William Woods was sent to a mental institution because Matthew Keirans – who faces 32 years in prison – stole his name for decades William Woods was homeless and living in Los Angeles when he learned that someone was racking up debt using his name. But when he reported his concerns to the branch manager of a bank, he wound up spending nearly two years locked up, accused of identity theft himself. As he continued to insist he was Woods in a desperate effort to clear his name, he was even sent to a state mental hospital and drugged, court records show ..read more

Kim Taylor of Woodbury county given eight-month custodial sentence for helping Jeremy Taylor fraudulently win election An Iowa woman found guilty on 52 counts of voter fraud, carried out in support of her Republican husband, was given an eight-month custodial sentence. Kim Taylor, of Woodbury county, will serve four months in prison and four in home confinement, KTIV, a Sioux City TV station, reported. Subject to two years’ supervised release, Taylor will also pay $5,200 ..read more

Nitrate-fouled water from concentrated animal feed operations causes a host of medical problems for nearby residents For nearly three decades, Jeff Broberg couldn’t drink water from his tap. He lives on a sprawling, 170-acre grain and legume farm in Winona county, a rural part of south-east Minnesota saturated with animal agriculture. Like most properties in the area, Broberg’s has a well connected to his faucet. On a whim, when Broberg first moved in in 1986, the now 69-year-old retired geologist started testing his water for nitrate – an invisible, odorless and tasteless compound found in an ..read more

Dillon and his newborn son Archer Glass each had a one in 1,461 chance of being born on a leap day After being born on a leap day in 1996, Dillon Glass faced thin odds of having his own child be born on the same day. But that is exactly what happened on Thursday, when his baby boy Archer was born at 7.47am at Iowa Methodist medical center in Des Moines, Iowa, according to what the hospital’s parent corporation said to news outlets as well as on social media ..read more

The murky depths of the rightwing mind have turned up conspiracies lately on Taylor Swift and the former first lady I hope you’re not squeamish, because we are about to journey into the murky depths of the rightwing mind where brain worms abound ..read more

Iowa’s electrifying basketball savant isn’t just re-writing the NCAA record books. She’s front and center of a boom time that is lifting the women’s game to uncharted commercial heights Caitlin Clark, the University of Iowa basketball star, became the NCAA women’s career scoring leader on Thursday night in classic Caitlin Clark fashion: pulling up from parallel to the logo at center court and launching a three-pointer that went straight through the rim. She did it barely two minutes into the game, and fittingly, her basket made the scoreline Clark 8, Michigan 6. Eventually, Clark’s teammates s ..read more

The bill would require transgender people to be identified on birth certificates, a measure some compare to ‘pink triangles’ On Tuesday afternoon, the Iowa house education committee met to debate House Study Bill 649, a bill proposed by the Republican governor, Kim Reynolds. The bill, as drafted, would end legal recognition for transgender people anywhere “male” and “female” appear in Iowa code and would require special gender markers for transgender people on birth certificates, measures that were compared to “pink triangles” once used to identify LGBTQ+ people by Nazis in the 1940s. Perhaps ..read more

Michael Cassidy charged under Iowa’s hate crime statute after figure depicting Baphomet ‘destroyed beyond repair’ in December A Mississippi man accused of destroying a statue of a pagan idol at Iowa’s state capitol is now being charged with a hate crime. The statue was brought to the capitol by the Satanic Temple of Iowa under state rules allowing religious displays in the building during the holidays. The move drew strong criticism from state and national leaders, including the Iowa governor, Kim Reynolds, and the Florida governor and former presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, both Republica ..read more

Trump’s ascension to the helm of the Republican party undid progress Democrats had made in winning the trust of voters in rural areas nationwide During the eight years he served in the Iowa state Senate, Tod Bowman was a self-described “door knocker”, trekking to the front porches and patios of constituents in the rural counties he represented to appeal for votes. They would, in turn, tell Bowman, a moderate Democrat, of their concerns – that government assistance programs amounted to a “handout”, that too many undocumented migrants were entering the country, that Barack Obama, the president f ..read more

Haley, who finished third in Iowa, ramps up criticism of Republican rival but some say she can – and should – go further In the final days before New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, Nikki Haley is sharpening her attacks on Donald Trump as the former South Carolina governor courts the state’s famously discerning independent voters. After coming in third in the Iowa caucuses, Haley’s is casting her candidacy as a “better choice” for a nation barreling towards a possible rematch between Trump, 77 and Joe Biden, 81 ..read more