My dad was teaching my daughter to pitch Saturday as news of E. Wayne Cooley’s death made its way around Iowa. I guess that’s a fitting tribute to the man who led the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union from 1954 to 2002. In fact, every time an Iowa girl fires a fastball, sinks [...]

More homes were sold last month and the average sale price rose in the Corridor and statewide. A total of 302 homes were sold in April, according to the Cedar Rapids Area Association of Realtors, up 3.6 percent from 291 sold in the same month last year. The average sale price of a Cedar Rapids [...]

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad has appointed Mary Mosiman – who he described as a “talented, experienced public servant who will keep a very close watch over the tax dollars” – as Iowa’s new state auditor. Mosiman, the state deputy of elections since 2010, succeeds David Vaudt, who resigned earlier this month. Mosiman, a [...]

DES MOINES – Sen. Rand Paul won a standing ovation for declaring Hillary Clinton unfit for higher office, but a full house at an Iowa GOP fundraiser was quiet when he called for immigration reform and outreach to Latinos and African Americans. Otherwise, it was a noisy, enthusiastic, sometimes raucous crowd Friday night at the [...]

After deflecting questions about her plans for months, former state Sen. Swati Dandekar is taking the first steps toward running for an open U.S. House seat in northeast Iowa. The Marion Democrat confirmed today supporters are forming an exploratory committee and she will decide before fall whether she will run for the 1st District seat [...]

DES MOINES — Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass said being named a finalist for a superintendent job in Colorado won’t have any effect on Gov. Terry Branstad’s pursuit of education reform in Iowa. “The education reform agenda in Iowa was built to be independent of any one person,” Glass said during a break [...]

A plan to spend $261 million paying off state bond debt and making investments in state universities won bipartisan support in a House committee Wednesday. However, the Republican-sponsored House Study Bill 239faces an uncertain future because minority Democrats are concerned it will starve their priorities and plunge the state into deficit next year. Democrats on [...]

As a general election swing state and home to the first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses, Iowa was the “next obvious place,” for the Quinnipiac University Poll to start asking questions. The poll, started in 1988, will begin regularly surveying Iowans’ opinions on statewide political races, presidential politics and issues, according to Peter Brown, assistant director of the [...]

  Last week’s state Supreme Court ruling — that both spouses in a lesbian marriage should be listed on a child’s birth certificate — wasn’t just the only legally logical way the court could have come down on the issue, although it is that. And please don’t write to tell me all about how babies [...]

Even as the field of potential Republican candidates for a 2014 open-seat Senate race dwindles, Iowa GOP Chairman A.J. Spiker says there’s no pressure on the leading contender to make a decision. “It’s his decision and I’m not going to push anyone on a timetable,” Spiker said when asked if the party had given 4th [...]