Gazette Daily News Briefing, August 22
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for August 22, 2023.
Monday was hot. Tuesday will be even hotter. According to the National Weather Service it will be sunny and hot Tuesday in the Cedar Rapids area with a high near 101 degrees. Head index values could get as high as 118.
After months of turmoil with closings and reopenings, the iconic Hamburg Inn No. 2 was purchased last week by a group of local investors and is expected to reopen this fall.
The restaurant at 214 N. Linn St. closed in July for the second time in a year. It will reopen in October under new management.
New owner Gold Cap Hospitality, which owns Pullman Bar & Diner and St. Burch Tavern in Iowa City, hopes to keep the staple’s cultural importance intact “with the intention of stewarding the next generation of this Iowa City institution,” the company said in a news release.
“After almost 90 years, The Burg needs some fixing up. We’re taking stock of the things that are broken along with the things that aren’t,” said Nate Kaeding, founding partner and lead strategist at Gold Cap Hospitality
Flanked by National Guard soldiers, an armored Humvee and law enforcement, Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds on Monday attacked Democratic President Joe Biden's border policies, blaming him for record-high crossings, humanitarian concerns and an increase in fentanyl coming into the United States.
Reynolds joined fellow Republican governors Greg Abbott of Texas, Jim Pillen of Nebraska, Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma and Kristi Noem of South Dakota for a news conference in Eagle Pass, Texas, where that state installed a 1,000-foot-long floating barrier in July as part of a $4 billion border security initiative, Operation Lone Star.
Reynolds criticized President Biden for reversing border control policies put into place by former president Donald Trump, saying it has now made every state effectively a border state.
“Certainly, not to the extent that Texas is experiencing. But, let me tell you, Iowa is located at the intersection of two major interstates, and it is a pathway for the Mexican cartel and human traffickers to take to go from Mexico to the Midwest.”
Since 2020, Iowa has seen a 500 percent increase in the amount of fentanyl seized, a 100 percent increase in meth seized and a 35 percent increase in drug-related deaths. Much of it can be traced back to Mexican drug cartels, Reynolds said.
A new pair of Iowa polls, both regular and straw, show former President Donald Trump with a commanding lead over the expansive field of Republican candidates for president.
Trump’s advantage roughly five months out from the Republican Iowa caucuses, the first state nominating contest in next year’s presidential selection process, showed up over the weekend in both the Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll, and the Iowa Secretary of State’s State Fair Straw Poll.
In the Iowa Poll, Trump was the choice of 42 percent of likely Iowa Republican caucus participants, a full 23 percentage points ahead of the next-highest polling candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 19 percent.
Trump was also the choice of 42.5 percent of participants in the State Fair Straw Poll, which is an unscientific survey that is available to everyone at the Iowa State Fair, regardless of voter registration status, age or even residence. The poll is featured at the Iowa Secretary of State’s booth during the fair.
