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GLENWOOD, Iowa — When the Friar Family sat down for dinner on Aug. 6, the last thing they expected to hear was gunshots. "A lot of people in the neighborhood light fireworks," said Harrison Friar. "At first, we weren't concerned." But it wasn't fireworks. And the sound didn't stop. "It was so close that I felt there was something wrong, like really wrong," said his wife, Brielle Friar.

News last week shocked Iowans when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested the superintendent of the state’s largest school district for being in the country illegally. Not only was this man here without legal permission, but he also had a rap sheet featuring several previous run-ins with the law, including weapons charges. Yet Ian Andre Roberts managed to land a pretty big gig in the education sector; the school board placed him in charge of molding the minds of future generations of American voters. And if that's not bad enough, when authorities caught Roberts, he carried both a gun and...

Ian Andre Roberts is currently registered to vote in Maryland. When he registered in 2017, he reportedly had been working in St. Louis for years. There’s no indication from his resumes that he’s lived in Baltimore since he registered to vote there.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested the Superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, Ian Andre Roberts, a criminal illegal alien from Guyana, on Thursday. Roberts, head of the largest public school district in the state, was in possession of a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash, and a fixed blade hunting knife at the time of his arrest, according to a statement from ICE. He entered the U.S. in 1999 on a student visa and in May of 2024, was given a final order of removal by an immigration judge. He also had existing weapon possession charges from 2020. Authorities approached Roberts...

DES MOINES, Iowa — The superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools, Dr. Ian Roberts, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to Des Moines School Board President Jackie Norris.Norris said Associate Superintendent Matt Smith will immediately step into the role of Interim Superintendent.“Our priority is to provide a safe, secure and outstanding education for all students and to support our students, families, and employees. The appointment of Mr. Smith as Interim Superintendent ensures that our District continues to operate at the highest level,” said Norris, in a statement released first to staff of the district and then shared...

The Senate and House are on a collision course over whether to repeal comprehensive sanctions on Syria, a rare area where there are bipartisan coalitions on both sides of the debate. Discussion centers on whether to completely repeal the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, a severe sanctions mechanism that blocked nearly all U.S. and international cooperation or engagement with the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Legislation to repeal Caesar is included in the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2026. But an amendment to the House version of the NDAA to repeal Caesar...

A Democratic candidate has defeated an extremist Republican in a state senate election in Iowa, claiming that voters are “waking up” to realise Donald Trump’s party “sold the working class a bill of goods”. Catelin Drey flipped Iowa state senate district 1, beating Christopher Prosch in a special election held on Tuesday to fill the seat of the late senator Rocky De Witt. Prosch had aligned himself with Trump’s Maga movement, floating conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election and climate crisis. He also compared abortion access to the Holocaust. But Drey, a 37-year-old marketing executive, won with 55% of...

Democrat Catelin Drey has flipped an open Iowa state Senate seat, adding to the party’s successes in special elections this year, Decision Desk HQ projected. Drey defeated Republican Christopher Prosch in the race to replace the late state Sen. Rocky De Witt (R), who died in office in June from cancer. Democrats homed in on the Republican-leaning district as a pickup opportunity given their overperformance in many smaller elections through 2025. Drey’s victory breaks a GOP supermajority in the state Senate, giving her party more power despite its minority status in the body. In particular, the extra Democratic vote, which...

tate Senate District 1 Special Election includes Polling Locations for Precincts 1-22 only. All other precincts are in State Senate District 7 and are not eligible to vote in the 8-26-25 Special Election.

Rob Sand is a gun-toting Christian from rural Iowa who goes deer hunting, drives a white Ford F-150 pickup, and opens speeches by quoting the Bible. He is also a rising Democratic star whose run for governor is spooking Republicans in the ruby red state. The father of two, 43, is the only Democrat to currently hold statewide office in Iowa and could hold the recipe for winning over voters in pro-Trump states.

Trump is growing increasingly upset that some of his choices for judicial posts remain stalled and on Monday vowed to take legal action against the longtime Senate custom, which allows senators to block district court judge and U.S. attorney nominees from their home states. And the president has increasingly trained his fire on Grassley, who is tasked with shepherding Trump’s judicial picks through the Senate and has steadfastly stood behind the practice. Trump’s latest salvo grated on GOP senators who were already frustrated with the president’s attacks on Grassley, the longest-serving senator of the current Congress who has been a...

President Trump on Sunday sought to ramp up pressure on Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) over his defense of the “blue slip” practice that allows home-state senators to veto nominees to district courts and U.S. attorneys’ offices. “I have a Constitutional Right to appoint Judges and U.S. Attorneys, but that RIGHT has been completely taken away from me in States that have just one Democrat United States Senator,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. “This is because of an old and outdated ‘custom’ known as a BLUE SLIP, that Senator Chuck Grassley, of the...

The Army is launching a massive new artillery ammo factory in the heart of the Midwest, Axios reported on Wednesday. The Future Artillery Complex is set to go up at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, aiming to produce approximately 36,000 shells a month, according to Axios. MSM Group North America, a U.S.-based defense manufacturer under the Czechoslovak Group, will spearhead the facility’s construction with a $635 million contract. “Our principle objective is to expand the depth of the industrial base, particularly ammunition,” MSM Group CEO Jason Gaines told Axios. “The companies we have partnered with are all extremely capable in...

A second University of Iowa employee is on paid administrative leave following an online video that appears to show the employee discussing recent diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) laws and ways faculty members can get around the laws. A video posted to conservative news site Townhall appears to show a University of Iowa employee — identified in the story as Cory Lockwood, the senior associate director of the Iowa Memorial Union — talking about how the university has complied with recent DEI laws enacted by the state legislature. "There's DEI work happening," he appears to say in the video. "I...

Did you think the wokies would give up diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that easily? VIDEO AT LINK.................... In a hidden camera investigation published by Townhall, an official at the University of Iowa revealed that the school's wokeness factory is still alive and kicking, but disguised. Cory Lockwood, Senior Associate Director of the Iowa Union Memorial, is caught on tape, saying that these exercises are intentionally buried so it won't show up on any Google search. The SEO burying is one part; faculty don't have the tell-tale signs in their job descriptions, but words like 'community' are breadcrumbs to...

The Iowa Attorney General’s Office on Wednesday opened an investigation into the University of Iowa after an official there was video recorded saying she and others at the school continue to advance diversity, equity and inclusion despite policies and a state law prohibiting it. A 2024 state law prohibits public funding for DEI programs. The Iowa Board of Regents in November 2023 also directed universities to abolish all “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives at public universities. But an undercover video obtained by Fox News shows Drea Tinoco, assistant director for Leadership and Student Organization Development at the University of Iowa,...

Republican senators were appalled by President Trump’s rough treatment of 91-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the Senate’s most senior Republican, on social media and are pushing back on Trump’s attempts to squeeze the senator into abolishing an arcane procedure known as the Senate blue slip. GOP senators were not pleased that Trump piled so much pressure on Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to get rid of a long-established Senate tradition. Trump piled on by reposting on Truth Social posts accusing Grassley of being a “RINO” and “sneaky” and standing in the way of Trump’s agenda. Sen. Thom...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (R-AR) have dropped a political nuke on Washington: Smoking-gun thumb drives containing unreviewed evidence in the Hillary Clinton email scandal have been sitting in an FBI office collecting dust for over SIX YEARS. The letter, addressed directly to FBI Director Kash Patel, demands that the unevaluated materials — which include sensitive intelligence, foreign communications, and damning evidence related to the Clinton Foundation and Barack Obama — be immediately reviewed and exposed to the American people. “Thumb drives containing unreviewed info on the Clinton...

Former President Joe Biden's U.S. Secret Service received a credible threat on President Donald Trump's life 10 days before last July 13's Butler, Pennsylvania rally, but chose to leave the assigned details for Trump and the rally in the dark. "This past weekend, the Government Accountability Office produced [to] me its report on the July 13 assassination attempt," Grassley told the Senate in a floor speech Monday night. "The Government Accountability Office's report starts by stating, 'The U.S. Secret Service failed to implement security measures that could've prevented the assassination attempt on then-former President Donald J. Trump during a July...

Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley announced Thursday that the Department of Energy (DOE) is canceling its Grain Belt Express project. Hawley’s X post announcing the DOE’s decision to cancel the project followed a conversation with President Donald Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright. The post also called the Grain Belt Express a “green scam” that is “costing taxpayers BILLIONS.” ... The Grain Belt Express was a $11 billion transmission line project designed to carry electricity from wind farms in Kansas across Missouri and Illinois to Indiana. “Energy demand is growing – our grid needs an upgrade,” the project’s website states,...