Gazette Daily News Briefing, March 2
Republican bill would ban DEI spending at Iowa universities
Republican lawmakers Wednesday initiated efforts to dismantle what they called “bureaucracies existing at our regent institutions” focused on diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory by advancing a bill barring Iowa’s public universities from spending money on those offices, employees and programming.
“For too long, the DEI bureaucracies at our institutions of higher education have been used to impose ideological conformity and promote far left political activism … all while spending literally millions in the process,”
Representatives for the Board of Regents spoke against the bill, spelling out potential unintended consequences — like the inability to comply with both the state bill and federal research contracts, putting hundreds of millions of dollars at risk.
“An example of this would be the accreditor for the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa,” Chief Academic Officer Rachel Boon said. “This accreditor has a requirement that there be in place effective policies and practices to address equity and inclusion sorts of goals.”
Lawmakers amended the bill to protect the universities’ federal contracts
Arrest made in 2007 Cedar Rapids cold case murder
A 42-year-old Cedar Rapids man, Curtis Padgett, was arrested Wednesday on a first-degree murder charge in a 2007 cold case. He is accused of fatally stabbing and beating Dennis Lee First, 64, who lived in his southwest side apartment complex.
First’s death was investigated as a homicide, but no arrests were made at the time, Cedar Rapids Police said in a news release. Investigators continued to work on the case, evaluating new leads and evidence over the last 15 years.
Police don’t say what led to Padgett’s arrest — whether it was further DNA testing or something else — and the complaint doesn’t provide that information.
Padgett will be formally charged Thursday during an initial appearance in Linn County District Court.
Iowa has second-highest cancer rate; only state with cancer cases rising
Fifty years after Iowa began collecting and analyzing data on residents diagnosed with cancer through its Iowa Cancer Registry, statistics reveal Iowa has the second-highest cancer incidence rate in the nation and is the only state with a rising rate of cancer.
“We’ve really been trying to dig into that because it just seems so unbelievable that here in Iowa we would have the second-highest rate of new cancer cases around the country,” University of Iowa associate professor of epidemiology Mary Charlton, who directs the Iowa Cancer Registry, told reporters Tuesday.
Kentucky has the highest cancer rate, lining up with its high smoking rate, Charlton said.
“We don't have as high a smoking rate, we don't have as high a lung cancer rate,” she said. “But what we do have is a relatively high rate of just about every major cancer type across the board.”
