Iowa public health officials have selected Microsoft to develop an online vaccination scheduling system to improve the distribution process. The Iowa Department of Public Health Monday says it intends to award an emergency contract to the software company. The selection of Microsoft came after the agency last week gave potential bidders one day to respond to an emergency request for proposals seeking work. The agency told bidders it would award a separate contract to run a vaccine call center later this week.
President Joe Biden’s nomination of Tom Vilsack to lead the U.S. Agriculture Department is getting a chilly reaction from many black farmers who say he didn’t do enough to help them the last time he had the job. The former Iowa governor served eight years as President Barack Obama’s agriculture secretary. Vilsack is trying to assure minority farming groups and the senators who will vote on his confirmation that he will work to “root out generations of systemic racism” in the agency. But many black farmers fault him for failing to address a backlog of discrimination complaints in the department and for firing a black woman for remarks that he later learned were taken out of context.
A Wisconsin man who entered a plea of guilty last year to one count of sexual exploitation of a child has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. 20-year-old Caleb Durr of Hazel Green, Wisconsin, was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids. Prosecutors say Durr used a cellphone in 2019 to make sexually explicit images of an 8-year-old girl in Dubuque. Durr was also accused of having sexual contact with another girl under 10. Durr had originally faced four felony charges of second-degree sexual abuse of a child before he entered his guilty plea last August.
A federal court approval of an agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a Quincy, Illinois, company to clean up a contaminated industrial site in Des Moines will pave the way for a major commercial development that could include a 6,300-seat soccer stadium. The EPA confirms approval of the settlement agreement that requires the site on the edge of downtown Des Moines to be transferred to the city for future development. Illinois-based Titan International will pay $11.5 million to the United States to satisfy the EPA’s past costs for cleanup work, future demolition of contaminated buildings and a groundwater treatment system update.
An audit of several fundraisers held by the Future Farmers of America chapter of the North Butler Community School District has found more than $8,000 in misused funds. State Auditor Rob Sand conducted an investigation between December 1, 2018 through July 31, 2020 after district officials raised concerns proceeds from FFA fruit and cider sales weren’t properly collected and deposited by the district’s former FFA advisor, Frank Kisley. The investigation found an estimated $2,170.00 of uncollected or undeposited collections for the annual FFA fruit and cider sales held during the two school years..as well as $5,855.22 of improper disbursements, which included the purchase of additional fruit and cider to be donated or given to others…and the purchase of FFA t-shirts and jackets which were kept by students and didn’t comply with Iowa Department of Education guidance.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds auctioned off an afternoon of her time to the highest bidder to raise money for her top campaign donors’ charity. The 2019 auction became widely known recently when her office released emails detailing her alliance with Iowa Select Farms, which is among the nation’s largest pork producers. Iowa Select is owned by Deb and Jeff Hansen of West Des Moines, who have given nearly $300,000 to help fund Reynolds’ campaigns. Company staff also run the Deb and Jeff Hansen Foundation. Another pork executive and Reynolds donor, Gary Lynch, won the auction with a $4,250 bid.
The 2021 Big Ten Men’s Basketball Tournament will take place in Indianapolis, the conference announced yesterday. Officials decided to move the competition to Lucas Oil Stadium from the United Center in Chicago after considering what the conference called “multiple factors” including health and safety concerns, benefits of having the men’s and women’s tournaments in the same location for COVID-19 testing, and centralized accommodations around the competition venue. The tournament will take place March 10-14, preceding the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, which will happen entirely in central Indiana.
