Gazette Daily News Briefing, October 8
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Friday, October 8.
The sporadic rain of Thursday will continue into Friday-- at least until 1 p.m. According to the National Weather Service, showers and patchy fog could greet you Friday morning. Overall there will be a high of 78 degrees with mostly cloudy skies. It should clear up by Friday night, with a low of around 60 degrees.
The three-member Linn County Board of Supervisors indicated Thursday that it is leaning toward appointing a county attorney rather than call a special election to replace County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden.
Vander Sanden, county attorney for 11 years, announced this week he will retire at year’s end.
Supervisor Ben Rogers, a Democrat, told The Gazette an appointment makes more sense, given the amount of time left in Vander Sanden’s term and given that only one person — First Assistant County Attorney Nick Maybanks — has expressed interest in the job.
Special elections not only take additional manpower to hold, but they also are expensive for local governments to hold, another fact cited by Supervisors to explain why they are leaning toward an appointment.
Pfizer asked the U.S. government Thursday to allow use of its COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 — and if regulators agree, shots could begin within a matter of weeks.
Many parents and pediatricians are eager for approval to protect children younger than 12, today’s age cutoff for the vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. The desire stems from not only protecting them from serious illness, but also helping to prevent disruption in school attendance when the virus hits the classroom. Recent data has shown that children below the age of 17 have accounted for roughly 1 in 4 new COVID-19 cases in Iowa in recent weeks.
According to the Associated Press, Pfizer says its research shows the younger kids should get a third of the dose now given to everyone else. After their second dose, the 5- to 11-year-olds developed virus-fighting antibody levels just as strong as teens and young adults get from regular-strength shots.
Bob Krause of Burlington has announced he’s seeking the 2022 Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.
Krause, 71, president of the Veterans National Recovery Center, sees an urgency for the defense of American democracy in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
Krause joins former U.S. Rep. Abby Finkenauer, Minden physician Glenn Hurst and Manning cattle farmer Dave Muhlbauer in the race for the Democratic nomination. Grassley is seeking re-election and faces a Republican primary challenge from state Sen. Jim Carlin.
Linn County Public Health will receive $250,000 a year for each of the next five years to help the growing efforts of reducing youth gun violence in the community, officials announced this week.
The local public health department is one of eight grant recipients across the nation named by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of an initiative to address violence impacting adolescents and teens as well as other factors that put communities at greater risk for violence.
Strategies used under this grant will align with an initiative already put into motion through the Creating Safe, Equitable and Thriving Communities Fund — or SET Fund. The fund, established in 2018 and overseen by the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, provides grants to programs that engage with youth on the issue of gun violence.
Be sure to subscribe to The Gazette Daily news podcast, or just tell your Amazon Alexa enabled device to “enable The Gazette Daily News skill" so you can get your daily briefing by simply saying “Alexa, what’s the news?
If you prefer podcasts, you can also find us on iTunes or wherever else you find your Podcasts.
