Gazette Daily News Briefing, March 11
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Friday, March 11.
According to the National Weather Service it will be mostly sunny Friday in the Cedar Rapids area with a high near 29 degrees. It will be a bit windy with wind gusts as high as 25 mph and a wind chill at -10 degrees. On Friday night it will be mostly clear, with a low around 4 degrees.
An Iowa State University “Sport Clubs Review Committee” formed after two students died in a Crew Club accident a year ago has developed a list of recommendations aimed at improving club safety — including new rules expected to reduce the number of “high-risk” clubs.
Sport clubs deemed “unreasonably risky” and unable to satisfy new “enhanced risk mitigation measures” would be required to transition into “enthusiast student organizations.” Those enthusiast groups would serve as forums for “like-minded and passion-sharing students to come together.” But they wouldn’t be allowed to engage in the actual high-risk activity as part of a school sanctioned club.
Iowa State has about 50 clubs the committee projects would be deemed high-risk.
The university formed the internal committee following two independent reviews of the March 28, 2021, crew tragedy. The incident that sparked the reviews occurred on a windy day last spring when an ISU Crew Club boat capsized on Little Wall Lake.
Iowa’s state budget is even healthier than fiscal experts previously estimated — for the moment.
Over the next two budget years — once newly approved state income tax cuts go into effect — Iowa’s state revenues are projected to decline, according to new projections made Thursday by the state’s revenue estimating panel.
Should those projections hold true, it would be the first time Iowa state revenue declined in consecutive budget years since the 2009 and 2010 budget years, according to state records.
Despite that projected decline in future state revenue, Kraig Paulsen, the state’s budget department director and Gov. Kim Reynolds’ representative on the revenue estimating panel, said the state’s finances remain strong. He said so long as state revenues continue to grow at their historical average of roughly 3 or 4 percent, no state department or agency will be forced to cut its budget in future years.
The National Weather Service has confirmed four additional tornadoes that struck Iowa during Saturday evening’s deadly severe weather, bringing the total from the previously confirmed nine to now 13.
Seven people were killed in tornadoes near Winterset and Chariton.
The strongest of the 13 tornadoes was responsible for most of the deaths. It was listed as an EF-4 tornado with peak winds of 170 mph and it stayed on the ground for nearly 70 miles between Winterset and Newton. It left the longest path of destruction since a 1984 tornado that carved a path 117 miles long. The storm killed six people in rural Winterset, four of them from the same family seeking shelter in a home’s pantry because the house had no basement.
Support for this news update was provided by New Pioneer Food Co-op. Celebrating 50 years as Eastern Iowa’s destination for locally and responsibly sourced groceries with stores in Iowa City, Coralville and Cedar Rapids; and online through Co-op Cart at newpi.coop.
