Although she was held hostage by Iranian revolutionaries for 444 days, Kathryn Koob has been a firm believer in forgiveness and reconciliation. Thirty-four years later, Koob is joining many of the 51 other Americans who were held hostage from Nov. 4 1979, to Jan. 20, 1981 in Tehran, in seeking compensation for their ordeal. Koob, now [...]

Unable to defeat incumbent U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley in the past three elections, Eastern Iowa Republican were heartened by the prospect of an open-seat race when the Waterloo Democrat announced he would run for the Senate. However, open seat or not, the folks who handicap congressional races don’t see the 1 st District race as much [...]

Five years ago, after surveying the flood water and the damage done, Cedar Rapids community leaders flew to Grand Forks, N.D., to seek advice. “Perseverance” was the basis of the advice from folks along the Red River who had suffered their own “Flood of the Century” in 1997. Recovery, they warned, might take 10 to [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS – The man who helped increase voter turnout by 43,000 Iowans over 2008 while leading Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign in Iowa thinks he can do better in 2014. “The Republicans are convinced 2012 was a fluke,” Brad Anderson, the Democratic candidate for Iowa secretary of state told a Cedar Rapids audience Wednesday. [...]

If you remember nothing else about Senate File 295 know this: It’s the biggest tax cut in Iowa history. One after another, that’s the point Gov. Terry Branstad and other speakers drove home Wednesday at a bill-signing ceremony for the wide-ranging bill that provides tax relief to all classes of Iowa property — agricultural, residential, commercial and [...]

A decade-long deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan coupled with an aging population of World War II and Korean War veterans has created an “embarrassing backlog” in veterans services, 1 st District Rep. Bruce Braley said Wednesday. “Our veterans deserve the benefits they’ve earned putting their lives on the line for our country,” Braley [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS – Five minutes into Tyler Olson’s tenure as Iowa Democratic Party chairman, Sen. Tom Harkin announced he would not be seeking re-election in 2014. “That obviously changes the landscape significantly,” Olson said Tuesday, explaining his decisions to step down as party chairman five months into his term. Olson, a member of the Iowa [...]

It irks Paul Lunde that he’s often left out of news stories about Iowa’s 2014 U.S. Senate race. However, the Ames author, attorney and substitute teacher, who in early May announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the seat now held by Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin, isn’t letting that lack of attention deter him [...]

A quartet of lawmakers agreed Monday they need to raise the state motor fuel tax, but were pessimistic it will happen in 2014 – an election year. Three Democrats and a freshman Republican expressed disappointment in Gov. Terry Branstad’s apparent failure to hold up his end of a bargain calling for property tax reform in [...]

The first thing David Young wants you to know about him is that he’s an Iowan. “I am Iowa,” the Republican U.S. Senate hopeful says. Although he’s flattered that the Iowa Democratic Party has a http://www.welcometoia.com/">website devoted to introducing him to Iowa, Young says it’s not necessary. Sure, he’s spent the past 20 years working in Washington, [...]

As expected, Cedar Rapids City Councilwoman Monica Vernon formally entered the race for the Democratic nomination to fill an open U.S. House seat in Iowa’s 1st District. “I’m running to bring my common sense approach to problem solving to Washington,” Vernon said in her announcement statement. “I’d like to help Congress move past the gridlock and [...]

It may seem that New Bohemia Village, a bustling center of new urbanism cradled in a bend of the Cedar River, was created by the 2008 flood. However, the transformation from a community where previous generations of residents walked to work at a slaughterhouse or steel mill to a re-imagined human-scaled neighborhood where people live, [...]

A campaign meet-and-greet for Iowa Secretary of State candidate Brad Anderson is being cancelled due to the threat of flooding in Cedar Rapids. Anderson, a Democrat, had planned a campaign event from 5 to 7 p.m. at New Bo Market Friday. However, vendors have evacuated the market. A campaign spokesman said Anderson will reschedule the [...]

Accusing the long-time incumbent of limited vision and a limited agenda, Sen. Jack Hatch is visiting with Iowans about the possibility of running for governor in 2014. With Republican Gov. Terry Branstad serving a fifth term – and expected to seek a sixth, the Des Moines Democrat believes the incumbent has “driven us into a [...]

The City Council put payday lenders on notice Tuesday, moving to limit where they may be located and indicating it may seek to force 13 existing payday lenders to move. Following the lead of other Iowa communities, city staff recommended payday lenders – also known as delayed deposit services – be located no closer than [...]

A zoning change to accommodate a new office and call center for RuffaloCODY in southwest Cedar Rapids was approved by the City Council Tuesday night. RuffaloCODY, according to the Vern Zakostelecky, a city planner, has outgrown its building on the east side of the Kirkwood Community College campus. Kirkwood owns the 52-acre site that was rezoned. With [...]

Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen will make a decision this summer whether to move to a bigger House – the U.S. House. Paulsen, for the first time Tuesday, confirmed he is thinking about running for the U.S. House 1 st District in 2014. It will be an open-seat race because Rep. Bruce Braley is running for the [...]

Iowa voters will want to brace themselves for a barrage of advertising as a field of largely unknown candidates seeks their support for what pollsters find to be a wide-open U.S. Senate race in 2014. The race, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll released Friday morning, “at this point features a bunch of candidates who [...]

UPDATE: After fighting over abortion, budgets, education, taxes and a host of other issues for the better part of 130 days, the Iowa Legislature ended its overtime session on bipartisan high notes late Thursday morning. The Senate adjourned shortly before midnight Wednesday. However, an ideological train wreck in the House Republican caucus over abortion policy [...]

Nearly half of Iowa voters give Gov. Terry Branstad a positive job approval rating, but a poll released this morning suggests they think he has been in office long enough. Branstad, who is serving his fifth term, has a 49 to 31 percent job approval rating from Iowa registered voters, but, by a 43 to [...]