Cedar Rapids, Linn County | featured news

DES MOINES — There’s bipartisan legislative support for making a major investment in broadband internet expansion in Iowa, but leaders aren’t ready to commit to fully funding Gov. Kim Reynolds’s request for $450 million over three years until they see the latest state revenue projections made later this month.

Iowa Workforce Development reported a decrease in unemployment claims for the week of Feb. 28 for the second consecutive week.New claims increased from 4,216 to 5,531, but continuing claims decreased from 48,389 to 44,827. It marked the fewest continuing jobless claims since the week of Jan. 2.

The former Hy-Vee Drug Store in Marion is getting a “fresh” new look this year.The store, which closed in August due to damage from the derecho, will reopen as a Hy-Vee Fast and Fresh.

IOWA CITY — A woman, who found her former employer secretly videotaping her pumping breast milk in a private conference room in 2018, told a judge Thursday that she should “not have to live with shame every day for feeling like I should have caught him sooner.”

Maine is threatening to terminate its contract with Workday — a California company Iowa hired to update the state’s information technology system — after Workday suddenly stopped work last month, according to news reports.

Assuming COVID-19 vaccine will be “widely available” this summer, Mount Mercy University this week unveiled plans for “fully in-person operations” by Aug. 1 — reverting back to a more normal college experience after hybrid learning this year kept students, at least some of the time, out of class and confined to Zoom boxes.

One year and one week after the Board of Regents halted university-sponsored international travel last March in light of the “quickly evolving impact of COVID,” board President Mike Richards on Thursday lifted the travel ban “effective immediately.”

The North Liberty Police Department is looking for information about a missing 17-year-old girl.According to a media release, North Liberty police, along with the Cedar County Sheriff’s Office, are asking for public assistance in locating “a runaway juvenile.” named Elizabeth J.C. Howard.

As of Thursday afternoon, Iowa had administered 998,054 doses of COVID-19 vaccines, with 959,053 going to Iowa residents.Some 347,382 people have completed the vaccine in Iowa — about 15 percent of the state’s adult population.

DES MOINES — As it turns out, COVID-19 is far worse than the flu.COVID-19 likely will go down as the third-leading cause of death in Iowa in 2020, when 4,667 Iowans were confirmed to have died as a result of the disease by Dec. 31, public health data show.