News

In the year since taking over Iowa City’s bankrupt Mercy Hospital and transitioning the 78-year-old facility into its new downtown campus, University of Iowa Health Care has not completed a comprehensive review of staff badge access, “increasing the risk of unauthorized entry,” according to an internal audit made public this week.

This week on the show, Gov. Kim Reynolds may have accidentally announced her re-election campaign, Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks is getting a primary rematch, and legislative proposals to ditch the outdoors and recreation trust fund and remove gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

A month after Iowa’s Board of Regents cut references to diversity and inclusion throughout its five-year strategic plan, Iowa’s public universities largely have done the same in response to legislation and regent directives curtailing all DEI efforts.

Also in the Capitol Notebook: A bill criminalizing ‘smuggling’ of noncitizens advances in Iowa House.

The bills proposed by Gov. Kim Reynolds would launch a new $16 million grant program to provide three-year grants of up to $100,000 to preschool providers — typically school districts — and child care providers to provide wraparound services for working families.

The legislation would allow Pate’s office to work with state, federal and private agencies to seek information that will help his office determine registered voters’ citizenship

Freidhof, who has worked for Johnson County’s conservation department since 2002, succeeds director Larry Gullett, who died last year.

While a proposed bill in the Iowa legislature would not prevent the development of a Cedar Rapids casino, backers worry it would prohibit the city of Cedar Rapids from using a primary funding source to pay for needed road improvements and flood control measures tied to the project, but which benefit the larger surrounding area.