Gazette Daily News Briefing, March 30
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for Friday, March 30.
Thursday will be the calm in the usual Spring weather rollercoaster. According to the National Weather Service it will be partly sunny in the Cedar Rapids area, with a high near 62 degrees. It will be breezy, with a wind of 10 to 15 mph gusting as high as 30 mph. Showers and possibly a thunderstorm are likely early after midnight and into early Friday morning.
Iowa guard Caitlin Clark was awarded the Naismith Trophy on Wednesday as the national player of the year in women’s college basketball.
Clark, the first player in Division I women’s or men’s history to total at least 900 points and 300 assists in a season, is averaging 27.3 points 7.3 rebounds and 8.6 assists per game in leading the third-ranked Hawkeyes (30-6) to the Final Four.
Clark is the second Iowa women’s basketball player in five years to win it, joining Megan Gustafson in 2019. Iowa’s Luka Garza won the men’s Naismith Trophy in 2021.
The Hawkeyes and top-ranked, undefeated South Carolina meet in the Final Four at 8:30 p.m. Friday.
A man was arrested Wednesday on a charge of first-degree murder in relation to a fatal shooting at a Marion bar on St. Patrick’s Day, according to a news release from the Marion Police Department.
Duval Walker, 28, was arrested by U.S. Marshals and members of the FBI Safe Streets Task Force and Waterloo and Marion police departments in Waterloo, in the 900 block of Linn Street, Wednesday. He is accused of fatally shooting Cameron Barnes, 32, at Cocktails and Company, 1625 Blairs Ferry Rd., Marion.
Along with the first-degree murder charge, Walker is also facing charges of possession of a firearm or offensive weapon by a felon and going armed with intent.
Police were called to the bar at 11:06 p.m. March 17 on a report of shots fired. Barnes was found injured and was taken to a hospital where he died.
According to reporting from the Associated Press one of the teenagers charged in the death of their Fairfield High School teacher will testify against the other defendant.
Jefferson County Attorney Chauncey Moulding said during a court hearing that Jeremy Goodale, 17, has agreed to testify against Willard Noble Chaiden Miller, 17, during Miller's upcoming trial.
Goodale and Miller are both charged with first-degree murder in the November 2021 death of 66-year-old Nohema Graber, their Spanish teacher at Fairfield High School. Her body was found in a Fairfield park in November 2021.
