Monday Morning Read: Hotel boom in Iowa City / Coralville, recap Iowa's win, Halloween attractions across Eastern Iowa

Hotel Room Boom - At least nine new hotels and roughly 1,000 rooms are planned to open in the Iowa City-Coralville area within the next two to three years, data from the Iowa City/Coralville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau shows. Those counts include the new 143-room Hilton, which opened Thursday, and the 91-room Element, for which ground has yet to be broken. Read about the expansion of hotels in Iowa City and Coralville here.

Affordable Housing Initiative winding down - The five-year initiative is winding down, and officials are calling it a success, pointing to declining crime statistics and cleaned-up properties in Wellington Heights.

'The neighborhood looks better,' said Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff Pomeranz. 'We've seen new interest from developers. There's been a rebirth.'

Since 2012, the network has acquired 111 properties in an 18-block area with 602 addresses, exceeding a goal of 100 properties. Read more about the initiative and the outcomes here.

Recap: Iowa tops Illinois - If you believe in this sort of thing, sure, maybe the Hawkeyes needed a bit of an exorcism going into Saturday.

Your head would probably be spinning, too, if you lost the last two weeks the way Iowa did. It was oh so close to magic against No. 4 Penn State. It was out-grunted at Michigan State last week and that left a pit of doubt and an 0-2 Big Ten divot that the Hawkeyes simply needed to play their way out of.

Read Marc's full game recap here.

45 area Halloween attractions - The attraction — which features the Circle of Ash haunted house, Frightmare Forest walk in the woods and Pandemonium, a fog-filled maze through a circus tent with clowns — also has faced the challenges of fairgrounds floods in September 2016 and the past June. That hasn't scared the Halloween merrymakers away from their second year at the site. Check out the full list of attractions here.

Tax breaks under scrutiny - 

With an election for governor coming up and with courts, universities and the state's natural resources agency, among others, reeling from steep budget cuts and freezes, Iowa's generosity in forfeiting tens of millions of dollars to lure more jobs is coming under the microscope.

Some state lawmakers are wondering whether Iowa is giving away too much to businesses — giveaways some state economists say often are unnecessary anyway. Read the full story here.