Vanessa Miller

In a stunning turn of events many didn’t anticipate — including Mercy Iowa City and its executives — bondholder Preston Hollow Community Capital in a drawn out auction has outbid the University of Iowa for Mercy’s assets as part of the hospital’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.

Protests are planned on the University of Iowa campus next week, when a conservative student organization plans to host a lecture from a teenage activist who “vehemently opposes the transition of minors.”

Mercy Iowa City's philanthropic foundation has — after contentious backroom negotiations — agreed to help fund the hospital’s operations as it navigates Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

University of Iowa College of Pharmacy Dean Donald E. Letendre will step down next summer -- aiming to continue leading the nationally-ranked college until his successor is hired. Even then, Letendre won’t be far -- intending to stay on faculty as a professor.

Without disclosing details about ongoing backroom auction deliberations, a U.S. bankruptcy judge has agreed to postpone “to a later date” a sale hearing for Mercy Iowa City’s assets that was scheduled for Tuesday.

Two days have passed since Mercy Iowa City opened an auction for substantially all its assets, and the hospital will head into the weekend without a new owner or operator -- notifying a U.S. bankruptcy judge Friday afternoon the auction “will resume next week.”

“Homecoming is an institution-wide event that expands beyond the walls of campus out into the greater Iowa City community,” UI senior Matt McDonnell told The Gazette, as executive director of the Iowa Homecoming Council.

This year’s Iowa Ideas conference will also touch on that growing impetus to “meet the needs of students” with a session asking what those needs are – including in the mental health realm.

Without explanation — after a long day in attorney offices in downtown Chicago — Mercy Iowa City at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday announced the historic auction for its assets as part Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings would be continued “to a later date.”

A sale for the assets of Iowa City’s 150-year-old Mercy Hospital was underway in Chicago on Wednesday afternoon — although details about bidders and results weren’t immediately made public.

Mercy Iowa City has received at least one bid to compete with the University of Iowa’s $20 million offer to purchase substantially all its assets as part of the hospital’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy — triggering an auction on Wednesday morning in Chicago.

The Muscatine County family that last year sued Iowa City-based ENT Medical Services and one of its otolaryngologists after a 2-year-old died following a routine procedure to put tubes in his ears have added a third defendant to its lawsuit: the State of Iowa – for its oversight of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

The state produced a list of high-demand jobs after lawmakers created a new Iowa Workforce Grant and Incentive Program that set aside $6.5 million to motivate students across Iowa’s public universities to fill high-demand jobs.

In the days after Mercy Iowa City filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, five staffing agencies contracted to supply the community hospital with temporary health care workers – like nurses – began pulling them them before the expiration of their contracts, threatening Mercy’s “ability to continue staffing the inpatient units.”

Andrea Flinn aims to develop educational tools for learning the dialect – spoken in the Levant geographical area of the Middle East that includes Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel – in hopes of improving humanitarian aid to the region and helping immigrants settle and relocate.