Cedar Rapids, Linn County | featured news

CEDAR RAPIDS — Cedar Rapids has faced “extreme hardship” in the past and met the challenge, and “now we’re in the process of doing that yet again,” Mayor Brad Hart said Thursday.

DES MOINES — The Iowa House has restarted the process of amending the Iowa Constitution to restore voting rights for felons who have discharged their sentences.

CEDAR RAPIDS — A former Four Oaks youth counselor filed a written plea Thursday to sexually abusing and exploiting a 14-year-old boy, but a judge rejected it because her attorney hadn’t included all of the consequences of her guilty plea.

An Iowa legislator is proposing to bake into state law an executive order from the Trump administration that banned publicly funded institutions from diversity training that involves race or sex “stereotyping” or “scapegoating” — which incited criticism from University of Iowa leaders that in turn incensed GOP lawmakers.

Iowa on Thursday reported 635 new coronavirus cases and 15 new, confirmed deaths, with an increase in the number of virus-related hospitalizations.The new numbers bring the state’s totals to 331,069 cases and 5,321 deaths since March, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health.

DES MOINES — A Senate subcommittee on Thursday advanced a bill that would allow grocery and convenience stores to opt out of accepting empty beverage containers that are now covered by Iowa’s 1978 bottle-deposit law.

Iowa saw a slight increase in new claims but a decrease in continuing claims the week of Feb. 7, Iowa Workforce Development said Thursday.New claims rose from 6,120 to 6,320, and continuing claims fell from 48,028 to 47,614.About 31.2 percent of claims were related to coronavirus, which is down from 32.5 percent in the previous week, according to IWD.

CEDAR RAPIDS — When he got a call from the health department, Ali Mason took it as a compliment. That meant people were noticing what he was doing.“That was my goal, to get buzzy enough people would pay attention,” he said.

Catholics celebrated Ash Wednesday yesterday, which means that Lent is here and fish becomes a staple on Fridays for many families.Lenore Zoll, who closed her brick-and-mortar business The Fish Store on Dec. 24, a casualty of the pandemic, said she has rented a food truck from Caribbean Kitchen and is opened for business during Lent. Her first day was Ash Wednesday.

DES MOINES — The Iowa House on Wednesday approved two bills to increase access to health care, especially in rural Iowa, by requiring the University of Iowa medical and dentistry schools to offer more opportunities for Iowan students and residents.