CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Iowa’s News Now) — Cedar Rapids Community School District is getting nearly $15 million dollars in grant funding over the next five years for its magnet schools. The district has four magnet schools and one new magnet high school opening next year. The district says it will receive grant funding disbursement of $6,489,965 for the first two years and $14,843,658 total over the course of five years. CRCSD was the only school in Iowa to receive some of the $116 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Education this year for magnet schools.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Iowa’s News Now) — The Linn County Attorney’s Office says Cedar Rapids Police officers were justified in a deadly shooting in late August. Multiple officers from CRPD responded to a report of a domestic disturbance at the Inn Circle, 5560 6th Street SW in Cedar Rapids, in the early morning hours of August 30th. Officers shot and killed William Rich. His death sparked outrage by his family and the community, leading CRPD to release body camera footage of the incident. The two officers involved in the confrontation with Rich were Sgt. Bryson Garringer and Investigator Chris Christy. The Iowa Attorney General’s Office investigation found the actions of the officers involved were entirely legally justified and the Linn County Attorney concurred following separate review.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Iowa’s News Now) — Former President George W. Bush will be in Cedar Rapids on Friday to receive a humanitarian award and headline a fundraiser for the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum at the DoubleTree Hotel by Hilton. The Hoover Presidential Foundation says, “the award was created to recognize individuals who have demonstrated or provided meritorious and altruistic support to those in need. It is offered in the spirit of [President] Herbert Hoover’s efforts to save millions of western Europeans from starvation dating back to 1914.” Hoover is the only President born in Iowa. He was elected in 1928 and is the nation’s 31st President. Ticket sales for the event are now closed. Proceeds from the fundraiser will go toward a $20 million capital campaign to renovate the museum, which opened in 1962.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Iowa’s News Now) — For the first time in almost three decades, an alum of a Cedar Rapids minor league baseball team is a Major League Baseball batting championship. Luis Arraez, who won the Midwest League batting crown in 2016 with the Kernels, clinched his first title in the majors on Wednesday – finishing the season with a .316 batting average for the Minnesota Twins. Arraez, a native of Venezuela, is only the third Cedar Rapids minor league alum to win an MLB batting title – and the first since Paul O’Neill won the AL crown in 1994. O’Neill played the 1982 minor league season with the Cedar Rapids Reds. The only other alum to win a batting championship in the majors was Lou Boudreau – who played for the Cedar Rapids Raiders in 1938. He won the AL batting title in 1944 – part of a storied career that ended with his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1970.
