Benefits include the Church theme, unlimited theme support answered by our experts, customization techniques with our detailed theme tutorials and professional design services available by our list of recommended designers.

The post Revolution Two: Church Theme appeared first on WPCult.

Firefox is regarded as the best Web browser in terms of extensions. It has hundreds of add-ons, which can be downloaded from here. Pavel Ciorici collected the most useful WordPress related Firefox extensions (addons) and compiled them on this post. photo by: Pavel Ciorici

The post WPZoom: WordPress related Firefox Addons appeared first on WPCult.

Jeff Chandler has done a great interview with Dan Milward of Instinct. Check it out here.

The post Weblog Tools Collection: WP-commerce Podcast appeared first on WPCult.

Benefits include the TV theme, unlimited theme support answered by our experts, customization techniques with our detailed theme tutorials and professional design services available by our list of recommended designers.

The post Revolution Two: TV Theme appeared first on WPCult.

The post NickThrolson.com appeared first on WPCult.

Just like in Mac OS X, you can change the DNS servers on your iPhone. This can significantly speed up Safari and other iPhone apps that use the Internet. For a general introduction to DNS, and to learn why you would want to change the DNS servers on your iPhone, see How to Change Your Mac's DNS Servers.

Before we start, you should know a couple things about how iOS handles DNS. First, these instructions only work for Wi-Fi connections - iOS does not allow you to change the DNS servers when connected to cellular networks. Also, the changes are network specific, so you'll need to change the DNS servers every time you connect to a new wireless network. The good news is that iOS remembers the settings, so you won't have to do anything the second time you connect to a network.

Here's how to change your iPhone's DNS servers:

1. From the iPhone's home screen, tap Settings.
   
   
2. Tap Wi-Fi. The screen shown below appears. The available wireless networks in range of your iPhone appear, as shown below.
   
   
3. Find your wireless network in the list, and then click the arrow. The screen shown below appears.
   
   
4. Tap the DNS field.
   
   
5. Delete the current DNS servers, and enter the new DNS servers. (If you enter more than one DNS server, be sure sure to separate the servers with commas.)
   • To use OpenDNS, enter 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
   • To use Google DNS, enter 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
6. Test your new DNS servers to make sure they're working.
   • If you're using OpenDNS, visit the OpenDNS test page.
   • If you're using Google Public DNS, follow these testing instructions.

That's it! You've updated your iPhone's DNS servers!

Related Articles

• How to Find the Best DNS Servers
• How to Change Your Mac's DNS Servers
• How to Change Your iPad's DNS Servers
• Change an AirPort Extreme's DNS Servers

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matt Cone, the author of Master Your Mac, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

If you own an AirPort base station, you can use the Timed Access feature to control the days and times when users access the Internet. This could come in handy in a variety of situations. For example, if you own a cafe and provide free wi-fi access, you can configure the AirPort to block all access to the Internet when your business is closed. And if you have children, you can set time limits for specific devices in your home.

There are two ways to use the timed access feature. You can create a default allow policy to allow all devices to access the Internet at any time, and then specify custom schedules for specific devices. Or you can create a default deny policy to prevent all devices from accessing the Internet according the schedule you specify, and then exempt specific devices by creating custom schedules.

Here's how to control AirPort network access with time limits:

1. Open the AirPort Utility application. (It's in Applications → Utilities.) The window shown below appears.
   
   
2. Click the AirPort Extreme's icon. The status pop-up window appears.
   
   
3. Click Edit. The settings window appears.
   
   
4. Select the Network tab. The window shown below appears.
   
   
5. Select the Enable Access Control checkbox.
   
   
6. Click Timed Access Control. The window shown below appears.
   
   
7. Select the Unlimited (default) option. By default, this allows all of the devices connected to your AirPort to access the Internet all day, every day, but you can change this to block Internet access for all devices (except the ones you specify later) during the times you set.
   
   
8. If you'd like to limit the days and times that a specific device can access the Internet, click the + button under the Wireless Clients field. The window shown below appears.
   
   
9. Enter a name for the device in the Description field.
   
   
10. Enter the device's MAC address in the MAC Address field. You can use the following tutorials to find the device's MAC address.
    
    • How to Find Your Mac's MAC Address
    • How to Find Your iPad's MAC Address
    • How to Find Your iPhone's MAC Address
    
    
11. Use the + button under the Wireless Access Times field to create a schedule for this device's Internet access.
    
    
12. Once you've added all of your devices and customized the schedules, click Save.
    
    
13. Click Update. The AirPort will restart to apply the changes.

Congratulations! You have successfully set time limits for the devices connecting to your AirPort network. The schedule you created is effective immediately.

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matt Cone, the author of Master Your Mac, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

When you connect an iPhone to a wi-fi network, the iPhone remembers that network and will automatically attempt to connect to it in the future. This is a great feature for wi-fi networks you trust and use frequently. But mistakes happen. If you connect to the wrong network at a coffee shop, your iPhone will automatically attempt to join that network every time you visit the coffee shop in the future. And if the password for a known network changes, your iPhone might have trouble connecting to it.

What's the solution? Telling your iPhone to forget the wi-fi network. Forgetting a network will remove the network's password and prevent your iPhone from joining it automatically in the future.

Here's how to tell your iPhone to forget a wireless network:

1. From the home screen, tap Settings.
   
   
2. Tap Wi-Fi. The window shown below appears.
   
   
3. Locate the wireless network you want the iPhone to forget, and then tap the blue arrow next to the network name. The window shown below appears.
   
   
4. Tap Forget this Network. The iPhone will forget the wireless network.

You have successfully told your iPhone to forget the wi-fi network. The iPhone will not attempt to connect to the network in the future. And if the network required a password, that password has been forgotten.

Related Articles

• How to Connect an iPhone to a Wi-Fi Network
• Make Your iPhone Ask to Join Wi-Fi Networks

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matt Cone, the author of Master Your Mac, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

By default, your iPhone automatically connects to known wi-fi networks. (To stop an iPhone from automatically connecting, you can tell your iPhone to forget a wi-fi network.) But what happens if you take your iPhone to a new location? You'll need to manually connect your iPhone to a wi-fi network.

That's a hassle. But if you have the foresight and inclination, you can save yourself time in the future by making your iPhone ask to join wi-fi networks when no known networks are available. Instead of having to open settings to join a network, you'll be able to easily select a network from an on-screen prompt.

Here's how to make your iPhone ask to join wi-fi networks:

1. From the home screen, tap Settings.
   
   
2. Tap Wi-Fi. The window shown below appears.
   
   
3. Move the Ask to Join Networks slider to the On position.
   
   
4. The next time you're in a location with no known networks, your iPhone will prompt you to connect to an available wi-fi network, as shown below.
   
   

In the future, this prompt will be displayed when no known networks are available. (To actually see the prompt, you'll need to do something that requires network access, like try to check your email or open a webpage.) To connect to a wi-fi network, select a network and enter a password, if one is required.

Related Articles

• How to Connect an iPhone to a Wi-Fi Network
• Tell Your iPhone to Forget a Wireless Network

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matt Cone, the author of Master Your Mac, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

If you're a new iPhone owner, one of the first things you'll want to learn how to do is connect your iPhone to a wireless network. That's because there are certain times when your cellular data connection just won't cut it, even if you're lucky enough to have an unlimited data plan. Using Facetime, downloading content from iTunes, and even surfing the web can be painfully slow without a wi-fi connection.

Fortunately, it's a relatively simple process to connect an iPhone to a wi-fi network. Just be sure to commit this process to memory, because it's something you'll need to do over and over again, unless you set your iPhone to automatically detect and prompt you to connect to wi-fi networks.

Here's how to connect an iPhone to a wi-fi network:

1. From the home screen, tap Settings.
   
   
2. Tap Wi-Fi. The window shown below appears.
   
   
3. Verify that the Wi-Fi slider is in the On position. This allows your iPhone to detect and connect to wireless networks.
   
   
4. Tap the wireless network you want to join. If the network is not password protected, the iPhone will connect immediately.
   
   
5. If the wireless network you selected is protected with a password, you will be prompted to enter a password, as shown below. Enter the password and then click Join to connect to the network.
   
   
6. If the wireless network you selected is protected with a captive portal, you will be prompted to enter a password, or a username and password combination. These are increasingly common in hotels, airports, and on college campuses.

Congratulations! Your iPhone is now connected to the wi-fi network. From now on, the iPhone will automatically connect to this network when it is in range. If you accidentally selected the wrong wi-fi network, you can tell your iPhone to forget it.

How to Tell if Your iPhone is Connected to a Wi-Fi Network

There are several indicators you can use to verify that your iPhone is connected to a wi-fi network. The easiest way to visually check to the status bar in the upper-left corner of the iPhone's screen. The wi-fi symbol is displayed when you are connected to a network, as shown below.

If you're curious about which wi-fi network the iPhone is connected to, open the Wi-Fi settings. The network name is displayed in the sidebar, and a checkmark is also displayed next to the connected network, as shown above.

Related Articles

• Tell Your iPhone to Forget a Wireless Network
• Make Your iPhone Ask to Join Wi-Fi Networks

Meet Your Macinstructor

Matt Cone, the author of Master Your Mac, has been a Mac user for over 20 years. A former ghost writer for some of Apple's most notable instructors, Cone founded Macinstruct in 1999, a site with OS X tutorials that boasts hundreds of thousands of unique visitors per month. You can email him at: matt@macinstruct.com.

Hongo is a creative and responsive, search engine optimised and fast loading, highly flexible and powerful, feature-rich and easy to use WooCommerce WordPress theme which comes with all necessary settings and tools which will help you to create a great … Continued

The post Hongo – The Ultimate WooCommerce WordPress Theme appeared first on WeLoveWP.

Manon is a true game-changer in the WordPress sphere. This unparalleled portfolio & agency theme lets you create a wonderfully fluid website that will surely stand out in the crowd. It comes completely decked-out with powerful features and a collection … Continued

The post Manon – Portfolio & Agency Theme appeared first on WeLoveWP.

When it comes to content marketing, we live in extraordinary times. With cutting-edge tools such as live video, VR and AI at our fingertips, we can give our community behind-the-scenes access to our company, people and products.

We can showcase our best customers and bring our brands to life.

But what if your business had to close all of its physical locations? What if your people couldn’t go anywhere?

And what if your community was distracted by ... something? Not a little something. A very big, pandemic-level something.

These are the questions that content marketers find themselves grappling with in the midst of COVID-19. In the blink of an eye, we went from having the tools to do anything to a hobbling array of limitations. At least, that’s what it can feel like.

But what if we flipped that thinking the other way? Twitter co-founder Biz Stone once said, “Constraints inspire creativity. When are backs are against the wall, we come up with some amazing things.”

Where can we look for inspiration? If you flip the through the opening pages of that famed marketing handbook “Us Weekly” — hey, what else is there to look at in a waiting room? — you’ll find a section titled, “Stars — They’re Just Like Us!”

These pages feature celebrities doing “regular people” things such as walking down the street and getting groceries. However, these days, despite their fame and means, celebrities have our same quarantined constraints.

And some are using this as an opportunity to create some amazing content of their own.

During this odd interlude, we can learn some valuable content marketing lessons from celebrities working within these same limitations.

Actor John Krasinski didn’t start a weekly web show in the middle of a pandemic to mug to the camera like his character Jim Halpert from “The Office.” Nor did he do it tout his Jack Ryan action-hero status.

Instead, in the midst of all of the bad news, he saw that what many people were hungry for was some good news. And that’s literally what he’s delivered with his aptly titled video series, “Some Good News” or “SGN.”

Featuring homemade title cards crafted by his children and set in his home office, Krasinski’s weekly show features a roundup of happy stories about creative kids, salutes to health care workers, unique ways to celebrate graduates and more. He also has concise weather reports from the likes Robert DeNiro and Brad Pitt.

While special appearances from famous friends might be out of your reach, you, too, can find ways to serve up more of what your audience needs right now.

Note: This might not necessarily be exactly what you sell. Ask yourself instead, what do they really need right now and how can we help?

For example, Don’t Panic Management is a team of virtual assistants. However, they saw that the small businesses they serve need help applying for government relief programs, so they started creating content around this.

On a recent episode of his WTF podcast, host Marc Maron talked about watching episodes of “Saturday Night Live At Home,” saying these shows were “touching.”

With segments shot by various individual cast members at home on their laptops and phones and featuring costumes from closets and cameos from kids and pets, SNL “At Home” shows how you can push our quarantined limitations to produce creative content.

In a recent episode, cast member Kate McKinnon shot an installment of her long-running “Whiskers R We” cat adoption sketch at home on her phone. Normally, this would feature several cute cats in studio introduced as McKinnon quips things like, “A cat is a smile with hair.”

The “At Home” installment features McKinnon in a homemade version of her costume with hand-drawn signs and her one pet cat playing nearly a dozen cats thanks to camera filters, mustaches and face masks.

SNL initially announced it would end their season early due to COVID-19. A few weeks later, the cast came back with their first “At Home” show.

They recognized the power of the moment and the outsized impact homemade content can have.

Another example of relevant, homemade branded content is a new ad from L’Oreal Paris, with spokeswoman Eva Longoria dying her gray roots at home in a video she shot on her iPhone. When you get hung up trying to make something polished and perfect, you often miss the opportunity to make something relevant and special.

Another SNL “At Home” sketch introduces characters struggling with the new normal of Zoom meetings shot with — wait for it — Zoom! The recent “Parks and Recreation” reunion special developed an entire half-hour script around a series of virtual meetings between Leslie Knope, Ron Swanson and others, all shot at home by the actors using iPhones.

We can use the same tools we rely on for virtual meetings to collaborate with others on content. Many already use Zoom and Skype for podcasts and videos.

You also can get creative in your content collaboration as actor and stunt professional Zoë Bell did. She challenged celebrity friends such as Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie, Drew Barrymore, Rosario Dawson and Zoe Saldana to help her stage an elaborate fight scene.

The resulting video stitches together individually shot fight scenes from the phones of 38 different actors and stunt workers to create one big knockout fight. The viral video garnered over a million views in just a few short days.

Just because we can’t get together doesn’t mean we can’t collaborate. Whether you’re simply using Zoom or storyboarding out something more elaborate, involving others always expands the reach of your content.

Yes, the content creators profiled here are celebrities. But they’re also more than that. They’re creative artists and problem solvers.

A frequent refrain in the early days of blogging and content marketing was, “think like a publisher.” This served as a reminder to write like a journalist, schedule content and publish regularly. However, with our current lockdown limitations, we should amend this as a reminder to think like creative artists — those who’ve used these limitations to spark bold, interesting new ideas for connecting with others.

What can you create that people need? Can you do it right now — today? From home?

Can you creatively involve others?

Thinking like a creative artist means focusing less on what you can’t do in these unusual times and more on what you can.

Nick Westergaard is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker and author of “Band Now” and “Get Scrappy”; nick@branddrivendigital.com; @NickWestergaard.

When Joe Sample started posting photos of his takeout food stops in the days after Iowa restaurants were ordered shut down to dine-in service in March, he didn’t think much of it. He just wanted to get some good food while supporting restaurants.

“I have a lot of friends in the food business. My wife worked at Elevate Salon and Emil’s Deli, so she’s not working right now,” he said. “I felt it was a great way to support local businesses.”

But then a new Facebook group dedicated to promoting curbside, delivery and takeout food options in Cedar Rapids sprung up — this week, it had more than 15,000 members — and Sample started sharing photos there. The 46-year-old Cedar Rapids resident quickly found himself having a new experience — going viral.

In a pandemic, that phrase could have negative connotations, but this was the positive kind of viral spread. The kind where hundreds of people liked his photos and commented on them. Then a Cedar Rapids T-shirt maker, Ivory Pearl Designs, started selling “Be Like Joe” T-shirts and other people started showing up to order takeout in the shirts. Soon, restaurants were asking if he would come take a photo at their restaurant.

“I just started it to have fun and posted a few fun pictures, and then I started having restaurants reach out to me,” Sample said.

He decided to dedicate his stimulus check from the federal government to the effort. Sometimes, he said he hits up more than one restaurant a day.

“I’ve hit close to 60 restaurants,” he said.

He’s leaned into the enthusiasm and found ways to play up the efforts. One day he dressed as Oscar the Grouch while visiting’ Oscar’s Restaurant in Hiawatha. On another day, he and one of his daughters bought plastic pig noses to wear on a stop at the Blind Pig in Cedar Rapids. He wears a Superman costume to some stops.

“I was totally surprised at how viral it went,” he said. “Now I’m just trying to keep it exciting.”

In his day job, Sample is a salesman for American Building Components in Mount Pleasant. He normally spends a lot of time on the road, selling metal roofing, siding and steel frame structures around the Midwest. These days, he’s working from home, making sales over the phone instead. He said going out to get carryout is a chance to see other people and get out of the house.

“It brings some normalcy to my life,” he said.

He has two daughters at home, age 9 and 15, and one son, 22. When he’s not eating out, he likes to spend time outdoors with his family, fishing, camping, hunting and coaching soccer. He admits his last name is a bit on-the-nose for his newest hobby.

“A lot of people ask, ‘Is that really even your real name?’” he said with a laugh.

Sample was born and raised in Cedar Rapids, which fuels his desire to support his town.

“My dad had Sample Pharmacies when I was growing up. People helped support us, so I figured it was the least I could do, to support other local businesses,” he said. “I think the biggest thing is, we want to keep them here. There are so many great restaurants in Cedar Rapids, and we don’t want to lose half of them. I’m going to try to keep going with this until they open the places back up, as much as I can.”

He also has helped do deliveries of donated meals to area hospitals and long-term care facilities. That effort started when his younger daughter’s Girl Scout troop had dozens of boxes of unsold cookies and few options to sell them once the pandemic hit. Sample’s family purchased them and sent them to staff at Mercy Medical Center. Since then he’s dropped off boxes of pita, hummus and gyro meat from Pita’z Mediterranean and American Cuisine, trays of cinnamon rolls from Oscar’s and other places.

“People seem to be very supportive in Cedar Rapids,” he said.

He gave a lot of credit to the Cedar Rapids Facebook group, which was started by Lindsay Leahy, Brooke Murphy-Fitzgerald and Shannon Hanson. Others like it have sprung up in Marion, North Liberty and Iowa City.

“I think this has opened a lot of people’s eyes; it has given people an opportunity to try new things,” Sample said. “I’ve seen more restaurants on here than I’d ever tried before.”

He’s also started to promote nonprofits like the Freedom Festival. He is helping sell the $5 commemorative buttons — even though the 2020 festival was canceled, the buttons will help support the organization’s operations. And he helped with a Big Brothers Big Sisters fundraiser, an effort which inspired him so much he signed up as a volunteer.

He said he hopes his efforts, and others like it inspire others to support the community.

“Keep supporting local, do your best to stay healthy, and when restaurants open back up, keep going to them,” he said. “They’re going to need our help for a long time to come.”

Comments: (319) 398-8339; alison.gowans@thegazette.com

The City of Cedar Rapids Thursday morning issued a drinking water boil order for portions of southwest Cedar Rapids.

A rupture in a water main feeding the Bowling Street Booster Station and C Street Water Tower caused a loss of pressure, which created the potential for bacteria contamination to occur, according to a news release.

The two affected areas are bounded by these streets:

• For the first area, Schaeffer Drive SW east to C Street SW and 19th Avenue SW south to Highway 30.

• For the second area, Sixth Street SW east to J Street SW and 29th Avenue south to 36th Avenue SW.

The city is advising affected residents to:

1) Bring water to a boil

2) Let it rapidly boil for at least 1 minute

3) Allow to cool completely before consuming

The boil order should be lifted or extended by 1 p.m. Sunday, after repairs are complete, pressure is restored, flushing has occurred, chlorine levels have been monitored and two consecutive sets of bacteria samples have been collected for analysis, the city stated.

Water is safe to consume in all other areas of Cedar Rapids.

Background

CEDAR RAPIDS — After a bitter battle between residents and one of the city’s major employers — Cargill — with the city of Cedar Rapids in the middle, in December, the Cedar Rapids City Council approved a $6.5 million, 12-track, 200-car rail yard located between the Rompot neighborhood and Prairie Park Fishery.

Cargill wanted to buy and put the rail yard on a 28-acre city-owned site on Stewart Road SE. Construction required rezoning the land to industrial use and a change to the city’s future land use map — putting city officials in the spotlight.

The rail yard was needed for more supply chain stability and to protect jobs at the corn-milling plant, at 1710 16th St. SE and not far from the rail yard site, company officials said. Cargill officials planned to submit final paperwork within a month of the vote, begin construction in early spring and have the rail yard operating by the end of the year.

A lot and nothing.

Before construction was to begin, the city required Cargill to provide a third-party appraisal of the land. The city had provided an initial value of $83,200, which Cargill agreed to match. However, the value of the land has been in question as nearby properties ranged from $20,000 to $30,000 an acre, which was far greater than the $3,000 per acre value the city used.

City officials say the appraisal has not been submitted, nor has Cargill sought the required permits before construction can begin.

This delay began well before disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic and after lawsuits were filed to block the rail yard.

Rompot resident and state Sen. Rob Hogg, who is a lawyer, filed two lawsuits against the City Council — one each challenging the rezoning vote and the vote to change the future land use map. Numerous neighbors and others in opposition to the rail yard have joined the lawsuit, which Hogg supported.

Meanwhile, Cargill intervened on behalf of the city. At this point, sides still are arguing whether to expand the record to include additional evidence. Dates for a hearing have not been set.

So, the status of the contentious rail yard and a timeline for construction remains in limbo.

“We don’t have anything new to share at this point regarding work and timelines specific to the development of the rail yard,” Kelly Sheehan, a spokeswoman for Cargill, said in late April.

CEDAR RAPIDS — A 17-year-old, charged in January with fatally shooting an 18-year-old during a drug robbery, was released in March only to be arrested about a month later for drunken driving.

Kyler David Carson, now 18, of Cedar Rapids, was charged last month with operating while intoxicated and unlawful possession of an anti-anxiety prescription drug.

After two judges reduced Carson’s bail, he bonded out and was released pending trial.

Police arrested Carson April 24 when they believed he was driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, according to a criminal complaint.

He provided a breath sample, which showed no signs on alchol, but refused to provide a urine sample for chemical testing, the complaint states.

In January, Carson was charged with voluntary manslaughter, delivery of a controlled substance-marijuana, carrying weapons and obstructing prosecution.

He is accused of fatally shooting Andrew D. Gaston, 18, on Jan. 24, as Gaston and his cousin, Tyrell J. Gaston, 16, were attempting to rob marijuana from Carson, according to a criminal complaint.

Police received a report of shots being fired at 11:48 p.m. and found Andrew and Tyrell Gaston with gunshot wounds in the parking lot of 3217 Agin Court NE.

During the investigation, police learned the Gaston cousins had arranged, with the help of others, to rob Carson that night. Witnesses told investigators they contacted Carson and “lured” him to the address to rob him of marijuana.

Carson thought he was called that night to sell 45 pre-rolled tubes of marijuana for $900, according to criminal complaint.

While Carson was delivering marijuana to the others in their car, the cousins and a third person ambushed Carson from behind, according to a criminal complaint.

Andrew Gaston struck Carson in the back of the head with a metal object. Carson then turned around and exchanged gunfire with Tyrell Gaston before running from the parking lot, witnesses told police.

Both Carson and Tyrell Gaston later discarded their firearms, which police didn’t recover, according to the complaint.

Tyrell Gaston also was charged with first-degree robbery, conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance-marijuana, carrying weapons and obstructing prosecution.

A judge, during Carson’s initial appearance in the fatal shooting, set his bail at $50,000 cash only, according to court documents. His bail was amended, in agreement with prosecutor and Carson’s lawyer, to $50,000 cash or surety March 23 by 6th Judicial Associate District Judge Russell Keast.

Carson remained in jail, but his lawyer asked for a bond review three days later, March 26, and Associate District Judge Casey Jones lowered the bail to $30,000 cash or surety.

Carson posted bail that day, according to court documents.

Assistant Linn County Attorney Rena Schulte has filed a motion to revoke Carson’s pretrial release and will request his bail ne set at $500,000. A hearing is set on the motion for next Thursday in Linn County District Court.

If convicted, Carson faces up to 19 years in the fatal shooting and up to two years for the other offenses.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com

The Iowa Supreme Court approved a pilot program in the 4th Judicial District — Audubon, Cass, Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Montgomery, Pottawattamie, Page and Shelby counties — to develop procedures for the use of electronic search warrants.

Electronic search warrants will reduce the time required to obtain warrants, reduce travel time by law enforcement and make more effective use of judges’ time, according to the order. Paper warrants require law enforcement to fill out application forms and then leave the scene of the potential search and drive to find a judge, either at a courthouse during business hours or their home after hours. If the judge grants the warrant, then the officer has to drive back to the scene to execute it.

The electronic warrants can be submitted to a judge from a squad car computer, which is more efficient for law enforcement and the judges.

The pilot program will be evaluated by the court annually and will continue until further notice.

Fourth Judicial District Chief Judge Jeff Larson, who was on the advisory committee to develop recommendations for the new process, talked about the project, which will start in the next few weeks.

Page County Chief Deputy Charles McCalla, 6th Judicial Associate District Judge Nicholas Scott, Linn County Sheriff Capt. Greg McGivern and Marion police Lt. Scott Elam also provided their thoughts about electronic search warrants.

Q: Iowa courts started going paperless in 2010, so why did it take so long to get a pilot program for electronic search warrants?

A: Larson: It had been discussed at various levels since (the electronic document management system) started. We should take advantage of the electronic process because it will save us money. Most law enforcement agencies are now used to filing electronic citations from their patrol cars and offices. There may have been some pushback a few years ago because some counties or offices didn’t have computer scanners and needed technology. Now, the rural offices have that technology.

Q: As a task force member working on this program, what were the hurdles?

A: Larson: It was just working through the procedural issues to make sure there would be a safeguard throughout the process. When a search warrant is needed, law enforcement has to fill out the search warrant package, including the application with all the pertinent information, and submit it to a magistrate judge, associate or district judge in their judicial district. Then the officer or deputy can just call the judge to alert him/her to the warrant and the judge can ask for any additional information needed. The judge then administers the oath of office over the phone and signs off or denies the warrant. Law enforcement doesn’t have to leave the crime scene and can print off the warrant from their squad car computer.

The process of going to electronic warrants started in 2017, when the lawmakers amended the law to allow those to be submitted electronically, and then in 2018, the state court administrator’s office set up an advisory committee to develop recommendations.

Q: What has been the process to get a search warrant?

A: Larson: Law enforcement would have to leave the scene, fill out paperwork and then, many times, travel miles to go to the courthouse to have the judge sign it or if it’s after hours, go to a judge’s home. The officer may not be in the same county as the courthouse where the judge works or where the judge lives. (It) can take a lot of time. The process is way overdue.

Q: Page County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Charles McCalla, what do you see as the biggest advantage for filing them electronically?

A: McCalla: The smaller counties have limited manpower, and some of the judges, like in Mills County, may be 60 to 70 miles away if a search warrant is needed after hours. Just traveling across the county can take time, depending where you are. At a minimum, we probably have to drive 30 minutes and up to an hour to get to a judge. This will save us time, money for travel and provide safety because we can stay at the scene to ensure the evidence hasn’t been tampered with.

Q: Is there a recent incident where an electronic search warrant may have helped?

A: McCalla: A few weeks ago, there was a theft report for a stolen chain saw and deputies went to the home and saw guns all over the house and they knew the guy who lived there had been convicted. They didn’t want to tip him off, so they just left the scene and went to get a search warrant. Luckily, the evidence was still there when they came back. They found about 90 guns.

Q: How do you feel about being the “guinea pigs” for the process?

A: McCalla: Happy to be. As law enforcement, we’re natural fixers. We find solutions. And this is an idea time to use the process during the COVID-19 pandemic to keep everyone safe. We won’t have to have any face-to-face contact with the judges.

Q: Is Linn County excited about the program, once it’s tested and used across the state?

A: Scott: I think many of us in the criminal justice system are eagerly awaiting the results of the pilot. They have the potential to make the system more efficient. It is in the interest of the police and the suspect, who is often detained pending a warrant, to get the search warrant application reviewed by a judge as soon as possible. A potential benefit is that officers could also use those more often, which protects citizens from unlawful search and seizures if a judge first reviews the evidence.

A: McGivern: I believe the implementation will be a much faster and efficient process for deputies. Like any new process, there may need to be some revisions that will have to be worked out, but I look forward to it.

A: Elam: We’ve done it this way for a long time, and it can be a bit of a haul for us, depending who’s on call (among the judges) — after hours. It’s nice to see there’s a pilot. The concern would be if something goes wrong in the process. If the internet is down or something else. Now, we have to go from Marion to the Linn County Courthouse. Then we go to the county attorney’s office to get a prosecutor to review the warrant and then find a judge (in courthouse during business hours). That takes some time. If you can type out the application from your car right at the scene, it would help with details on the warrant — describing the structure or property needing be searched. I just hope they work out all the bugs first.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com

In normal times, Chew on This focuses on restaurant openings and closings. These are not normal times, with restaurants closed except to carryout, curbside and delivery. We know these businesses still need support from the community to survive, so each week we are going to highlight five local restaurants.

These are just a few of the many places offering barbecue; look up your favorite restaurants on Facebook or call to find out what they have.

If you don’t want to leave the house, try a delivery service like Chomp, GrubHub or MyTown2Go. Check with the restaurant to make sure they’re affiliated with a delivery service before ordering.

124 Second Ave. NW, Mount Vernon; (319) 535-1060, facebook.com/bigsbbq

Get a growler of house-brewed beer to pair with your barbecue. Every Wednesday features a wings special; check the Facebook page for additional daily specials.

6677 16th Ave. SW, Cedar Rapids; (319) 378-4777, facebook.com/austinbluesbbq

Call in advance orders from 3 to 7 p.m. Wednesday to Friday and pickup from the food truck parked in the parking lot or stop by the truck parked at Cassill Motors, 2939 16th Ave. SW, Cedar Rapids, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays.

1940 Lower Muscatine, Iowa City, (319) 354-7427 and 745 Community Dr., North Liberty, (319) 665-2486; jimmyjacksribshack.com

This Iowa City staple has classic dishes like ribs, smoked chicken and brisket and can even please vegetarians with a portobello sandwich.

525 S. Gilbert St., Iowa City, (319) 338-1419 and 125 E. Zeller St., North Liberty, (319) 626-4227; mosleysbarbecue.com

Try a family-style meal for curbside pickup, featuring four sandwiches or a slab of ribs, plus sides and cornbread, or order off the menu.

288 Blairs Ferry Rd. NE, Cedar Rapids; (319) 206-3806, willieraysqshack.com

This tiny establishment was made for social distancing, with drive-through the only option for service even before the pandemic. Get one of the daily specials or order a la carte.

Comments: (319) 398-8339; alison.gowans@thegazette.com

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is providing an update on coronavirus in Iowa at 11:00 a.m. today.

She is speaking from the State Emergency Operations Center in Johnston. The news conference will be livestreamed and viewable on this page.

Coronavirus hospitalizations have continued a steady increase, with more than 400 Iowans presently admitted for COVID-19.

“I pledge my Head to clearer thinking, my Heart to greater loyalty, my Hands to larger service, and my Health to better living, for my club, my community, my country, and my world.” — 4-H pledge

The Johnson County 4-H program is living up to these words, teaming up with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Johnson County to assemble Camp-in-a-Bag kits for the youngest “Littles” enrolled in the BBBS mentoring program.

Big Brothers Big Sisters creates one-on-one opportunities between adult volunteer mentors and at-risk youths ages 6 to 18. Known as “Bigs” and “Littles,” they meet for at least six hours a month for 18 months. But those in-person outings to movies, museums, restaurants, recreational activities and new adventures, as well as monthly events and school-based programs organized by the agency, are on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic.

So the kits became an outreach outlet.

“I was thinking about ways that we would be able to connect with our Littles, to let them know that we’re thinking about them,” said Dina Bishara, program specialist for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Johnson County. “And also in a very small way, to try to fill that gap that so many kids are experiencing right now. They’re used to the structure and activity of school and extracurricular activities and playing with friends.”

The bags contain more than six hours of STEAM — science, technology, engineering, arts and math — activities, from the pieces needed for building gliders and balloon flyers, to conducting scientific experiments, planting seeds, choosing healthy snacks and writing down their thoughts.

Those activities also reflect the other contributing partners: Johnson County Master Gardeners, Johnson County Extension and Outreach’s Pick a Better Snack program, O’Brien Family McDonalds and Forever Green Garden Center.

“(We wanted to) just give them something really fun and also educational and engaging, to help them spend time with their siblings, if they have them, and get their parents involved, if possible — and just really keep them connected to that learning and the fun, but also to Big Brothers Big Sisters,” Bishara said. “Camp-in-a-Bag helps us structure things in an intentional and thoughtful way.”

Partnering with 4-H, known for its summer camps, fairs and educational programs, “was a really great way to make sure that the activities we were including were really robust, so it was not going to be a hodgepodge, throw-some-things-in-a-bag,” Bishara added. “We really needed to be deliberate about it, to have the directions nicely laid out.”

The first wave is being distributed to 20 elementary-age children, and officials are hoping to expand the project.

“Funding is always a question,” Bishara said. “We would love to expand to 20 or 40 for more. ... We’d sure like to be able to target the kits to a little older kids, who have different interests.”

Bishara and Kate Yoder, who works with 4-H out of the Iowa State University Extension office in Johnson County, are eager to continue their collaborative efforts.

“It really great,” Yoder said. “When you work together, things comes together and amazing things happen. I’m excited to see what the future holds — what partnerships we can build on and grow.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com

• What: Big Brothers Big Sisters Camp-in-a-Bag kit contributions

• Contact: Email Dina Bishara at dina@bbbsjc.org

Gazette awards more than $60,000 in marketing grants

The Gazette has awarded more than $60,000 in grants to help local businesses market themselves during the coronavirus pandemic, and there’s more help available.

“We awarded $50,000 in the first 10 days,” said Kelly Homewood, Director of Operations at The Gazette. “That tells us the need is real. The help necessary. We’re a locally owned business too, and in Iowa we lift each other up in challenging times.”

The grant program, which launched April 17, awarded $50,393 to more than 60 businesses in the first 10 days. To date, almost $68,000 has been awarded to 75 businesses.

“The Gazette’s Matching Program is a true testament to their commitment to our community and their small business advertisers,” said Annie Hills, marketing manager at Destinations Unlimited. “As a local small business, this program will be a huge benefit to our agency in such an unprecedented time so that we can continue to connect with our clients.”

The program allocates up to $100,000 in matching advertising dollars to assist local businesses that apply. There’s still approximately $32,000 in matching grants still available to award by July 31. Businesses can apply online at www.thegazette.com/marketinggrant.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has obligated $78 million to the state of Iowa to help reimburse eligible expenses for emergency protective measures that the state has incurred as a result of its response to COVID-19.

The grant funds, awarded by FEMA’s Public Assistance (PA) Grant Program, were made available Thursday. FEMA has provided nearly $150 million to date in support of the state’s COVID-19 efforts.

The money reimburses 75 percent of projected eligible costs associated with buying essential Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and medical supplies and equipment during the months of May and June 2020.

This obligation also includes: $19.5 million in contract services for TestIowa, $35,000 in contract services associated with overseas PPE purchases and $13.7 million for additional medical supplies and equipment for the month of April. All figures represent the 75 percent federal share. The 25 percent is paid by the grant recipient.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a new proclamation allowing campgrounds in the state of Iowa to open.

The proclamation states:

“Any public or private campground may reopen provided that the campground implements reasonable measures under the circumstances of each campground to ensure social distancing, increased hygiene practices, and other public health measures to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 consistent with guidance issued by the Iowa Department of Public Health (5/6/20).”

Linn County Conservation has continued to seek guidance from local and state health officials and are announcing that campgrounds will open Friday with certain restrictions and limitations.

At 5 a.m. on May 8, Buffalo Creek Park, Morgan Creek Park, Pinicon Ridge Park and Squaw Creek Park campgrounds will open to campers in self-contained units. This also includes primitive (non-electric) camping areas at Matsell Bridge Natural Area (including Mount Hope) and Wakpicada Natural Area.

Campers may camp only with a self-contained camping unit that has a functioning restroom, as showerhouses with flushable restrooms will remain closed. Self-contained is defined as a tent or pop-up camper with a portable toilet or an RV or camping trailer with a functioning, self-contained bathroom.

Occupants are limited to six or less per camp site (unless household is more than six). No visitors are allowed. Campground showerhouses with restrooms will remain closed.

Reserving campsites is not allowed as campgrounds continue to be first-come, first-served. The exception to this is Squaw Creek Park A-Loop which normally accepts online reservations at LinnCountyParks.com, starting Friday at 1 p.m.

Linn County Conservation’s lodges, shelters, cabins and group camps remain closed.

Hy-Vee Inc., announced Friday that it is now offering a two-hour express pickup option as part of its Hy-Vee Aisles Online grocery ordering service, allowing customers to pay a fee to pick up their order faster.

Customers will see a “Get It Faster” option on Aisles Online time slots where the two-hour pickup option is available. A limited number of two-hour pickup orders will be available for $9.95, from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. daily, at all Hy-Vee store locations offering Aisles Online services.

The lights on Alliant Energy’s Cedar Rapids Tower will change colors to recognize area high schools and honor the Class of 2020.

“In this time of uncertainty, it’s important to remember that brighter days are up ahead,”

said Linda Mattes, Vice President of IT and Customer Operations. “Changing the lights on our tower is our way of celebrating this important milestone in the lives of these students and their families.”

Each Cedar Rapids-area high school’s colors will be on display. The schedule:

May 21 — Washington High School — Red and blue

May 22 — Jefferson High School — Blue and white

May 23 — Kennedy High School — Green and gold

May 24 — Linn-Mar High School — Red and black

May 25 — Marion High School — Crimson and gold

May 26 — Prairie High School — Orange and black

May 27 — Xavier High School — Navy and silver

May 28 — Metro High School — Purple and black

MusicIC Festival cancels June in-person programming

What was planned to be the 10th annual MusicIC Festival has been canceled. Programming planned for June 18-20 will be pushed to summer 2021.

The festival, presented by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature, will offer alternate programming. In place of the in-person performances this year, the festival will offer video performances from musicians to be highlighted in the 2021 season.

Details about these video performances will be forthcoming.

Due to the ongoing social distancing guidelines and additional precautions taking place to help slow and reduce the spread of COVID-19, the Linn County Fair Association is canceling the grounds and grandstand entertainment for the 2020 Linn County Fair, scheduled for June 24-28.

The Linn County Fair Association, in partnership with the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach of Linn County and Linn County 4-H, still plan on providing opportunities to 4-Her’s, FFA members, and youth of Linn County to showcase their talents and accomplishments at this year’s fair.

Details regarding the 4-H/FFA exhibits and events are still being finalized and Linn County 4-H plans to email details to 4-H/FFA members in mid-May.

To encourage safe and responsible social distancing practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, Cedar Rapids’ Bike to Work Week activities — traditionally held in May — will be postponed and are tentatively scheduled for September 21-27.

This will include events such as the Mayor’s bike ride and proclamation, pit stops, group rides, and wrap-up party.

Von Maur announced it will reopen stores in Cedar Rapids, Coralville and Cedar Falls using reduced hours and safety measures starting Friday.

The reduced hours will be from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.

Von Maur said it will be implementing daily employee health screenings, social distancing measures, contactless payments, curbside service options and sanitizing and cleaning procedures in common areas and after each customer transaction. Its aforementioned stores are at Lindale Plaza, Iowa River Landing and College Square Mall.

Online Czech language lessons offered

The National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library recently partnered with Anna Cooková, an instructor with CzechTalk, to offer online Czech language and culture lessons.

Beginner’s Czech Language & Culture I begins on Thursday, June 4. Each class will be held from 8 to 9:30 p.m. every Thursday from June 4 through August 6. During the 15 hours of instruction over 10 weeks, participants will learned to read, write, and speak in Czech.

The cost is $210 for NCSML members, $235 for non-members. This fee includes all course materials. The class size is limited to 20 students, so interested individuals are encouraged to register early to secure a spot.

Contact Cooková for a registration form at annacookova@gmail.com or 715-651-7044.

IOWA CITY — The University of Iowa on Thursday unveiled new sustainability goals for the next decade that — if accomplished — would cut its greenhouse gas emissions in half from a decade ago and transform the campus into a “living laboratory for sustainability education and exploration.”

But the goals fall short of what a collective of Iowa City “climate strikers” have demanded for more than a year — that the UI end coal burning immediately at its power plant, commit to using only renewable energy by 2030 and unite with the city of Iowa City in a “town-gown” climate accord.

“It’s ridiculous for the UI to announce a 2030 climate plan as it continues to burn coal for years and burn methane-spewing natural gas for decades at its power plant,” said Massimo Paciotto-Biggers, 14, a student at Iowa City High and member of the Iowa City Climate Strike group.

The university’s new 2030 goals piggyback off its 2020 goals, which former UI President Sally Mason announced in 2010 in hopes of integrating sustainability into the campus’ mission.

Her goals included consuming less energy on campus in 2020 than in 2010, despite projected growth; diversifying the campus’ energy portfolio by using biomass, solar, wind and the like to achieve 40 percent renewable energy consumption by 2020; diverting 60 percent of solid waste; reducing the campus transportation carbon footprint with a 10 percent cut in per capita transportation and travel; and increasing learning and research opportunities.

The university, according to a new report made public Thursday, met or surpassed many of those goals — including, among other things, a slight dip in total energy use, despite 15 new buildings and major additions across campus.

The campus also reported 40 percent of its energy consumption comes via renewable energy sources, and it reduced annual coal consumption 75 percent.

As for waste production, the university diverted 43 percent from the landfill and reported diverting 70 percent more waste than in 2010.

In just the first phase, the new 2030 goals — a result of collaboration across campus involving a 2030 UI Sustainability Goal Setting Task Force — involve fewer numbers and hard percentages. Aside from the aim to cut greenhouse emissions by 50 percent compared to a 2010 baseline, the phase one goals aim to:

• Institutionalize and embed sustainability into campus culture, allowing individual units across campus to develop plans to meeting campus sustainability goals.

• Expand sustainability research, scholarship and other opportunities.

• Use the campus as a “living laboratory” capable of improving campus sustainability and ecosystems.

• Prepare students to live and work in the 21st century through sustainability education.

• Facilitate knowledge exchange among the campus community and with the state, nation, and world.

PHASE 2 EXPANDS ON GOALS

As the campus moves into phase two of its 2030 plan, it will expand on first-phase goals by identifying specific and measurable tasks and metrics.

Leadership plans to finalize that second phase later in the fall semester.

“This approach has meant including units engaged in activities such as academics, research, operations, planning, engagement, athletics, and student life,” Stratis Giannakouros, director of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, said in a statement.

‘Ambitious and forward-looking’

Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, who serves as outreach and community education director for the UI Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, told The Gazette the new goals are “ambitious and forward-looking.”

“The new goals will engage students and research faculty to help build a sustainable path for the campus and broader community,” he said.

The university recently made big news on the utilities front by entering a $1.165 billion deal with a private French company to operate its utility system for 50 years. The deal nets the university a massive upfront lump sum it can invest and pull from annually. It gives the private operator decades of reliable income.

And the university, in making the deal, mandated its new provider pursue ambitious sustainability goals — promising to impose penalties if it failed to do so.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com

Nearly 327,000 Iowans have taken an assessment to see if they are eligible to be checked for COVID-19 under the Test Iowa Initiative.

Another free drive-though site for those who have taken the assessment and been scheduled for an appointment opened Thursday in Cedar Rapids — the fourth site in the state so far.

About 1 on 46 Iowans have been tested so far, health officials said.

State data release Thursday for the first time reveals big gaps in who has — and who has not — taken the assessment at TestIowa.om:

• Less than 35 percent of those who have been assessed for tests are men. Yet men are more apt to die from the disease than women. Of the 231 Iowa deaths so far, 51 percent are of men.

• Only 2 percent of those who have been assessed for testing are age 80 or over. But 46 percent of the Iowa deaths from the virus reported so far are in that age group.

• There are gaps in the rates at which urban and rural residents are completing the assessment. Nearly 9 percent of Linn County residents have been assessed, but only about 7.6 percent of Allamakee County residents have. Yet when looking at the rate of known infection per capita, Allamakee is far worse.

An Iowa judge has ruled unconstitutional a state law that would have blocked Planned Parenthood of the Heartland from receiving federal money to provide sex education programs to Iowa youth.

Fifth Judicial District Judge Paul Scott on Wednesday ruled the law “has no valid, ‘realistically conceivable’ purpose that serves a legitimate government interest as it is both irrationally overinclusive and under-inclusive.”

“The act violates (Planned Parenthood of the Heartland’s) right to equal protection under the law and is therefore unconstitutional,” Scott ruled in issuing a permanent injunction to prevent the law’s implementation.

House File 766, passed in 2019 by the Republican-controlled Iowa House and Senate, excluded any Iowa organization that “provides or promotes abortion” from receiving federal dollars that support sex education and related services to Iowa youth.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and ACLU of Iowa challenged the law, filing a lawsuit shortly after Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the bill into law.

Polk County District Court issued a temporary injunction blocking the law, which was to go into effect July 1, allowing Planned Parenthood to continue providing sex education programming throughout the past year.

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.

In its lawsuit, Planned Parenthood and ACLU argued that by blocking the abortion provider from the two federal grants — the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and the Community Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (CAPP) — the law violated protections of free speech, due process and equal protection.

“The decision recognizes that the law blocking Planned Parenthood from receiving grants to provide this programming violated the constitutional requirement of equal protection,” ACLU of Iowa Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen said in a statement Thursday.

Though Planned Parenthood would be excluded, the law did allow “nonprofit health care delivery systems” to remain eligible for the federal funding, even if they are contracted with or are affiliated with an entity that performs abortions or maintains a facility where abortions are performed.

By doing so, the law effectively singles out Planned Parenthood, but allows other possible grant recipients to provide an array of abortion-related services, according to the court documents.

“The carved-out exception for the ‘nonprofit health care delivery system’ facilities undermines any rationale the State produces of not wanting to be affiliated with or provide funds to organizations that partake in any abortion-related activity,” Scott ruled. .

In fiscal year 2019, Planned Parenthood received about $265,000 through the federal grants, including $85,000 to offer PREP curriculum in Polk, Pottawattamie and Woodbury counties.

It was awarded $182,000 this year to offer CAPP curriculum in Linn County, as well as in Dallas, Des Moines, Jasper, Lee, Polk, Plymouth and Woodbury counties.

The grants are administered by the Iowa Department of Human Services and the Iowa Department of Public Health.

Planned Parenthood has provided sex education to students in 31 schools and 12 community-based youth organizations in Iowa using state-approved curriculum since 2005, according to a new release.

The focus has remained “on areas with the highest rates of unintended pregnancies and sexually-transmitted infections,” the news release said.

“Today’s decision ensures that teens and young adults across Iowa will continue to have access to medically accurate sex education programs, despite the narrow and reckless policies of anti-abortion lawmakers,” said Erin Davison-Rippey, executive director of Planned Parenthood North Central States.

Comments: (319) 368-8536; michaela.ramm@thegazette.com

Thanks to enough people following guidelines on social distancing and avoiding large gatherings, Gov. Kim Reynolds said Thursday the state is able to shift its COVID-19 focus from mitigation strategies to managing the impact on Iowans.

Even as the state Department of Public Health reported 655 new cases and 12 more deaths, Reynolds said Iowa is successfully dealing with the disease, which has claimed 231 lives in less than two months.

As she continues to allow more businesses to partially reopen, Reynolds said credit goes to Iowans for responding to targeted mitigation efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 and prevent health care systems from being overwhelmed.

“I’m proud to say that Iowans do what they always do and they responded,” she said during her daily news conference Thursday. “So since we’ve kind of really accomplished what we were trying to do ... now we have shifted our focus from mitigation and resources to managing and containing virus activity as we begin to open Iowa back up.”

That means that beginning Friday, dentists may resume providing services and campgrounds, drive-in movie theaters, tanning facilities and medical spas all may reopen statewide, but with restrictions.

Her latest proclamation also relaxes mitigation strategies in the 22 counties that remain under more strict orders because the virus is more widespread there.

In those 22 counties, beginning Friday, malls and retail stores may reopen provided they operate at no more than 50 percent of capacity and take other steps, and fitness centers may reopen for appointments only.

In a statement, Coralville’s Coral Ridge Mall said it would reopen under those conditions starting at 11 a.m. Saturday. Shoppers there should expect to see hand-sanitizing stations, frequent cleanings and social distancing directions among other precautions.

“As Coral Ridge Mall prepares for this ‘new normal,’ we are thankful for the opportunity to reopen our doors and look forward to welcoming guests back into the shopping center,” senior general manager Monica Nadeau said in a statement.

Representatives of another large mall in the Corridor — Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids — did not return calls Thursday for comment on its plans.

The governor’s new guidelines are in effect until May 15 unless she changes them. Data about COVID-19 will continue to drive her decisions about reopening the state economy “in a responsible manner,” Reynolds said.

“Just as we can’t stop the virus completely, we also can’t keep businesses closed and our life restricted indefinitely,” she said.

According to the state’s newest version of its COVID-19 dashboard, at coronavirus.iowa.gov, 31 people were admitted to hospitals in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 417 with 107 on ventilators and 151 in intensive care.

There have been 66,427 people tested, with 16.6 percent of them testing positive for a total of 11,059. Another 4,266 people are recovering.

Although the number of Iowans dying and becoming infected with COVID-19 continues to increase, Reynolds, who met Wednesday with President Donald Trump and his coronavirus advisers, said she is proud of the state’s efforts.

“We are leading, and we’re leading by example. And we’re going to continue to lead,” she said. “We are in a pandemic. We have a rapidly changing environment. We are reacting and being proactive.”

That includes testing at hot spots, such as meatpacking plants, “so of course, our positive cases are going to increase,” she said.

Iowa’s COVID-19 response may not be perfect, Reynolds said, “but I think we’re doing everything we can to really take care of Iowans in a responsible way (and) also to get the economy up and going so Iowans can get back to work and we can do everything we can to get our life somewhat back to normal.”

Just as it will be up to business owners, churches and others to decide whether they are comfortable partly reopening, Reynolds said it will be up to Iowans to decide whether they want to venture out.

“Iowan to need to make those individual choices themselves,” Reynolds said. “They need to apply personal responsibility, take into account where they’re going, what they’re doing.”

Reynolds also said Trump asked Iowa Director of Public Health Caitlin Pedati to be a member of his coronavirus task force after Pedati briefed the president on Iowa’s efforts to mitigate COVID-19. However, later Thursday, White House officials told Bloomberg News Pedati is not “officially” a member of the task force, but may be consulted. The governor’s office declined to comment.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has announced $78 million for Iowa in reimbursement for costs associated with COVID-19. The funds will cover 75 percent of the eligible cost of personal protective gear and medical supplies and equipment during May and June.

In addition, FEMA has obligated $44 million for similar costs in March and April; $17 million to cover deployment of the National Guard; $4 million to reimburse the state for costs associated with its response; and $4.2 million for the use of up to 20 beds at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facilities.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

MARION — Marion’s 14-member COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force is beginning to work on recommendations of how to get people back to work, while keeping everyone safe.

“It’s hard to know right now at the beginning the various outcomes that are going to come out of this,” Marion Mayor Nick AbouAssaly told task force members in a meeting held this week via Zoom.

“Community sectors will work independently and report to the steering committee with ideas, strategies or policy recommendations,” he said.

In turn, the task force will consider recommendations to the Marion City Council, and AbouAssaly said he will update the council on the task force meetings.

“Unfortunately, we have to accept that the virus is here to stay,” AbouAssaly said. “It’s part of our life for the time being. We have to be able to plan for getting back to doing things and leading our lives in a way that allows us to exist with the virus in our community.”

Elizabeth Cwik, a Marion resident who works for the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, said there’s a “strong interest” among task force members to provide accurate information to the public about the virus.

“I see clear, consistent messaging from a variety of sectors from the schools, government, businesses and nonprofits. Then that message gets through,” Cwik said. “If that message is, ‘We care, and we want you to come out whole, and we want there to be a vibrant economy to be continued with every citizen’s effort,’ I think that’s a valuable contribution to the recovery.”

In joining the task force, Dr. Jaclyn Price said she hopes to dispel inaccurate information about the coronavirus and help businesses find ways to safely bring their employees back to work.

“I anticipate businesses will be operating at reduced capacities,” she said. “Maybe doing appointments rather than walk-in business, and cleaning more routinely.”

If businesses require employees and customers to wear masks, it will protect others from asymptomatic spread of the virus, she said.

“We will still see virus activity until we get a vaccine or herd immunity,” Price said. “This is going to be a problem for months to come. We’re trying to find ways to open slowly, but also understanding if we reopen everything and have to close it again, that could be more detrimental to people’s psychology or finances of businesses.”

The Rev. Mike Morgan of Marion United Methodist Church said “greater conversation” with government, business, education and health care leaders will help.

“Marion has become a town that is proactive,” Morgan said. “We really seek to have good things happen to our citizenry rather than let things happen and we react to them. ... As a person in the faith community, it’s important for us to be tending to people’s emotional, psychological, spiritual and, to some degree, physical needs.”

Comments: (319) 368-8664; grace.king@thegazette.com

Those serving on the Marion COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force, all Marion residents and volunteers, are:

• Nick AbouAssaly, Marion mayor

• Jill Ackerman, president, Marion Chamber of Commerce

• Shannon Bisgard, Linn-Mar schools superintendent

• Amber Bisinger, communications officer for the city

• Elizabeth Cwik, Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation

• Lee Eilers, executive committee member, Marion Economic Development Corp.

• Nick Glew, president, Marion Economic Development Corp.

• Amber Hoff, marriage and family therapist

• Steve Jensen, Marion City Council member

• Mike Morgan, pastor, Marion United Methodist Church

• Brent Oleson, Linn County supervisor

Lon Pluckhahn, Marion city manager

• Jaclyn Price, M.D., Mercy Clinic-Marion

• Brooke Prouty, program director, Marion Chamber of Commerce

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Linn County Fair has canceled grounds and grandstand entertainment at this year because of the novel coronavirus and is looking at ways youths could exhibit their work.

“After consulting with Linn County Public Health, the Linn County Board of Supervisors, and other stakeholders, it was determined this was the best decision due to the uncertainty of what the public health situation may look like at the end of June,” Albert Martin, Linn County Fair Board president, said Thursday in a statement.

The fair was scheduled June 24-28.

The Linn County Fair Association said it is working with the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach of Linn County and Linn County 4-H to determine how 4-H and FFA members and other youths will exhibit their work. Those details — which could include in-person or virtual exhibiting — are expected to be finalized and announced in mid-May.

Tom Barnes, executive director of the Association of Iowa Fairs, told The Gazette on Thursday that the Benton County Fair also was canceled for 2020.

Organizers for the Wapello County Fair in south-central Iowa previously announced they would not host the fair this year.

Comments: (319) 339-3155; lee.hermiston@thegazette.com

MARION — While the Uptown Marion Market will continue to sell fresh produce, it will look a little different this year.

The market will continue operating on the second Saturday of June, July and August with some adjustments.

But the city of Marion has canceled community events until at least early July because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Uptown market will run along Sixth Avenue instead of being held in City Square Park. It will be fenced and no more than 50 people will be let in at an time.

Jill Ackerman, president of the Marion Chamber of Commerce, said there are usually between 50 and 60 vendors at each market, but she expects only 15 to 25 at this summer’s markets.

“The main thing here is safety,” Ackerman said. “We want to make sure people have opportunities to buy fresh produce from our local growers, but we’re going to ask patrons to only spend 30 minutes inside the market.”

Vendors will sell produce and some plants, but artisan items will not be available.

While there will be summer events through the Chamber of Commerce, Ackerman said, they will be fewer and look a little different than they usually do.

Free community concerts and movie nights are canceled until July by the city, according to a news release.

The Marion Farmers Market, held at Taube Park, is expected to resume May 16.

Officials hope to have smaller-scale events throughout the summer like performances in the Uptown Artway, Messy Art Days and the Tiny Fair series as restrictions ease.

Sunrise Yoga at the Klopfenstein Amphitheater at Lowe Park is expected to take place every Saturday from June to August.

“Unfortunately, given our current reality, we know that 2020 will be far from normal,” said Marion Mayor Nicolas AbouAssaly. “After careful consideration and consultation with event organizers and sponsors, we have made the collective decision to cancel the free community concerts, events and movie nights originally planned for our outdoor public venues through early-July.”

Comments: (319) 368-8664; grace.king@thegazette.com

IOWA CITY — Once upon a time, there was a house in a city that loved literature.

It was a quaint, two-story home in the heart of the historic district with brick stairs, pale yellow siding, a hipped red roof and a rich history: Its original owner was Emma J. Harvat, who in 1922 became the nation’s first female mayor for a city of more than 10,000.

Nearly a century later, in 2014, Andrea Wilson was working in advertising in Florida and pined for a more “altruistic purpose” for her life. So she planned a return to Iowa, where she grew up in Columbus Junction.

But this time Wilson would live in Iowa City, known for — among other things — pioneering academic creative writing pursuits at the University of Iowa’s famed Writers’ Workshop.

Wilson wanted to write and found the idea of the historic Harvat house so charming she bought it “sight unseen” from down in Miami, aiming to run it as a bed-and-breakfast. But when she arrived, Wilson discovered a need in her new community she aimed to fill. It had a surprising dearth of literary resources for those outside the university.

“There wasn’t any place for the public to take a class or meet other writers or really be part of a writing community where people could just express their humanity through words,” she said. “It became my passion project — to try to create that for this community. I thought if anywhere should have a place like that, it would be America’s only UNESCO City of Literature at the time.”

So in March 2015, Wilson debuted Iowa City’s first community-based literary center for writers — or those aspiring. She had hoped to open a communal writing space closer to downtown but didn’t have the funding. So she gave her home a third identity: the Iowa Writers’ House.

She continued to live there and maintain her bed-and-breakfast business, which funded the writing endeavor and kept its cozy corridors bustling with interesting characters.

Famed visiting writers included Leslie Jamison, American novelist and essayist with works on the New York Times bestseller list; Hope Edelman, whose six non-fiction books have published in 17 countries and translated in 11 languages; Alison Bechdel, an American cartoonist and MacArthur fellow; and Piedad Bonnett Velez, Colombian poet, playwright and novelist of international acclaim.

And over the years, the Iowa Writers’ House connected, served and motivated thousands with its workshops, seminars, readings and summer camps. It offered editing services, founded a Bicultural Iowa Writers’ Fellowship, and — among other things — inspired a growing network of friends and creatives to value their own stories and the stories of others.

“I said yes to everything anyone ever asked of me,” Wilson said. “We gave tours. I received visiting scholars. We hosted dinners for visiting poets and writers for the university. And a lot of that was all volunteer. We never had a steady funding stream like most literary centers do.”

So when the coronavirus in March reached Iowa City, later shuttering storefronts, canceling events, curtailing travel plans and crippling the economy, the Iowa Writers’ House momentum stopped, too.

“Once COVID hit, because all of our programming is live and people come to the house, we had to cancel it,” Wilson said.

She dropped most of the organization’s spring season. She lost all her projected bed-and-breakfast business. And in a message posted to the Iowa Writers’ House website last month, Wilson announced her hard but unavoidable news.

“As the situation pushes on, and with no programming in the foreseeable future, we must make drastic changes,” she wrote. “Organizations must weather the storm or adapt, and in the case of this little organization with a big heart, evolution is the only option.”

And so after five years of intimate conversations, communal meals, singing, laughing, crying and lots and lots of writing and reading — all done in the shadow of Harvat — the organization is leaving the historic space and “taking a break to assess our mission and consider our best options for the future.”

Wilson said she plans to focus on her own writing. And the Bicultural Iowa Writers’ Fellowship program will continue — allowing for the release later this year of a third volume of “We the Interwoven: An Anthology of Bicultural Iowa,” including six new authors with multilingual stories of living in Iowa.

News of the goodbye — at least for now — has been met with an outpouring of support and testimonials of the impact the Iowa Writers’ House has had,

“I grew up without a writing community, and it was a very lonely experience,” Erin Casey wrote to Wilson after learning of its pause.

Casey — on the Iowa Writers’ House team and director of The Writers’ Rooms, an offshoot of the house — said her involvement in the project shaped not only her career but her personal growth.

“You, and the Iowa Writers’ House, helped me become a stronger person who felt deserving of companionship, respect, and love,” she wrote. “Watching the house grow, the workshops fill, and the stories come in about how much the IWH touched people’s lives added to the joy. I finally found a place to call home.”

Casey said that while the future is unknown, its legacy is not.

“The IWH will live on in the hearts of the people you touched,” she wrote. “Writers have found friends, support, guidance …”

Although the project isn’t getting a fairy-tale ending, Wilson said the story isn’t over.

“The organization is leaving the space. I’m leaving the space. We’re going on an organizational break so we can determine what a sustainable future might be,” she said. “But it’s really the end of a chapter. And we don’t know what the next chapter will be.”

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com

Vice President Mike Pence owes Iowans more than a photo-op when he visits Des Moines today, according to Joe Biden’s campaign.

“Iowans are seeing up close the most consequential failure of government in modern American history,” said Kate Bedingfeld, spokeswoman for the former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

“With nearly 300,000 Iowans filing for unemployment, rural hospitals on life support, Latino communities disproportionately suffering and workers on the job without sufficient protection, Mike Pence owes Iowans more than a photo-op — he owes them answers,” she said.

Pence, head of the White House coronavirus task force, is scheduled to meet with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, all Republicans, as well as with faith, farm and food production leaders.

Pence will talk to faith leaders about how they are using federal and state guidelines to open their houses of worship in a safe and responsible manner.

Later, he will go to Hy-Vee’s headquarters in West Des Moines for a roundtable discussion with agriculture and food supply leaders to discuss steps being taken to ensure the food supply remains secure.

Pence has called Iowa a “success story” in its response to the COVID-19, but Bedingfeld said the Trump administration failed to protect Iowa families from the virus that has claimed the lives of 231 Iowans.

“From devastating losses across the state, at meatpacking plants to rural communities, one thing is clear — it’s Iowans and the American people who are paying the price for the Trump administration’s denials and delays in response to this pandemic,” she said.

“Instead of listening to our own intelligence agencies and public health experts, Donald Trump was fed dangerous propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party — and he bought it,” she said. “Iowans deserve better — they deserve Joe Biden.”

For his part, Grassley said he welcomes the discussion with Pence.

“There’s much work to be done, and the pandemic is disrupting all of our communities,” Grassley said. “It’s important to hear directly from those who help feed the nation and the world.”

Ernst also is looking forward to the discussion of how Iowa is working to protect the health and safety of Iowa’s families and communities while reopening the state’s economy.

“We continue to take an all-hands-on-deck approach to tackling this pandemic,” she said. “Together, we will get through this.”

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

As the coronavirus spread from the nation’s meatpacking plants to the broader communities where they are located, it burned through a modest duplex in Waterloo.

In the downstairs unit lived Jim Orvis, 65, a beloved friend and uncle who worked in the laundry department at the Tyson Foods pork processing facility, the largest employer in Waterloo. Upstairs was Arthur Scott, a 51-year-old father who was getting his life on track after a prison term for drugs. He worked 25 miles away at the Tyson dog treats factory in Independence.

The two men were not well acquainted. But both fell ill and died last month within days of each other from COVID-19 — casualties of an outbreak linked to the Waterloo plant that spread across the city of 68,000 people.

Similar spread has happened in other communities where the economy centers on raising hogs and cattle and processing their meat, including the hot spots of Grand Island, Neb., and Worthington, Minn.

The virus is “devastating everything,” duplex owner Jose Garcia, who received notification two days apart from his deceased tenants’ relatives, said recently. “These two guys were here last week. Now they are gone. It’s crazy.”

He said it’s possible one of the men infected the other because they shared an entryway, or that they each contracted the virus separately at their workplaces.

The virus threatens the communities’ most vulnerable populations, including low-income workers and their extended families.

“They’re afraid of catching the virus. They’re afraid of spreading it to family members. Some of them are afraid of dying,” said the Rev. Jim Callahan, of the Church of St. Mary in Worthington, a city of 13,000 that has attracted immigrants from across the globe to work at the JBS pork plant.

“One guy said to me, ‘I risked my life coming here. I never thought something that I can’t see could take me out.’ ”

In Grand Island, an outbreak linked to a JBS beef plant that is the city’s largest employer spread rapidly across the rural central Nebraska region, killing more than three dozen people. Many of the dead were elderly residents of long-term care facilities who had relatives or friends employed at the plant.

In Waterloo, local officials blamed Tyson for endangering not only its workers and their relatives but everyone else who leaves home to work or get groceries.

They were furious with the state and federal governments for failing to intervene and for pushing hard to reopen the plant days after public pressure helped idle it.

“We were failed by people who put profit margins and greed before people, predominantly brown people, predominantly immigrants, predominantly people who live in lower socioeconomic quarters,” said Jonathan Grieder, a high school social studies teacher who serves on Waterloo’s City Council. “This is going to be with us for so long. There are going to be very deep scars in our community.”

Grieder cried as he recounted how one of his former students, 19, lost her father to the coronavirus and has been left to raise two younger siblings. Their mother died of cancer last September.

Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson said he first became concerned after touring the Tyson plant April 10 and witnessing inadequate social distancing and a lack of personal protective equipment. As hundreds of workers began getting sick or staying home out of fear, Thompson joined the mayor and local officials in asking Tyson to close the plant temporarily on April 16.

But Tyson, with support from Gov. Kim Reynolds, waited until April 22 to announce that step after the outbreak intensified. The company warned of the significant economic consequences even a temporary shutdown would create.

The plant, which can process 19,500 hogs per day, resumed limited production this past week.

First, Tyson invited local officials and some employees inside for tours to show the new safety precautions, including plastic shields and more space between workers.

This time, Thompson said he was “reserved in my optimism” that worker safety would be a priority at the plant.

Although Tyson has declined to say how many of the plant’s 2,800 workers had been infected, state health officials announced last week that 444 — or 17 percent — had the virus.

In three weeks, Black Hawk County’s cases skyrocketed from 62 to at least 1,450, or more than 1 percent of the county population. Deaths because of the virus rose from zero to at least 15. Ninety percent of the cases are “attributed or related to the plant,” the county’s public health director said.

Thompson said the plant’s outbreak decimated the community’s “first line of defense” and allowed the virus to spread to nursing homes and the jail he oversees.

“These are the places we did not want to fight the COVID-19 virus,” he said.

The losses mounted.

A refugee from Bosnia died days after falling sick while working on the Tyson production line, leaving behind her heartbroken husband.

The virus also took an intellectually disabled man who died at 73, years after escaping forced labor at a turkey plant and retiring to Waterloo.

Scott, who went by the nickname Dontae, was planning to reunite in June with two teenage children he had not seen in person since he was incarcerated on federal drug charges in 2011.

A former small-time heroin distributor who suffered from addiction, he and his wife divorced during his prison term, and she moved to Mississippi with the children.

Since his 2018 release, friends said he was doing well and rebuilding relationships.

Scott told his daughter, Destiny Proctor, 18, that he suspected he became infected at the Tyson pet food factory, which has stayed open under federal guidance classifying the industry as critical infrastructure.

Proctor and her 15-year-old brother were looking forward to living with their dad this summer. Instead, their final talk was a video call from a hospital where he struggled to talk.

“It was so, so sad,” Proctor, who described her father as funny and caring and frequently sending her cards and gifts, said of their final call. “He told me he couldn’t breathe.”

DES MOINES — The Iowa Supreme Court has asked a group of criminal and civil lawyers, judges and court staff from judicial districts across the state to make recommendations on how criminal and civil jury trials will resume with coronavirus health restrictions.

The court is asking the 17-member Jumpstart Jury Trials Task Force to develop temporary policies and procedures for jury trials that will ensure the “fundamental rights of a defendant” to a jury trial, while at the same time “protecting the health and safety” of the jurors, attorneys, judges and the public, said Des Moines lawyer Guy Cook, co-chairman of the task force.

The court, Cook said Thursday, has put together a “good cross-section” of professionals who have experience with civil and criminal trials.

Task force members are:

• Associate Supreme Court Justice Mark McDermott, chairman

• Guy Cook, Des Moines criminal and civil attorney, co-chairman

• 4th Judicial District Judge Michael Hooper

• 5th Judicial District Judge David Porter

• Angela Campbell, Des Moines criminal defense attorney

• Jim Craig, Cedar Rapids civil attorney, president of Iowa Defense Counsel Association

• Janietta Criswell, clerk and jury manager, 8th Judicial District, Ottumwa

• Kathy Gaylord, district court administrator, 7th Judicial District, Davenport

• Patrick Jennings, Woodbury county attorney, Sioux City

• Julie Kneip, clerk of court, 2nd Judicial District, Fort Dodge

• Bill Miller, Des Moines civil attorney, chairman of Iowa State Bar Association litigation

• Todd Nuccio, Iowa state court administrator

• Jerry Schnurr, Fort Dodge civil attorney and president-elect of Iowa State Bar Association

• Jennifer Solberg, Woodbury County chief public defender

• Chad Swanson, Waterloo civil attorney, president of Iowa Association of Justice

• Brian Williams, Black Hawk county attorney

• Mark Headlee, information technology director of Iowa Judicial Branch

The committee will review the current schedule to resume jury trials that the court has established in consultation with public health officials and other health care providers, and recommend whether the schedule should be altered, according to the court’s order.

Jury criminal trials can resume July 13 and civil trials Aug. 3, according to the order.

The task force also will make recommendations for how those trials should proceed, according to the court’s order.

Members should develop policies and procedures aimed at protecting the health and safety of jurors, court staff, attorneys, judges and visitors throughout the trial process, particularly during the identification of potential jurors, summons of potential jurors, jury selection, trials, jury instructions and jury deliberations.

Cook said members will have to consider the challenges for each type of trial. More jurors, for example, are needed in a criminal case, so space and logistics will have to be considered with social distancing requirements.

That will be more difficult in the rural courthouses that have less space.

A pool of 80 to 100 potential jurors are sometimes summoned for felony trials in larger counties, but that, too, may be a challenge with social distancing.

Another possibility would be requiring masks, but how will a mask affect the credibility of a witness if it hides the person’s facial expressions, Cook said.

These are all issues the members may encounter.

Steve Davis, Iowa Judicial Branch spokesman, said the goal is one uniform statewide plan, but it’s possible that each district may have some discretion, as in the previous orders issued during this pandemic, because of the differences in each county.

Davis said the task force members were chosen based on gender, background and geographic area.

The recommendations should be submitted to the court the first week in June.

Davis said he didn’t yet know when the task force would start meeting by phone or video conference or how often.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com

DES MOINES — Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds will not be holding a news briefing Friday on the coronavirus outbreak in Iowa due to scheduling conflicts created by Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Iowa, according to the governor’s office.

The vice president was slated to travel to Des Moines Friday morning with plans to participate in a discussion with faith leaders about how they are using federal and state guidelines to open their houses of worship in a safe and responsible manner.

Also, Friday afternoon the vice president was scheduled to visit Hy-Vee headquarters in West Des Moines for a roundtable discussion with agriculture and food supply leaders to discuss steps being taken to ensure the food supply remains secure. Pence will return to Washington, D.C., later Friday evening.

Along with the governor, Iowa’s Republican U.S. Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley are slated to join Pence at Friday’s events in Iowa.

According to the governor’s staff, Reynolds plans to resume her regular schedule of 11 a.m. press conferences next week.

CEDAR RAPIDS — A Dubuque woman who helped her boyfriend and another person buy heroin that later led to a fatal overdose was convicted Thursday in federal court.

Jacqueline M. Birch, 23, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of aiding and abetting the distribution of a controlled substance.

During the plea hearing, Birch admitted she knew that another person was going to illegally distribute a drug last May, and she aided in that distribution.

Evidence at a previous hearing showed that Birch drove her boyfriend, Mateusz Syryjczyk, 29, of Rockford, Ill., and another person, not identified in court documents, to a residence in Dubuque on May 27. Birch and the other person went into the residence and bought heroin from a dealer. The three drove to a hotel in Dubuque and all used the heroin.

The other person began to overdose in the room, but Birch and Syryjczyk didn’t immediately call 911, according to evidence. Over many hours, Birch occasionally would perform CPR on the person to restore some breathing function, though the person never regained consciousness.

Eventually, Birch and Syryjczyk decided to call 911, and Syryjczyk took the remaining drug paraphernalia from the room to prevent law enforcement from finding it, according to court documents. Birch and Syryjczyk also made false statements to police about the cause of the person’s condition.

Court documents showed the overdose victim died at the scene. An autopsy later determined the cause of death was use of heroin, fentanyl and valeryl fentanyl.

Syryjczyk previously pleaded to misprision of a felony and remains free on bond pending sentencing.

Birch faces up to 20 years in federal prison, a $1 million fine and supervised release for life following her prison term.

Sentencing will be set after a presentencing report is prepared.

The case was investigated by the Dubuque Drug Task Force and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Chatham.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com

This Mother’s Day, April Kelley just wants to give her daughter Jessica Kelley a hug. But she can’t. Jessica, 21, works on the COVID-19 floor at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids.

To protect her family and still do her job, Jessica is living full time at the hospital, which has made housing available to staff who need to isolate from their families during the pandemic.

“Just based on the floor I’m on, I don’t want to put my family at risk. It’s not worth it,” she said.

Her mother has an autoimmune disorder, adding another layer to Jessica’s worries. Though she does not interact with patients with the coronavirus directly, she still knows exposure is a risk.

“It wasn’t too hard of a decision, but it’s hard on me sometimes,” she said. “I really miss her.”

Jessica is a telemetry monitor technician. For her eight- to 12-hour shifts, her job is to watch heart monitors of patients in the hospital’s intensive care unit. If any patient starts to have cardiac distress or irregular heart rhythms, she and her fellow technicians are the first ones to notice and can notify the doctors and nurses in the main ward.

“It was her choice to either work at the hospital or come home, which was really difficult for her,” April Kelley said. “She’s only 21, so I was pretty proud of her for choosing to help. I don’t think people realize the sacrifice people are making to be there, working in the hospitals right now.”

Jessica is finishing her junior year as a nursing student at Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids. When classes moved online and the dorms closed, she had to figure out what to do. While many of her classmates moved back home with their families, doing so would have meant quitting her job. Right now, she said, that job feels more important than ever. In addition to being a full-time student, she works 32 to 36 hours a week at the hospital.

She spent about a week at home with her mother and brother in Humboldt after the dorms closed, but even then, she stayed in her mother’s finished basement and didn’t interact directly with her.

Her older brother, 26, is staying at home with their mom, and she misses him, too. Jessica said to stay connected, she does FaceTime with her mom, a social worker, almost every day.

“She’s definitely one of my best friends, one of my biggest supporters. She is a single mom, and she’s worked two jobs for the last 12 years,” Jessica said. “She always provides for us, and she’s just wonderful in every single way. She’s very caring, she takes care of everybody, no matter where you are.”

This Mother’s Day, those roles have reversed. Now, Jessica is protecting her mother instead of the other way around.

“She said, ‘Mom, I just can’t come home again, I couldn’t put you in that kind of danger,’” April said. “I’m extremely proud of the young lady she is and how responsible she is, and what she is doing during this time, to make sure other people are safe.”

Jessica’s interest in nursing came from her family. Her grandmother, aunt and cousin are all nurses. She also had an experience as a child that stuck with her and inspired her current career goal of becoming a pediatric intensive care nurse after graduation.

In the second grade, she had encephalitis. At first, she said, doctors didn’t believe she was actually sick. Her mother had to take her to a different hospital to get help.

“They said I was making it up, that my screaming and vomiting was just trying to get attention. They said I was faking it,” she said. “At one point, I really did not know who my mom was, and that’s the scariest part, to have someone tell you that’s not real. That’s just not right, and I don’t want other people, especially children to have to deal with that.”

She became interested in the telemetry job after touring the hospital as a student. She said watching the monitors can be surreal, knowing each line she watches represents a patient she may never meet but whose life she is responsible for.

“You see their heart, but you don’t see them,” she said. “Sometimes you watch them die, but never see them. Other times, you see someone going into a fatal rhythm, and you call the nurses ... and when they finally get that person stabilized, you know they might not have made it if we weren’t there. It’s very rewarding.”

April stressed the need for people to follow public health guidelines on social distancing to stay healthy.

“I know they’re starting to open back up and people are eager to get on with their lives,” she said. “But there are a lot of people putting their lives on the line right now ... and I would hate for Jessica to have to go back and self-isolate again if there was a second wave.”

April’s sad she can’t spend this Mother’s Day with her daughter, but right now, that’s not what is important.

“Remember, there’s going to be another Mother’s Day, she said. “We all just have to take care of our people.”

Comments: (319) 398-8339; alison.gowans@thegazette.com

At the same time Vice President Mike Pence was in Iowa on Friday to discuss the nation’s food supply security, U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack called on the administration to take more measures to protect workers in food processing plants.

Loebsack also questioned the decisions to reopen the economy being made by the Trump administration and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

“I don’t think we’re ready for that yet, quite honestly,” the Iowa City Democrat said.

“Ready” will be when adequate protections are in place for the people processing America’s food, Loebsack said.

Workers are showing up on the job, but “they fear for their families, they fear for themselves, they fear for everybody,” Loebsack said. “They don’t know if they’re going to catch this thing or not. But they’re there.”

Of particular concern are workers in food processing, such as those in meatpacking plants in Iowa where more than 1,600 cases of COVID-19 have been reported.

“I really believe that we should not open the plants if we do not ensure worker safety,” Loebsack said.

He called for President Donald Trump to use the Defense Production Act, which the president invoked to keep meatpacking plants open, to ensure an adequate supply of personal protective equipment for packing plant workers.

If Pence and the president are concerned about the nation’s food supply, then they need to “keep those workers safe and, therefore, keep those processing plants running” to avoid meat shortages at the grocery store, Loebsack said.

“We can’t have those plants running if workers are not protected. It’s that simple,” he said. “It’s not just the workers, it’s the families, it’s the community at large.”

With unemployment at 14.7 percent — probably higher, Loebsack said, Congress should extend federal coronavirus-related unemployment benefits of $600 a week beyond their current July end date.

He’s also pleased that the last relief package fixed a Small Business Administration Economic Injury Disaster Loan program to allow farmers to apply for assistance.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

Goodwill of the Heartland will reopen 11 retail locations in Eastern Iowa next week, including all its Cedar Rapids stores, according to an announcement on the Goodwill Facebook page. Stores in Marion, Coralville, Iowa City, Washington, Bettendorf, Davenport and Muscatine also will resume business Monday, starting with accepting donations only.

Locations will be open to shoppers, beginning Friday, May 15, and run from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon-5 p.m. Sunday.

All customers are required to wear face masks to enter the store. For more information, including safety guidelines, visit the Goodwill website.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources encourage visitors to recently reopened campgrounds to check the DNR website for temporary closures before traveling to any of the areas. Campgrounds started to open Friday for walk-in, first come, first served campers with self-contained restrooms, according to a news release.

Some parks and campgrounds have closures due construction or other maintenance projects. Staff will monitor the areas closely, reminding visitors to practice physical distancing guidelines and other policies issued by the DNR earlier this week.

Some pit latrines in high-use areas will be open, but all other restrooms, drinking fountains and shower facilities will be closed. Park visitors are asked to use designated parking areas and follow all park signs.

The DNR’s reservation system for reservable campgrounds is available online, taking reservations for Monday and later.

Iowa has 68 state parks and four state forests, including hiking trails, lake recreation and camping. For more information, visit the DNR website.

The next Cedar Rapids City Council meeting will be hosted virtually. The meeting will be held May 12, beginning at noon. The livestream is available at the city’s Facebook page. Indexed videos can be accessed on the City of Cedar Rapids website.

The public is invited to provide comments, submitting written comments via email to cityclerk@cedar-rapids.org before the meeting or joining the Zoom conference call and registering here before 2 p.m. Tuesday. Registrants will receive an email with instructions to participate. Written comments received before 2 p.m. the day of the meeting will be given to City Council members before the event.

The public will only be invited to speak during designated public comment sections of the meeting. Please visit the City’s website for speaking guidelines. City Hall remains closed to the public. No in-person participation is available.

Tuesday’s meeting agenda will be posted to the website by 4 p.m. Friday.

Michael Buble’s “An Evening with Michael Buble” Tour has rescheduled dates to 2021. The 26-date series of concerts will begin February 6 in Salt Lake City and conclude March 25 in Jacksonville, Fla., according to a news release Friday.

Bubble’s shows at TaxSlayer Center in Moline, Ill., has been switched to Feb. 20, 2021. He will perform at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines the following day.

Tickets for previously scheduled dates will be honored.

“I am so looking forward to getting back on stage,” Buble said in the release. “I’ve missed my fans and my touring family. Meantime, I hope everyone stays safe. We can all look forward to a great night out.”

Buble also just completed a series of Facebook Live shows while in quarantine with his family in Vancouver.

Comments: (319) 368-8679; kj.pilcher@thegazette.com

CEDAR RAPIDS — A 32-year-old Cedar Rapids man, who received probation for a high-speed chase that he bragged about as “fun” and attempted to elude again in March, is heading to prison.

Sixth Judicial District Judge Lars Anderson on Friday revoked probation for Travis McDermott on the eluding charge from June 9, 2019, and sentenced him to five years in prison.

McDermott was convicted Tuesday for attempting to elude in March and was sentenced to 90 days in jail, which was run concurrently to the five-year prison sentence.

First Assistant Linn County Attorney Nick Maybanks told the judge that McDermott has a “significant violent history,” including assaults, assault on a peace officer, domestic assault, interference with official acts and child endangerment with bodily injury.

He continues to assault others and “show blatant disregard for authority figures,” the prosecutor noted.

In the eluding incident from last June, McDermott “risked lives” in a southwest neighborhood leading police on chase that began on when police saw his vehicle speeding on Rockford Road SW and run a stop sign at Eighth Avenue SW, Maybanks said Friday. McDermott drove 107 mph in a 30 mph zone and drove the wrong way on a one-way street at Third Street and Wilson Avenue SW.

McDermott ran into a pile of dirt at a dead end, jumped out of his car and led officers on a foot chase, Maybanks said. He wouldn’t stop, and officers used a Taser to subdue him.

McDermott was laughing when police arrested him, saying “how much fun” he had and appearing to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Maybanks said.

McDermott demanded a speedy trial, but the officer who conducted the sobriety test wasn’t available for trial. A plea was offered, and the drunken driving charge was dropped.

Maybanks also pointed out McDermott wouldn’t cooperate with the probation office on a presentencing report, which was ordered by a judge. He picked up an assault charge last November and was convicted before his eluding sentencing in January.

Maybanks said after McDermott received probation, he didn’t show up at the probation office for his appointment, didn’t get a substance abuse test as ordered and reported an invalid address to community corrections.

McDermott also has a pending charge in Dubuque County for driving while barred March 3, according to court documents.

Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com

Some Eastern Iowans are ready to go camping.

With Gov. Kim Reynolds allowing campgrounds across the state to open Friday, some people wasted little time in heading outdoors.

“They’re already starting to fill up,” said Ryan Schlader of Linn County Conservation. “By about 7 this morning, we had a dozen at Squaw Creek Park. People were coming in bright and early to camp. We’re not surprised.”

Schlader said Linn County Conservation tried to have the campgrounds open at the county’s Squaw Creek, Morgan Creek and Pinicon Ridge parks at 5 a.m. Friday. He expected all of them would be busy.

“I think people were ready to go,” he said.

Lake Macbride State Park in Johnson County didn’t see quite as much of a rush for campsites, park manager Ron Puettmann reported Friday morning, saying he’d had six walk-ins for the park’s 42 campsites.

Camping this weekend will be done on a first-come, first-served basis. Sites won’t be available for reservations until next week, though online reservations can be made now, Puettmann said.

“I’m quite sure people were waiting anxiously to get on,” he said.

While Reynolds’ campground announcement came Wednesday, Schlader and Puettmann said they had no issues having the campgrounds ready for Friday.

Schlader said county staff have been in touch with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and other county conservation boards to discuss protocols for reopening to ensure a safe experience for campers and employers.

“We anticipated at some point the order would be lifted,” Schlader said. “We were anticipating maybe May 15. The campgrounds were in good shape and ready to go.”

For now, camping comes with some limitations:

• Campers can camp only in a self-contained unit with a functioning restroom, such as a recreational vehicle.

• Shower houses with restrooms will remain closed for the time being.

• Campsites are limited to six people unless they are from the same household.

• No visitors are allowed at the campsites.

Puettmann said staffers and a DNR officer will be on hand to make sure guidelines are followed, but he didn’t anticipate enforcement would be an issue.

“For the most part, we’re going to allow people to police themselves,” he said.

It’s hard to gauge demand, Schlader said.

The weather isn’t yet deal for camping, and some people might not be ready to camp, given the continuing coronavirus.

“There is a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “Do people feel like they need to get out and enjoy a camping experience within their own campsite, or do people still feel under the weather and think it’s not a good idea for my family to go right now? ... We just want this to be an option for people.”

Comments: (319) 339-3155; lee.hermiston@thegazette.com

A man suspected of a workplace shooting last month at a vinyl window manufacturer in southwest Cedar Rapids turned himself into authorities Friday.

Jamal Devonte Edwards, 26, has been wanted since two men were shot at Associated Materials, 3801 Beverly Rd. SW, the morning of April 9.

Cedar Rapids police had indicated Edwards was wanted in particular for the shooting of Mark Robertson, 36.

Edwards faces charges of attempted murder, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, going armed with intent and willful injury.

The U.S. Marshals Service helped locate Edwards, distributing a photo of Edwards along the Gulf Coast. He was located in Mobile, Ala. when his father brought him to the Mobile police department so he could turn himself in, according to a Cedar Rapids police news release.

The April 9 shooting was reported at 5:03 a.m. after two employees were shot at Associated Materials. Both suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

Police said at the time it appeared the shooter knew the two men.

Shawn Hardy, senior vice president of integrated products for Associated Materials, confirmed Edwards worked at the Cedar Rapids business, which gave him access to the building, but said he had been employed through a temp agency.

DES MOINES — In traveling to Iowa to call attention to the burdens COVID-19 brought to religious services and the food supply, Vice President Mike Pence unwittingly called attention to another issue: whether the White House itself is safe from the disease.

So far this week, two White House aides — President Donald Trump’s valet on Thursday, and Pence’s press secretary on Friday — have tested positive for the virus.

On Friday morning, Pence’s departure to Des Moines was delayed an hour as Air Force Two idled on a tarmac near Washington. Though Pence’s press secretary was not on the plane, White House physicians through contact tracing identified six other aides who had been near her who were aboard, and pulled them from the flight. The White House later said the six had tested negative.

Trump, who identified the Pence aide as press secretary Katie Miller, said he was “not worried” about the virus in the White House.

Nonetheless, officials said they were stepping up safety protocols and were considering a mandatory mask policy for those in close contact with Trump and Pence.

The vice president and 10 members of his staff are given rapid coronavirus tests daily, and the president is also tested regularly.

Miller, who is married to Trump adviser Stephen Miller, had been in recent contact with Pence but not with the president. Pence is leader of the White House coronavirus task force and Katie Miller has handled the group’s communications.

After landing in Des Moines, Pence spoke to a group of faith leaders about the importance of resuming religious services, saying cancellations in the name of slowing the spread of the virus have “been a burden” for congregants.

His visit coincided with the state announcing 12 more deaths from the virus, a total of 243 in less than two months.

Pence spoke with the religious leaders and Republican officials during a brief visit. He also spoke later with agricultural and food company executives.

“It’s been a source of heartache for people across the country,” Pence told about a dozen people at the Church of the Way Presbyterian church in Urbandale.

Pence told the group that continued efforts to hold services online and in other ways “made incalculable difference in our nation seeing our way through these troubled times.”

Iowa is among many states where restrictions on in-person services are starting to ease. GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds, who joined both of the state’s Republican senators at the event, has instituted new rules that allow services to resume with restrictions.

At Friday’s event, some religious leaders expressed hesitation at resuming large gatherings, while others said they would begin holding services soon,

“We are pretty much in a position of uniformly believing that it’s too early to return to personal worship. It’s inadvisable at the moment particularly with rising case counts in communities where we are across the state,” said David Kaufman, rabbi of Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Des Moines.

The Rev. Terry Amann, of Church of the Way, said his church will resume services May 17 with chairs arranged so families can sit together but avoid the temptation to shake hands or offer hugs. He said hand sanitizer will be available.

A new poll by The University of Chicago Divinity School and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows just 9 percent of Americans think in-person services should be allowed without restrictions, while 42 percent think they should be allowed with restrictions and 48 percent think they shouldn’t be allowed at all.

Pence later met with agriculture and food industry leaders. Iowa tops the nation in egg production and pork processing and is a top grower of corn and soybeans.

Meatpacking is among the state’s biggest employers, and companies have been working to restart operations after closing them because hundreds of their workers became infected.

As Pence touted the Trump administration’s announcement of the reopening of 14 meatpacking plants including two of the worst hit by coronavirus infections in Perry and Waterloo, the union representing workers called for safer work conditions.

“Iowa’s meatpacking workers are not sacrificial lambs. They have been working tirelessly during the coronavirus pandemic to ensure families here and across the country have access to the food they need,” said the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in a statement.

The Associated Press and the McClatchy Washington Bureau contributed to this report.

Iowa State University graduates who celebrated commencement Friday saw lots of caps and gowns, red-and-gold confetti and arenas packed with friends and family.

But none of those images were from this year — which now is defined by the novel coronavirus that has forced education online and put an end to large gatherings like graduation ceremonies.

Appearing in front of a red ISU screen Friday, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Daniel J. Robison addressed graduates like he usually would at commencement — but this time in a recorded message acknowledging the unprecedented circumstances keeping them apart.

“This year, because of the COVID crisis, we are unfortunately not all together for this happy occasion,” he said, pushing forward in a motivational tone by quoting famed ISU alumnus George Washington Carver.

“When you can do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world,” Robison said, citing Carver.

About 12,000 graduates across Iowa’s public universities this month are doing exactly that — capping their collegiate careers with never-before-attempted online-only commencement ceremonies, with each campus and their respective colleges attempting a variety of virtual celebration methods.

ISU and the University of Iowa are attempting some form of socially-distanced livestreamed convocation with countdown clocks and virtual confetti. All three campuses including the University of Northern Iowa have posted online recorded messages, videos and slides acknowledging individual graduates.

Some slides include photos, thank-yous, quotes and student plans for after graduation.

UNI, which didn’t try any form of a live virtual ceremony, instead created a graduation website that went live Thursday. That site hosts an array of recorded video messages — including one from UNI President Mark Nook who, standing alone behind a podium on campus clad in traditional academic regalia, recognized his campus’ 1,500-some spring graduates and their unusual challenges.

“We know the loss you feel in not being able to be on campus to celebrate this time with your friends, faculty and staff,” Nook said. “To walk around campus in your robe and to take those pictures with friends and family members … The loss is felt by many of us as well.”

He reminded those listening that this spring’s UNI graduates — like those at the UI and ISU — can participate in an upcoming in-person commencement ceremony.

And although students were allowed to return caps and gowns they ordered for their canceled walks across the stage, some kept them as keepsakes. The campuses offered other tokens of remembrance as well, including “CYlebration” gift packages ISU sent to graduates in April stuffed with a souvenir tassel, diploma cover, and streamer tube — to make up for the confetti that won’t be falling on graduation caps from the Hilton Coliseum rafters.

In addition to the recorded messages from 17 UI leaders — including President Bruce Harreld — the campus solicited parent messages, which will be included in the live virtual ceremonies.

To date, about 3,100 of the more than 5,400 UI graduates have RSVP’d to participate in the ceremony, which spokeswoman Anne Bassett said is a required affirmation from the students to have their names read.

“Students do not have to sign up to watch,” she said. “So there’s no way at this time to predict how many will do so.”

Despite the historic nature of the first online-only commencement ceremonies — forever bonding distanced graduates through the shared experience — UI graduate Omar Khodor, 22, said it’s a club he would have liked to avoid.

“I’d definitely prefer not to be part of that group,” the environmental science major said, sharing disappointment over the education, experiences and celebrations he lost to the pandemic.

“A lot of students like myself, we’re upset, but we’re not really allowed to be upset given the circumstances,” Khodor said. “You have this sense that something is unfair, that something has been taken from you. But you can’t be mad about it at all.”

Life is too short to dwell on what could have been or what should have been — which sort of captures graduate Dawn Hales’ motivation to get an ISU degree.

The 63-year-old Ames grandmother calls herself the “oldest BSN Iowa State grad ever.”

“It’s the truth, because we’re only the second cohort to graduate,” Hales said. “I’ll probably be the oldest for a while.”

ISU began offering a Bachelor of Science in nursing degree in fall 2018 for registered nurses hoping to advance their careers — like Hales, who spent years in nursing before becoming director of nursing at Accura Healthcare, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation center in Ames.

In addition to wanting more education, Hales said, she felt like the “odd man out” in her red-and-gold family — with her husband, three sons and their wives all earning ISU degrees. She earned an associate degree and became a registered nurse with community college training.

“I was director of nursing at different facilities, but I did not have a four-year degree,” she said. “I always wanted to get my BSN.”

So in January 2019, she started full-time toward her three-semester pursuit of a BSN — even as she continued working. And her education took a relevant and important turn when COVID-19 arrived.

“My capstone project was infection control,” she said, noting her focus later sharpened to “infection control and crisis management” — perfect timing to fight the coronavirus, which has hit long-term care facilities particularly hard.

“We were hyper vigilant,” Hales said of her facility, which has yet to report a case of COVID-19. “I think we were probably one of the first facilities that pretty much shut down and started assessing our staff when they would come in.”

Hales said she was eager to walk in her first university graduation and was planning antics for it with her 10-year-old granddaughter.

“We were trying to think, should I dance across the stage?” Hales said. “Or would I grab a walker and act like an old lady going across the stage?

“She was trying to teach me to do this ‘dab’ move,” Hales said. “I said, ‘Honey, I cannot figure that out.’”

In the end, Hales watched the celebration online instead. She did, however, get a personalized license plate that reads, “RN2BSN.”

Coming from a family-run dairy farm in Jerome, Idaho, EllieMae Millenkamp, 22, is the first in her family to graduate college.

Although music is her passion, Millenkamp long expected to study at an agriculture school — but Colorado State was her original choice.

Then, while visiting family in Iowa during a cousin’s visit to ISU, she fell in love with the Ames campus and recalibrated her academic path.

While at ISU, the musical Millenkamp began writing more songs and performing more online, which led to in-person shows and a local band.

And then, during her junior year, a talent scout reached out to invite her to participate in an audition for NBC’s “The Voice.” That went well and Millenkamp, in the summer before her senior year, moved to Los Angeles and made it onto the show.

She achieved second-round status before being bumped, but the experience offered her lifelong friendships and connections and invigorated her musical pursuits — which have been slowed by COVID-19. Shows have been canceled in now idled bars.

Millenkamp went back to Idaho to be with her family, like thousands of her peers also did with their families, when the ISU campus shut down.

After graduation she plans on returning and working the family farm again until her musical career has the chance to regain momentum.

But she recently returned to Ames for finals. And she and some friends, also in town, plan to celebrate graduation, even if not with an official cap and gown.

“We’ll probably have a bonfire and all hang out,” she said. “We’ll celebrate in our own way.”

Most college seniors nearing graduation get to spend their academic hours focusing on their major and interests, wrapping their four or sometimes five years with passion projects and capstone experiences.

That was Omar Khodor’s plan — with lab-based DNA sequencing on tap, along with a geology trip and policy proposal he planned to present to the Iowa Legislature. But all that got canceled — and even some requirements were waived since COVID-19 made them impossible.

“There were still a lot of a lot of things to wrap up,” he said. “A lot of things I was looking forward to.”

He’s ending the year with just three classes to finish and “absolutely” would have preferred to have a fuller plate.

But Khodor’s academic career isn’t over. He’s planning to attend law school in the fall at the University of Pennsylvania, where he’ll pursue environmental law. But this spring has diminished his enthusiasm, with the question lingering of whether in-person courses will return to campus soon.

If they don’t, he’s still leaning toward enrolling — in part — because of all the work that goes into applying and getting accepted, which he’s already done.

“But online classes are definitely less fulfilling, less motivating. You feel like you learn less,” he said. “So it will kind of be a tossup. There’ll be some trade-offs involved in what I would gain versus what I would be paying for such an expensive endeavor like law school.”

As for missing a traditional college commencement, Khodor said he will, even though he plans to participate in the virtual alternative.

“Before it got canceled, I didn’t think that I was looking forward to it as much as I actually was,” he said.

Not so much for the pomp and circumstance, but for the closure, which none of the seniors got this year. When the universities announced no one would return to campus this semester, students were away on spring break.

They had already experienced their last in-person class, their last after-class drink, their last cram session, their last study group, their last lecture, their last Iowa Memorial Union lunch — and they didn’t even know it.

“So many of us, we won’t have closure, and that can kind of be a difficult thing,” he said.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com

For a list of commencement times and virtual celebrations, visit:

The University of Iowa’s commencement site at https://commencement.uiowa.edu/

Iowa State University’s commencement site at https://virtual.graduation.iastate.edu/

University of Northern Iowa’s commencement site at https://vgrad.z19.web.core.windows.net/uni/index.html

11 a.m. Iowa sees 214 more positive tests for coronavirus

The Iowa Department of Public Health on Saturday reported nine more deaths from COVID-19, for a total of 252 since March 8.

An additional 214 people tested positive for the virus, bringing the state’s total to 11,671.

A total of 71,476 Iowans have been tested for COVID-19, the department reported.

With Saturday’s new figures from the Department of Public Health, these are the top 10 counties in terms of total cases:

• Polk — 2194

• Woodbury — 1554

• Black Hawk — 1477

• Linn — 819

• Marshall — 702

• Dallas — 660

• Johnson — 549

• Muscatine — 471

• Tama — 327

• Louisa — 282.

CEDAR RAPIDS — Like other members of the United States House, the “new normal” for Rep. Dave Loebsack involves a lot of time on the phone and in video conferences.

Although the Senate returned to Washington this past week, the House may not return to the Capitol until mid-May. As representatives work from their districts, many face the same challenges as their constituents who are working from home via various phone and video meeting platforms.

“They’re clunky, difficult, frustrating at times,” the 2nd District Democrat said after a 90-minute Energy and Commerce Committee teleconference meeting, “but we can get a lot of things done that way without necessarily going into Washington. It’s not the same by any means ... but I think we can get a lot of our work done that we have to get done even though were not there.”

If there’s an upside to the telecommuting downside, it’s that the poor connections, dropped calls and sometimes spotty internet signals highlight an issue Loebsack has been working on — Congress and the country need better broadband connectivity. A member of the Communications and Technology subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over telecommunications issues, Loebsack also serves as a co-chair of the Rural Broadband Caucus.

In one meeting, Loebsack said, a fellow committee member was unable to ask questions because the Wi-Fi signal at his home outside of a southwestern city was so poor.

“So I think we’re going to make some progress” convincing congressional colleagues of the need to connect all Americans to reliable and affordable broadband internet, Loebsack said.

“In times like these, when families are at home, millions of K-12 students do not have access to the high-speed internet needed to take classes and complete their assignments online,” he said in an announcement with House Majority Whip James Clyburn and others of a House Democratic plan to connect all Americans to high-speed internet.

When the transmission of COVID-19 slows, the need for high-speed internet connectivity will remain as well as the need for Congress to provide incentives for internet service providers to close the “broadband gap” by extending service to the las mile in rural areas and eliminate what he called “internet deserts” that exist in cities.

The plan calls for an investment of $80 billion over five years for internet infrastructure and another $5 billion over five years for low-interest financing of projects.

With more reliable connectivity, Congress could consider remote voting at times like this when members don’t want to gather in Washington. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been cool to the idea, but Loebsack thinks members are “more open” to voting remotely.

“But we have to make sure that it’s completely secure, that the system can’t get hacked, and that votes are recorded properly,” he said.

Remote voting may be a may be a generational issue, “but I think this is doable.”

“I’m not making that prediction, but I would not be shocked if we move in that direction, especially the longer this (isolation) goes on,” Loebsack said.

Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

For the second consecutive day the number of Iowa patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has dropped.

The Iowa Department of Public Health reported Saturday that 402 people were hospitalized with the coronavirus, down five from the previous day, and down 15 from its current peak of 417 on Thursday.

Saturday’s totals mark the first time back-to-back COVID-19 hospitalization decreases since figures had begun being tracked.

Nine deaths in Iowa were recorded Saturday, according to the Department of Public Health, bringing the total to 252. But it snapped a streak of four consecutive days in which 10 or more deaths were recorded in Iowa.

Four of the deaths were in Polk County, bringing Polk’s total to 58 — matching Linn County’s as most in the state.

Saturday was the first time since Monday that no deaths in Linn County were reported.

Two deaths were in Jasper County, one each in Johnson, Muscatine and Tama counties.

Four of those who died were 81 years of age and older, three were 61 to 80 and two were aged 41 to 60.

Saturday’s report also showed there now have been a total of 29 outbreaks recorded in long-term care facilities statewide.

Including Saturday’s latest figures from the Department of Public Health — with 214 positive cases, for a total of 11,671 — these are the top 10 Iowa counties in terms of total cases:

• Polk — 2,194

• Woodbury — 1,554

• Black Hawk — 1,477

• Linn — 819

• Marshall — 702

• Dallas — 660

• Johnson — 549

• Muscatine — 471

• Tama — 327

• Louisa — 282.

More than 71,000 Iowans — one of 43 — have been tested, and 16.3 percent of those tested have been positive cases, according to the state.

Forty-six percent of Iowa deaths have been those age 81 and older, while 87 percent are 61 and older. Fifty-one percent have been male.

Beginning this past Friday, Gov. Kim Reynolds permitted more businesses to partially reopen.

“I’m proud to say that Iowans do what they always do and they responded,” she said at her Thursday news conference, her most recent. “So since we’ve kind of really accomplished what we were trying to do, ... now we have shifted our focus from mitigation and resources to managing and containing virus activity as we begin to open Iowa back up.”

Reynolds met with President Donald Trump on Wednesday at the White House to discuss the pandemic and mitigation strategies in the state.

Vice President Mike Pence visited Iowa Friday, when he met with faith leaders and agricultural and food company executives.

Comments: (319) 368-8857; jeff.linder@thegazette.com

Announcement of the Members - Give Integration add-on that creates a nicer UI when the GiveWP and Members plugins are active.

Announcement of the Members - ACF Integration plugin, which creates custom capabilities for the Advanced Custom Fields plugin.

Introducing an add-on plugin for Members that integrates the Easy Digital Downloads plugin roles and capabilities.

An add-on plugin that integrates WooCommerce's roles and capabilities into the Members user role editor.