Pedal cars and ambulance tours are not a part of a normal summer camp experience – but are mainstays of the two-week long annual camp called Safety Village in Iowa City. Children ages 5, 6 and 7 get the opportunity to learn about safety through hands-on presentations, demonstrations by groups like local law enforcement, ambulance services and Mercy [...]

NORTH LIBERTY — Summer and ice cream go together like peanut butter and jelly, or, well, ice cream and cones. To satisfy summer’s sweet tooth with a cool creamy cone (or bowl), head to the local ice cream shop, hit up the grocery freezer aisle or make your own. Sound complicated? It’s not. And you [...]

Great Harvest Bread Company will open its first bakery in Iowa this August in Cedar Rapids. Cedar Rapids residents Dion and Laurel Williams will own and operate the store, at 5070 Lindale Drive NE, across the street from Lindale Mall. Laurel Williams said the space will be about 2,500 square feet, most of which will [...]

The University of Iowa Children’s Hospital ranked in seven specialty categories in the latest U.S. News & World Report “Best Children’s Hospitals” rankings. The 2013-14 list, released Tuesday, ranked the UI Children’s Hospital 30th in cancer; 34th in cardiology and heart surgery; 43rd in diabetes and endocrinology; 25th in nephrology; 30th in neurology and neurosurgery; [...]

Plans to travel across the country were put on hold when images from Moore, Okla., came across Juanita Limas’s TV screen. “I had an extensive summer vacation already planned,” Limas said. “I was going to travel across the country and go backpacking and sightseeing for a few weeks but after seeing the coverage on the [...]

Just as Osgood Shepherd is credited with building the first cabin on the east side of the Red Cedar River, a pioneer named William Stone is believed to be the first pioneer on the west side of the river. For a time, there were two towns on the Cedar River at the river’s rapids, one [...]

  MARION — Luke, a 1- year-old golden retriever, trotted along the dog park walking trail on a sunny Saturday morning, stopped occasionally for a greeting sniff from a Labrador or corgi that gallop up to him. His owners, Leslie and Mike Buscher, were a few paces behind with their grandchildren and golden retrievers, 5-month-old [...]

  CEDAR RAPIDS — It was a busy week for Craig Hazelbaker. On Wednesday, his girlfriend of 15 years moved into his house. On Saturday, the couple completed the kitchen remodel that was first sketched on a cocktail napkin a year ago. “We finished at 10:30 a.m.,” Hazelbaker said. Thirty minutes later, a film crew [...]

Although Iowa City was recognized as being more open and liberal about accepting gays, Cedar Rapids in a 1984 Gazette article was viewed as being ultra conservative. Its blue collar base was more family-values oriented, and so the gay population in Cedar Rapids mostly stayed in the closet. People interviewed for the article asked to [...]