Stories

Peter Yarrow — the Peter in “Peter, Paul and Mary” — lashed out against Chip Saltsman, a front-runner for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, for including a racially charged parody of one of his band’s songs on a CD that Saltsman sent to committee members as a Christmas gift.

Reverend Carol Kress from the First united Methodist Church in Decorah was a featured guest on Radio Australia last week. She was called upon to discuss the financial difficulties faced by immigrant workers from Palau who sought employment at Agriprocessors, an embattled kosher meatpacking plant in Postville.
Kress described what the roughly 160 Palauns were promised [...]

State environmental officials are still reeling from a silage spill in August that they believe killed more than 30,000 fish. According to the Associated Press, those same officials are pushing the Iowa Attorney General’s Office to impose an exceptionally stiff penalty against the pollution perpetrator — the brother of former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad.
The current [...]

Mexico has suspended meat imports from several U.S. processing plantsb and Iowa businesses were not left unscathed.
Iowa plants now listed as ineligible to export on the U.S. Department of Agriculture Web site include:

John Morrell & Co. — Sioux City
Pine Ridge Farms, LLC — Des Moines
Sioux-Preme Packing Co. — Sioux Center
Sioux-Preme Packing Co. — Sioux City
Tyson [...]

During a taping of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press,” state Auditor David Vaudt said taxpayers will have to decide whether they really want the services their state government provides, and if they do they will have to pay for them in more taxes.
So, the real key is citizens also need to understand that we can’t [...]

The decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles to deny former Agriprocessors chief executive Sholom M. Rubashkin bail may be a topic of consideration by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office. At least, that’s what one Jewish watchdog group is hoping.

“I see this as being a microcosm of other things that are going on in the country and the world,” said Don Fried, an accomplished Colorado-based playwright and author.

Before leaving Washington, D.C. this week for the holidays, Pres. George W. Bush commuted the prison sentence of a convicted Des Moines drug dealer.

A 37-year-old man convicted by a Crawford County jury of human trafficking, ongoing criminal conduct and pandering was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison late Monday. According to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, the case is the first to garner a conviction and subsequent sentencing under a human trafficking law that took effect [...]

The Iowa Power Fund Board, run through the Office of Energy Independence, has approved funding for six contracts totaling $5.87 million. The projects are hoped to leverage $6.27 million in private sector investments to the state.
Details of the contracts are as follows: