Capitol Notebook: Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds travels to Ireland to take in Iowa State football game

DES MOINES — Gov. Kim Reynolds is traveling to Ireland to attend the Iowa State University football team’s game there and participate in other events throughout the week, her office said Tuesday.

Reynolds and first gentleman Kevin Reynolds will travel to Dublin for the Aer Lingus College Football Classic between the Cyclones and Kansas State Wildcats on Saturday.

In the days leading up to the game, Reynolds will tour Lyons Farm at University College in Dublin, attend an Ireland welcome reception at Dublin City Hall, speak at the One Health and Ag Tech Summit in Dublin, and attend a pep rally the day before the game.

Reynolds received a Bachelor of Liberal Studies degree from Iowa State University in 2016, while serving as lieutenant governor.

Reynolds issues STEM executive order

Gov. Kim Reynolds, at the Iowa State Fair this past weekend, signed an executive order that announced STEM Day at the fair and directed the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council to “ensure that every Iowa student in every geographic location and from every background has access to cutting-edge educational opportunities.”

The executive order also directs that the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council shall be co-chaired by the lieutenant governor and a gubernatorial appointee who will serve a two-year term.

The council was established in 2011 by then-Gov. Terry Branstad and was chaired by Reynolds, who was lieutenant governor at the time.

“Over the past 14 years, the state has provided cutting-edge STEM materials, programs, and work-based learning opportunities for countless Iowa students. We’ve also empowered STEM teachers to transform the classroom, and we’ve honored their hard-won accomplishments,” Reynolds said in a press release. “Even so, the nature of STEM continues to change, and with it the nature of work. Advancements in AI and IT are impacting virtually every career in the market. If we want the next generations of Iowans to be prepared for life outside the classroom, we need to begin equipping them now.”

Iowa bioscience economic development leader steps down

Steve Brody will retire from his role as president and CEO of BioConnect Iowa, a public-private partnership for economic development in bioscience, the Iowa Economic Development Authority has announced.

Brody led the organization with efforts focused on advancing Iowa’s bioscience sector and fostering innovation through partnerships with the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, the state agency said in a press release.

During Brody’s tenure, BioConnect Iowa launched the InnoVenture Iowa Fund, a publicly funded venture capital initiative that since its creation in 2022 has invested more than $13 million in 36 Iowa-based companies, according to IEDA.

“It has been incredibly rewarding to witness the groundbreaking bioscience research and innovation driven by Iowa’s talented entrepreneurs and researchers,” Brody said in the IEDA press release. “This experience stands out as one of the most fulfilling periods in my career, and I am genuinely appreciative of the chance to contribute to something so impactful for Iowa.”

Brody will remain involved with BioConnect until a successor is appointed, IEDA said.

Iowa AG joins legal coalitions against social media privacy violations, ‘designer Xanax’

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Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird has lent her office’s support to a pair of legal coalitions addressing Instagram users’ privacy and safety, and a designer drug that the office said is being linked to deaths across the country.

Bird’s office said it joined a bipartisan coalition of 37 states demanding Instagram “respect the safety and privacy of Instagram users” and add controls to its new location sharing feature. The coalition of state attorneys general “expressed serious concerns of the feature which displays a user’s precise location on a map,” the Iowa AG’s office said.

In the letter, the attorneys general ask Instagram’s parent company Meta to ensure that minors are not allowed to enable location-sharing features, send a clear alert to all adult users explaining the feature and outlining its risks, disclose how it intends to use users’ location data, and create a simple and easy-to-access way for users to disable the feature.

Bird’s office also joined a coalition of 21 attorneys general urging the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to take emergency action to ban bromazolam, which is known as a “designer Xanax” and is linked to U.S. deaths, the Iowa AG’s office said.

In the letter, the state AGs describe the drug as “highly potent and unpredictable.” The drug is already illegal in Iowa, Bird’s office said.

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