Gazette Daily News Briefing, May 19
This Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for Friday, May 19.
We may have more smoke than clouds on Friday, but it will be sunny otherwise. According to the National Weather Service, there will be patchy smoke in the Cedar Rapids area before 11 a.m. Otherwise it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 67 degrees. Friday night it will be mostly clear, with a low of around 46 degrees.
Where did all that smoke come from you ask?
Wildfires began to sprout in Alberta, Canada, in early May, bolstered by unusually warm dry weather and strong winds. As of May 10, 136 wildfires burned throughout Canada — 31 of which were uncontrolled at the time. More than 29,000 residents have since evacuated Alberta and the neighboring province British Columbia.
The resulting smoke from the blazes has wafted over much of the northern U.S. It started noticeably clouding Iowa skies around Tuesday, creating cloudlike cover and red, hazy sunsets. That smoke was between 15,000 and 20,000 feet in the air.
But as another round rolls through the state, it will be closer to the ground — and, as a result, bring more of a health risk. The smoke started fanning across northwest Iowa on Thursday morning and will be present again on Friday.
The last day of school for students in the Cedar Rapids Community School District is Friday, June 2, one school day earlier than initially planned.
The last day of school will be a normal Friday early dismissal, according to a news release from the district Thursday. Students will not have to report to school on Monday, June 5.
Schools are required by Iowa law to have 1,080 student contact hours. Cedar Rapids students will have met this minimum requirement by June 2, according to the news release.
A man was arrested last week in connection with a shooting during a birthday party in October 2021 in a Cedar Rapids hotel.
Quonie Shelton, 30, is charged with five counts of willful injury, five counts of reckless use of a firearm, and one count each of using a dangerous weapon in the commission of a crime, going armed with intent and intimidation with a dangerous weapon.
Shelton is accused of shooting into the crowd at a birthday party at the Ramada by Wyndham hotel on 33rd Avenue, on Oct. 1, 2021. Six people were injured, according to the police.
According to the criminal complaint from Shelton’s arrest, two of the six people hit during the shooting suffered injuries that led to a “prolonged, debilitating impairment to an extremity.” .
Shelton was arrested May 8 and is being held in the Linn County Jail on a $250,000 cash-only bond.
