Gazette Daily News Briefing, March 18
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for March 18.
We’re going to be making our way through this round of a March cold snap as Thursday goes along. According to the National Weather Service forecast there will be a slight chance for snow in the Cedar Rapids area between 7 and 8 a.m. It will start cloudy before gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 48 degrees. As is often the case, a change in the weather will also come with heavy winds, with persistent wind of 25 mph gusting as high as 40 mph.
All of-age Iowans should be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine starting April 5, Gov. Kim Reynolds said Wednesday.
Reynolds said as long as the federal government fulfills its projected allotment of vaccine doses to Iowa in the meantime, the state will open eligibility broadly — not just to priority groups. Iowans who will become eligible April 5 should not yet attempt to schedule a vaccination appointment. Reynolds said she will provide another update next week after another conference call with federal officials.
As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 425,000 people have completed getting their COVID-19 vaccination from Iowa providers, and another 320,000-plus have received the first dose of the vaccines that require two doses, according to state public health data.
The Iowa Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would deny high-tech companies future state and local tax breaks if they were found by a court to have illegally stifled speech or certain viewpoints on social media platforms.
The bill was pushed by Republicans who say that conservative viewpoints are being silenced on social media platforms by decision makers in Silicon Valley. The bill was approved entirely with Republican votes and no Democratic support. It could impact hundreds of millions of dollars — more than $1 billion by one senator’s estimate — in state and local tax incentives for Big Tech corporations like Facebook, Google and Microsoft if a court finds they have violated the free speech rights of Iowans.
Meanwhile, in the Iowa House, Republicans were joined by just one Democratic vote Wednesday night in passing a bill that would broadly reduce the restrictions on firearm ownership in Iowa. In addition to expanding areas conceal carry would be allowed to places like the state capitol and school property, the bill would remove the requirement to get a state permit to carry a concealed weapon. A version of the bill in the Senate that may merge with the House bill would also promote permitless carry.
An Iowa City park has been renamed after James Alan McPherson, the first Black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and a longtime faculty member at the Writers’ Workshop.
The Iowa City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted to rename Creekside Park to James Alan McPherson Park. The renowned author lived in Iowa City and died in 2016 at the age of 72.
McPherson wrote two story collections, “Hue and Cry” and “Elbow Room.” He won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1978 for “Elbow Room” and joined the Writers’ Workshop faculty in 1981. That same year, McPherson was among the first 21 recipients of “genius awards” from the MacArthur Foundation.
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