Our region is attracting attention from renewable energy developers and opposition from suspicious neighbors. Cherokee County is trying to assemble an ordinance governing solar arrays and battery …

Two million Knicks fans reveled in lower Manhattan for a ticker-tape parade last Thursday morning as I skedaddled to LaGuardia for country roads to take me home. What an awful place, huh? Worse …

Republican senate candidate Ashley Hinson should pray that Allah moves the Iranians to a charitable end to a war with the United States and Israel if it isn’t already too late for the November …

Calls from left and right are building to break up Big Ag as beef prices rise, food plants close and workers are locked out from the slaughterhouse. Republican Zach Lahn separated himself in the …

Too bad that Republican Zach Lahn dodged a forum last Thursday with Iowa City-Cedar Rapids business leaders to talk mundane things like budgets and taxes with his Democratic opponent for governor, …

Chris Jones fancied himself trolling for walleyes in the backwaters of the Upper Mississippi River near Lansing in his retirement. Instead, the 65-year-old found himself disembarking at …

You might have attracted as many people to a Unitarian Universalist fellowship hour in Sioux Center as to a Randy Feenstra rally in Sioux Rapids. Just about 40 people showed up for his gubernatorial …

Rob Sand called on Memorial Day as he drove home from a family weekend at Okoboji to catch up, he said, after having read my column about politicians swimming in money. Halfway through, he says …

Storm Lake and Buena Vista County have racked up over $800,000 in legal bills over a lawsuit involving misplaced tax revenues. They could incur another cool million in expenses by the time trial …

Rob Sand has $18 million cash on hand in his run for Iowa governor, but here is the crazy part: He’s a Democrat, and it is only May. Think what the Republicans can do with real money by …

April showers bring May flowers, but not enough to fill Storm Lake’s cup. Already the city is asking residents to conserve water with a dry spring, high demand and a system that has not kept pace. …

Republicans yammer on the TV that you wouldn’t want to see Iowa become Minnesota, Illinois or California. You wouldn’t want 10,000 lakes getting in the way of corn or tech bros buying up all …

Retired Sen. Tom Harkin endorsed Josh Turek of Council Bluffs for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate seat that Harkin once held. As such, Turek could benefit from Harkin’s tutelage on how …

Gov. Kim Reynolds can put up her pointy-toe cowboy boots and reflect on 10 years of solid damage done under the golden dome. She might not be remembered as the worst. The Iowa History Journal …

Finally, after a late-night session, the US House voted 224-200 last week to approve a five-year farm bill just three years behind schedule under Republican control. The bill heads to the Senate, …

Every morning a new horror hatches such that you forget the day before, or the year before, with its daily minor cataclysms. Trump is on the computer holding a machine gun warning Iran that they …

Buena Vista County Republicans noted with some disappointment the no-shows at a candidate forum the local party sponsored at Buena Vista University on Saturday, April 18: US Senate candidate Ashley …

Brother Bill and I joked that we felt like Jake and Elwood seeking out Sister Mary Stigmata as we approached Mount Loretto, the Dubuque motherhouse of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed …

You could put up $80 million worth of hog buildings in Cherokee County and the board of supervisors might just as well go howl at the moon trying to block it. But if that $80 million is for solar …

Abby Elsbernd from the Quad Cities was glad to learn that the revered and recently retired football coach at Northern Iowa, Mark Farley, is known as the “walk-on from Waukon.” The Grinnell …