The Gazette Daily News Podcast, April 15

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You may wake up today to see the ground is covered with snow. Don't panic, you have not been sent back two months in time to right a terrible wrong-- Iowa weather is just dumb sometimes. According to the National Weather Service, it not only snowed overnight on Tuesday, it should be another brisk day on Wednesday with a high of 42 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area and some moderate breeziness. In better news, although it will take its time, it will continue to get warmer as the week goes on.

On Tuesday, one of the area's largest employers, Collins Aerospace announced furloughs and salary cuts due to the economic disruption of the COVID-19 coronavirus. The company, whose financial fortunes are closely tied to the airline industry, announced it will institute a temporary pay cut for salaried employees and furloughs for hourly employees worldwide, following a drop in commercial and business travel because of the pandemic. Salaried workers will see a 10 percent gross pay cut starting June 1 through the remainder of 2020, amounting to an approximate 6 percent decrease in their overall annual salary.

Tuesday was also Iowa's biggest spike in terms of new COVID-19 cases, largely due to 86 cases from the Tyson Foods pork plant in Columbus Junction. The 189 bump of cases brought the state's total to 1,899, with 49 deaths from the disease so far.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said on Tuesday that despite this jump, there have been some encouraging signs suggesting that new numbers of the virus are plateauing in the state. Reynolds said she has been talking to other midwestern governors and will make a determination on reopening Iowa's economy and lifting at least some social distancing restrictions sometime after April 30. She said she will also decide this week if schools will continue to remain closed beyond the end of the month. The trial for a man accused of killing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts in 2018 has been reset to Sept. 29, following another pretrial appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.

Cristhian Bahena Rivera, charged with first-degree murder, asked for a second review, this time by three justices, of a district court judge's December ruling on key evidence in the fatal stabbing. The point of contention centers on whether authorities properly informed Rivera of his Miranda rights before interviewing him about the crime. The prosecution conceded that investigators had not done so correctly the first time, but that details after the second time should be included in the trial, and this includes information Rivera gave authorities that indicated Tibbetts had been dead in his vehicle, that he had been following her, and provided them directions on where to find her body. The judge ruled in December that despite some extenuating circumstances these details could be allowed in the trial. The first request for a review of this ruling was denied in February.

This briefing is sponsored in part by Corridor Careers.  Are you looking for a job? CorridorCareers.com is a resource to local job seekers where they can get job tips, sign up for local job alerts, build a resume and more. Check it out at CorridorCareers.com.