Parents, or any member of the public for that matter, who ask some of Iowa's largest school districts how their district deals with emergency lock downs for their children's safety would have difficulty obtaining the district's policy.
Three distinguished experts will speak later this month at an IowaWatch forum on important decisions Iowans have to make about long-term elder care. The forum, titled Critical Decisions About Elder Care, will be in Des Moines on Tuesday, April 29.
State legislators throughout the country are passing laws aimed to protect farmers from individuals who use hidden cameras to record images without consent. Recently, Idaho became the first state to have both a modern-day farm protection law and an agriculture disparagement, or “veggie libel,” law.
A group of nearly 20 nonprofit groups, advocacy groups and freelance journalists filed a lawsuit Monday challenging Idaho’s new farm protection law. The 50-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Idaho asks the court to declare that the new law violates the U.S. Constitution, and it seeks an
In September 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration will open U.S. airspace to unmanned aircraft. As that deadline approaches, state legislators have begun to pass and consider legislation that places restrictions on domestic drone use. Some believe that unmanned aircraft hovering over private pr
The “on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand” mix of conclusions from studies and opinions about those controversial traffic cameras has left state lawmakers with this simple fact: Their decision will be a judgment call, not an action on something evident that needs to be fixed.
Listen to IowaWatch reporter Rana Moustafa talk about her reporting for the report, "Depression In College: Students’ Struggles With Depression Add Barrier to Graduation," by Rana and Linh Ta. Here is a podcast of the KXIC program in which the story was featured.
In a step to reduce Salmonella in chickens, Foster Farms representatives said they are feeding probiotics to the company's poultry through the water supply. But there currently are no probiotics approved for use in livestock, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials.
Multiple federal and state agencies have roles in the regulation of our food system. When a problem occurs, producers, consumers and even members of the media can have a hard time figuring out which agency to turn to for answers. While each specific case can have its nuances, here is a general guide
In 1978, Robert "Chip" Petrea was injured while baling hay near his family's dairy farm located just outside Iuka, Ill. The injury resulted in double-above the knee amputations for Petrea. Less than a year removed from the amputations, Petrea began to farm again. Today, he serves as a principal rese
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that since March 2013 about 480 people across 25 states have become sick from consuming chicken contaminated with an antibiotic-resistant strain of Heidelberg Salmonella. Nearly two out of every five of those people had to be hospit
IowaWatch staff reporter Stephen Gruber-Miller has been named co-editor in chief of Grinnell College’s student-run newspaper, The Scarlet & Black, for the 2014-15 school year.
