Gazette Daily News Briefing, February 19
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Friday, February 19th.
How do I know people are eager for Spring? People were stopping me randomly all morning Thursday and talking with glowing eyes about how it is getting warmer. The high was 16 degrees yesterday.
But I am not going to rain on their parade, because if I did it would all freeze. And, to be fair, it is steadily getting warmer, with a high of 17 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area predicted for Friday by the National Weather Service. There will be a chance for light snow Friday afternoon, but it is unlikely to last long. The high is predicted to be in the 20s on Saturday and potentially above freezing for the first time in a long time on Sunday.
An Iowa legislator is proposing to bake into state law an executive order from the Trump administration that banned publicly funded institutions from diversity training that involves race or sex “stereotyping” or “scapegoating” — which incited criticism from University of Iowa leaders that in turn incensed GOP lawmakers.
Though the federal order has been rescinded by the Biden administration, state Sen. Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton, this week introduced Senate Study Bill 1205, which was advanced by an education subcommittee. It would bar all K-12 public schools and public universities from offering diversity training that, among other things, says a person, based on his or her sex or race, “is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive.”
The bill also bans any training implying that “the State of Iowa is fundamentally racist or sexist.” And it prohibits training suggesting that a person “bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex”; or that he or she should feel psychological distress due to his or her race or sex.
A Senate subcommittee on Thursday advanced a bill that would allow grocery and convenience stores to opt out of accepting empty beverage containers that are now covered by Iowa’s 1978 bottle-deposit law.
Under Senate File 368, retailers could refuse to accept beer, soft drink, liquor and other nickel-despoit containers effective July 1, 2022, if an authorized redemption center is within 20 miles of their businesses. People would have to take their empty cans and bottles to those centers to reclaim their nickel deposits — as is the case at many stores now because of COVID-19 restrictions. Powerful organizations that include ubiquitous grocery chain Hy-Vee have been lobbying for years and years to change the state’s bottle deposit law. Lobbyists for the Iowa Grocery Industry Association have signed on in favor of the bill, while environmental lobbyists and representatives from the Iowa’s beverage bottlers and distributors have signed on against it.
A former Four Oaks youth counselor filed a written plea Thursday to sexually abusing and exploiting a 14-year-old boy, but a judge rejected it because her attorney hadn’t included all of the consequences of her guilty plea.
Danielle V. Hook, 29, formerly of Marion, plans to plead to amended charges of third-degree sexual abuse and sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist. The Iowa Supreme Court is allowing written pleas to felonies during the pandemic.
A criminal complaint states Hook had sexual contact with a teenager from July 1, 2017, through Nov. 30, 2018, while she was employed as a counselor with Four Oaks in Cedar Rapids.
After Hook was fired from Four Oaks, it was discovered the teen was living with her in Marion when juvenile authorities were searching for him, according to an investigation by the Iowa Department of Human Services and juvenile court services.
Investigators also discovered Hook gave birth to the teenager’s child, which was confirmed by a DNA test, according to the criminal complaint. Authorities listed the teen as 16 as of last year.
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