Gazette Daily News Podcast, June 29

The 90s return on Wednesday. According to the National Weather Service there will be a high near 90 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area with sunny skies. On Wednesday night it will be mostly clear, with a low around 68 degrees.

Abortions would be illegal in Iowa once a fetal heartbeat can be detected under a pair of requests Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said Tuesday she plans to submit to Iowa courts.

The Republican governor announced that, in the wake of last week’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, she will ask the Iowa Supreme Court to rehear a recent case on abortion regulations so the state court can establish what legal standards can be applied to abortion restrictions in Iowa.

And Reynolds said she will ask the state courts to lift an injunction on the so-called “fetal heartbeat” law that was passed in 2018 but immediately stopped by the courts.

For now, abortion remains legal in Iowa until 20 weeks of pregnancy.

According to Gazette reporting, members who currently serve on Iowa’s Board of Regents have made monetary and in-kind political donations totaling nearly $339,500 since 2019 — primarily to Republicans, with the majority going either to Gov. Kim Reynolds, who makes appointments to the board, or to the Republican Party of Iowa.

Iowa Code requires the nine-member board governing the state’s public universities to have gender and political balance, meaning it can’t have more than five members of the same gender or political party. The current board includes five women and four men, with five reporting Republican affiliation, three identifying as independent and one, Nancy Dunkel, marked a Democrat.

JC Risewick, appointed last week. has given Reynolds almost $60,000 since 2020 — $40,000 of which were in-kind donations in the form of flights.

State law doesn’t restrict or regulate regent political giving. Neither does regent policy, although it does cover potential conflicts of interest with the universities themselves.

University of Iowa Athletics must turn over all materials former players have requested from an “independent and external review” of the Hawkeye football program — including reports on specific coaches — despite UI assertions the records are subject to “attorney-client privilege” and should be private.

Former Hawkeye football players are suing the University of Iowa and some athletics staffers for racially motivated discrimination and harassment.

The UI in early 2020 hired a law firm Husch Blackwell to investigate the football program’s culture after numerous former players went public with allegations of racism and discrimination — leading to the university’s $1.3 million separation deal with former strength coach, Chris Doyle.

As part of its review, the law firm interviewed current and former players and employees and produced a report confirming the program “perpetuated racial or cultural biases and diminished the value of cultural diversity.”

Documents the players in the lawsuit want include Doyle’s performance evaluations and Husch Blackwell personnel reports on Coach Kirk Ferentz, assistant coaches Brian Ferentz and Seth Wallace, and Doyle.