Gazette Daily News Briefing, July 2 and July 3
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Saturday, July 2, and Sunday, July 3.
Your 4th of July weekend forecast will start sunny on Saturday with a chance for rain and high temperatures increasing as the week goes on. According to the National Weather Service, on Saturday it is expected to be mostly sunny, with a high near 87 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area. On Sunday there will be around a 20 percent chance of rain, but it will be mostly sunny with a high of 88 degrees. On Independence Day Monday the chance for rain will climb to 50 percent, but it is again predicted to be otherwise partly sunny, with a high near 90 degrees.
Most years, Iowa corn is far taller than “knee high by the Fourth of July,” but this year’s crop — set back by late planting and too little rain — fits the adage.
The “knee high” phrase may be as old as Iowa, founded in 1846.
One of the earliest times the phrase appeared in an Eastern Iowa newspaper was on July 3, 1884, when the Sumner Gazette said “It has been considered that if corn was knee high by the Fourth of July that the crop will be sure and safe.”
But with advanced corn breeding and fertilizer, corn today often reaches 8 feet by midsummer. But that’s under good growing conditions.
Iowa’s cold, wet spring delayed corn planting statewide by two weeks and set soybean planting back 12 days, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship reported in May. That wait contributed to 4 percent fewer corn acres planted nationwide this year. Farmers then have had to deal with dry conditions in the last few months, along with high nitrogen fertilizer costs due to Russia’s war with Ukraine and COVID-19 supply chain issues.
A former mental health therapist and licensed independent social worker with a Cedar Rapids school who pursued a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy was sentenced Friday to more than 11 years in federal prison.
46-year-old Miranda Bohlken Breeden, of Monticello, pleaded guilty last year to one count of enticement of a minor.
During the plea hearing, Breeden admitted she used text messages to entice the 14-year-old boy to engage in illegal sex acts between November 2019 and January 2020. She also admitted that based on this she would have been charged with third-degree sexual abuse in state court.
According to court documents, Breeden was placed on leave from Polk Alternative Education Center when Cedar Rapids Community School District officials found out about the criminal investigation.
The investigation revealed that Breeden had sex with the 14-year-old while in hotel rooms, inside her personal vehicle and during school hours in her locked office.
The first pediatric doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered to babies, toddlers and preschoolers across Eastern Iowa this past week after federal health officials approved the shots for children 6 months to 5 years. Approximately 195,000 children aged less than 5 live in the state, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health.
Two vaccines were approved for use: the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 6 months through 4 years, and the Moderna vaccine for kids ages 6 months through 5 years old.
Health care clinics and pharmacies began offering the first shots to young Iowans last week after the state delivered 23,500 pediatric doses in the first round of vaccine distribution.
Demand for shots at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, the state’s largest health system, was “initially very high,” said UIHC Chief Pharmacy Officer Mike Brownlee. When the system opened up the first appointments June 22, 250 slots filled “almost immediately,” he said.
