Gazette Daily News Briefing, September 24 and September 25
Welcome to the weekend!
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for Saturday, September 24 and Sunday, September 25.
The weather is going to be quite nice this weekend, besides being a bit breezy. According to the National Weather Service it will be mostly sunny in the Cedar Rapids area with a high near 76 degrees. Winds of 5 to 10 mph could gust as high as 20 mph. On Sunday it will be sunny, with a high near 72 degrees. The forecast again lists the conditions as breezy. On Sunday night it will be mostly clear, with a low of around 49 degrees. From an early look at next week, expect similar weather in the coming week.
An Iowa man was convicted Friday of charges that he led a crowd of rioters in chasing a U.S. Capitol police officer up a staircase and accosting other officers guarding the Senate, one of the most harrowing scenes of the mob’s attack that day.
According to the Associated Press, a federal jury deliberated for roughly four hours before convicting Douglas Jensen of felony charges that he obstructed Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021.
Jensen was convicted on all counts, including a charge that he engaged in disorderly conduct inside the Capitol while carrying a folding knife in his pocket.
During the riot, Jensen, a construction worker from Des Moines, was wearing a T-shirt with a large “Q” expressing his adherence to the QAnon conspiracy theory. One of the most memorable images from the Jan. 6 attack captured Jensen with his arms extended as he confronted a line of police officers near the Senate chambers.
“Go arrest the vice president,” Jensen told one of the officers, according to prosecutors.
Speaking of Mike Pence and Iowa connections, the former vice president will headline a fundraiser alongside Iowa Rep. Bobby Kaufmann next week in Wilton, marking another visit to Iowa and bolstering speculation around a 2024 presidential run.
According to an invitation for the event, Pence will be joining the 15th annual “Kaufmann Family Harvest Dinner” on Sept. 29 in Wilton. The invitation says other candidates and state leaders will be at the fundraiser, but only Pence and Kaufmann are named.
Pence was last in Iowa in August at the Iowa State Fair, joining Sen. Chuck Grassley on a tour of the fair. He’s attended party fundraisers and speaking engagements intermittently in the state since the 2020 election, including a speech at the University of Iowa in November.
Bobby Kaufmann is running for re-election to Iowa’s 82nd House District, which covers Cedar County and parts of Muscatine and Scott counties. He faces a challenge from Libertarian Clyde Gibson of Montpelier.
The White House on Friday said the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services would receive $9 million in state opioid response money, as part of the $1.5 billion it announced in nationwide funding to help combat the nation’s opioid epidemic.
A White House official said the grant funding is being distributed as soon as possible, through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services, but no timeline has been set.
Rod Courtney of CRUSH of Iowa, a Cedar Rapids based not-for-profit that provides support, resources, education and referrals for individuals with substance use disorders, called Friday’s White House announcement “encouraging.” He was particularly hopeful about a planned $104 million investment to expand prevention services for substance use disorder in rural communities.
“Personally, I think that would be a game changer,” he said of the funding to help create new sites to provide medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder in rural communities, “because it brings the cost of care down and accessibility up.”
Have a good weekend everyone!
