Gazette Daily News Briefing, June 25
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Friday, June 25th.
We have entered into a cooler and wetter cycle, with Friday likely seeing a little rain. According to the National Weather Service, besides some isolated showers after 3 p.m. it should be mostly cloudy in the Cedar Rapids area Friday with a high near 86 degrees. Friday night will have a higher chance of isolated showers, with more than a half of inch rain possible overnight.
Up to 30 Iowa State Patrol officers will be redeployed for about two weeks to the U.S.-Mexico border to help law enforcement and border security efforts there, Gov. Kim Reynolds and the state Department of Public Safety announced Thursday.
Reynolds said she approved the action in response to requests from Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact between states.
Neither the department nor the governor’s office responded to questions after the announcement Thursday of whether the border duties would require any special training or what powers Iowa troopers have outside the state.
Iowa Economic Development Authority staff are recommending a state panel provisionally award $9 million to Cedar Rapids to fuel “transformational” developments in the urban core, according to documents released Thursday — far less than the $39.5 million the city had sought from the board to boost downtown growth.
The authority’s board is scheduled to make provisional awards Friday, allocating $100 million to six Iowa communities under the state’s Reinvestment District program. Under the agency staff’s recommendations, Cedar Rapids — despite requesting the most — would receive the smallest award of all communities, which asked for a combined $151.6 million through the competitive program.
Roman Catholic priests who victimized Iowa children decades ago cannot be prosecuted despite a new law eliminating the statute of limitations for child sex abuse, the state attorney general says.
The law, signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds last month, does not apply to cases in which the statute of limitations has already expired, Attorney General Tom Miller’s office said in its report Wednesday that found the amount of abuse in the Catholic Church “overwhelming.”
At least nine retired or defrocked priests and one retired nun have recently been accused of decades-old abuse in Iowa and are still alive, according to summaries of victims' complaints received by Miller's office. They include the Rev. Jerome Coyle, who allegedly admitted in 1986 to sexually abusing dozens of Iowa boys before church officials transferred him to New Mexico.
The 20-year-old Cedar Rapids man charged with killing his parents and sister last week wants to prevent prosecutors from accessing his medical records and any statements he made to emergency responders and other medical personnel who treated his foot for a gunshot injury that day.
Alexander Ken Jackson was charged with three charges of first-degree murder in the fatal shootings of his father, Jan Perry Jackson, 61; his mother, Melissa Ferne Jackson, 68; and his sister, Sabrina Hana Jackson, 19, on June 15 inside their northeast Cedar Rapids home.
Jackson’s defense attorneys are attempting to resist the prosecution’s request for information about the injuries, citing health privacy rights.
The Iowa Ideas 2021 virtual conference will be here before you know it, and we would like you to be our guest on the house. The Gazette is providing free access to this two-day gathering with more than 50 sessions- filled with thought-provoking local, and national speakers-- all ready to engage you on a variety of important and timely Iowa-issues. Join us October 14th and 15th for this can’t miss, idea-exchange experience. Learn more and register for the event at iowaideas.com
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