Gazette Daily News Briefing, August 4
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for Friday, August 4.
There will be thick fog to greet morning commuters. According to the National Weather Service there will be areas of dense fog around Cedar Rapids before 9 a.m. There will also be a slight chance of showers all day, ramping up in the evening into Saturday morning. Besides all that, it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 92 degrees.
According to reporting from the Associated Press, Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday to trying to overturn the results of his 2020 presidential election loss, answering for the first time to federal charges that accuse him of orchestrating an ultimately failed attempt to block the peaceful transfer of presidential power.
Trump appeared before a magistrate judge in Washington’s federal courthouse two days after being indicted on four felony counts by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith. The charges accuse him of trying to subvert the will of voters and undo his election loss in the days before Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent and bloody clash with law enforcement.
For now Trump remains the 2024 Republican presidential primary front-runner. This is the third criminal case brought against Trump in less than six months.
The Linn County Sheriff’s Office discovered an improvised explosive device in the roadway of the 1000 block of Secrist Road in Springville Thursday morning.
The device was found by a Sheriff’s Deputy just before 11 a.m. and was investigated by the Cedar Rapids Metro Hazardous Device Unit, according to a news release sent out by the sheriff’s office.
Secrist Road was closed for part of Thursday while the Cedar Rapids bomb technicians worked to make the device safe and remove it from the roadway.
A Johnson County jury convicted an Iowa City woman Thursday of helping her son flee the country to avoid being prosecuted for robbing and attempting to kill a woman on the University of Iowa campus in 2022.
Lima Khairi Mohammad Younes, 45, was found guilty of escape from custody, a felony, for aiding and abetting her son, Ali Younes, 20, to intentionally escape the GPS-monitored house arrest he was under as he awaited trial.
Ali Younes cut off his ankle monitor and fled to Jordan on May 6, according to authorities.
Lima Younes faces up to five years in prison. Her sentencing is set for Sept. 21.Her husband, Alfred Ali Mohammad Younes, 49, faces the same charge.
Ali Younes couldn’t be extradited from Jordan because the United States doesn’t have an extradition treaty with that country, according to police.
