One of the frustrations of being a **former** newspaper editor is no longer having a few dozen reporters to pursue answers to questions going unasked and unanswered each day. Two of my go-to …
Do elected leaders grow to covet great power once in office, or do they assume power already coveting it? And what about those who resist the siren song of power, and instead choose to serve their …
Five years ago I stopped a long tradition of turning this space over to readers who disagreed with me. Most of those columns, offered twice a year, featured correspondents who verbally took me to the …
Raising a family is no easy task, but it shouldn’t bankrupt you. As both a parent and grandparent, I’ve seen how much harder it is for Iowa families to afford housing, groceries, and …
When Kim Reynolds gave her big annual speech at the beginning of the year, she told Iowans that “the condition of our state is strong” and that “childcare has been a longstanding …
Chuck Grassley has a case of the fleas from sleeping with dogs. The senior Republican senator from Iowa intimated at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting July 30 that President Trump had hurt …
Water quality and cancer are emerging as central issues in Iowa politics, and should lead the debate in the 2026 midterm elections. More people are paying attention to our polluted water and the fact …
My family has called Davis County home for 185 years, all the way back to when William D. Evans and William Henson climbed down from their wagons in 1839 and 1840, a half-dozen years before Iowa …
French President Emmanuel Macron shook up world diplomatic circles last Thursday with his announcement that come September, France will recognize Palestine as an independent nation. How much …
Your house has been robbed. You can’t quite remember if there was an heirloom statue on that shelf or a treasured photo on that bookcase. You know you’ve lost something. You feel …
That's a great question and it was asked — and answered — by Jonathan Coppess, an associate professor of law and policy at the University of Illinois, in a “dismaying” July 17 …
Getting old is serious business. Rochester is booming off the boomers. I was fortunate enough to pay a visit to the Mayo Clinic last week and see a man about my bum. The Gonda Building gleams in …
The Trump Administration has been consumed of late in the controversy over the president’s dead friend, Jeffrey Epstein, and whether intimate details from Epstein’s law enforcement files …
Andy McKean is a charming country lawyer from Anamosa. He grew up in New York and was drawn to Iowa by his family roots. He has owned a bed-and-breakfast, called square dances and played in a …
I’ve been thinking lately about wealth. Not mine — I’m woefully short on acquaintance and familiarity with the subject, and that’s not going to change. But as I age, I …
Anyone who attended high school probably remembers their world history teacher talking about countries that militarized their law enforcement to make what is referred to as a police state. Examples …
In an apparent lightning strike of insight, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins offered her solution to what she and her GOP colleagues see as one of America's biggest problems: …
Iowa may be lagging last in economic performance, but we are Number One in hogs. Eggs too. Celebrate that we have the most polluted surface water on the continent. On some things we will not be …
Central Iowa is under mandatory water conservation orders because of high nitrate levels in the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers, the primary drinking water sources for Des Moines and its suburbs. A …
One longtime truism of journalism is “Names make news.” That shorthand stems from the fact people better understand the significance and context of news when they learn about …