a lung infection that’s a form of pneumonia.

Grewell says if you are showing any symptoms, such as a dry cough, high fever, chills muscle aches, headaches or diarrhea, you should contact your primary healthcare provider and get tested.

Iowa’s Area Education Agencies are more stable as they’ve moved into the second year of implementing a law that shifted some of their funding to school districts.

School districts now receive all of the funding that used to flow to AEAs for media and education services. They can use it to buy services from an AEA, from a private vendor or use it for something else.

Barb Schwamman is superintendent of Osage Community School District — with 1,000 students —and Riceville Community School District — with 400 students. She said her districts can’t afford all of the professional development and learning materials they want. They’re using some of the money that used to go to AEAs to help cover increasing insurance and salary costs.

“The worst part now is that our decision making is kind of being driven by some scarcity, not strategy," Schwamman said.

Meanwhile, the Iowa City School District, with 14,000 students, is seeing more flexibility with its funding. Superintendent Matt Degner said the law has allowed the district to get the AEA services it needs while adding staff and helping out with other parts of the budget.

Last year, hundreds of AEA staff left their jobs or were laid off as lawmakers made major changes to the system. AEA leaders say they are still providing necessary services to students and teachers even with fewer employees.

Stan Rheingans, chief administrator of Keystone AEA and Central Rivers AEA, said staff went through “a pretty low point” last year, but hope has returned to the AEA system.

“It looked like maybe that was going to go away but I don’t believe that,” Rheingans said. “I think we’ve evolved and changed. And it’ll be a different role, it’ll be a scaled back role. But I think our employees who have remained with us feel a new energy and see a path forward.”

AEA and school district leaders say it’s too soon to tell what impact the funding changes will have on outcomes for students with disabilities.

Read more.

The University of Iowa is one step closer to having a Center for Intellectual Freedom on campus after the Board of Regents approved an advisory council. The 26 member council will create by-laws for the center and conduct a nationwide search for a director.

The list of council members includes three Iowa regents, the CEO of Fareway, Reynolds Cramer, former Gov. Terry Branstad and former Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Ganske. The list also includes professors from Northwestern, Princeton and Stanford – some of whom have spoken out against DEI initiatives in higher education.

Regent Robert Cramer voted in favor of the list and says the Iowa Legislature expects the board to get the center up and running quickly.

“They also expect it to be a nationally recognized very high quality of academics with both research, teaching and service to the university,” Cramer said. “I think this board, top notch academics will get that done ”

Regent Nancy Dunkel voted against the list due to its gender and political makeup.

“I think that it's wrong that we only have two women, one of them being the chair, out of 26 people,” Dunkel said. “That doesn't feel right at all. Politically, I'm not sure that we have the right mix there.”

Dunkel asked to delay the vote to consider the council’s political balance. She also said the council should have more Iowans than out of state people.

The list was approved on a vote of 7-2.

Former Republican Rep. Rod Blum is running for Congress again, in northeast Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District. Blum said he wants to keep the border secure, make cities safe and strengthen the U.S. economy through fair trade deals. Blum also says he invested $250,000 into his own campaign.

He served in the U.S. House from 2015 to 2019.

Blum joins Republicans Joe Mitchell and Charlie McClintock in running for the seat, as well as Democrats Kathy Dolter, Clint Twedt-Ball and Lindsay James. The seat is currently held by Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, who announced she will run for the U.S. Senate.

State Sen. Claire Celsi’s family says she has entered hospice care. The Democrat from West Des Moines has served in the Iowa Legislature since 2019.

“Senator Claire Celsi, our beloved wife, sister, mom and grandma, has entered hospice care. Our family asks that you please respect our privacy during this difficult time. Thank you,” Celsi’s family said in a statement.

They didn’t provide additional details.

Celsi missed two months of the legislative session earlier this year. At the time, she said she was dealing with a medical issue and was awaiting surgery. Celsi didn’t elaborate on her diagnosis. She returned to the Legislature in the spring for the final few weeks of the session.

A new study says a proposed gas power plant near the Eastern Iowa Airport could increase turbulence and reduce visibility for pilots. It was commissioned by the airport and says business jets would be flying within 500 feet of the plant, which is against the federal code.

Alliant Energy proposed the plant. It would be next to an existing facility that's just under two miles from a runway that is being built. The study shows the plant would have tall smokestacks and thermal plumes that could impact a pilot’s ability to fly safely.

“Some of these, naturally, maybe are more of an impact than others, but they all have some level of impact that we have to individually go through, talk about, analyze, mitigate in some manner,” said Marty Lenss, director of the airport.

An Alliant spokesperson says the utility is still deciding on a site for the facility, but would not say other locations that are being considered. Both Alliant and the airport say they are working to arrive at the best possible solution.

Summit Carbon Solutions is asking the Iowa Utilities Commission to approve changes in the permit the commission granted for construction of a pipeline to capture carbon from ethanol plants.

State regulators granted the permit in August 2024, but stipulated Summit had to secure permits to extend the pipeline into South Dakota, then to underground storage in North Dakota. Summit has obtained a permit in North Dakota, but South Dakota lawmakers have passed a law that bars the use of eminent domain in that state to seize land along the proposed pipeline route from unwilling property owners. Summit is exploring “adjustments” to its route and is asking the Iowa Utilities Commission for permit changes that would let construction start when it has secured access to storage.

Critics of the project say after fierce opposition from landowners, it appears Summit now plans to connect to a Nebraska pipeline that would carry liquified carbon to Wyoming. An attorney for the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter says Summit is mounting a last ditch effort because South Dakota said no to the project.

Summit’s filing with the Iowa Utilities Commission includes a new contract option for landowners along the route that says they could have a share of pipeline profits. Summit is also promising to provide $8 million in grants to emergency response agencies along the pipeline route.

Dozens gathered along the Mississippi River in Fort Madison to protest the state’s request to privatize prison health care. Iowa union leaders say it would have a negative impact on inmates and current state employees.

The Iowa Department of Corrections filed a request for proposals in July, seeking private companies to manage health care in Iowa’s nine state prisons. The department says it faces staffing shortages and rising pharmaceutical costs. But it’s unclear if the 300 current health care workers in Iowa's prisons will be able to keep their jobs.

“Iowa doesn’t need another failed privatization scheme,” said Charlie Wishman, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor. “Iowa needs safe, accountable, public health care in its prisons done by trained, well-paid people with benefits, with a pension; people who want to be there doing the job, who are good at it.”

Between 60 and 70% of people incarcerated in Iowa’s state prisons require ongoing medical treatment, and 57% experience mental health disorders. Workers say they are subject to long hours and sometimes dangerous working conditions.

“The state and its political majority have chosen to honor the hard work and dedication of the medical staff by valuing profit and greed over its employees by calling it reform,” said Todd Copley, president of the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “This isn’t reform. It’s reckless and the state employees across this state deserve better.”

The Board of Regents unanimously voted that all three universities place employees who have allegedly violated social media policy on leave while they conduct investigations to determine if they should be fired.

The decision comes after pressure from some Republican lawmakers to respond to comments made by university employees about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week.

Board member Robert Cramer said this will give universities time to determine which comments are protected by the First Amendment.

“So the purpose of this is to delve in and to see if these, any of these, cross the threshold to where they're so disruptive to the university that they still need discipline in an employment sense,” Cramer said.

The decision comes as at least a dozen educators nationwide have faced discipline following comments made about Kirk’s assassination.

Read more.

Oskaloosa’s school board has voted unanimously to fire a teacher over a social media post praising the death of Charlie Kirk.

High school art teacher Matthew Kargol allegedly shared a post last week after Kirk was killed with the text “1 Nazi down.”

School personnel and the district’s legal counsel launched an investigation shortly after and placed the teacher on administrative leave.

Mike Fisher, the superintendent of Oskaloosa schools, said free speech is allowed until it causes disruptions at school.

“I'm all about free speech, and I think that is really proven in case law and different things, but I think it's also shown in much of the case law that when you have substantial material disruptions, that becomes a concern,” Fischer said.

More than 50 people attended the board meeting. But it wasn’t open to public comment per board protocol for special meetings. The vote followed a closed session which was requested by Kargol.

Earlier Wednesday the Iowa Board of Regents directed the state’s public universities to place employees on leave while they investigate posts shared on social media about Kirk’s death.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig announced that nine small businesses across the state are receiving a state grant to invest in new meat processing equipment.

Demand for locally raised meat is high, but processing often causes a bottleneck. The Choose Iowa Butchery Innovation program will help these Iowa businesses install new freezers, add smokehouses and upgrade equipment.

The grants range from $20,000 - $75,000 and require a 1-to-1 match from each business. Naig says the nearly two dozen applications show strong interest in the Butchery Innovation Grants.

“We think that's good leverage for this program, helps small businesses — especially in rural areas — with equipment and facility needs, new smoke houses, freezer and cooler systems, processing line expansions and equipment modernization.”

Iowa has over 280 small- to large-scale licensed meat and poultry plants.

Republicans in the U.S. House are proposing a stopgap spending measure to avert a government shutdown at the end of the month. Along with maintaining funding at current levels, the bill includes an additional $88 million to enhance security for lawmakers following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley says that as the Senate president pro tempore he has a security detail. But the same can’t be said for every lawmaker.

“Obviously, for the people that don't have security, we're taking the security very seriously. I think of it even when I have security. I think of it when I get up at 4 in the morning to do my daily walk.”

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Grassley says lawmakers are not only concerned for themselves, but for their families.

Senate Democrats have said any continuing resolution should include an extension of health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Grassley says these subsidies don’t expire for three months, which leaves enough time to negotiate without shutting down the federal government.

John Deere announced more layoffs Wednesday morning at several facilities due to decreased demand and lower order volumes.

The latest layoffs affect 101 workers in Waterloo and 40 at the Des Moines Works in Ankeny. Their last day of work will be either Oct. 17 or Oct. 31.

John Deere says affected employees are eligible for recall based on length of service and will receive weekly supplemental unemployment and transitional assistance benefits, along with health care coverage for at least six months.

The Moline-based farm machinery manufacturer has laid off at least 365 Iowa employees so far this year.

The Iowa City City Council is taking steps to work with Johnson County on a new joint law enforcement facility.

After hours of debate, council members voted 4-3 to continue working on plans for the new facility. Next steps will include appointing a three-person committee in charge of overseeing the jail that would decide specifics before a proposal is sent to voters. 

Council member Megan Alter voted for the resolution. She says if the new facility is built, it would free up space in city hall. 

“If any one of you went through any portion of city hall, you would be horrified. These are awful working conditions.” 

If approved, the new facility would house the Iowa City Police Department, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office and a new jail. 

Opponents of the joint facility say they would prefer to see the estimated $110 million it could cost to build it invested in diversion strategies to keep people out of jail. 

Iowans who love Girl Scout cookies will have another tempting option next year with the new Exploremores cookie. The official rollout is in February, but central Iowans can get an early taste at the Cookies on Tap fundraiser at the Iowa Taproom Oct. 9.

Samie Swinton, vice president for marketing with the Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa, says the flavor was inspired by rocky road ice cream, and describes it as chocolatey with marshmallow and toasted almond flavors.

Swinton says the cookie sales program teaches young women a wide host of skills, which they will use for the rest of their lives.

“It’s teaching local Girl Scouts goal setting, communication skills, money management — and all proceeds stay 100% local to do community service projects, help them plan trips … We have a lot of Girl Scouts here in Iowa planning trips to go to Europe.”

The Girl Scouts sell an average of more than 200 million boxes of cookies nationwide every year.

The Des Moines Independent Community School District will ask voters in November to raise property taxes to fund school renovations.

Des Moines Public Schools is hoping to raise $265 million as part of its “Reimagining Education” plan to fund building repairs, full-day preschool and specialized career training. The funding goal is half the original proposal, which covered a larger scope of projects.

If passed, the bond would add nearly $200 a year for the next 20 years to the property taxes of a home worth around $200,000.

The bond measure must receive approval from 60% of voters to pass.

Iowa’s 2nd District Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson says anyone who celebrated the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk should face consequences.

Hinson says seeing people cheer Kirk’s death made her think about the assassination attempts on Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in 2017 and President Donald Trump in 2024. She says she thinks political violence is carried out by more people on the left than on the right. 

“I think that the truth is, political violence in America is almost exclusively left-wing violence directed at people on the right. I don’t think it’s an American problem, I think it’s a left-wing problem.”  

Hinson did not mention recent instances of political violence against Democrats, such as this year’s assassination of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman. Law enforcement said that shooting was part of a planned string of attacks targeting state Democratic elected officials.

Three students in eastern Iowa now face charges for allegedly using AI to generate nude images of their classmates.

Earlier this year, victims discovered their social media photos were used by a group of students at Cascade High School to create deepfake nudes.

The district said in a statement that students charged as creators or distributors of those deepfakes are now unable to attend school in person.

Madeleine C King

/

Iowa Public Radio

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver is stepping down from his leadership position and will not seek reelection. He says he continues to battle a brain tumor, and his family life is “busier than ever.”

The Republican from the Des Moines suburbs was first elected to the Iowa Senate in 2011 and has held the chamber’s top leadership position since 2018.

Whitver was diagnosed with a brain tumor after the 2024 legislative session. In his statement Tuesday, he says progress remains positive, but he still has a long way to go.

Whitver says he’s proud of what the Iowa Senate accomplished in his time as majority leader, including limiting government spending and cutting taxes.

He will continue to serve as majority leader until Senate Republicans meet to vote for a new leader.

—
This story has been updated to reflect the fact that Whitver was first elected senate majority leader in 2018.

A western Iowa community is reaching out to people experiencing homelessness directly with a new initiative. The "A Path Forward" project in Council Bluffs spent the last week along the Missouri River meeting people who have set up camp there.

Chasity Kephart, a first responder community health coach with the Council Bluffs Police Department, says the majority struggle with addiction, mental health and economic issues

“Just really getting all those things stabilized to move forward. A lot of them don't have an income, which then makes it hard to get housing. And then, if they're using or mentally ill, and that's hard too to get a job, to move forward with housing.”

Kephart says hands-on support seems to be a better option in connecting people with resources.

She says they assisted more than 40 people last week, and plan to connect with more when they return to the riverfront next week. There are 16 different agencies participating in the project.

Some blind Iowans are asking the Iowa Department for the Blind to reconsider changes it’s making to a program that prepares people to live independently. About two dozen people gathered outside of the department’s office in Des Moines Tuesday for a protest.

The department got a new director in July who wants to end the requirement for clients to use sleep shades during training, which block out all residual vision and light.

Jonathan Ice of Cedar Rapids, who has trained with sleep shades, says requiring them ensures people are truly learning to use blindness techniques and are building their confidence.

“The tendency is to think 'I can’t do it without that little vision I had.' With the sleep shade requirement, I learned that I could get out, get around all over Minneapolis, all over Des Moines, with my cane without seeing a thing.”

Iowa Department for the Blind Director Stacy Cervenka says making the sleep shades optional will allow more Iowans to receive intensive training so they can work and live independently.

A member of the eastern Iowa immigrant rights nonprofit Escucha Mi Voz will travel to Rome next month for an audience with the pope.

The Rev. Guillermo Trevino from West Liberty will join a delegation of local leaders at the World Meeting of Popular Movements, a Vatican sponsored event that has shaped the language previous popes have used in their letters. 

Trevino has been outspoken since his godson, Pascual Pedro, was deported to Guatemala in July despite having no criminal background. Trevino spoke at an immigrant rights protest Tuesday in Cedar Rapids. 

“This started, as we know, July 1, when Pascual was here by himself. But we know he’s not by himself, and it’s a fight still to bring him home. So, we keep fighting. Don’t give up.” 

Trevino will be one of two representatives attending the event from the Gamaliel Network, the parent organization of Escucha Mi Voz. He recently returned from Washington, D.C., where he met with members of Iowa’s Congressional delegation to advocate for Pedro’s return to the U.S.

—
This story has been update to correct the fact that Pedro was deported in July.

Iowa is asking the U.S. Department of Education to send money to school districts as a lump sum instead of from separate funding streams.  

Currently, federal education funds are earmarked for certain programs and student groups, such as English language learners. The funds come with specific spending requirements, which could be loosened under the proposed plan. 

Shashank Aurora, chief financial officer at Des Moines Public Schools, the state’s largest district, says without more details on the plan, the outcome is difficult to predict. But he worries his district could receive less funding as a result of the proposed changes.

“If any money goes away, it will negatively hurt the student for whom the funding has historically been received.”

Aurora says the plan could be beneficial if the funding level remains the same and grants districts more flexibility on how to use their funds. 

The Iowa Department of Education wrapped up public comment on the plan last month and has not yet announced if it has been approved.

Read the full story.

An Iowa DOGE Task Force member says his comments about eliminating public pension plans for new state hires and tying teacher pay to performance were “misunderstood.”

Iowa DOGE member Terry Lutz previously said he was recommending a “pay for performance” system that ties teacher compensation to student outcomes. He also said the state’s public employee pension plan should be replaced for new hires.

Lutz now says his workgroup is recommending high performing teachers receive a bonus and says the state should study public worker compensation to potentially offer future workers a choice between a pension and a 401(k)-style retirement plan.

“Our recommendations are about equipping you with more modern tools to help you make an even bigger impact with faster hiring, world-class training and resources to focus on what matters most. If my previous comments led you to believe anything less, then I apologize.”

The task force is planning to submit its final report to Gov. Kim Reynolds by Sept. 29.

Read the full story.

James Kelley

/

Iowa Public Radio

Hundreds gathered Monday night at the University of Iowa to hold a vigil in memory of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. 

Leaders of the local chapter of Turning Point USA — the conservative youth organization that Kirk founded — prayed, sang and read personal testimonies about how he had impacted their lives.

There were cutouts of Kirk surrounded by lit candles and American flags. At one moment during the vigil, people started chanting, “Charlie! Charlie!”

James Kelley

/

Iowa Public Radio

Russell Nieman is the vice president of the university’s Turning Point USA chapter. 

“Turning Point USA will not go away. We will be stronger, and we will continue to have open debate on this campus. We are not scared. We are more emboldened to carry the torch that Charlie has passed on to each and every one of us.”  

Kirk was assassinated last week while speaking at a public event at a Utah college.

Opinions are strong, but little is known about the Trump administration’s plan to reorganize the US Department of Agriculture. The USDA has extended the comment period through the end of the month.

The USDA spread more than half its positions currently in Washington among five cities, including Kansas City and Indianapolis, where the jobs would be closer to farmers and pay less.

Kansas farmer John Thaemert likes the idea of moving USDA staff closer to farmers and sharing the wealth.

“Washington, DC has got some really high paying jobs and a lot of wealth concentrated there. I like to see Kansas City have some of these jobs, as well as Raleigh and Indianapolis and Fort Collins and Salt Lake, and then kind of spread that out a little bit.”

Opponents say the plan is vague, and that it was hatched without input from legislators or farmers.

Karen Perry Sillerman, with the Union of Concerned Scientists, says the USDA has already lost more than 16,000 employees this year, and the shake up would trigger another round of departures.

“When you make it hard for people to do their jobs on behalf of the American public, you lose those people. And we've seen this before.”

In the first Trump administration the USDA moved two agencies to Kansas City.

More than half the employees quit, the agencies were hobbled, and ultimately moved back to Washington.

Community members in eastern Iowa are bringing attention to a new surveillance technology that’s been quietly rolled out across the state. It’s a tool that helps law enforcement agencies track vehicles across multiple jurisdictions. While some say it helps reduce crime, there are growing concerns that it might be used with other motives in mind.

Flock Safety’s cameras are Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR), a special type of artificial intelligence-powered camera that picks up license plate data. The cameras also collect the “vehicle fingerprint,” which includes a car’s make, model and color.

Cedar Rapids has 75 cameras. At least 29 cities in Iowa have contracts with Flock. Those include West Des Moines, North Liberty and Davenport.

Luke Bock, a lieutenant with the Dubuque Police Department, says he hopes the city will continue to grow its ALPR network.

“The cool thing about Flock is you have the ability to not just utilize our 22 cameras — we can basically share our camera information with other jurisdictions, and other jurisdictions can share their camera information with us.”

In Coralville, council members are reconsidering installing Flock cameras. They earmarked $36,000 for a two-year contract with Flock in April, but stalled the rollout after residents like Dan Waller raised concerns about the technology.

“These tools don’t just investigate crime, they generate suspicion by using artificial intelligence to flag innocent patterns of travel.”

Read more.

The nonprofit St. Vincent de Paul helps people struggling with poverty get the help they need. Now, they will help manage the Evelyn K. Davis Center. Thousands of people have received employment support and coaching through the center near downtown Des Moines.

The Des Moines Area Community College is passing on ownership so they can focus on providing education. President Rob Denson says that will help meet the growing need for assistance.

“They rely on us to do what we do best – which is to help individuals get in, get into class, get to training and get out.”

St. Vincent CEO Steve Havemann says all of the services both partners provide can now be meshed into one center.

“We know the behavioral economics says the more services you can provide in one stop, the better off people that are in need are.”

No services will be interrupted during the transition. The center will continue to provide the same resources. There will be two community forums in the next two months to discuss the transition.

Catelin Drey of Sioux City took the oath of office Monday to officially become a state senator. She’s a Democrat who flipped a Republican-held seat in a special election last month.

Drey’s win broke the GOP supermajority in the Senate. That means Republicans will need at least one Democrat to join them to approve the governor’s nominees for various state government positions.

Senate Democratic Leader Janice Weiner says this gives Democrats the ability to have a bigger role in the Iowa Senate.

“If they want to get people confirmed, if they want some other things, they will need to work with us. But that’s honestly the way it should work. That’s the way Iowans want it to work. They want us to work together. They want us to talk together so that we can actually do things that will improve the lives of Iowans.”

The Iowa Senate now has 33 Republicans and 17 Democrats, so the GOP will still control the lawmaking agenda when the next legislative session begins in January.

Iowa’s state parks are holding spruce-up events Saturday Sept. 27, and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources is asking Iowans to consider lending a hand.

Andy Bartlett, park manager at Ledges State Park in Boone County, says with 15 parks hosting events for Statewide Volunteer Day, there is likely one near you that could use a little love.

“It’s a day to celebrate the value of our public lands and what they mean to our everyday lives and an opportunity for visitors and volunteers to give back to our parks. There’s a plethora of opportunities and volunteer projects all across our state, from painting picnic table boards and signposts to removing invasive species, a lot of things to do for people and a lot of different times during the day as well.”

Interested volunteers can search for Statewide Volunteer Day IowaDNR.gov and find contact information for each park.

The majority of the clean-up chores will only require an hour or two of time and Bartlett says volunteers won’t need to bring much along.

“Most of these events, I would say, come prepared with some water and any weather-appropriate clothing or apparel, work gloves and a good attitude to give back to the parks that are really special to us in our every day lives.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson says Democrats want to push the country “past the brink” and that’s why she’s running for the U.S. Senate.

“We’re embarking on a journey to continue fighting alongside President Trump to transform the America First agenda into our America First Future.”

Hinson hosted a rally in Cedar Rapids Sunday afternoon to formally kick off her U.S. Senate campaign. She led the crowd in a round of applause for fellow Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, who has chosen not to seek a third term in the U.S. Senate. Hinson also emphasized that Trump endorsed her shortly after she entered the race.

Hinson, who has been a member of the U.S. House since 2021, says her political agenda is focused on working families, kids, small businesses, seniors and veterans.

“I’m a mama bear who refuses to stand by and allow my kids to grow up in a country run by liberals who want to ditch the American experiment and set up some sort of crazy liberal dystopia.”

A handful of Democrats are running for their party’s 2026 nomination for the U.S. Senate. Hinson singled out one of them — State Sen. Zach Wahls – by comparing him to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic Party’s 2024 vice presidential nominee.

“We rejected the last Walz who sought to destroy our country. We’ll do the same for this one. The same woke ideology, a little bit different spelling, but we get it.”

Wahls, the Democrat from Coralville, told reporters that Ernst “ran for the hills” because she couldn’t defend her voting record — and Hinson has taken the same votes in the House.

“I think that there is a real frustration with what’s currently happening with the economy and we know it’s gotten worse over time and it will continue to get worse unless we elect new leaders.”

On a trip to Iowa, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said President Donald Trump is engaging in finger pointing rather than encouraging national unity after the shooting of Charlie Kirk. Kirk was killed during an event at a Utah university Wednesday.

In a video, Trump blamed rhetoric comparing people like Kirk to Nazis from what he calls the "radical left" as "directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing our country.”

Van Hollen spoke to reporters before the Polk County Democrats Steak Fry on Saturday. He says it’s not a moment for revenge.

“I am troubled by the fact that the President of the United States at this moment, rather than bringing the country together to say no to political violence, has decided to engage in finger pointing. That is not the kind of unifying message that we need.”

Van Hollen also criticized the Democratic party at the steak fry, saying they have lost sight of working people. He says the party needs to refocus on core values like fighting for workers, public education and social programs; he added Democrats need to be ready to take on the oil, pharmaceutical and tech industries.

“Let's face it, friends, people don't trust the Democrats to take on those interests, and so that's why we need to show that we will fight for working people in America.”

Van Hollen says Democrats should back candidates in races across the country this year to build momentum for 2026. He says they also need to make sure a Democrat wins Sen. Joni Ernst’s seat, following her announcement that she won’t seek reelection.

Read more.

The USDA says it will invest up to $18 million into a program that connects schools with local farmers.

Projects approved under the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grant Program could include purchases of local food, education and food safety training for producers.

The announcement comes six months after the Trump administration initially canceled the program and terminated contracts for fiscal year 2025.

Chelsea Krist is co-chair of the Iowa Farm to School and Early Care Coalition.

“The awarded projects will definitely support access to local foods in schools and in early care and education programs through different local sourcing and food education efforts. So really excited about this, and can't wait to support those projects.”

But Christ says this funding doesn’t make up for $1 billion lost when the USDA canceled two other programs earlier this year – Local Food for Schools and Local Food Purchase Assistance.

“I think if we want Iowa schools and farms to thrive and be supported in this way, we need both types of funding.”

Applications for the Patrick Leahy Farm to School Grant Program close Dec. 5.

Read more.