A 12-year-old girl who escaped a kidnapper Monday and alerted authorities about her still-missing friend told the local newspaper the abductor offered them money to mow lawns. Desi, as she’s identified by the Dayton (Iowa) Leader, said she doesn’t think of herself as a hero. “I don’t want to be called a hero,” she said. [...]

Law enforcement agencies are probing whether a central Iowa kidnapping may be linked to the murder of two girls abducted last July from Evansdale. About 200 officers and volunteers searched rural areas in Webster, Boone and Hamilton counties Tuesday for a 15-year-old Dayton girl investigators believe was kidnapped Monday afternoon. Kathlynn Shepard was still missing Tuesday [...]

UPDATE: The Iowa Department of Public Health may replace ‘father’ and ‘mother’ labels with ‘parent’ on Iowa birth certificates following an Iowa Supreme Court ruling Friday requiring the department to list both lesbian spouses on a child’s birth certificate. “The Department of Public Health appreciates the definitive direction from the Supreme Court,” wrote public health [...]

IOWA CITY — When students at the Regina Catholic Education Center finish the school year May 31, they will have composted more than 11,000 pounds of food waste from their cafeteria since August. That waste once went to the landfill, where it took up space and generated methane, a potent greenhouse gas. But since August 2011, Regina [...]

Iowa City and Cedar Rapids Hy-Vee stores will start composting food waste, produce and floral trimmings through a pilot project. Green RU, a Des Moines-based organics recycler, will pick up the waste from Hy-Vee stores and haul it to compost facilities in Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and Eddyville, said Demetrios Hadjis, regional sales and marketing [...]

Rifles and shotguns seized in Iowa crimes are sold back to the public to raise money for the state, but some victim advocates say the annual gun auction adds to the problem of easy access to weapons for abusers and would-be criminals. Seized handguns are destroyed unless law enforcement agencies need them for officer use. [...]

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad announced Friday he has commuted the life prison sentence of Rasberry Williams, a 67-year-old who has served 38 years in prison after a 1974 shooting outside a Waterloo pool hall. “Mr. Williams’ record while incarcerated has been extraordinary,” Branstad stated in an April 26 letter to the Iowa Board of Parole. [...]

The University of Iowa has approved a plan for managing the conflict of interest of having Head Football Coach Kirk Ferentz’s future son-in-law work in the UI Athletic Department. The Gazette reported March 6 that Tyler Barnes, engaged to Joanne Ferentz, has been working as an administrative assistant for the football program since January 2012. The Athletic [...]

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has denied commutations for 10 inmates serving life sentences for murder, kidnapping and robbery. Branstad is still considering commuting the life prison term of Rasberry Williams, a 66-year-old who has served 38 years in prison for a 1974 shooting outside a Waterloo pool hall. “The Williams’ application is still under consideration [...]

The University of Iowa Athletics Department has submitted a proposal for managing the conflict of interest of having Head Football Coach Kirk Ferentz’s future son-in-law work in his department. The Gazette reported March 6 that Tyler Barnes, engaged to Joanne Ferentz, has been working as an administrative assistant for the football program since January 2012 . Athletics reassigned [...]

Iowa inmates serving life prison terms during the last 30 years are more than ten times less likely to see their sentences commuted than in the previous 38 years. From 1945 to 1983, Iowa governors commuted the sentences of an average 5.5 inmates a year, according to data provided by the Iowa Department of Corrections. [...]

DES MOINES — Rubben Jones’ life once looked as small as an 8-by-8 foot prison cell. That all changed in 1986, when Gov. Terry Branstad commuted Jones’ mandatory life prison sentence for a murder Jones didn’t commit. Since his release from prison, Jones, 64, has lived a rich life that includes children, a career and [...]

Sales and use tax breaks cost Iowa nearly $3.9 billion in 2010, up 62 percent from 2005, according to estimates included in a new report from the Iowa Department of Revenue. The department studied the fiscal impact to Iowa’s coffers of 133 sales and use tax exemptions and 63 property tax exemptions and credits on the [...]

The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics will start next week offering food composting for visitors at six dining rooms at the 14-acre health care campus. The Gazette reported Jan. 20 that UIHC Food and Nutrition Services wasted $181,000 of food in 2012 . The waste amounted to 12 percent of prepared food in the operation that [...]

The number of Iowa Medicaid recipients “locked-in” to using one doctor, one pharmacy and one hospital to prevent prescription drug abuse has increased sevenfold from 200 in 2010 to 1,430 in January. The jump came after Iowa Medicaid started screening patients not for just doctor-filled prescriptions, but for non-emergency visits to hospital emergency rooms. “If [...]

The federal government recommends law enforcement agencies trace all firearms, but many of Iowa’s largest police departments traced half or fewer of the guns they took into custody in 2012, a Gazette review shows. Some departments blamed lack of staff and long waits for tracing by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. [...]

CORALVILLE – Thieves broke through a rooftop window in the early morning of Dec. 8, 2008, and stole 17 semi-automatic handguns, valued at $11,400, from the Scheels store at Coral Ridge Mall. The most expensive gun, a .45-caliber Kimber Warrior worth more than $1,000, was used to rob a Nashville bank in 2009. At least [...]