Erin Jordan

Iowa’s 2024 legislative session has featured bills that would affect Iowa’s land, water and air. Here are seven introduced by Republicans this month.

With thousands of schools built in the 1930s through 1970s still in use — Keri Hornbuckle and her team would like to help school districts pinpoint PCB hot spots and find ways to affordably reduce the risks to students and staff.

There is wide-ranging research on sauna use and health -- everything from heart attack and stroke to inflammation and skin conditions. Three Eastern Iowa businesses offer a variety of sauna experiences.

The North Linn Community School District has agreed to pay a $6,000 fine based on allegations staff violated state law on asbestos removal during a 2022 school renovation.

Another leak of chlorinated water into McLoud Run has killed hundreds of fish, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources announced Thursday — the same day it released an order saying the city of Cedar Rapids will pay $22,000 for a fish kill there last year also caused by chlorinated water.

An attorney for two former Iowa State University football players charged with sports betting violations says Iowa investigators’ use of geofencing software on at least one university campus amounted to a “warrantless search” that invaded students’ privacy.

Kathi Anderson donated a kidney for Christopher Turnis, but not to him. The National Kidney Registry allows people to donate a kidney that isn’t a match to help a loved one, friend or stranger receive another kidney that is a match.

The Federal Reserve has fined three Eastern Iowa bankers for taking confidential information from Farmers & Merchants Savings Bank in Manchester when they left in 2021 to recruit customers to their new financial institutions, a recent order states.

Armed with just an ice scraper and warm memories of their trip to Hawaii, Josh Figg and Bryant Duffy had to dig their SUV out of three feet of snow Saturday at The Eastern Iowa Airport.

While Democratic caucuses were more subdued than past years, party members who gathered Monday night in Iowa City said the stakes are higher than ever if Democrats want to regain ground lost to Republicans in Iowa.

Sportsbooks would be required to maintain a list of prohibited bettors -- including players, coaches, trainers and referees -- to make sure those people are not placing bets. Bettors would have to provide more information, including the last four digits of their Social Security number.

On the penultimate weekend before the first-in-the-nation Iowa Republican caucuses, former President Donald Trump and his rivals — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, and Ohio biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — campaigned across the state with the hopes of forging an 11th-hour surge in support.

The hottest topics were about energy, pipelines and farmland ownership. Water quality may get limited exposure through a bill that seeks to relax restrictions on developers. Because Republicans have majorities in the Iowa Senate and House of Representatives, what their caucus wants, they likely will get.

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office is investigating whether the purchase of nearly 80 acres of Linn County farmland slated to be part of a solar project near Coggon violates state law prohibiting foreign ownership of agricultural land.

Leaders of several states that have refused the money say they don’t need or want the handout from the Biden Administration, but children’s advocates say families are struggling and nonprofits can only do so much.