Gazette Daily News Briefing, March 15 and March 16
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Saturday, January 15th and Sunday, January 16th.
By the time you wake up Saturday the snow will finally have stopped. Luckily that will be the end of heavy snow for the weekend. According to the National Weather Service it will be partly sunny with a high near 20 degrees. A wind of 5 to 10 mph will settle into a calm wind by Saturday night, which will also have mostly cloudy skies and a low around 0 degrees. On Sunday there will be a 20 percent chance of snow after noon, but it doesn’t appear like it will be significant snowfall. Otherwise it will be mostly cloudy, with a high near 27 degrees. The calm wind will continue again Sunday. On Sunday evening it will be mostly cloudy, with a low around 18 degrees.
Kirk Ferentz is coming for Joe Paterno’s records. Iowa football head coach Kirk Ferentz agreed to a contract extension that will last through the 2029 season, the athletics department announced Friday.
The 66-year-old Ferentz, who already is the longest-tenured college football coach in the country, will be 74 when the new contract ends. If he does not retire before the end of the contract, he’d have spent 31 years as head coach at Iowa. The total compensation will be $7 million per year, with a chance for performance based bonuses.
Police arrested a Cedar Rapids man Friday on suspicion of assaulting a police officer who attempted to make a traffic stop in December and fired at the man’s vehicle when he drove toward him.
Eddie Ayers III, 26, was charged with assault on persons in certain occupations — use/display weapon; assault on persons in certain occupations — bodily injury; interference with official acts with a dangerous weapon; eluding resulting in injury; and some traffic violations.
Ayers is accused of driving a vehicle that Reserve Office Scott Fruehling attempted to stop at 8:36 p.m. Dec. 17 on 32nd Street NE. According to the police account of the incident, Ayers attempted to flee but was stopped by road construction, when Fruehling got out of his car to talk to approach the vehicle, Ayers reversed course and drove at him. Officer then was forced out of the way by the car while shooting his service weapon at the vehicle.
Fruehling is currently on non-active duty while the department investigates if the use of his weapon was justified. The incident caused him minor injuries.
A judge ruled Friday that a Cedar Rapids teenager charged last year with killing his parents with a knife and ax has been found competent to stand trial.
Ethan Alexander Orton, 17, charged as an adult with two counts of first-degree murder, was sent in December to the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville for a psychiatric evaluation. His defense lawyers told 6th Judicial District Judge Ian Thornhill they believed Orton has a mental impairment or disorder.
Thornhill didn’t give further details of the evaluation, which determines if a defendant understands the charges against him and is able to assist his lawyers with his own defense.
A new performance venue that’s part of a “multipurpose development” is in the early design stages at a familiar location in downtown Iowa City.
Those who have walked down E. Burlington Street past The Mill in recent weeks have noticed the orange placards announcing the building’s impending demolition. The permit was issued Thursday, and demolition on the iconic venue is expected to begin in two weeks.
But while The Mill is set to be demolished, the intent is that some of its characteristics will help form a new “state-of-the-art performance venue,“ said Marc Moen, a local developer and owner of The Mill property.
“While we cannot preserve the old structure of The Mill, we will carry forward its values and build a venue that nurtures the local arts culture, acts as a community gathering space, and attracts up and coming national performers,” Moen, a partner in the Moen Group, said in a statement to The Gazette. “We are fully committed to including a purpose-built intimate performance venue as part of the new development on the Mill site.”
Support for this podcast provided by New Pioneer Food Co-op. Celebrating 50 years as Eastern Iowa’s source for locally and responsibly sourced groceries with stores in Iowa City, Coralville and Cedar Rapids; and online through Co-op Cart at newpi.coop.
