Stories

A large-scale methamphatimine manufacturing ring, supplied by pseudoephedrine “smurfing,” has been dismantled by federal authorities, and 23 defendants have been convicted.

State Rep. Chris Rants (R-Sioux City) had a promising political career ahead of him only a few years ago, when he was Speaker of the Republican-controlled Iowa House and then Minority Leader after Democrats took the reigns.
Even his harshest critics admitted he was a talented parliamentarian and a savvy political strategist. He has even [...]

Iowa’s sex offender laws would no longer include residency restrictions, instead using exclusionary zones and better tracking of individuals convicted of sexual crimes, following a unanimous vote in the state Senate Thursday night, but House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, D-Des Moines, said House Republicans were expected to oppose the measure, aimed at reforming Iowa’s so-called “2000-foot rule.”

The City of Ames has decided to institute national background checks for all participants in its Section 8 housing assistance program.
The new background checks are an expansion of those currently utilized which only use state data.
The decision comes after an Ames resident filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the city, asking for the [...]

Proponents say the Iowa Crime Free Multi-Housing Program creates a partnership between police officers and rental property managers to help keep a lid on illegal activities. But some fear it will lead to discrimination against those with checkered pasts or will simply create pockets of crime in properties or communities that don’t participate.

On the third floor of an unnamed building in the shadow of the state Capitol sits the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center, an organization tasked with helping to stop future acts of terrorism.

The rumors circulating in Ames last November were hard to ignore:
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was conducting experiments to move inner-city poor to smaller communities, and Ames' Section 8 housing was being filled by poor black people from Chicago. There was a crime wave in Ames because black people from Chicago [...]

The 18-year-old Windsor Heights man who allegedly threatened a female University of Northern Iowa student and prompted the Tuesday night lockdown of all residence halls on the Cedar Falls campus is being held in the Polk County Jail on charges of first-degree harassment.

A late-night ride service is the most visible response to a yearlong wave of 30-plus sexual assaults in downtown Iowa City, but officials speaking at a forum Wednesday denied the new service would become a trap for public-intoxication and underage-drinking arrests.

Charles Green, head of the University of Iowa’s campus police, said the Nite Ride service [...]