Page 14 - Ras Smith News Today

The annual fundraiser will be held in person this year, after converting to a drive-in event last year during the COVID-19 pandemic.

‘Have you no shame?’ Biden frames voting rights as a moral reckoning. -0:00 ‘The 21st-Century Jim Crow Assault Is Real,’ Biden Says President Biden spoke out forcefully against Republican efforts to curtail voting rights across the country and vowed that his administration would seek to limit their impact. Some things in America should be simple and straightforward. Perhaps the most important of those things, the most fundamental of those things, is the right to vote. The ri...

Iowa voting rights activist considers run for Iowa governor By DAVID PITTJuly 12, 2021 GMT FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2019 file photo, former Democratic candidate for Iowa Secretary of State Deidre DeJear speaks during a news conference, at the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa. DeJear said Monday, July 12, 2021, she is considering a run for Iowa governor. DeJear, a Democrat, announced formation of an exploratory committee and a tour of seven Iowa cities this week to discuss the idea with Iowans. (AP...

SPM NEWS 7.12.21 Governors from all three Siouxland States spent the day at the Tri-State Governors’ Conference. Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts, and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem met at the Marriot Riverfront in South Sioux City. The event hosted by the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce focused on shortage of workers in the region and addressed the impact of COVID-19. Governor Reynolds was then scheduled to tour the Arena Sports Academy in Sioux City. Agreements b...

Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin will serve 22 and a half years in prison for the murder of George Floyd.

"Our leaders are using their words and policies to tell you that you don't belong here. That your Black life doesn't matter," Smith said in a Waterloo event.

This year, lawmakers concluded the legislative session without any major laws tackling racial inequities in the criminal justice system.

Racial justice advocates held protests in the Iowa Capitol in June 2020. It’s been a year since Iowans filled the streets of cities across the state to protest George Floyd’s murder by a police officer . They called for changes to prevent police violence and to fix problems like the state’s severely disproportionate incarceration of Black residents. As part of a series on what’s changed in the last year, Iowa Public Radio looked back at how the state legislature has responded to calls...

Reporter Jim Flansburg’s mind and notebooks were filled with the odd fact, the strong suspicion, the half-story that he never could develop into a piece that would stand alone in The Register. Yet the stuff was usually interesting — it made great newsroom and barroom speculation and debate in those

Bill on governor’s desk increases penalties for riot-related offenses Iowa City protest, June 4, 2020. (KCRG TV photo) One of the bills to clear the Iowa legislature in its final week raises the penalty for rioting to a felony. Lingering in the crowd when a protest becomes an “unlawful assembly” would become a crime. Representative Jarad Klein, a Republican from Keota, said the bill sends a clear message. “Peaceful protesting is a great and wonderful thing, so many positive results have...