News
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VIDEOS: Iowa House and Senate debate ban on basic income programs
UpLift—The Central Iowa Basic Income program has reported making strides in studying the impacts of no-strings-attached monthly income for Iowans needing it most, but Iowa Republicans aren’t hearing it. HF 2319 is a bill to ban local governments from participating in such programs without state permission, and it passed the House after much debate around…
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What will happen to 1,276 laid-off Tyson workers in Perry?
What will happen to the 1,276 Iowans who will lose their jobs when the Tyson pork processing plant in Perry closes in June? Roger Kail, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1155, represents workers at that plant, and that is something he is working to figure out. Things had been going…
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Iowa Republican blocks bill to expand firefighter cancer coverage
Sen. Jason Schultz (R-Schleswig) declined to advance a bill that would provide Iowa firefighters with more comprehensive disability coverage for cancer treatment. “In highly emotional situations like that, somebody has got to be the taxpayer’s watchdog and remove emotion and think logically about the situation,” Schultz, a former small-town fire chief, told the Iowa Standard.…
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Opinion: Rethinking public high schools would help us fill important STEM jobs locally
We need a robust, highly skilled workforce in STEM to support the influx of major infrastructure projects cropping up across the country. The way to fix this is by starting at the high school level.
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Republican senators to poor Iowans: Work harder to escape poverty
According to two Republican state senators, participants in the UpLift—The Central Iowa Basic Income Program, just need to work harder and pull up their bootstraps to escape poverty. “It’s not the first job that gives you a raise to maybe $15 an hour that leads to the uplift for the rest of your life and…
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Biden’s 2025 budget prioritizes lowering costs for families, taxing the rich
The president’s budget includes proposals to lower childcare costs, create a paid family leave program, lower drug costs, and strengthen Social Security and Medicare—all by raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
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Immigration attorney describes Iowa GOP anti-migrant bill as ‘redundant’
Immigration advocates noted there are a few issues with a new Republican-backed bill aimed at undocumented migrants that is working its way through the Iowa Legislature. HF 2608 would require the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to verify the citizenship status of anyone who applies for public assistance, something the agency already…
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1,276 people to lose jobs when Tyson plant in Perry closes in June
1,276. That’s how many people in and around the central Iowa town of Perry will lose their jobs by the end of June, after Tyson announced Monday it would permanently close its longtime pork processing plant there. That’s a HUGE number of workers (and the largest employer in Perry): It’s more than 12% of Tyson’s…
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How ‘fetal personhood’ laws can limit family-planning options like IVF
Enshrining the idea of life beginning at fertilization, before implantation, would threaten Iowan’s abilities to access certain kinds of contraceptives and to in vitro fertilization (IVF). It would also be a serious blow to reproductive freedom. Sally Frank, a law professor at Drake University, explained how the logic works. “If fertilization is the moment of…
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Biden attacks GOP abortion bans, vows to restore Roe during State of the Union
“Many of you in this chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom,” Biden said to Republicans. “My God, what freedoms will you take away next?”
