Gazette Daily News Podcast, September 13

It's going to warm back up a bit this week, starting on Tuesday. According to the National Weather Service, it will be sunny in the Cedar Rapids area, with a high near 81 degrees. On Tuesday night it will be mostly clear, with a low of around 53 degrees. The wind should remain mostly calm throughout the day, even more so as night arrives.

An Iowa court denied a request from parents to temporarily bar enforcement of a Linn-Mar school district policy that protects transgender and nonbinary students while a lawsuit to negate the policy is pending.

U.S. District Court Judge C.J. Williams ruled Monday on a national parental advocacy group’s request, denying the injunction. The policy ensures the district complies with state law that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity, according to court documents.

An injunction would have blocked students from any protection from harassment and bullying on the basis of gender identity, as well as prevented the school from disciplining such harassment and bullying under various Title IX and Iowa civil rights-related provisions that defendants are obligated by law to enforce, Williams ruled.

The Linn-Mar Community School District is being sued by the national Parents Defending Education organization over the policy approved by the Linn-Mar school board in April.

The policies spell out inclusive practices for transgender students, including giving students access to restrooms, locker rooms or changing areas that correspond with their gender identity.

With wild birds beginning the fall migration southward, Iowa’s chicken and turkey farmers once again are on high alert for avian influenza.

This year’s version of the bird flu resulted in the destruction of more than 13 million birds in Iowa this spring.

While significant, that was not nearly as devastating as the 2015 version of the avian flu, which resulted in the destruction of more than 31.5 million chickens and turkeys in Iowa, and resulted in a $1.2 billion hit to the state’s economy, according to one report.

New cases have been identified throughout the Midwest in recent weeks: at poultry farms in Minnesota and Ohio, and backyard flocks in Wisconsin and Indiana.

According to the Associated Press, an indicator that the painful inflation of the past 18 months may be slowly getting better could come Tuesday, when the government is expected to report that the acceleration in U.S. prices slowed in August compared with a year ago for a second straight month.

Economists have forecast that the report will show that prices jumped 8.1% from 12 months earlier, down from a four-decade high of 9.1% in June and 8.5% in July, according to data provider FactSet. Sharply lower gas prices are behind much of the decline, along with the costs of used cars, air fares and clothing.

Furthermore, according to figures monitored most closely by the Federal Reserve, consumer prices are predicted to have dropped 0.1% in August. It would be the first outright decline in month-over-month inflation since May 2020 and would follow a flat reading in July.