Gazette Daily News Podcast, April 12

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This is John McGlothlen with the Gazette digital news desk and I'm here with your update for Monday, April 12th.

Our weather in the Cedar Rapids area today will be sunny, with a high near 58. Winds from the west 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Tonight should be clear, with a low around 36.

The University of Iowa has released information on the first of four presidential finalists. Distinguished law professor Hari Michele Osofsky, dean of Penn State Law and of the Penn State School of International Affairs will be visiting this week. Osofsky graduated magna cum laude in 1993 from Yale College with distinction in philosophy and environmental studies majors. She earned her juris doctor in 1998 from Yale Law School. She earned her doctorate in geography from the University of Oregon in 2013, completing her dissertation on “rethinking climate change governance.” She’s been in her current position at Penn State University since 2017. Before that, Osofsky held numerous professorships and academic leadership posts.

Osofsky is among four candidates from among a pool of 79 applicants that a UI search committee has chosen as finalists to replace outgoing UI President Bruce Harreld.

Each finalist is scheduled for a two-day visit to campus this week and next. All the finalists will participate in public forums that will allow limited in-person attendance and will be streamed online. Osofsky will be in town Monday and Tuesday, and her public forum is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Monday.

A 27-year veteran of the Iowa State Patrol was shot and killed during a violent standoff at a man’s home in Grundy Center. Authorities said Sgt. Jim Smith was killed late Friday night as he and other officers entered the home of Michael Thomas Lang, 41, who fled there after an earlier police pursuit. The standoff ended about midnight Friday when a team of highway patrol troopers in an armored personnel carrier smashed into the home. Lang fired multiple shots at the carrier. Three officers inside the carrier returned fire, hitting the man several times, authorities said. Lang was hospitalized in critical condition Saturday. He was charged with first-degree murder and is being held on $1 million bond.

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