Cedar Rapids, Linn County | featured news

IOWA CITY — Just three months into its existence, Iowa City’s Ad Hoc Truth and Reconciliation Commission saw an upheaval in its leadership during a contentious meeting.

In July, Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague issued a citywide mask mandate in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

MARION — Forty percent of the Marion residents completing a community survey last fall think the community does an “excellent” job in making residents feel welcome.

CORALVILLE — While there were concerns a year ago about progress on the $387 million project to reconfigure the Interstate 80-Interstate 380 interchange, the Iowa Department of Transportation said this month that the massive undertaking is on schedule and on budget.

Seth Meyer has spent more than two decades in agricultural economics research, but he had never seen anything like what the ethanol industry experienced last year.

At 17, Aliya Keaton of Mount Vernon has been leaping over all the hurdles in her path, climbing higher with each one — all the way up to a $25,000 Horatio Alger National Scholarship.

Both chambers of the Iowa Legislature recently passed a bill backed by the Iowa Department of Corrections to clarify who can access confidential records of offenders when different agencies are providing treatment and rehabilitation to those in prison, eligible for parole, or on probation or parole.

Here’s how some issues have fared so far this session in the Iowa Legislature:ALIVE • Boost next fiscal year’s state K-12 education funding by $36.5 million (SF269) • Require K-12 schools offer in-person classroom instruction option (SF160)

DES MOINES — Legislation seeking to reinstate a limited death penalty, repeal the state’s bottle deposit law and require young moped riders to wear helmets fell by the wayside while Republicans voted Thursday to sanction high-tech companies for censoring social media free speech on a critical day for bills to win approval or languish for the 2021 session.

COUNCIL BLUFFS — A Girl Scout troop for girls whose families are homeless in Council Bluffs managed to sell more than 20,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies this year. Troop 64224 made sales in all 50 states — a remarkable feat for a troop of about six girls confronting unstable living situations in the middle of a pandemic.