Search
During an Iowa Senate floor debate on the teacher armament bill, HF 2586, Sen. Janice Weiner (D-Iowa City) clarified that the goal of gun safety is not to take guns away, but to systemize safe practices and comprehensive support services so gun violence can be...
If you’re wondering when and where to see tulips in Iowa, look no further. Here are several festivals and farms to check out this spring.
For those unaware, April 6 is New Beer's Eve, because it leads up to National Beer Day on April 7. Why April 7? On that day in 1933, the Cullen-Harrison Act went into effect, making it legal for some low-alcohol beer and wine to be sold in the United States. The law...
You probably have heard all about "The Bridges of Madison County." Or how occasional Iowa resident Mark Twain counted Muscatine's sunsets among the best he'd ever seen (and he was a world traveler!). Or how Kurt Vonnegut finished "Slaughterhouse-Five" at the...
A Sioux City Republican activist who was convicted of illegally filling in ballots escaped a far harsher punishment on Monday for her 52 acts of voter fraud, which could have carried a five-year prison sentence for each. Instead, Federal Judge Leonard Strand...
In today’s hyper-partisan, emotion-fueled political environment, where policy proposals are seemingly presented and defended with facile slogans and tribal appeals, how can any citizen differentiate between the truly good and beneficial ones and those that either...
Transgender Iowans need joy these days. Eight separate bills have been considered in the latest session of the Iowa Legislature specifically targeting transgender youth, contributing to Iowa Republicans' 40 anti-LGBTQ bills in total. Fearmongering legislation—like...
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...
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...
By all rights, Sioux City resident Erica Carter should be a success story. Despite a spinal cord injury 13 years ago—which left her unable to get out of bed without help—Carter was able to complete both a bachelor's and master's degree in accounting. Today, she is the...
Rep. Mike Sexton (R-Rockwell City) would ban all plant-based meat products—such as Beyond Beef or the Impossible Burger—from Iowa if he could. “If it was up to me, I believe I would outlaw fake meat in the state of Iowa, and I would make it illegal to transport it...
How much better would your life be with an extra $500 a month—especially $500 a month with no strings attached? That’s what people behind the UpLift - The Central Iowa Basic Income program are trying to determine, but the study might be the first and last of its kind...
Legalized discrimination on religious grounds could be a major consequence of Iowa’s new “religious freedom” bill when Gov. Kim Reynolds signs it into law. During the Iowa Senate debate on this legislation, Sen. Janice Weiner (D-Iowa City), one of Iowa’s three Jewish...
At least nine children were working on overnight shifts cleaning dangerous meatpacking equipment at a Sioux City plant, according to court filings Wednesday from the US Department of Labor (DOL). The children were allegedly employed by Fayette Industrial, a...
I love my local public library. Lots of people use our libraries regularly, whether to check out books and movies, use the internet, or make copies of important documents. Iowa’s small-town public libraries are anchor institutions. They make our lives so much richer....
A redundant bill attacking and restricting measures to increase diversity and support for marginalized people at Iowa's regent universities passed a subcommittee in the Iowa House on Monday. HF 2327, changes several things about higher education in universities, but...
Wearing a green Raygun T-shirt that touted her support of public libraries, Anita Christensen of Indianola laid out a case for why Iowa’s Republican lawmakers should stay hands-off when it comes to libraries during a Monday Iowa Senate subcommittee on the topic. “I...
Librarians don’t want it. The public doesn’t want it. Even the Iowa Leagues of Cities is undecided on the matter, but Iowa Republicans want to change the law to diminish the authority of local library boards and make the institutions more susceptible to political...
Dr. Emily Boevers, a licensed OB-GYN in Waverly, said if Iowa Republicans want to require anti-abortion curriculum for children as young as 6 up until they graduate high school, it should at least be factual. “As a scientist and a physician, I just have to say that...
Despite Iowa Republicans calling teachers “sinister,” limiting how they can teach history and social studies, what books they can teach from, and proposing cameras in the classroom to monitor them in real-time, they apparently trust them enough to give them guns....
Sen. Jesse Green (R-Boone) introduced a bill last week that many library advocates say could lead to the end game for public libraries in Iowa. SSB 3131 would change how cities and counties fund public libraries by changing the language in Iowa Code from “shall” to...
On Wednesday, an Iowa House subcommittee for HF 2082 met to hear public comments and debate if the bill should move forward. If passed, HF 2082 would have removed gender identity as a protected class under the Iowa Civil Rights Act and categorized gender dysphoria as...
Cheers rang out down the hallway as a bill that would have legalized discrimination against trans and nonbinary Iowans failed to pass an Iowa House subcommittee Wednesday. HF 2082 would have removed gender identity as a protected class and added a diagnosis for gender...
Republican lawmakers on Tuesday advanced a bill to teach anti-abortion curriculum to elementary, middle and high schoolers. This bill, HF 2031, would require the human growth and development curriculum to include a three-minute animation showing organs developing in a...
We are less than a month into the 2024 Iowa Legislative Session and the Republicans in charge of Iowa’s state government have been busy— and by busy, we mean coming up with new ways to legally discriminate against LGBTQ Iowans. As Iowans struggle with stagnant wages,...
Despite abortion being a losing issue for Republicans across the country, Iowa Republicans in the statehouse have decided to double down on pushing anti-abortion policies. Last year, several anti-abortion bills were introduced, and a July special session led to the...
A new bill introduced by Iowa House Republicans would severely limit access to abortion medications through a 19-step process—including making them illegal to receive in the mail—and create an electronic record of who received the pill and the medical personnel...
Mandi Remington of Iowa City knows firsthand what it’s like to struggle to feed your kids and how the stability of two incomes can keep a person from leaving an abusive relationship. “Reflecting on my experience as a domestic violence survivor, I can’t help but wonder...
Iowa Republicans are continuing their attack on Home Rule in the Legislature this year, this time going after bans on widely discredited conversion therapy for minors. Iowa Sen. Sandy Salmon—a Republican from Janesville who represents Bremer, Butler, Chickasaw and...
They say Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday held this year on Jan. 15, 2024, should be "a day on, not a day off." So in that spirit, here are some events coming up honoring—and furthering the legacy of—one of this country's greatest civil rights leaders....
