DES MOINES — Bipartisan negotiators agreed Wednesday to spend $897.7 million on public education next year, but question marks remain on key proposals related to education reform. The education appropriations bill covers spending for the department of education, the state’s three public universities, its special schools and a host of other programs. State aid for [...]

It’s been a scandal-filled week in Washington, one where Iowa’s Congressional delegation has united, at least in the need to sort out what went wrong. First was a committee hearing on the Benghazi incident, followed by news that the Internal Revenue Service had been targeting Tea Party groups to investigate misuse of non-profit status, and [...]

An estimated 60,000 to 80,000 cars a day will have to find a new route through downtown Cedar Rapids -— at least for the rest of the week. Cedar Rapids public workers managers say that’s the estimated daily traffic count on First Avenue SE between Fifth and Third streets. And that’s the section that closed [...]

Intense criticism will not keep the city of Iowa City from moving forward with a developer planning to construct a high-rise building on city-owned land. The City Council rejected Tuesday night a rezoning proposal aimed at preventing Marc Moen from building a $53.8 million, 20-story building he’s calling The Chauncey at the intersection of College [...]

The City Council unanimously agreed on Tuesday to impose a ban on feeding geese and other wildlife on public property in the city, in a new effort to manage the overpopulation of geese and so reduce the amount of waste they leave behind. Those caught feeding will be subject to a $75 fine for a [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — The City Council on Tuesday sorted through the risks before unanimously approving City Hall incentives for the $90-million plan to transform the long-beleaguered, half-empty Westdale Mall into a new commercial/residential center around the existing anchor stores. The largest of the risks comes at the start, a $5 million upfront grant to permit [...]

IOWA CITY – The City Council Tuesday night OK’d a grant application that would provide money to put armed police officers in secondary schools in the Iowa City Community School District. The intent is to hire two new police officers to serve as what are known as school resource officers in the district’s three high [...]

Iowa City Council members indicated Tuesday night they would put a stop to plans to install red-light cameras in town – at least for now. Meeting in a work session, no City Council member voiced objections to a recommendation from city staffers that the ordinance allowing traffic-enforcement cameras, like red-light and speed cameras, be repealed. [...]

DES MOINES – A little more than 24 hours after she was appointed State Auditor, Mary Mosiman became the subject of an ethics complaint. The Iowa Democratic Party Tuesday alleged that Mosiman used more than $1,000 from her campaign for Story County Auditor, a position she was elected to three times, to pay for personal [...]

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad signaled Tuesday that he believes the issue of expanding health care coverage for low-income Iowans is too complicated to fix now and he favors calling lawmakers back into special session later this year once a bipartisan accord can be forged in the split-control Legislature. “We have a lot of [...]