by Jennifer Shutt, Iowa Capital Dispatch June 19, 2024 WASHINGTON — Scientists debated the origins of COVID-19 this week, trading barbs over whether the bulk of evidence available points to a natural spillover event from a wild animal or a virus designed in a lab and then let loose through an inadvertent leak. The hearing […]
by Robin Opsahl, Iowa Capital Dispatch June 18, 2024 Attorney General Brenna Bird has announced the creation of a cold case unit within the state office dedicated to investigating unsolved murders in Iowa. At a news conference at the Polk County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday, Bird said the new unit, to be officially launched July […]
by Jacob Fischler, Iowa Capital Dispatch June 17, 2024 Weeks after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration proposed loosening a federal prohibition on marijuana, the next phases of policy fights over the drug’s status are starting to take shape. Public comments, which the DEA is accepting on the proposal until mid-July, will likely include an analysis […]
by Jack O’Connor, Iowa Capital Dispatch June 17, 2024 Iowa scored relatively well in education rankings among the states, but with declining test scores and on-time high school graduation rates decreasing, the state has fallen from its highs of previous years, according to a new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Sixty-seven percent of […]
by Ariana Figueroa, Iowa Capital Dispatch June 14, 2024 WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday struck down a rule enacted following a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that defined a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a bump stock attachment as a machine gun, which is generally prohibited under federal law. The opinion, written […]
by Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch June 14, 2024 A subsidiary of Alliant Energy — a major wind energy producer in the state — seeks to succeed where other companies have failed: It wants to recycle old wind turbine blades that have sometimes languished in large piles in Iowa. The blades are often made of […]
by Brooklyn Draisey, Iowa Capital Dispatch June 11, 2024 A suspect has been apprehended in an incident where four Cornell College instructors, one of whom is the brother of Iowa Rep. Adam Zabner, were injured Monday during a visit to a public park in Jilin City, China. The instructors from the Mount Vernon college were […]
by Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch June 12, 2024 Avian flu has infected cattle of a third dairy farm in northwest Iowa, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. All three of the highly pathogenic avian influenza infections — the first in cattle in the state — have been discovered by testing […]
by Jared Strong, Iowa Capital Dispatch June 6, 2024 Despite drier than typical conditions last week in Iowa, the abundant rainfall of preceding weeks has continued to percolate into deeper soil that can be important for crop growth, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. About 92% of the state’s subsoil has adequate or surplus […]
DES MOINES, Iowa (June 5, 2024) – The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) have detected a case of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in O’Brien County, Iowa. Final confirmatory testing is pending at the National Veterinary Services Laboratory […]
