Gazette Daily News Briefing, July 10
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for Monday, July 10.
It will be a sunny day to start your week. According to the National Weather Service it will be sunny with a high near 90 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area. A chance for rain will return on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Police and firefighters evacuated a southwest Cedar Rapids motel Saturday after receiving several calls reporting a gas leak or some other vapor exposure.
One person was evaluated by ambulance crews, but did not need additional medical care, according to a Cedar Rapids public safety spokesman. No injuries were reported.
Authorities were first called at 10:14 a.m. to the Motel 6 at 616 33rd Ave. SW. According to the spokesman, utility crews found the source of the exposure and fixed it. But then, about 1:44 p.m., authorities were called again after guests began complaining of symptoms of an apparent exposure to gas or vapor.
Firefighters responded again, and ventilated the motel and conducted a room-by-room search to evacuate guests. According to a previous real estate listing, the two-story motel, built in 1977, has 100 guest rooms.
The incident remains under investigation
Iowa Republicans will hold their upcoming presidential caucuses on Jan. 15, 2024, the state party announced Saturday.
The announcement resolves one uncertainty about the 2024 Iowa caucuses, but much still is in question as Iowa Democrats seek to hold an early caucus while following rules set by the Democratic National Committee last year that kicked Iowa Democrats from the first-in-the-nation spot.
Iowa GOP chair Jeff Kaufmann criticized Iowa Democrats’ previous caucus proposals — which included conducting the presidential selection process mostly by mail — in his announcement on Saturday.
Generally the one point of agreement between Iowa Democrats and Republicans, the caucus process has become fractious as Republicans have accused Democrats of threatening Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status with their mail-in caucus proposal.
Four weeks into summer school across Iowa’s public universities, enrollment remains below pre-pandemic levels — although campus leaders are “encouraged” by signs student counts are normalizing.
UI summer enrollment for the term that started May 15 was 10,261 — the lowest since 1980; 183 students below last summer’s 10,444; and 21 percent down from 2017’s 13,005.
Although Iowa State University saw a slight uptick of 65 students this summer to 8,468, its count remains well below the ISU summer peak of 12,060 students in 2017.
And while University of Northern Iowa’s summer enrollment inched up 42 students to 2,631, it’s 64 percent below the 4,326 students UNI reported in summer 2017.
Although Iowa’s public universities’ combined six-year graduation rate dipped in the most recent report in fall 2022, their collective four-year rate has been climbing — now reaching 56 percent, up from 35 percent in 2000.
The quicker paths to graduation could be in play in the public universities’ broader enrollment drops — mirrored in the lower summer counts — which were predicted, due to the state’s changing demographics, and were aggravated by COVID's impact on the traditional college experience and student lives.
