Gazette Daily News Podcast, October 9
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Your Friday weather forecast still promises to feel like fall, but it will be warmer than recent weeks. According to the National Weather Service it will be mostly sunny in the Cedar Rapids area with a high near 83 degrees. It will also be breezy, with a south wind of 10 to 15 mph increasing to 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon, gusting as high as 35 mph. Friday night the wind will calm down a bit, and a low temperature of 59 degrees will go with mostly clear skies.
The number of Iowans hospitalized with COVID-19 set another record Thursday — at 449 — eclipsing the record of 444 set the day before. The state also reported its second-highest number of COVID-19 cases — 1,514 — in the 24 hours that ended at 11 a.m. Thursday, according to data collected by the Iowa Department of Public Health and analyzed by The Gazette. This surge of cases appears to be hitting rural counties in western Iowa, which have so far been spared many of the temporary restrictions on business placed by Gov. Kim Reynolds in other parts of the state. Fifteen Iowa counties, most of them in western Iowa, now have a 14-day positivity rate averaging more than 15 percent.
An Oct. 4 report from the White House coronavirus task force suggested that many of Iowa’s 1,433 COVID-19 deaths would have been preventable, especially with the wider use of masks indoors. Gov. Reynolds has resisted mask mandates, arguing they are unenforceable.
Students enrolled at two middle schools and two high schools damaged in the Aug. 10 derecho will be able to return to in-person learning in November.
The four schools — McKinley STEAM Academy, Franklin Middle School, Jefferson High and Washington High — are reopening Monday, Nov. 16, for students who have chosen in-person learning.
Since the first day of school Sept. 21, those students have been learning online while the buildings were repaired.
Repairs are still underway at Taft Middle School and Kennedy High School, where classes will continue to be online only. Taft is expected to reopen Dec. 14. Kennedy students should be able to return to in-person, hybrid classes — meaning some instruction will continue online — on Jan. 19.
University of Iowa administrators Thursday condemned an executive order issued by President Donald Trump that has led them to pause all campus diversity and inclusion training for fear the programming could risk federal funding.
The Gazette and others reported this week that the UI was putting the training on hiatus for two weeks while it reviews the programming to see if it violates Trump’s order barring training that involves race and sex “stereotyping” or “scapegoating” for federal workers, contractors and grant recipients. The ban appears to affect, among other things, implicit bias training that has become commonplace in private and public diversity efforts. Iowa’s public universities annually receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal research grants. The universities also annually have thousands of students on some form of federal financial aid. Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa have said they’re reviewing the matter, as has the Iowa Governor’s Office.
Some colleges and universities elsewhere have disavowed Trump’s order or decided to continue training and programming until receiving further guidance.
