The Grinnell men’s basketball team is enjoying its first ever ranking on the heels of a 12-0 start. “D-Three Hoops dot com” has the Pioneers ranked 21st in their latest poll. Coach Dave Arsenault’s team is one of five unbeatens in Division three men’s basketball.They begin a three game road stretch tonight with Knox College, a team he says could pose problems for their high-scoring long-range offense. He says Knox plays with three guards, which makes it tougher on their offense, which can exploit big men inside.Grinnell will have to play without third leading scorer Ken Heiser, who is out with a foot injury.
ISU/Iowa matchup hits January for first time in years
January 20, 2004 By
Iowa State and Iowa will step out of conference play to renew their rivalry tomorrow night and it marks the first time since 1984 these teams have met in January. It is only temporary and that’s fine with Cyclone coach Wayne Morgan. He says they’d like to see it played earlier in the non-conference year, but that conflicted with Iowa’s finals schedule.Iowa coach Steve Alford says the game will return to its more traditional mid-December date next season. He says a big part of the move is their fault, and he says they seem to have it figured out to play it on a Friday in the future. Given Iowa’s thinning roster Alford says they could have used the week off. Iowa is 9-5 and Iowa State is 10-3.
ISU faces Oklahoma
January 20, 2004 By
Last week the Iowa State women stunned then top ranked Texas Tech. Tonight they will host 15th ranked Oklahoma. Coach Bill Fenelley says they need the kind of effort they had last week in the upset of Texas Tech.The Sooners are 3-1 in the Big-12 and coach Sherri Coale says a win in Hilton would be a big one to get, as she says any win on the road in the league is important in putting them in the driver’s seat for the conference title. The Cyclones are 8-6 overall, 1-2 in the Big 12 after a loss at Texas over the weekend.
Foreign policy likely to be center of President’s address
January 20, 2004 By
President Bush delivers his State of the Union address tonight, and after making his case for war against Iraq in last year’s speech some think he’ll be defending that decision this year. Iowa Congressman Tom Latham doesn’t think so. He says the president will be talking about our national security and the importance of completing the job in Iraq. He says with the capture of Saddam Hussein, everyone understands we’re much safer. Latham, a republican from Alexander, says the president doesn’t have to defend his decision to go into Iraq.He says he thinks everyone understands why we went into Iraq, and the purpose and the great job that our people in uniform have done. Iowa Congressman Jim Leach says Bush’s speech writers haven’t asked him for foreign policy advice, but this is what he’d tell them if they did. He says he would tell them to remember very carefully that anything said about foreign policy is heavily intended for audiences abroad. He says anything said on foreign policy to advance domestic agendas is often a mistake. Leach, a republican from Iowa City, says U.S. policy has a big impact. He says the foreign policy of the U.S. affects other countries very directly, and if we want to influence other countries in the way we want them to move in, we have to speak in ways that bring them together, not divide them.
Group wants two murder charges in death of pregnant woman
January 20, 2004 By
The Iowa Right to Life Committee is asking legislators to let prosecutors file -two- murder charges when a pregnant woman is killed. The group says 24 states have such a law that would apply in cases like the one in California involving Lacy Peterson. House Speaker Christopher Rants, a Republican from Sioux City, says the legislature has enhanced the penalty for a crime that would kill an unborn child, like causing a car wreck. Rants says there used to be no penalty when there was an accident and an unborn child was killed. Rants says, though, they might consider this year the prospect of toughening the penalty for a crime that would cause both the unborn child and the mother to die. Legislative leaders, though, want to examine the details before proceeding. Senate President Jeff Lamberti, a republican from Ankeny, is a lawyer, too.Lamberti says no one in the legislature’s is familiar with the issue, but they’ll start gathering the research on it. The Right to Life Committee also says the state is paying for abortions for poor women who are carrying a deformed fetus, and they want that taxpayer funding to be halted.
Iowa Republicans mock Dean’s campaign battle cry
January 20, 2004 By
Republicans at the statehouse are mocking the battle cry Howard Dean let loose last night in West Des Moines. You’ve no doubt heard Howard Dean’s, crescendo from last night. Well, House Speaker Christopher Rants of Sioux City held a news conference today, and jokingly mimicked Dean’s “screeches,” as Rants vowed to take the Republican message to Washington County, Woodbury County, Pottawattamie County, and Linn County among others. Others couldn’t help but laugh every time they’ve heard Dean’s outburst — or the Rants imitation.
I-F-U against delay in COOL
January 20, 2004 By
Congress is poised to vote on a spending bill that includes a big delay in one portion of the federal farm bill, a measure that would require farmers to track food they raise and label it to show where it was produced. Iowa Farmers Union president Gary Hoskey says that delay goes against what consumers want. The senate’s to vote today (Tuesday) on an omnibus spending bill that includes a 2-year delay in country-of-origin labeling even though it’s already in a law that was passed and signed by the president. Foes of COOL — country-of-origin labeling — wrote the measure to hold off its implementation till 2007, but Hoskey says the discovery of a U.S. case of Mad Cow last month proved the program’s value. Hoskey says the industry’s taken a big financial hit since the discovery of BSE in an animal slaughtered in the U.S., and had the country-of-origin labeling been in effect he says that cow would have been labeled “born in Canada.” House Republicans who oppose COOL say it would increase the cost of producing food, and wrote a measure to delay its implementation until 2007. But the Farmers Union just surveyed 900 American consumers and this week reported the survey found they want the labeling. He says 80-percent of people surveyed favor country-of-origin labeling, as the group expected, and he says they not only want to buy food they know was grown by American farmers, they’re willing to pay a bit more to support them and get the assurance that it’s safer. Hoskey says the result of discovering the BSE case is going to be a national I.D. system for all livestock, and he says there’s no reason not to combine that with COOL, since the records will have to be kept. He says critics of such food tracking greatly exaggerate how much it would cost. BSE, bovine spongiform encephalopathy or Mad Cow, was found in one dairy cow slaughtered last month in the Pacific Northwest, though the animal was found to have been born in Canada.
