Gazette Daily News Briefing, June 9
This Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for Friday, June 9.
It will be another sunny, pleasant day on Friday. According to the National Weather Service it will be sunny in the Cedar Rapids area with a high near 83 degrees. On Friday night it will be partly cloudy, with a low of around 58 degrees.
According to reporting from the Associated Press, former president Donald Trump has been indicted on charges of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, making him the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges by the federal government that he once oversaw.
The Justice Department was expected to make public a seven-count indictment ahead of a historic court appearance next Tuesday in the midst of a 2024 presidential campaign where Trump currently leads his fellow Republican contenders in the polls.
As is his custom, Trump jumped ahead of the news on Thursday evening by announcing the indictment on his social network, Truth Social.
The indictment carries potentially grave legal consequences, including the possibility of prison if Trump is convicted.
The case adds to deepening legal jeopardy for Trump, who has already been indicted in New York and faces additional investigations in Washington and Atlanta that also could lead to criminal charges.
About a month after the Mississippi River flooded parts of Eastern Iowa, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has placed the entire state in a “Drought Watch” following a dry May, according to a water summary update released Thursday.
In accordance with the new Iowa Drought Plan, the state’s drought regions are assigned one of four drought levels in the monthly water summary update: Normal, Watch, Warning or Emergency. The levels are established using current precipitation data, the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor maps, and historical streamflow and precipitation comparisons.
Last month, Iowa’s drought status as a whole was labeled Normal. Continued dry conditions led to a level upgrade after Iowa only received half of the rainfall that is usually expected in May.
That has left almost 99 percent of Iowa in some level of dryness or drought, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report released Thursday. Most of the state falls into the abnormally dry or moderate drought categories — the next highest levels after normal conditions.
Only small sections of northern and central Iowa received above-average rainfall totals. Southwestern Iowa, on the other hand, bore the brunt of the dryness, only receiving 35 percent of its typical precipitation and experiencing its 12th driest May on record.
In a long-anticipated move, the Big Ten Conference will eliminate the East and West football divisions after the 2023 season and replace them with a new scheduling model that protects some rivalries. The top two teams in the standings, regardless of geography, will face off in the Big Ten championship game.
Iowa’s rivalries with Minnesota, Wisconsin and Nebraska will be annual while all other opponents rotate. Not every school has the same number of protected rivalries.
Most schools have at least two protected rivals, while Penn State for whatever reason is the only team with zero. Thank you Nittany Lions for your somewhat arbitrary sacrifice so Iowa can keep all its trophy games.
