Gazette Daily News Briefing, September 18
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for September 18, 2023.
According to the National Weather Service on Monday it will be sunny with a high near 78 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area. Late Monday night into Tuesday morning there is a high chance of showers and potentially a thunderstorm.
According to the Associated Press a judge found an Iowa man guilty Friday in the murder of a 10-year-old girl who was missing for eight months before her remains were found in a pond.
51-year-old Henry Earl Dinkins was found guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the death of Breasia Terrell, whose disappearance July 10, 2020, led to massive searches by dozens of volunteers and numerous law enforcement agencies. A fisherman found her body in March 2021 in a rural area north of Davenport.
Sentencing was set for Oct. 11, at which Dinkins faces a mandatory term of life in prison.
According to the report, after the decision, as deputies were removing Dinkins from the courtroom, spectators erupted in cheers.
No one was injured after firefighters responded to a fire raging at a farm southwest of Cedar Rapids on Sunday.
According to the Cedar Rapids Fire Department, firefighters from Fairfax and Cedar Rapids were called just after noon on Sunday to a fire at a farm at the 7500 block of 16th Ave SW.
Crews arriving at the scene saw that a corn bin and barn there were fully aflame. The fire had progressed to such a degree on those two structures that firefighters decided that they could not be saved, and they worked to contain the fire and protect nearby structures, according to the release.
Once a perimeter protecting those other buildings had been established, firefighters attacked the fire consuming the barn and silo from multiple positions, quickly bringing the fire under control.
The corn bin and barn were a total loss, according to the release. No firefighter injuries were reported.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Iowa Democrats voted on Saturday to hold their 2024 caucuses on Jan. 15, the same day as Republicans.
The date fills in one detail as the party works to plan its calendar and presidential nominating contest after being booted from being the first-in-the-nation presidential nominating contest by the national party earlier this year.
The date also falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday.
Under the party’s proposal, the caucuses would only be a party organizing meeting, while the presidential preference count that has historically put the caucuses in the national spotlight will be held via a mail-in process at a different time.
