Gazette Daily News Briefing, April 13
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Wednesday, April 13.
Rain is likely on Wednesday as storms move through the state. According to the National Weather Service after the storm system moves through Wednesday morning there will still be some chances for scattered storms and thunderstorms before 1 p.m. in the Cedar Rapids area. Then there will still be a chance for rain in the afternoon ibut the severity should be less severe. The overall chance for precipitation is listed at 70 percent. The temperatures will also cool into the low 50s, which is where they look to be staying until the middle of next week.
Standing inside a distilled grain storage facility at a Central Iowa biofuels processing plant Tuesday, President Joe Biden repeated a pledge his administration announced earlier in the day: They plan to make the higher E15 blend of ethanol available for sale during the upcoming summer months.
“I feel like I’m preaching to the choir here,” Biden said to a few dozen invited guests at the event, as distilled grain poured into the facility beside him.
The event, which marked Biden’s first visit to Iowa since his election in 2020, was held on the grounds of one of 12 facilities in Iowa operated by POET, a biofuels processing company based just across the state’s northwest border in Sioux Falls, S.D.
The most common ethanol blend sold at gas stations is E10, and not all Iowa gas stations offer E15. Under current federal law, the higher-blend E15 cannot be sold during the summer driving period, defined as June 1 through Sept. 15, because of concerns it adds to smog when the weather gets hot.
The Biden administration announced Tuesday that its Environmental Protection Agency will issue an emergency action that will make the E15 blend available through this summer. The action will cite the strain on the nation’s fuel supply caused by the Russian military’s invasion of Ukraine.
A man suspected of killing Nicole Owens, 35, in the early Sunday shooting in a downtown nightclub is the father of a baby they had in 2021, records show, and he wrote in a court document that he had once worked at the club.
Timothy Ladell Rush, 32, faces charges of second-degree murder and a handful of other serious charges. Police arrested him Monday and he had his initial appearance in court Tuesday morning.
Owens and Rush are the parents of a girl born in early 2021 in Cedar Rapids, Linn County birth records show.
A criminal complaint released Tuesday against Rush does not address who police believe shot and killed a second fatal victim in the attack at the Taboo Nightclub and Lounge, 415 Third St. SE., that also injured 10 others.
Police said that Michael Valentine, 25, was also killed. Police Chief Wayne Jerman told reporters Sunday investigators believe two gunmen were involved and described the attack as targeted.
The panel reviewing Cedar Rapids’ charter, the document that outlines the scope and duties of city government, will extend the timeline for its once-a-decade review.
Initially slated to wrap up work no later than May 1, the Cedar Rapids City Council on Tuesday granted the nine-member Charter Review Commission until June 30 to complete its review and extended the members’ terms at the commission’s request.
So far, the commission has not recommended major shake-ups to the makeup of council or to the city’s council-manager form of government, which voters adopted when they approved a “home rule” charter in 2005.
Support for this news update was provided by New Pioneer Food Co-op. Celebrating 50 years as Eastern Iowa’s destination for locally and responsibly sourced groceries with stores in Iowa City, Coralville and Cedar Rapids; and you can order online through Co-op Cart at newpi.coop.
