The Iowa Hawkeyes return to Big Ten action at home tomorrow night against Ohio State. The Hawkeyes are 2-2 in conference play and 9-6 overall after Wednesday’s loss at Iowa State.Iowa coach Steve Alford says he’s proud of the team for the way they’ve played with all that has gone on in the last week. He says the biggest factor for the Hawkeyes will be cutting down on turnovers and getting bench production.
Drake leads at half, but loses to Indiana State
January 23, 2004 By
Drake led at Indiana State 32-30 at the halftime break on Thursday night but the Sycamores outscored the Bulldogs 25-7 to start the second half enroute to an 80-70 victory. Drake coach Tom Davis says it looked like they got several bad calls that should’ve gone their way and that disrupted them and got them thinking about the refs instead of doing what they had to do. Davis says they have to learn that those things are going to happen on the road. The Bulldogs had trouble getting a good shot in the second half. Davis says they lack a good inside guy they can go to to get a bucket in stretches where they’re struggling to score.Drake falls to 7-8.
Top rated matchup featured in boy’s basketball
January 23, 2004 By
Class 4A boys basketball tonight features a one-versus two matchup as top-ranked Bettendorf visits number two North Scott. Bettendorf is 10-0 and coach Kevin Skillet says the Bulldogs have found a way to win the close games as he says their strength is that the really keep their composure. He says they don’t blow people out, but they’re smart and hit their free throws.Skillet says he wants the players to enjoy the ranking and the challenge that comes with it. He says there’s a lot of pressure, but he says it’s also exciting to get the recognition for the program and the school. North Scott coach Brent Riesson says it’s the type of situation the kids will remember 10 or 20 years from now, win or lose. Riesson says the Lancers need a great effort to get the win, as he says Bettendorf is a balanced team that pushes the ball up and down the floor.
Economist says Iowa economy unstable
January 23, 2004 By
An Iowa economist affiliated with a liberal think-tank says the 25-hundred jobs lost in Iowa in December shows “continued instability” in the Iowa economy.Peter Fisher, research director of the Iowa Policy Project, says the nation’s unemployment rate dropped, while Iowa’s went up. He says the signs of the past couple of months “are not that good” and it looks like Iowa is “stuttering” on the way to recovery.Fisher says despite the slowness of the recovery, there have been some areas of the economy where there’s been job growth. Fisher says the problem is the growth has been in low-wage jobs, and the declines have been in high-wage jobs. Fisher says the industries that have gained jobs in Iowa pay annual salaries that are about six-thousand dollars less, on average, than the industries losing jobs. The Iowa Policy Project is based in Mount Vernon.
Carroll County farm family faces fraud charges
January 23, 2004 By
A Carroll County family faces two dozen counts of fraud involving their farm. Beginning in 1987, 44-year-old Mark Hoffman, his wife 43-year-old Sue allegedly made false statements to get a million dollar farm loan. They also allegedly engaged in a scheme to gain federal farm benefits and crop proceeds. They are accused of getting their son Mark and Sue are also charged with twice filing for bankruptcy and then transferring their assets to their son, 21-year-old Justin to avoid creditors.
Governor scolds those who call his tax proposals a "tax increase"
January 23, 2004 By
Governor Tom Vilsack pushed his budget proposal to county officials today and scolded the media and legislators who call his plans a tax increase. The democrat governor proposed in his Condition of the State Address Tuesday, raising the cigarette tax and adding more services to sales tax, while eventually lowering the sales tax rate.He says even with the raising of the cigarette tax, and the “expansion” of the sales tax, he says when you lower the sales tax, the net over time is you save taxes rather than raise taxes. He says it’s not really a raising of taxes over time, it’s creating a bridge to additional revenues in difficult times and strengthening the economy for better times.Speaking to a meeting of the Iowa Association of Counties, Vilsack told the county officials to hear the opposite of what he’s saying from legislators. He guaranteed them that the legislators will say it’s a tax increase, but Vilsack says it’s not. Vilsack also criticized legislators for passing a bill that would limit the amount of money available to spend on the state budget to 98-percent of the budget estimates.He says currently the rate is 99-percent and he says the impact of the bill will be a 50-million dollar cut to education, health care and local government support. He says that’s the first bill the legislature passed. Vilsack says it shows the legislators aren’t in tune with the problems facing local government officials. Vilsack told the officials they need to get the people in their counties to call their legislators and voice their concern.He says “you gotta get citizens engaged in this” as he says if they don’t legislators are going to continue passing legislation “that makes it more difficult to fund the services that people demand and need, more difficult to support the quality of life that’s important to this state, more difficult to transform the state so we have an economy that better supports our values. Vilsack says if county officials don’t get people involved in talking to legislators, the only people legislators will hear from are the many lobbyists at the capitol.Vilsack asked, “And who do you think they work for? They don’t work for you. They don’t work for constituents. They work for special interests who really want to protect their own little piece of the world.”
MidAmerican to build Alaskan gas pipeline
January 23, 2004 By
An Iowa-based utility is trying to broaden its reach to bring natural gas customers lower prices. Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy is proposing to build a 745-mile pipeline from far northern Alaska to link up with an existing pipeline on the Canadian border to bring a new natural gas supply to the U.S. The six-point-three billion dollar pipeline would tap into previously untouched natural gas supplies in Alaska and deliver them to the “lower 48″ states. A MidAmerican spokesman says there are proven reserves of natural gas on Alaska’s North Slope that exceed 35-trillion cubic feet. The pipeline project would have an initial capacity of approximately four-point-five billion cubic feet of gas per day. The spokesman says the much greater supply should eventually lower costs for consumers. MidAmerican’s subsidiaries already own some 18-thousand miles of pipeline, making it the nation’s second-largest interstate natural gas transmission company.
