Cedar Rapids, Linn County | featured news

The Iowa Department of Public Health announced limited availability of coronavirus vaccines at Walgreens and CVS stores in Linn and Johnson counties, along with a select number of other counties, for approximately 32,000 Iowans age 65 and older.

As the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign accelerates, governors, public health directors and committees advising them are holding key discussions behind closed doors, including debates about who should be eligible for the shots and how best to distribute them.

The next few days will be the coldest Iowa has seen so far this season. The National Weather Service in the Quad Cities said a fast-moving winter storm is expected to hit east, central and northeast Iowa on Thursday morning and could bring blizzard conditions with powerful wind gusts, freezing rain and several inches of snow.

The presidents of Iowa’s three public universities on Wednesday told state lawmakers about the toll the pandemic is taking on their campuses’ enrollment and asked the state to increase its support of higher education.They also told the legislators why they oppose a proposed bill that would end faculty tenure at the universities.

More than a month after Democrat Rita Hart identified 22 ballots she claimed were legally cast but not counted, an attorney for Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks is now looking for rejected ballots.

Iowa’s Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said he anticipates a smooth Senate confirmation of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as President Joe Biden’s pick to again head the U.S. Department of Agriculture.“Pretty soon, I think he will be Secretary Vilsack again,” Grassley told reporters Wednesday.

MONTEZUMA — A judge decided not to take any action on last week’s arguments over subpoenas being improperly filed by the defense for the man charged with killing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts in 2018.

Iowa on Wednesday reported 1,199 new COVID-19 cases and 56 confirmed deaths during the 24-hour period between 11 a.m. Tuesday and 11 a.m. Wednesday, according to data from the Iowa Department of Public Health.Since the virus first appeared in Iowa in early March, 321,539 individuals have tested positive for COVID-19 and 4,975 people have died.

With COVID-19 looming large over the Super Bowl, it hasn’t sidelined the local Souper Bowl, the Domestic Violence Intervention Program’s largest annual fundraiser.But like everything else in this pandemic year, this month’s DVIP event will look very different.

The series of black and white photos appeared on Chrissy Teigen’s Instagram account last fall. Teigen, a mother of two, had been actively documenting her third pregnancy on social media, providing updates even when complications landed her in the hospital.The photos shared on Sept. 30, though, were unlike anything Teigen had posted in the past.