Tom Barton

Iowa remains in the top tier of states in overall child well-being, but saw declines in indicators related to economic well-being and education outcomes, according to an Annie E. Casey Foundation report published Monday.

Iowa Democrats were stripped of their coveted first-in-the-nation caucuses in 2023. Now, Iowa will no longer have a seat at the table when an influential Democratic National Committee begins revisiting and recommending the order of states to lead off the 2028 presidential nominating process.

Iowa Republican and former state lawmaker Jim Carlin announced Friday he is once again running for the U.S. Senate, this time seeking to challenge incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst in the 2026 Iowa GOP primary.

While the U.S. economy looks good underneath the surface, uncertainty around the impact of Trump’s tariffs and trade policy has kicked up a “bunch of question marks in the air, you know, dust in the air that makes the visibility low” for the Fed to consider lowering short-term borrowing costs, said Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee.

Iowa U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst is serving her second, six-year term representing Iowa in the U.S. Senate and is up for re-election in 2026. She has not formally launched a re-election campaign, but her announcement Wednesday of a campaign manager sends a clear signal that the Republican incumbent is building an operation to run for a third term.

Iowa poll workers will be allowed to challenge a voter at the polls on the basis of their citizenship status under new legislation signed into law Monday by Gov. Kim Reynolds. The new laws also make changes to election recount procedures in the state, ban ranked choice voting and make it harder for third-party groups such as Libertarians to qualify as a major political party in the state.

In the video posted on her Instagram, U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst speaks directly to the camera while apparently walking through a cemetery. She says, “I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth.”

Google, at an event in Cedar Rapids on Friday, announced a $7 billion investment in Iowa to expand its cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure, adding to the $6.8 billion already invested since 2007.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, in Cedar Rapids for a Republican Party of Iowa fundraiser Thursday, questioned President Donald Trump’s authority to unilaterally impose tariffs on other countries by edict, and applauded a federal court ruling blocking Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law.

Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who was in Davenport for a campaign fundraiser Thursday, said of Medicaid recipients who would lose coverage because they don’t meet proposed work requirements and don’t qualify for an exception, “that's their choice to lose coverage.”

Iowa state Sen. Art Staed, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, said he plans to continue to serve in the Iowa Senate in light of the diagnosis.

Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, of Marion, will hold back-to-back in-person town halls Wednesday in Elkader and Decorah.

Doctors, nurses, food bank directors and other social safety net providers across Iowa warn major cuts to public health insurance and food assistance programs could lead to crowded emergency rooms, more rural hospital closures, drained family budgets, overworked providers and reduce care for veterans, seniors and children.

Over 5,600 callers tuned into an hourlong tele-town hall held Monday evening, Hinson said.

The state is seeking to restrict any food or beverage that qualifies for the state sales tax from purchase with SNAP. That list includes garden seeds, candy, gum, soft drinks and certain granola bars among other items.