On a bright and sunny Monday afternoon, Paul Andreasen prepared hot sandwiches and french fries inside his food trailer for a small group of regulars. One of them was Amy Glick of Tipton, who said she always orders the same thing: the walnut cranberry chicken salad sandwich. “It’s delicious,” she said. Glick was getting lunch [...]

Former Marion High School and Kirkwood Community College basketball guard Kasey Semler said via Facebook Thursday night that he will continue his education and basketball career at Northern Iowa this coming year. Semler is recovering from surgery to repair a torn ACL, suffered late in Kirkwood’s season. He said he will be a walk-on this [...]

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 [...]

Upon hearing word of Swati Dandekar’s 1st District congressional trial balloon, some Democrats failed to swoon. Blogging Iowa City Democrat John Deeth wrote about the former state senator from Marion’s prospects beneath a photo of the flaming Hindenburg: The flames in the photo above are just a Zippo lighter compared to the bridges Dandekar burned [...]

Resilience. The word and its other iterations resonate, a conversational refrain in conversations about Beat for Peace. “The big push of it is, we want to create resilient students and children,” said Paul Corbierè, co-creator of Beat for Peace. “People who are not resilient get taken down and there’s a snowballing effect, where resilient people [...]

Users of County Home Road in Linn County should plan for a detour on Sunday to make way for the first-annual Marion Rotary Marathon for Shoes. The marathon race starts at 7 a.m. and the race course starts and ends at Linn-Mar High School, twice taking marathoners onto County Home Road along the way. Linn [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS — As sure a place as any to mark the tension between the big city and its suburbs is a spot of ground on the west side of C Avenue NE where Hy-Vee Food Stores intends to build a new store. The spot sits on the south side of an ambitious $90 million [...]

Early-morning sunlight streams through the front windows at Huntington’s Restaurant in Marion. Owner John Huntington is already at full-speed, with a smile. “How’s breakfast, guys?” Huntington asks two men in a booth, who both give positive responses. It’s Friday, the end of the work week for some. But Huntington is gearing up for one of [...]

UPDATE: One local business owner has found the silver lining after a fire at a neighboring business that authorities say was intentionally set. Lemstone Parable Christian Store co-owner Janelle Pickering was stunned at the generosity of her customers Thursday, the day after a fire at a neighboring business, Iowa Warehouse Furniture and Sleep Center, at [...]

The board of the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency has expressed support for contributing $50,000 to the $9.4-million Prospect Meadows Ball Fields project. The agency’s contribution, a formal vote on which will take place in April, will come in two, $25,000 payments, and the money will be used for a trail on the ball [...]