Gazette Daily News Podcast, November 17

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This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Wednesday, November 17th.

Wednesday will mark the decline in temperatures this week until we reach warmer temperatures again potentially by this weekend. According to a forecast from the National Weather Service it will be mostly cloudy in the Cedar Rapids area during the day with a high of 47 degrees. On Wednesday night it will be mostly clear, with a low around 29 degrees.

Once again, fewer students enrolled this fall in Iowa’s 15 community colleges — continuing a decadelong slide the pandemic worsened, driving a 7.5 percent drop from fall 2019 to fall 2021.

Still, this semester’s one-year dip of 1.6 percent in total enrollment across the state’s community colleges is an improvement over the one-year drop of 6 percent in fall 2020, according to a new report the Iowa Board of Education is set to discuss this week.

Iowa’s 2021 losses also fare better than national average losses, showing community college enrollment across the nation slid 5.6 percent this fall over last and 14 percent since 2019.

Iowa’s community college total enrollment loss this year would have been steeper were it not for a 3.4 percent increase in “joint enrollment” — that is, when high school students take community college credits as well.

An Eastern Iowa man was killed Monday night in a single-vehicle crash on Interstate 80 in Iowa City.

The Iowa State Patrol said 59-year-old Jay Statser of West Liberty was traveling westbound on I-80 in a 1998 Ford Explorer about 10:44 p.m. when he lost control, entered the north ditch and struck a bridge pillar for the Highway 1, or North Dodge Street, overpass.

The crash remains under investigation.

Iowa City police are investigating an incident involving two young children in which a firearm was discharged Nov. 7.

The incident happened around 2:18 p.m. at an apartment complex on Foster Road, according to the activity log. The log item says “stab/gunshot/penetrating trauma” and in the notes area it says “5 YO.”

“I can confirm the police department is actively investigating an incident with a firearm involving two young children,” Iowa City Public Safety Information Officer Lee Hermiston wrote in an email to The Gazette on Tuesday. “Due to the ages of the parties involved and because this is an open investigation, I cannot release any more information at this time.”

According to reporting from the Associated Press, a federal judge has blocked the U.S. Treasury from enforcing a provision of the American Rescue Plan Act that prohibited states from using the pandemic relief funds to offset new tax cuts.

U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler ruled Monday in Alabama that Congress exceeded its power in putting the tax mandate on states. He entered a final judgment in favor of 13 states including Iowa that had filed a lawsuit and instructed the Treasury Department not to enforce the provision.

“This is a major victory for the State of Iowa and Iowa taxpayers,” Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a statement. The governor also indicated that she intends to push for more tax cuts in the near future, but what types of cuts these will be is still unclear.

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