Gazette Daily News Briefing, November 3
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for November 3, 2023.
According to the National Weather Service Friday will be mostly sunny in the Cedar Rapids area, with a high near 52 degrees. On Friday evening there will be increasing clouds with a low of around 37 degrees.
After state party heads Wednesday called for leaders of a University of Iowa-based student organization of Democrats to resign over a statement deemed offensive related to the Israel-Hamas war, the Iowa State University College Democrats joined the fray by disaffiliating from the Iowa Democratic Party.
“This is not a decision we have taken lightly,” according to the ISU College Democrats statement. “But one that we believe is in the best interest of our club and our commitment to advancing our values and principles.”
The University Democrats at Iowa posted Wednesday on social media a statement expressing support for Palestine amid the Israel-Hamas war. The statement, which since has been deleted, ended with, “May every Palestinian live long and free, from the river to the sea,” according to The Daily Iowan.
The phrase “from the river to the sea” refers to the land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. Palestinians have used the phrase for decades to call for the restoration of the land where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians once lived before being forced to leave with the establishment in Israel in 1948, Jessica Winegar, a sociocultural anthropologist at Northwestern University who studies political protest and the Middle East, recently told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Late Wednesday, shortly after the University Democrats at Iowa statement was posted, Iowa Democratic Party state Chair Rita Hart issued a statement condemning the college group’s statement and calling for the resignation of any member who signed it.
None of the student leaders for the group responded to questions from The Gazette on Thursday. The group also hasn’t posted on any of its social media channels since pulling down the controversial statement Wednesday.
A Tama woman was sentenced Thursday to more than two years in federal prison for draining nearly all her nephew’s trust fund — more than $380,000 of his Meskwaki per capita funds and Social Security benefits — which was mostly spent on diamond jewelry for herself.
Nancy Lee Johnson, 69, previously pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one of the seven counts of wire fraud after she was indicted in 2022.
U.S. District Judge C.J. Williams sentenced Johnson to 33 months in federal prison and ordered her to pay $387,213 in restitution.
According to plea agreement, Johnson’s nephew, a member of the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Tama, couldn’t manage his finances due to “mental disabilities.” Johnson was appointed as his guardian in 2011.
In 2017, she filed a petition in Meskwaki Tribal Court to become her nephew’s permanent guardian and conservator, the plea stated. In the petition, she said her nephew couldn’t care for himself and make important decisions concerning his finances.
According to the plea, she used her position as guardian and conservator to transfer money from her nephew’s trust fund into an account she opened in her name for the unauthorized purchases. Johnson was able to conceal her scheme based on her guardianship and claimed that she was acting on the nephew’s behalf.
