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Editorials

Nation celebrates its 399th annual feast

In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims - early settlers of Plymouth Colony - held a three-day feast to celebrate a bountiful harvest. Many regard this event as the nation's first Thanksgiving.The Wampanoag Indians in attendance played a key role but historians have recorded harvest ceremonies of ...

The New York Times: Why Almost Nobody Will Defend the Iowa Caucuses

As leading Democrats fight for ballot access, voting rights and diverse representation, their marquee presidential contest is hard to participate in and takes place in a state that is 90 percent white.So there you go. The east coast noses are up and snooty again. Oh why, oh why would anyone let ...

Closing the achievement gap for students with disabilities

Historically across the state of Iowa, students with disabilities have not been making acceptable achievement gains. In fact, in a span of 12 years, Iowa went from 5th to 25th in national student reading performance. The gap in performance between Iowa's learners with and without disabilities ...

Rural broadband is key to 21st century success

When was the last time that you unfolded a map for directions before a road trip or required a postage stamp to send a photograph to a friend?More likely than not, you have turned to a phone, tablet, or other device to complete these simple tasks. In the 21st century, the internet has become an ...

How Congress can fix high drug prices

Washington is consumed with wall-to-wall coverage of impeachment, Ukraine, and transcripts. Every question we receive from the D.C. press corps is about that. But do you know who isn't obsessed with this? Our constituents.Every day, we hear from people across North Dakota and Iowa. Most of them ...

Bipartisan solution to surprise medical bills reaches 100 co-sponsors

Hundreds of thousands of physicians unified under the Out of the Middle Coalition have applauded Representatives Raul Ruiz, MD, (D-Calif.) and Phil Roe, MD, (R-Tenn.), for reaching 100 cosponsors on their bipartisan solution to address surprise medical bills. This legislation now has more ...

Q & A: Post-Mortem: Misspent Medicaid Dollars

Q: Why is it so difficult to stop federal benefits flowing for deceased Medicaid recipients?A: Although it seems like there ought to be a simple flip of a switch, the federal agency distributing Medicaid dollars doesn't have in place an accountable mechanism to stop federal benefits from ...

Our founders wanted the press to shine its spotlight

Fifty-three years ago, I was a high school kid in southern Iowa who knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life: I wanted to be a journalist.The first step on that journey occurred when I walked into the offices of the Bloomfield Democrat and introduced myself to Gary Spurgeon. He was the ...

A Corporate Comeback Story

In many ways, Tama, Iowa, population 2,775, is like many other similar-sized towns around the Midwest. For example, it has its fair share of challenges, from attracting and maintaining retail businesses downtown, to keeping up with an aging housing stock as values decrease and its population ...