Gazette Daily News Briefing, October 4
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for October 4, 2023.
It will be cooler Wednesday with a chance for rain in the morning. According to the National Weather Service there will be a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms in the Cedar Rapids area, mainly before 11 a.m. Other than that, it will be mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming sunny, with a high near 81 degrees.
According to reporting from the Associated Press, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was voted out of a job Tuesday in a showdown forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives, throwing the House and its Republican leadership into chaos. It was the first time this has happened in the nation’s history..
McCarthy’s chief rival, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, orchestrated the rare vote on the obscure “motion to vacate,” and pushed ahead swiftly into a dramatic afternoon roll call vote.
Stillness fell as the presiding officer gaveled the vote closed, 216-210, saying the office of the speaker “is hereby declared vacant.
Next steps are highly uncertain as the House is in uncharted terrain, and there is no obvious successor to lead the House Republican majority.
Mercy Iowa City has received at least one bid to compete with the University of Iowa’s $20 million offer to purchase substantially all its assets as part of the hospital’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition — triggering an auction Wednesday morning in Chicago.
Attorneys didn’t disclose how many bids Mercy received to compete with the UI offer — which set the minimum at $20 million and required an additional “breakup fee” of $800,000 — or 4 percent — to surpass. That means any competing bid has to be at least $20.9 million — including the breakup fee and a required bid increment of $100,000.
Originally, Mercy wanted to impose both a breakup fee and a $400,000 expense reimbursement for the time UI administrators spent working on their offer. But Mercy’s largest bondholders objected, lowering the bar to compete.
Proactive safety measures put in place Tuesday in the Cedar Rapids Community School District following a threat made on social media will remain in place through Friday.
Captain Charlie Fields, commander of the Community Services Division of the Cedar Rapids Police Department, however, said school would not have resumed if the police department did not think it was safe.
“We are confident in the fact that school is safe for the kids to be in,” Fields said. “We have worked for several years with the Cedar Rapids Community School District to put school safety plans in place for incidents such as what we are experiencing right now.”
There was about 60 percent student attendance at schools Tuesday, and the majority of staff were present and “prepared to support our students,” Superintendent Tawana Grover said during a news conference Tuesday.
The best stock car drivers in the world will compete next summer in Iowa, officials announced Tuesday.
The first-ever NASCAR cup race in the state will be in June at the Iowa Speedway in Newton, a track designed by NASCAR Hall of Fame member Rusty Wallace.
“I was hoping we’d get it. And we got it. It’s going to be a hell of a show, I can tell you that,” Wallace told reporters Tuesday after a news conference on the Iowa Capitol grounds in Des Moines.
