Erin Jordan

Laura Palmer, of Des Moines, created the design painted on the Muscatine water tower in 2020 after the city of 23,700 won a contest sponsored by the Iowa Finance Authority. This year, she’ll create the art for the Runnells water tower.

The Buy Nothing Project, described as the world’s largest gift economy, allows neighbors in communities around the world to share things they no longer need or have in surplus. Items are given freely with no money, no bartering and no strings attached.

The University of Iowa will regild the dome of the Old Capitol this summer after failure of gold leaf installed in 2003.

Three proposed pipelines in Iowa would gather carbon dioxide from ethanol plants and sequester it underground. Two engineers weigh in on the impact the projects would have on climate change goals and whether ethanol is the right industry to target for carbon capture.

Two correctional officers were assaulted by an inmate Saturday night at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville.

With a change in Iowa law last year, Iowa barbershops are starting their own apprenticeship programs that allow would-be barbers to be paid while they learn from other barbers and through a state-approved curriculum. Some barbers say the state needs to provide more guidance to these new programs.

Trout Unlimited, a conservation group that works to protect rivers and streams, wants to join a Sierra Club lawsuit against the Iowa Department of Natural Resources over an 11,600-head cattle feedlot near Bloody Run Creek in northeast Iowa.

ADM announced Tuesday it wants to build a carbon dioxide pipeline from its plants in Cedar Rapids and Clinton to a sequestration site in Illinois.

A former Cedar Rapids man faces attempted murder charges after a June 25 shooting that injured another man. An argument over a woman led to the incident, police said.

A Williamsburg woman was killed in a single-vehicle crash Monday night in Iowa County, the Iowa State Patrol reported.

LaShell Nelson is the first Black woman to serve as a football official for the Big Ten Conference and officiated some major games in 2020 and 2021, including Iowa’s Oct. 9 home win against Penn State. She’s also a vice president at major financial services company in Dallas.

School superintendents and the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union are eager for guidance on transgender sports. Although there have been no Iowa challenges of district decisions on transgender athletes so far, parents in other states have filed lawsuits and Title IX complaints.

Iowa specialty crops, including hazelnuts, melons and cold-hardy red wine, got a boost this week with $300K in federal money awarded by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

In Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature, environmental groups look for niche issues that could get bipartisan support. These include soil health, digesters and state parks funding.

Girls Scouts and their families gathered at Lancer Lanes Friday for a Noon Year’s Eve celebration involving bowling, a Hawaiian Punch toast at noon and a cookie rally.