by Cami Koons, Iowa Capital Dispatch
March 6, 2026

The Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement determined regulations on fertilizers, animal feeding operations and agricultural drainage, among other things are policies that would improve water quality and public health in Iowa.

The Harkin Institute released a policy report Friday as a follow-up to the comprehensive Polk County water quality report released this summer. 

Adam Shriver, the institute’s director of wellness and nutrition policy, wrote in the report’s forward that it contains “a set of policies that, if followed, would dramatically improve Iowa’s waterways to protect the health of current and future generations.”

by Robin Opsahl, Iowa Capital Dispatch
March 3, 2026

The Iowa House passed several education measures Tuesday, including bills related to students’ free speech and social studies class standards.

House File 2336, approved in a 63-33 vote, would ban schools from discriminating against or penalizing students for engaging in religious, political or ideological speech. Specifically, the bill would prevent schools from taking action to limit the speech or punish students for expressing certain viewpoints on an issue, if other “similarly situated students” are not prevented from speaking on or presenting a different opinion the issue.

Iowa Capital Dispatch
March 2, 2026

A western Iowa teacher who was fired after publicly commenting that she wouldn’t miss activist Charlie Kirk after his death last year has been awarded jobless benefits.

Jana Aldrich of Council Bluffs was a special education teacher who last year worked for the Omaha-based Child Saving Institute, a nonprofit with a mission of helping children with behavioral, mental and social needs.

According to state records, on Sept. 10, 2025, shortly after conservative activist Kirk was shot and killed in Utah, Aldrich posted a comment to Facebook. The post included a widely circulating meme that included Kirk’s April 3, 2023, statement in response to a question about gun deaths: “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

CLICK HERE to read (and subscribe to) Laura Belin's column on Iowa politics.

Find out why GOP lawmakers (led by Bettendorf Senator Scott Webster) want to pass legislation to handcuff the next Iowa governor.

https://laurabelin.substack.com/p/iowa-republicans-suddenly-want-to?utm_...

Iowa Capital Dispatch
February 20, 2026

Muscatine County, which has a contract to hold immigration detainees for the federal government, is refusing to publicly disclose its copy of that contract.

In recent months, Muscatine County’s jail administrator has been named in five lawsuits related to the county’s agreement to jail some of the immigrants who are picked up in Iowa by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Like other Iowa counties, Muscatine County has a contract with ICE to house those individuals in return for payments from the federal government. That contract, and the county’s detention of the immigrants, have been the subject of five civil lawsuits and an alleged ethics complaint concerning former Muscatine County Attorney James Barry, who resigned last year.

by Cami Koons, Iowa Capital Dispatch
February 19, 2026

Amanda Winkelmann held up a baby bottle filled with tap water as she spoke at the Iowa Capitol Thursday about the need for greater attention to Iowa’s water quality.

“If we could see it,” Winkelmann said and used a paintbrush to put a drop of pink paint into the water. “Would we solve it?” 

Winkelmann, who lives in Des Moines, said she and her husband choose to refill water jugs with filtered water due to their concerns about drinking tap water that has consistently high nitrate concentrations.

She was one of more than 150 Iowans gathered in the Iowa Capitol Rotunda Thursday afternoon urging lawmakers to support bills that would improve Iowa’s rivers, lakes, streams and drinking water. 

Lee Enterprises, Inc. began its new fiscal year with more red ink, losing $5.7 million in the first quarter ended December 28.

Thanks to significant personnel cuts last September the deficit was much less than the first quarter of 2025 when it lost $16.9 million. The company cut 49 full- and part-time positions when it ended print operations at its Davenport facility last September.

Lee – owner of the Quad City Times, the Dispatch/Argus and some 70 other newspapers and online news sites – saw operating revenue decline by more than $14 million in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period a year ago.

by Jennifer Shutt, Iowa Capital Dispatch
February 6, 2026

WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday pulled down a social media post depicting former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as monkeys after members of Congress from both political parties expressed dismay and called it racist.

A White House spokesperson told States Newsroom around noon that a “staffer erroneously made the post” that was shared on President Donald Trump’s social media platform late Thursday night. 

But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement earlier in the day the video wasn’t a real issue.

Listen to Sen. Charles Grassley respond to a question about ICE enforcement which led to the shooting deaths of two citizens on Minneapolis streets. Not surprisingly, the Republican Chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee has no plans to use his powerful position to investigate the shootings: https://outreach.senate.gov/iqextranet/iqClickTrk.aspx?&cid=SenGrassley&...