State News with Radio Iowa

The ACLU of Iowa has filed a third lawsuit seeking to strike down the state’s denial of Medicaid coverage for transition-related surgery for transgender Iowans. The group’s legal director, Rita Bettis Austen, says this lawsuit makes the same argument against the denial. She says they believe it is both unconstitutional and a violation of the […]

The state website tracking Covid-19 vaccinations shows more than 911-thousand Iowans have had both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. “We are very, very close to having nearly half of the adult population vaccinated, fully, in the two-dose series, so that is incredible news for the state,” Iowa Department of Public Health acting director […]

House Speaker Pat Grassley says a Senate plan to have the state pay all costs and take over management of the mental health system from regional and county officials needs more work. Senate Republicans want to shift financing of the system from county property taxes to state tax dollars. “I can tell you from the […]

The Iowa Department of Agriculture is signing up those interested in getting a license for the second year of industrial hemp growing. Robin Pruisner oversees the program and says this year they have an online system that potential growers can use. “We are able to license and send them their license right to their email. […]

Ding Darling is best known as a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist at the Des Moines Register, but he was also a nationally influential conservationist. On this Earth Day, an actor who portrays Darling will perform a free, one-act play in downtown Des Moines. Kim Coulter, communications director at Central Presbyterian Church, says Darling’s cartoons […]