Amie Rivers

SCOOP: 'Tommy' from the now-viral exchange with Abdul El-Sayed is Thomas Teepell, a former staffer for Republican Senator Josh Hawley with close ties to Christian Nationalist Sean Feucht. He's the son of a former Bobby Jindal staffer whose consultant work was instrumental in getting Hawley elected.

@sarahlazare.bsky.social reports on the deportation of a union worker in Iowa, distilling the cruelty of Trump’s widening deportation machine. It doesn’t matter if you have legal status or have committed no crime. Immigrant workers are targets. workdaymagazine.org/iowa-city-co...

may it go as well for him as it did for Feenstra

As inflation hits a 4-month high and the Iran war keeps driving up gas prices, Trump unveils his big plan with the midterms two weeks away: a "World Class Championship Golf Course" in D.C. Work starts Nov. 15, closing a public course for about 15 months, he says.

Vice President JD Vance likes to cite food stamp recipients who he says drive Lamborghinis. But the White House ignores a far more prevalent form of fraud: transnational gangs stealing money from SNAP recipients.

Latina workers with reported earnings are only paid 53 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, which is down from 54 cents the previous year. #LatinaEqualPay #Trabajadoras

Today is Latina Equal Pay Day, the day that Latina pay *finally* catches up to what White, non-Hispanic men made last year alone. It’s economic injustice. America’s unions are fighting to end the wage gap for good and level the playing field with union contracts ✊

The most dangerous intersection in Black Hawk County, according to a county engineer, is about to change after county supervisors voted to turn it into a four-way stop. https://www.kcrg.com/2026/10/07/most-dangerous-black-hawk-county-intersection-getting-four-way-stop/

RO is now just being built into Iowa homes like regular plumbing

The Department of Homeland Security obtained millions of unspecified records as part of a nationwide effort to find voter fraud, according to internal reports, and weighed using undercover agents to investigate voter registration efforts by nonprofit groups. iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/10/07/r...

"ID.me is worse than redundant. It is an epic example of how private vendors are parasitic on the public sector. The more government comes to rely on such vendors, the more government loses core competence and becomes subject to vendor lock-in."

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson will join Republican First District Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks at a rally Friday. https://www.kcrg.com/2026/10/06/speaker-mike-johnson-coming-iowa-mariannette-miller-meeks-rally/ 

The Autozone win is a big deal

Family holds vigil for 10-year-old who died on school field trip READ MORE: https://www.kcrg.com/2026/09/25/family-holds-vigil-10-year-old-who-died-school-field-trip/

The mobile “Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room” parked in Cedar Rapids on Sunday between stops in Des Moines and Iowa City. It marked the first time Epstein survivors have made an appearance alongside the bookmobile, which is on a national tour.

"Journalists may not have much. But we retain the right to call the frauds and bootlickers masquerading as the pillars of the media industry a bunch of scumbags."

Would you support a 32-hour work week? A bill in Congress could make it the standard nationwide, but one Cedar Rapids company already offers the option. READ MORE AT KCRG .COM

Hang it in the Louvre 📷 Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

A $15 billion steel plant, the largest in U.S. history, is coming to Iowa. President Trump will announce this afternoon from the Oval Office. All according to the White House. www.thegazette.com/news/state/l...

BREAKING: Despite a federal judge ordering the Trump administration to immediately restore CNN, MS NOW, and Politico’s access to the White House, a Politico reporter was barred from entering the White House this morning and had his credentials seized. www.politico.com/news/2026/09...

www.thegazette.com/news/state/i...

A missing student and teacher's body have been recovered from Lake Macbride on Wednesday. Both victims have been officially identified by authorities. https://www.kcrg.com/2026/09/23/students-body-recovered-lake-macbride-officials-say/

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly early Thursday issued an order that temporarily blocks President Donald Trump’s ban of three news organizations from the White House, Jane Norman reports. iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/09/24/r...

Local reporting on Rob Sand's 1,000+ person town hall in Cedar Rapids last night. homegrowniowan.com/record-campa...

Despite a new state law allowing counties to increase county road speeds to 60 mph, Black Hawk County is keeping theirs at 55. youtu.be/r3joUQVEUM8?...

don't do it kids

Allowing the most powerful segment of society to opt out of public services inevitably makes public services worse. This is why the existence of private schools inevitably makes public schools worse. A simple fact that seems hard for many to admit. www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/private-sc...

Trump administration says individuals and industries may kill endangered animals in the course of logging projects, developments and other activities — so long as the activity’s purpose isn’t killing species, Stateline reports. iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/09/22/r...

Postville’s mayor tells KCRG that 400 of the 600 workers left without jobs after a fire at a meat processing plant have been rehired. https://www.kcrg.com/2026/09/22/agri-star-rehires-workers-after-postville-plant-fire/ 

tanking so fast

Protest at Waterloo City Hall before the council meeting tonight about the Human Rights Commission:

Longtime Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley urged Trump throughout the weekend to embargo diesel fuel exports as prices hit a record average of $6.51 a gallon Monday, impacting farmers' income, Ashley Murray reports. iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/09/21/r...

This is all an effort to disappear responsibility. If it’s the AI’s fault then no person or entity beyond the computer can be blamed for it. The US killed 123 schoolchildren.

Voting rights groups and Democratic officials are looking to defend against what they see as possible interference from the Trump administration ahead of the midterm elections, now that they’ve won a major battle over mail ballots, Jacob Fischler reports. iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/09/18/r...

"The AI maniacs will never admit it publicly, but as original creative works become more scarce, the market is being forced, against its will, to recognize the value of human creativity and intelligence"

This Minnesota strike is believed to be the first walkout by private-sector hospital doctors in U.S. history.

"Imagine the economy as a truck headed straight for a brick wall, but the driver is heavily invested in brick wall reconstruction, so there’s no chance of swerving."

On August 11, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network permanently ended the requirement that U.S. companies disclose who actually owns them and plans to delete the ownership information that companies have already reported. progressive.org/op-eds/trump...

After today the U.S. House of Representatives is off until after the midterm elections. That's a month and a half paid vacation.

Vice President J.D. Vance is coming to Iowa on Friday. Read more: https://www.kcrg.com/2026/09/16/vice-president-vance-set-speak-council-bluffs-rally-friday/

A University of Iowa research project is attempting to develop a better understanding of arsenic in private drinking wells in Iowa and offering landowners, in certain counties, free testing for their wells, Cami Koons reports. iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026/09/16/a...

you mean force feeding it to us on every platform while it destroys our environment and oh by the way will probably kill us all, was not going good?

For a third time, the U.S. House has voted to end the war in Iran, approving a war powers resolution that would halt President Donald Trump's ability to continue military action without congressional approval.