Gazette Daily News Briefing, December 18 and December 19
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update Saturday, December 18th and Sunday, December 19th.
The weather forecast for Saturday and Sunday appears to be pretty similar for both days. According to the National Weather Service there will be a high of 34 degrees with mostly sunny skies in the Cedar Rapids area on Saturday. Then it will be sunny with a high of 34 degrees on Sunday. The main difference looks to be with the low temperatures, with Sunday night looking to trend a bit warmer, with a predicted low of 25 degrees.
A student brought a loaded gun to McKinley STEAM Academy on Friday, police said, when schools and law enforcement officials already were on high alert because of a nationwide social media post
Thousands of Eastern Iowa students stayed home from school Friday after an anonymous TikTok social media post declared it to be “American School Shooting Day.” Law enforcement and education officials throughout Iowa said they were monitoring but knew of no credible threats of school violence in the state.
One male student, whose name and age were not disclosed by authorities, faces a charge of carrying a firearm on school grounds, a Class D felony, and taken to the Linn County Juvenile Detention Center, police said.
Drew Blahnik, 34, for the stabbing of Chris Bagley, 31, of Walker, was sentenced during the Friday hearing to 57 years in prison, the maximum available to the court.
Blahnik, convicted by a Linn County jury in July, must serve 70 percent of that time, or 35 years on the murder sentence, before being eligible for parole.
Judge Christopher Bruns, in his ruling, said the testimony and evidence at trial established that Andrew Shaw, a Cedar Rapids drug dealer who Bagley had previously robbed and assaulted, wanted Bagley dead. Credible evidence showed that Shaw, who has not been charged in Bagley’s death, asked Blahnik to kill Bagley. Shaw is currently serving time on drug charges.
Ending a 31-year relationship that has brought hundreds of high school athletes and their fans annually to Cedar Rapids, the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union announced Friday it was moving its state high school volleyball tournament to the new Xtream Arena in Coralville instead.
The championship, last played in November in the Alliant Energy PowerHouse in downtown Cedar Rapids, has an estimated economic impact of $2 million in the community.
Xtream Arena opened in September 2020. The arena has a capacity of 5,100 spectators plus additional floor seating, and is connected to the five-court, 53,000-square-foot GreenState Family Fieldhouse. The arena is home to the University of Iowa volleyball team and the Iowa Heartlanders ECHL hockey team.
A dozen tornadoes struck Iowa in Wednesday’s storms, the National Weather Service has confirmed — double the number of December tornadoes the state saw in the last seven decades.
For some context for how rare this storm was: The most active month historically in Iowa for tornadoes is June, with 810 tornadoes and 22 related deaths recorded since 1950, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. In comparison, in that same time period, Iowa had seen only six tornadoes in December — until this week.
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