Gov. Kim Reynolds has ended most restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus in Iowa. Reynolds issued a proclamation Friday afternoon that removed a mask requirement for those spending 15 minutes or more in an indoor area within 6 feet of people not in their household. She also ended mask requirements for those in state buildings and some businesses, such as barber shops. The governor’s new order, which took effect yesterday, also ends limits on the number of customers in a business or a requirement that they stay socially distant. The governor issued the earlier restrictions in November when hospitals were struggling to care for a surge of coronavirus patients. Those numbers have dropped, though the state typically reports dozens of deaths each day. Various cities and counties say their local mask mandates will remain in effect despite the governor’s action; however, the legality of those local mandates remains in question.
The Iowa Supreme Court is letting the 2018 appointment of an eastern Iowa district court judge by Gov. Kim Reynolds stand, ending a three-year controversy over whether Reynolds had missed the legal deadline for appointing the judge. The court concluded in a ruling Friday that since former Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Cady deferred to Reynolds, who claimed she verbally appointed Judge Jason Besler by the legal deadline, the court shouldn’t intervene. Attorney Gary Dickey had challenged the appointment, saying Besler was improperly appointed and potentially should be removed. In making its ruling, the Iowa Supreme Court dismissed the case.
The Honor Flight Network Board has suspended all Honor Flights through June 30. That includes the Cedar Valley Honor Flight which had scheduled to fly out of Waterloo on May 19. That flight has now been rescheduled for September 22. Veterans who signed up for the May 19 flight will move to the September 22 date. COVID-19 and related issues are the cause of the delay.
Two people were sent to the hospital after a collision early Sunday morning. It happened just after 1:30 a.m. near the intersection of East Post Road and Cottage Grove Woods Southeast in Linn County. Deputies say 24-year-old Amanda O’Donnell of Solon was driving south of East Post Road when she crossed the center line and hit a vehicle driven by 36-year-old Eric Gutschmidt of Cedar Rapids head-on. Both Gutschmidt and O’Donnell were taken by ambulance to a hospital, and officials say both are expected to recover. The incident is under investigation.
Mercy Iowa City is cutting staff across the hospital, temporarily furloughing other employees and instituting pay cuts for leadership positions due to financial struggles. Officials say this is due to the pandemic; specifically, increasing costs while at the same time seeing a decrease in elective surgeries. The number of positions affected was not confirmed, but they were termed minimal. You may recall that Mercy Iowa City cut 29 positions last fall, which was called a mass layoff by Iowa Workforce Development. Those layoffs were also related to effects of the pandemic.
An Iowa group says it rescued dozens of dogs from a rural property during last week’s snow. The Animal Rescue League says it sent teams to a property in Marengo in Iowa County on Thursday. They found more than 40 dogs confined to two dilapidated buildings and a camper. The ARL say the dogs were wet, cold and shaking as the blizzard started. The rescue, which was expected to take 1.5 hours, instead took about four hours. One of the group’s vehicles slid off the road and another had to be dug out of the snow. No details about the property or the owner were released.
A second Iowa woman has entered a plea of guilty in a leak of documents related to a federal drug trafficking investigation that outed the identities of two confidential informants on Facebook. 33-year-old Rachel Manna of West Des Moines, entered the plea Thursday to one count of computer fraud, under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. She was released and is scheduled to be sentenced in June. Manna admitted to asking acquaintance Danielle Taff, a contract paralegal in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Des Moines, to unlawfully use her computer access to obtain files related to a drug investigation involving her child’s father.
