Gazette Daily News Briefing, October 23 and October 24
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Saturday, October 23 and Sunday, October 24.
If you have chores or recreation that requires being both dry and outside this weekend, I recommend doing all that on Saturday. According to the National Weather Service, after widespread frost in the morning it should be sunny with a high near 56 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area on Saturday. Saturday night it will be mostly cloudy, with a low around 42 degrees. On Sunday there will be rain possible early and rain likely late, with a near 100 percent precipitation prediction after 1 p.m. There will be a high near 51 degrees. Thunderstorms are also possible, with rainfall totals of more than an inch accumulation predicted for the day.
Officers investigating a Sunday night shooting in south Iowa City that has a 20-year-old Marine fighting for his life have identified a person they suspect to be “responsible for the driver’s injury” and believe the shooting was “unintentional.”
Although police say they know who the person of interest is, they have not made an arrest and are not releasing their name while investigation into the incident continues.
At 6:37 p.m. Sunday, officers found Gabriel Heefner with a gunshot wound to the head and unconscious in his vehicle, which had crashed into a median west of the Highway 6 and Sycamore Street intersection. He was the only person in the car.
Heefner remains hospitalized as doctors work to control the swelling caused by the shooting.
The Iowa Economic Development Authority on Friday awarded $1.5 million in tax credits to fuel the redevelopment of two downtown Cedar Rapids housing projects.
Together, the projects will add 84 housing units.
The first proposal from developer Steve Emerson will convert the upper floors of the Iowa Building, 211 Fourth Ave. SE, into downtown housing units. The state will give $750,000 in tax credits to the project.
Another Emerson project also will receive $750,000 in tax credits to convert the old Skogman Realty headquarters, at 411 First Ave. SE, into the Palmer Building housing development.
Starting Sunday, Oct. 24, Iowans in the 319 and 515 area codes will need to dial all 10 digits of a phone number to make a call.
The new requirement from the Federal Communications Commission makes way for 988, a new three-digit number that will connect callers to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline starting in July 2022.
The national change will affect 82 area codes in 32 states.
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