Gazette Daily News Podcast, October 13

Be sure to subscribe to The Gazette Daily news podcast, or just tell your Amazon Alexa enabled device to “enable The Gazette Daily News skill" so you can get your daily briefing by simply saying “Alexa, what’s the news?”

If you prefer podcasts, you can also find us on iTunes or wherever else you find your Podcasts.

This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Wednesday, October 13.

It looks like another rainy day is on the menu Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. The rain will start early, with showers and storms likely before 8 a.m. in the Cedar Rapids area. Then there will be showers and possibly a thunderstorm possible between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. The possibility of rain will continue into Wednesday afternoon but decrease as the day goes on, ending with a mostly clear evening. The high is predicted to be near 71 degrees, with a low around 48 degrees.

More than 10,000 Deere & Co. workers are on the verge of strike with a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday night.

The strike would affect workers in three states, including thousands in Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. Contractors, suppliers and other companies that do business with Deere would also become increasingly affected the longer a strike lasts.

Workers say the agriculture manufacturer isn’t offering adequate wage and benefit increases as the company enjoys record profits. They also said they have experienced mandatory overtime, an increasing workload and lack of support from managers.

A 24-year-old Marion woman was arrested Monday after officers found four dead cats in her apartment, which she had not visited in weeks, according to court documents.

Officers were called to Rebecca Pisarcik’s apartment in the 700 block of Bentley Drive at 5:36 p.m. Monday about reported animal neglect. They were told they would find a dead cat in the apartment, and officers confirmed they could see one through Pisarcik’s apartment window, according to an arrest report.

As she was not home, they contacted her at work — and Pisarcik returned home a short time later. She gave them consent to go into her apartment, and they found the remains of four cats that “apparently died from neglect.” They were in varying stages of decay.

One “barely alive” cat “showed obvious signs of malnourishment.” That surviving cat was taken to Cedar Rapids Animal Care & Control. Pisarcik told investigators they were her cats but she hadn’t been home in about two weeks.

Local nonprofits soon will have an opportunity to tap into a city funding stream that dried up for a couple of budget years in the COVID-19 pandemic as Cedar Rapids allocates its share of federal stimulus money.

The City Council on Tuesday approved a resolution authorizing city staff to create a grant program for nonprofits that would have received a slice of the city’s hotel-motel tax revenue in fiscal 2021-- but did not-- as the pandemic upended travel worldwide, reducing the cash Cedar Rapids reaped from a tax on overnight guests.

This program will use a maximum of $750,000 of Cedar Rapids’ nearly $28.2 million allocation of federal American Rescue Plan Act relief funds. In the past, organizations that have received a share of the tax funds included the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Brucemore, Indian Creek Nature Center and the African American Museum of Iowa, to name a few of the cultural attractions, recreation programs and institutions that have benefited from the tourism tax.

Recent rainfall slowed fieldwork but Iowa farmers still have harvested nearly one-third of corn for grain and more than half of soybeans, according to the latest Iowa crop report released Tuesday.

Farmers had nearly five-and-a-half days that were suitable for harvesting soybeans and corn, fall tillage and applying fertilizer during the week ending Oct. 10, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported.

Ninety-five percent of the corn crop has reached maturity, eight days ahead of the five-year average. Close to one-third of corn for grain has been harvested — also eight days ahead of normal.