Dani Gehr

The 108th annual Meskwaki Powwow takes place this weekend. It’s a four-day celebration of Meskwaki culture and tradition where everyone is welcome.

Some parents struggle to see their children leave the home, while others see it as a new and exciting phase of their life. Empty nesters share their experiences

In the 1980s, an Iowa City art teacher wrote to Keith Haring not expecting a response. This resulted in a friendship and two visits by Haring to Horn Elementary.

A now retired school principal, Iowa's own Kittie Weston-Knauer picked up BMX racing at 40, when she was one of two women in the country racing in her age group.

The new guide from Golden Hills Resource Conservation and Development details 20 places to hike and explore in Western Iowa.

Iowans put their talents on display with competitive floriculture, fine art, baking, canning, weaving and more. Rob and Deb Zeitler have gone from winning blue ribbons to being featured at the Smithsonian.

The legacy of former President Herbert Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover is on display at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, open now for the first time since January 2025.

Kratom is often found at gas stations and convenience stores and is marketed as a natural supplement for pain and anxiety. Gov. Kim Reynolds is calling for a total ban of the product and other synthetic varieties, alleging dozens of kratom-related deaths in Iowa since 2024. On this Newsbuzz edition of River to River, Ben Kieffer speaks with the 'Iowa Capital Dispatch's' Clark Kauffman about this call to ban kratom. Also, the 'Des Moines Register's' Brianne Pfannenstiel shares how candidates are approaching water quality this session, a registered nurse who found a side hustle fighting poison ivy and columnist Rekha Basu shares the impact of Gloria Steinem. Finally, our International Writing Program series returns with Mexican writer Juan Carlos Reyes and Studio One's Erin Fuller grooves us into the weekend.

Afghan soldiers stood beside American troops for 20 years. Now, five years after the evacuation, many still don't know if they'll be allowed to stay. On this episode, we take stock of what's happened since roughly one thousand Afghans resettled in Iowa. We talk with Fatima Saidi, national director of We Are All America and Robyn Barnard of Human Rights First. We also discuss what today's shifting immigration rules mean for Afghans still in limbo. Then, we talk with Cate Dicharry, the new director of the University of Iowa's International Writing Program. It’s been a year and a half since federal funding cuts threatened the program, and we discuss what its future holds.

The midterm elections are ramping up. We launch our candidate series with Dave Dawson, the Democrat running in Iowa’s 4th District. Dawson is running against Siouxland Chamber of Commerce president Chris McGowan, a seat currently held by Rep. Randy Feenstra. We talk with him about running as a Democrat in a red district. But first, we revisit a conversation with an astrophysicist who discusses new research on white dwarf stars 200 light-years away and learn about scientists at the University of Iowa working on a virtual lunar landscape complete with low gravity and lunar dirt. (Portions of the episode were originally produced Feb. 3, 2026.)