Good morning from Iowa Capital Dispatch.
“Last year was a disaster – I mean, it was too much disease for a plant pathologist to enjoy, and we do like our disease.” — Daren Mueller, professor at Iowa State University and a plant pathologist with ISU Extension, on disease pressure of southern rust in Iowa corn, which he says is “way lower” than last year.
Dordt University students Cameron Grimes, left, and Daniel Garcia spent this summer studying air quality in relation to schools. (Photo courtesy of Dordt University)
Student researchers at Dordt University are working to uncover the intricacies of how air quality can impact student performance across the U.S.
Daniel Garcia and Cameron Grimes, both incoming juniors at the Sioux Center private university, with support from faculty, have spent the summer combing public education and pollution data to explore how different pollutants can influence test scores.
Corn silking in central Iowa August 4, 2025. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Iowa row crops are in good conditions as of the latest crop progress and condition report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, though plant pathologists in the state are starting to see disease pressure creep up.
Corn, soybean and oat acres were ahead of last year’s crop across most developmental stages, according to the report for the Aug. 3 through Aug. 9 reporting period.
A nurse who landed a job in an Iowa care facility last fall after Nebraska officials labeled him a “significant risk” to the public has agreed to voluntarily surrender his Iowa license.
A Des Moines therapist accused of business-related theft, fraud and forgery will retain her license to practice in Iowa.
President Donald Trump on Monday signed a sweeping executive order that aims to reshape guidance surrounding childhood vaccines, standing alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and was met with immediate pushback.
Todd Blanche took the oath of office as U.S. attorney general at a brief ceremony in the Oval Office Monday, following the Senate’s narrow vote to approve his nomination as the nation’s top law enforcement official over the weekend.
Federal immigration agents are employing new tactics — from arresting academics at airports to setting up a checkpoint at a popular creek in a national forest — to boost their arrest numbers, leading to more arrests in July than in any previous month of the Trump administration, Stateline reports.
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