The Iowa City Starbucks strike, which began in early December of 2025, ended on December 24 of 2025, making it the longest strike in the store’s history. While the store re-opened its doors following the strike, the workers are still fighting and encouraging consumer participation to ensure Starbucks meets their demands.

“We started a new campaign called Delete the App,” said Scheppmann, offering one way consumers can help support baristas. “So we’re asking people to delete the Starbucks app from their phone.”

By deleting the app, Starbucks customers affect the company’s revenue while not directly harming the workers.

There are plenty of other ways to support the strikes, too. The Starbucks Workers United website— which provides plenty of useful information on the strikes and how to get involved– encourages consumers to sign the “No Contract, No Coffee” pledge and boycott Starbucks until the workers’ demands are met.

Even though the practices causing the strikes remain, Starbucks workers maintain high morale. For one thing, workers know they have been noticed. With hundreds of stores closed for weeks (if not months), Starbucks cannot remain unaware of the situation.

Many of the strikes have also set records. The Iowa City strike lasted three weeks, making it the longest strike in the store’s history. For workers like Scheppmann, this record is a point of pride.

 “It feels good,” Scheppmann said. “My grandpa was a teamster, so he always had a healthy love for striking. I definitely feel that as well.”

And if there is no progress? Then the strikes will continue. But Scheppmann doesn’t worry about that– the community will support the striking baristas no matter what.

“The Union community in Iowa City is always down for a strike, whoever it is,” said Schepmann. “They’re always ready to support someone exercising their rights.”

The post Iowa City Starbucks Keeps Fighting Back with Open Doors appeared first on KRUI Radio.

My day started at North Hall, where me and two other students, Julia and Sierra, were primed for some university transport, provided by MSW Program Director Stephen Cummings and Assistant Professor Aynsley Scheffert. We depart at 8:20, and Julia, Sierra and I get cracking about our plans for the future. Aynsley was loading us with information on her life trajectory and tips for work after graduating as a social worker, and Stephen gave me the lowdown on his experience teaching overseas.

It was 10:20 when we arrived at the Iowa State Historical Society building, or museum, really. The hanging biplanes and enormous mammoth skeleton made it seem that way. The place is packed with students, some I recognized and most I did not. A desk is set for us to check-in, and as we go through we are set up with nametags. There I find Rigby, a good friend I’ve had a couple classes with.

After a half-hour wait and a good deal of chit-chat, we are all ushered into a big lecture room. The smell could only be described as a used litterbox. Many struggle to hold their laughter, especially me, as a speaker tries to pull up their email, with increasingly less success. It’s kind of sad that in a room full of social workers, no one gets up on stage to help, but it was too funny. At one point the app-store was pulled up… Anyways, Dana Wickwire Cheek takes the stage, the Northeast Branch Chair for NASW Iowa, alongside Peggy Trosper, the Southeast Branch Chair, and Denise Rathman, the Executive Director for both the NASW Iowa and NASW Kansas Chapters. We get a good lecture on proper communication with legislators, which in the way they described it seems more like gambling than fruitful communication.

Here comes Ross Wilburn, a social work alumni of the University of Iowa and House Representative for the Story County District, alongside Johnson County Representative Adam Zabner. They’re here to answer questions, and oh boy are there a lot of them. I question Zabner about the progress of Senate File 2293 regarding the abolishment of the Iowa City Historical Society Building, asking “Where are the court proceedings and decisions at, and when can we expect the day for voting,” and though he gives a very descriptive assessment of the bill and what his future plans are, I don’t actually get a direct answer to my question. Should have been an easy one, considering Zabner is on the board supporting the continued funding of the Iowa City location.

I make it out of the lecture hall with a mild headache, courtesy of the litterbox smell, and grab my lunch. From there we set off to the capitol.

Iowa’s capitol is a great reason to be proud of our state. It’s consistently voted the most beautiful state capitol building in the states, and for good reason. Its massive golden dome is reason enough, but getting inside reveals its true beauty. Giant pillars made of scagliola stretch towards the ceiling, with capitals decorated by golden white oak leaves. Enormous murals depict settlers making their way into the west, religious imagery, native plants, and esoteric symbols, such as the roman god Mercury. Inside the senate chamber are four enormous chandeliers, each highly geometrical yet still so intricate I find them hard to describe. The ceiling is covered in more murals depicting flowers and leaves, with a stained glass window at the center.

By 1:15, we’ve made our way into the Senate chamber to watch the debate. We find
good spots in the gallery, and wait for the debate to begin. Senate files 2263 and 2280 are first up for debate. One senator uses hypothetical scenarios to defend his point, which becomes a theme for this senator. This is evident in the next file, which is refuted by another senator with concrete questioning and reasoning, making a very good case against the bill, but then our first senator stands up and goes on a rampage. He’s smacking his desk and practically screaming. I get so annoyed I decide it better to go explore the capitol.

I find the capitol library, a breathtaking space with books going up four floors flanking the walls. Aynsley finds me there and encourages me to write a message to a senator, but I just want to get up another floor, so I find a spiral staircase and ask two girls taking, suggestive pictures, and ask if I can go up. I’m good to go, so I walk through a gate I don’t notice and make my way around the first floor. I notice that I have to pass through an office to continue, until I find a woman in the second office. She immediately chastizes me and escorts me down, along with the two girls.

I figure it’s a sign to fill out a message, but I’ve forgotten my clipboard with all my notes in the senate gallery. I pull out the fastest speedwalk I can manage and make the confusing there and back. I address mine to the senator with the concrete argument. I wait and wait, but I am not offered the chance to go speak with him, cut short possibly by my previous effort to retrieve the clipboard and more probably by the picture scheduled on the main staircase at 3:00.

Just like that, the day is over. We file back into the van and I have a good nap on the way back, reflecting on how amazed I was at the capitol building, and conversely disappointed with the conduct of the senate chamber.

The post First Person POV of NASW “Legislative Day on the Hill,” February 24, 2026 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The proposal, being brought before lawmakers for the 2026 Legislative Session, calls for increasing the monthly 911 wireless surcharge from $1.00 to $1.15. While 15 cents might seem like pocket change, officials say it is the key to stabilizing a system that hasn’t seen a funding update since 2013.

“Costs have risen significantly for everything, yet 9-1-1 surcharges have not changed in over 10 years,” says Police Chief Chad McCluskey. This gap has left local emergency communication centers, Public Safety Access Points (PSAPs), that serve as the gateway for emergency services, struggling to keep up with modern technology and rising staffing costs.

Iowa isn’t alone in this struggle. Across the country, local governments are grappling with how to fund aging emergency infrastructure. In Colorado, Arapahoe County recently moved to increase its 911 surcharge to address similar shortfalls, while in Florida, the state’s Emergency Communications Board has faced intense pressure from counties to raise fees to cover the costs of regional dispatch centers.

Image via 2023 Iowa 911 annual report

In Iowa, the situation reached a boiling point after the 2025 Legislative Session. Lawmakers passed a provision allowing the state to charge local 911 boards for “reasonable costs” of statewide operations. Rather than helping, leaders say this has imposed “significant financial strain” and created a cloud of uncertainty for local budgets.

The 15-cent increase is designed to create a sustainable, transparent funding model that doesn’t rely on local property taxpayers to fill the gaps. “This increase is long overdue,” says Chris Collins, President of Iowa NENA. “Our surcharge proposal provides a sustainable, fiscally responsible solution that strengthens Iowa’s 911 system and supports Iowa’s first responders.”

The funds are slated for more than just keeping the lights on. A major portion of the push is centered on “Next Generation 911,” a massive technological upgrade that allows for better location accuracy and digital communication. Todd Malone, president of Iowa APCO, notes that the adjustment “allows us to improve lifesaving technology without using additional taxpayer dollars. Investing in 911 is investing in the safety of every Iowan.”

To prevent another decade of stagnation, the proposal also includes a 2 percent annual inflation adjustment starting in 2027. The goal is to ensure that funding keeps pace with the world around it without requiring a massive, jarring leap in fees down the road.

The post Iowa Public Safety Leaders Warn “9-1-1 Can’t Wait,” Push for First Surcharge Increase Since 2013 appeared first on KRUI Radio.

After the death of an American who passed away after accidentally consuming counterfeit medication in September of 2024, the DEA aggressively began an investigation into these pill mills through operation Press Your Luck to combat the threat of online, often foreign-based, pharmacies targeting American consumers. Law enforcement has since seized more than 357,000 deadly doses of fentanyl in Iowa since January alone.

DEA testing has found that almost half of all counterfeit pills they seized with fentanyl contained a lethal dose. Meaning many who order from these contaminated sources or think they are taking licensed prescriptions are at risk of overdose on first use.

Many of these sites purport to be legitimate, U.S.-based, or FDA-approved sites, but are actually working with drug traffickers to fulfill online orders with fake pills. These website operators are going to great lengths to make the websites look like legitimate online pharmacies –  offering 24-hour customer service, posting online reviews and safety facts, and offering deep discounts to deceive customers into believing they were buying from a reputable business.

Sites currently identified as selling counterfeits include

• www.Curecog.com
• www.Pharmacystoresonline.com
• www.Careonlinestore.com
• www.yourphamacy.online 
• www.MD724.com
• www.Greenleafdispensarystore.com
• www.Whatishydrocodone.weebly.com
• www.Orderpainkillersonline.com
• www.USAMedstores.com 

Drug traffickers can advertise on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube. These advertisements are in disappearing, 24-hour stories and in posts, which are promptly posted and removed. Once contact is made, drug traffickers and potential buyers often move to an encrypted communications app like WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram.

Fentanyl has become responsible for 70% of overdose deaths in the US and is the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 18 and 45.

“For parents, talk to your children early, at a young age,” said special agent Travis Ocken of the DEA’s Omaha Division: “Don’t shelter them so they don’t hear about this information. As parents, we want our children to be able to come to us with questions and know someone is there supporting them. If young adults don’t feel comfortable coming to us as parents to learn the true dangers, they’re going to go somewhere else. Whether it’s TV, friends, or social media, it’s often glamorized”. 

Signs a seller may be suspicious include

• Sells prescription drugs without requiring a valid prescription from a healthcare provider
• Offers much cheaper prices than what is typically seen in the market
• Lists prices in a foreign currency
• Does not contain proof of a valid pharmacy state license or DEA registration 
• Medicine arrives in broken or damaged packaging or in a foreign language
• Medicine does not have an expiration date or is expired

Strides in Naloxone technology and accessibility have been a huge asset to communities combating overdose deaths; down almost 20% since 2024. Naloxone displaces the opioid molecules from the brain’s receptors and reverses the respiratory depression caused by an overdose within two to eight minutes. State and local programs have begun offering free Narcan in offices and vending machines, including in Johnson County as of last August.

However, how lawmakers and institutions should approach the opioid crisis still poses an uncomfortable debate for many, especially in Iowa’s legislature, where bills advocating harm reduction and decriminalizing fentanyl test strips have been repeatedly introduced and failed to pass. Under current law, the paper test strips used to detect trace amounts of fentanyl, xylazine, or analog alterations are classified as “drug paraphernalia” and warrant a simple misdemeanor.

In July, Sen Chuck Grassley introduced and successfully passed the Fentanyl HALT Act, which permanently extends the 2018 order classifying fentanyl as a Schedule 1 drug, allowing greater enforcement authority and harsher punishments for offenders. Since then, a myriad of arrests and long sentences have been issued, in line with headwinds toward a tougher on crime approach and away from increasingly unpopular harm reduction methods, such as in Oregon.

The CDC and DEA advise parents and community members seeking more information about available resources and preventing overdoses to visit One Pill Can Kill | DEA.gov.

The post Law Enforcement Warns Students About Fentanyl-laced Prescription Pills. appeared first on KRUI Radio.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Amanda Moy: First of all, you know, you’ve been in Iowa City a long time. You’ve worked and volunteered at a lot of places, like Public Space One, the Emma Goldman Clinic, Iowa Farm Sanctuary, can you tell us a little bit of what you’ve learned from these experiences and how they’ve helped shape your ability to serve on city council?

Oliver Weilein: Yeah, definitely. I’m always someone that likes to keep busy, for one, so that’s why I do a lot of these things, and also it’s just things that I’m passionate and that I care about. One way or another these things deeply impact my life and I want to be a part of them. With the Emma Goldman Clinic, obviously, Emma Goldman herself was one of the first feminist authors and thought leaders that I read when I was a teenager, and so I have a personal connection for that reason with the Emma Goldman Clinic and I think it’s really cool that it’s named that, and I think that it also helps that I live across the street. You know, just looking and seeing people you know bugging and harassing people trying to go in there and get healthcare, it does not sit right with me. It makes me upset and so that’s why. I support everything Emma Goldman does, so that’s why I just want to go help out in that capacity where I can. 

With the Iowa Farm Sanctuary, I am someone where I’ve been vegan for 12 years and I haven’t eaten meat since 8th grade when dissecting frogs freaked me out. So, it’s always been a priority for me, especially living in a place that’s kind of ground zero for bad factory farming like Iowa. I just think it’s beautiful that we have a place like that and connecting with the animals is really important to me, and I recommend people go volunteer there. It’s a depression cure a little bit, especially in the summer.

With Public Space One, I play music; I play in a couple bands and I remember being super young and when I still lived in Cedar Falls I would come here and go to shows at Public Space One when it was below the Subway. It’s come a long way since then, and it was really important to me growing as an artist and as a person, so I’m just really happy to serve on the board and do what I can.

Just doing all these things, it has allowed me to touch so many parts of the community and to understand what’s going right, what’s going wrong, and what can be improved. Specifically, it’s put me in contact with other working class people, and low income people, and people of traditionally marginalized groups. It’s given me a perspective on a lot of the inner workings of Iowa City, and not from the perspective of I’m like this super educated elite business owner, property owner, and yeah it’s just like I’m a member of the working class. I’m just like one of these people, and yeah I think in that way it’s really primed me to have a unique perspective on city council.

Amanda: I will say, I’ve also volunteered at Iowa Farm Sanctuary. It is absolutely something that will lift your mood. Especially in the summer.

Oliver: Do you have a favorite resident?

Amanda: That’s a good question. I think my favorite resident was Rudy.

Oliver: Rudy? I loved Rudy. I like Flower. I have a special connection with Flower. She’s a thousand-pound dairy cow who was born without eyes, and she’s blind, and she loves being pet, and she purrs when you pet her.

Julia Wilson: So, how do you plan to implement these environmental values, in regard to farming, while still supporting the local farmers around Iowa City?

Oliver: That’s a really good question. I think that coming at these issues centering around sustainability and climate, I don’t think it has to come at the cost of farmers or people making ends meet. I think that it’s a lot of nitty gritty policy stuff, but basically just from the mindset that these two things don’t have to work against each other. There’s lots of really cool organizations around here that I’m really excited to work with, that really look into local preservation, look into prairie restoration, and try to work alongside farmers while doing so, and trying to figure out more sustainable ways to go about these things. Even if I myself am not an expert, I know the people who are, and the people who really inspire me to do this work. I know people who not only lead some of these organizations or some of these movements, but people that are rank and file, people who go and do controlled burns of prairies and stuff like that. So, I’m someone who tries to get the entire picture from the “lowest worker” to the overarching picture.

Amanda: What do you think are the top three emergent issues that you plan to address while you’re on city council?

Oliver: I really think that one of the things that convinced me to run… I’ve been probably what you can call a housing rights activist for like a decade in the Iowa City area. Whether that be a founding member of the Iowa City Tenants Union where we did things like help families fight eviction, got security deposits back, helped with immigrant families who were dealing with abusive landlords, worked with lots of students whose landlords just think that they’re dumb young people and they can take advantage of them, to doing more direct mutual aid work with the homeless population in Iowa City.

I think that housing is so central and intersects with so many different issues in our society: racism, transphobia, homophobia. Lots of these systems of oppression get so much of their power from housing insecurity and from economic insecurity so housing is huge, huge for me and I’m someone who believes deep down that housing is a human right. I think as a society that we should move away from viewing housing, which is something that is a basic need for everybody, as a commodity, but rather something we see as, well, you’re a human being and you deserve a home. Obviously, I know going in, I’m not going to be able to be like: I declare housing as a human right. But, I think there’s lots of tangible ways we can move in that direction. 

Along with housing, a huge thing for me is also maintaining some type of financial independence as a city from the state and federal government. Making it to where we are not so afraid of repercussions from the state and federal government. There’s so much fear right now about, well, we can’t do this because maybe the state’s going to come take some funding away. I think that we can start laying a foundation for long-term solutions for making ourselves more independent. I’m a huge proponent of things like public banking. We have one public bank in the United States, and that’s the Bank of North Dakota. Look into public banking, how it is essential to the economy in so many different places around the world, and how it can be used as a tool to fund the things we need to fund and save ourselves so much money as a city. Obviously, wealthy bankers do not like it, and their shareholders, because this means they don’t make money. But, I think as a society, we need to do what we need to do for the community and for people, and not just always focus on making the richest people around us richer, and being in their grasp with their talons in us. 

Those are probably two really, really big things for me. Transit is always up there. We are doing a really good job as a community when it comes to transit, with our fare-free public transit and our commitment to maintaining that. I’ve talked with so many homeless people, so many low-income people who say that has improved their lives significantly. Just keeping that.

I will say one more thing that might be the most important thing currently is protecting marginalized people in Iowa City. It is making sure we do not go into this administration, this federal administration and this state administration, with people who operate abject cruelty towards the most vulnerable people in our community. We need to not go into this relationship pre-compliant, or work as collaborators with them. I think that we can be smart and strategic with how we go about doing these things, protecting these communities, like our immigrants, like our trans community. That means that we go into it with the attitude that we will never give up, and we will not collaborate with fascism. 

Amman Hassan: I have two questions. For transit, are you supporting the North Liberty rail, or the commuter rail proposal? Also, about the not collaborating with fascism, and the Iowa City autonomy, obviously we are kind of a blue dot in a sea of red. How much autonomy or wiggle room does Iowa City have to kind of ignore some of these resettlement orders or some of these acts against minority groups, immigrants in particular? How much wiggle room do we have to ignore those orders and address the issues as we see fit, or protect these groups as we see fit?

Oliver: For the transit, I don’t know all the ins and outs of what has happened, but I think that the county is having trouble finding bidders to create the rail, and I think that the project has been put on hold for now, if not scrapped, which is unfortunate because transit is huge for a multitude of reasons: for economic reasons, for climate reasons. I’m somebody who thinks that we need to move away from a car-centric society. Obviously rail, streetcars, biking infrastructure, all of these things, density, not relying on sprawl, there’re so many reasons why we need to go in this direction. So, it is upsetting to me that’s been put on hold, because as it comes to climate, we can’t afford to push these back all the time. 

When it comes to what kind of autonomy or agency Iowa City has in the state, it is true that we live in a hostile state run by people who are cruel and do not have the best interest of the people in mind. They want to protect the wealthiest people in our state, and they want to keep oppressed people in their place. We need to not go into this thinking that these are people that can be reasoned with, like Kim Reynolds, that we need to try so hard to placate them and to beg, because no matter what we do it will never be enough for them. They will always keep coming after our people. They will always keep cutting our budget. They will always keep lowering property taxes. They will always keep doing all of these things that are detrimental to our community, and I think it is delusional to expect any different, no matter how much we give them. Going into it with the attitude that we need to come up with another way.

I think that if we really put our mind to these things and make them a priority, we can really do something. I look at examples like in 2020, when our mayor Bruce Teague and the city wanted to implement a mask mandate, and Kim Reynolds was like, “No, I’m writing it in law that cities cannot do a mask mandate.” We were able to get around that with just clever wording, something about mandating masks for persons and not facilities. Something like that. We can always put our minds to something and there are so many smart people, and so many organizations of smart people who know the law, who it’s their mission to do these types of things. The city councilors and the mayor at the time, they did a great job with that. I think if we apply that same determination, and willingness, and priority to protecting migrants and protecting trans people, and protecting our LGBT community, and our low income people, I think there’s always something that we can do.

Like I said, that doesn’t mean that we do something reckless or not strategic or not smart. A lot of people have criticized me saying oh, he’s just gonna like… No, I’ve never said that. What does differentiate me from my opponent is that I am willing to say that I do not support ICE, and I will do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, to protect the immigrant community. At the end of the day, if everything has been, if all the things have been tried, if there is absolutely nothing else we can do as a city, I’m not willing to sell one person for a dollar amount. That seems to be what a lot of people who were criticizing me were saying, “Well at the end of the day, we are just going to have to sell out some of our neighbors to fascism.” I think going into this new administration with that attitude is crazy. It is what has gotten us into this position in the first place.

Rigby Templeman: So, the budget of the city has always been an issue. How do you plan to deal with the conflict between having that limited money to spend, but wanting to build permanent supportive housing and make existing housing more affordable?

Oliver: It’s been a huge part of my campaign, talking about how I think we can fund a lot of the things I’m talking about, and directions I think we can go. I think that capitalists love to say that you have to spend money to make money, and I think that the same holds true for cities. We can spend money to build a foundation that in the long run saves us money, and even give us money as a city. A lot of the things I’m talking about, you don’t even need to spend a lot of money to create a public bank, and then that has been proven to make things easier for cities to get loans, to get good loans, and to fund the things we need to fund without having to make private banks happen. I grew up in Cedar Falls, Iowa and I thought it was normal my whole life that we had a public utility company, that was city owned and operated, community utilities company. Then I moved to Iowa City when I was 18 and I was like, why do I have like three bills instead of one? Also why is it this private stuff? Then I learned.

Amman: Is the power plant that operates the University of Iowa privatized? 

Oliver: I believe so. I guess I can’t speak surely, but I think so. Anway, in public utilities, in Decorah, they have something on the ballot in March, where they are going to vote yes or no to establish a public utility company. It is something that not only makes it easier for us to democratize our energy, and be able to more directly as community members make decisions about where we want our energy to come from, and our sustainability, but the profits that we make go back into the community, not into a private company’s hands. That’s another revenue source that I’m willing to explore. Like I said, a public utility company is a long term plan, but we need to start having these conversations and set a foundation. 

When it comes to housing, housing if done right, other models in cities around the world have proven that public housing can not only be a self-sustaining utility, but it can be one that makes the city revenue. I look at the city of Vienna, it is truly a model that we can learn from. They have a 100+ year, huge history of public housing. 25% of the housing in Vienna is owned and operated directly by the city and they get 200 million dollars in revenue from the rents collected. 80% of the population qualifies for that public housing. That’s why it’s so effective and that’s why it has such good results, and that’s why you get revenue, because you have people of different incomes. It’s not just for the lowest income people. As a utility, it balances rent. That’s why it’s cheaper to rent an apartment in downtown Vienna, the capital city of Austria, than it is in Iowa City, and that’s kind of a crazy statistic. That’s what the last numbers that I looked at were. So, these are all things that, it might be an upfront investment, but in the long run it gives us more revenue streams and it can really make a dent I believe.

Rigby: So, speaking of housing, your opponent Ross Nusser also states on his website that affordable housing is a top priority for him. How do you think you two differ in approach to that? 

Oliver: I’m not saying that he doesn’t actually, legitimately want to have affordable housing. Nothing like that. What I do think is that he is someone who has a background in real estate, and with property management, and with being a real estate developer, and being a landlord who has Airbnb’s, and I think that just naturally shapes your worldview in terms of what is possible when it comes to affordable housing. In different forms, when I’ve been talking about how other cities around the world are looking into public housing, he responds to it by talking about things like permanent supportive housing, so I just don’t think he knows or has heard about a lot of these things, which doesn’t make him dumb, he’s just been not exposed to the things that I’ve been exposed to, and hasn’t read things that I have or learned things that I have, doesn’t have the same lived experience.

So, when people generally in the United States think about affordable housing, they think about tax credits to developers and landlords, which let’s say you’re a developer and you want to build an apartment complex in the city. The city will say okay, you can build this, but 10% of the units have to be what’s considered affordable, and it actually has a definition, affordable, and that is 30% of your income or less goes to rent and other housing costs. Even that, I don’t know if it follows that model exactly, because a lot of the “affordable” units that we see from these tax credits are not very affordable, and also they’re not permanent. We have increased the longevity of them, from 5-10 years to 15-20 I believe, but it’s just kind of kicking the problem down the road to deal with later. Giving money to the wealthiest among us, thinking that it is going to trickle down onto the rest of us, it is actually just trickle down economics.

Rigby: And that worked great.

Oliver: And that worked great! It’s just trickle down economics that’s kind of painted as this progressive thing. It’s not like I don’t think in this environment that we never do something like that. I think it can help ease symptoms of the problem, but at the same time we need to be looking at the overall, root causes of these problems, and the solution is not to continue to give money to the wealthiest people among us. It doesn’t work, we know it doesn’t work in the long run. We need to think of more structural change to how deep down we view housing.

Amanda: Speaking of your competitors, instead of accepting campaign donations, you’re directing people to donate funds to the Emma Goldman Clinic, Shelter House, Iowa Trans Mutual Aid, and the Prairielands Freedom Fund. What steered you to make this decision? Do you think that this will hinder you from winning the overall election, especially because Ross is using donations to campaign for himself?

Oliver: A huge barrier to me even coming to the decision to run was that, for one, I don’t like making things about myself. I have very intense criticisms of electoral politics a lot and their effectiveness, and one of those main criticisms is that so much of electoral politics is lighting millions and billions of dollars on fire and losing. Or, you win and you get minimal to no results. So, I think going into this as a special election, I thought that I would not have to spend as much money as I would in a general election, I thought that I already, due to a lot of the community work that I do, have kind of like face and name recognition around town, so there was a lot of that work already done for me.

But, deep down it’s just, I think that grassroots organizing and things that are not just electoral politics, I think those are more important than just electing the right people. I do think that strategically, getting local government officials on your side or electing the right people, I think it can really, really help working people directly in their communities and it can strengthen movements. So, a lot of the people in town that would donate to me, I feel like they’re low income people, they’re activists, they’re people who are putting their blood, sweat, and tears in these organizations on the ground that do so much good in our community, and I didn’t want to take their money.

So, I’ve been spending a lot of my own money. A lot of people have been begging me, like please let me give you money, and so if I accept money from somebody I personally vet them. I have a conversation with them and I say is this something that you can afford, and please be honest with me. If they convince me that yes that is the case, my next question is, is this a substitution to doing something else in the community? If they say no, I will continue to do stuff for the community and put finances into the community, then I’ll accept that money. I just didn’t want to take money from the general public. I fear that I would get a lot of money, and then be tempted to spend it needlessly, if that makes sense.

Honestly, I don’t think that this is really hindering me. I think at the time of the primary, I had spent $700, and $534 of it was on yard signs, and the rest of it was on the website and printing, and I still won the election with 69% of the vote. My opponent spent over $3,000 which is public record. I think that goes to show that money can only go so far in things like this.

Julia: Despite the spending ratio between you and your competitor, I’ve seen your signs in just about every business, house, and window in town. I’ve seen your name on a sign all over my social media. How is it that you’re getting people so worked up, so excited about this election?

Oliver: I don’t think it’s necessarily just me, it’s about the values of the campaign, it’s about the knowledge that we just elected a TV show rapist as president for a second time. Am I allowed to say that on the radio? I’m sorry. 

KRUI: Yes.

Oliver: The status quo failed again to combat this right wing authoritarianism. People are fed up and they know that we can’t keep going in that direction that the Democratic party, and the elites of the Democratic party, the higher ups of the Democratic party have tried and failed. They ran a right-wing campaign that was xenophobic, that abandoned trans people, that campaigned with Dick Cheney who’s a war criminal, they shamelessly participated in wholesale genocide and slaughter abroad, and they lost.

They made all of those moral concessions with the justification that we have to beat Donald Trump. And they were going after a demographic of Republicans that don’t want to vote for Trump. That doesn’t exist in the numbers that you need to win. I think people around the country, and in Iowa City, are just realizing that you need a message that is not the status quo, that is for working people, that is unapologetically pro-working class, a populist economic message, and you need to stand with oppressed people, and unflinchingly do so. I think that this is the reason why people really support my campaign. It’s not just about me, it’s about that message. 

Amanda: Looking at the city’s 2023-2028 strategic plan, I know we’ve talked a little bit about the environment in previous questions, but the City of Iowa City states that it wants to focus on maintaining and improving a lot of the outdoor spaces and the Iowa River. A lot of people in the city are concerned about environmental pollution and especially the water quality of the city, especially given the fact that Iowa has the 2nd highest cancer rate in the US, and the fastest rising cancer rate. Do you have any plans to address this?

Oliver: Specific plans, it is hard to say exactly the approach, because there’s so many different angles that you can look at this particular problem from, and it’s hard to say exactly what authority the city does and does not have. I’ve been talking with a lot of lawyers about these things, and the lawyers don’t even agree with each other sometimes about what they think is possible and what they don’t think is possible for the city to do.

What I would love to see is… I guess I’ll just start with the story of how in the 90’s, the city of Bogotá, Columbia, they had so much poverty, they had so much pollution, they had so much litter, they had so much car infrastructure, just smog, everything. They got a new mayor, I can’t remember his name right now, and he got into power, and he was like, “I want to make the city happier.” That was his message. The way he went about doing that was scrapping the multi-million dollar idea of a highway to go through the town and using all of that money to expand on green spaces, build parks, build hundreds of miles of bike infrastructure, build hiking trails, invest in infrastructure that isn’t car based. They even did something where he was like, “Alright guys, one day I declare that you will not drive a car, unless you absolutely have to.” I don’t remember the exact stipulations, but the vast majority of people did not drive a car for one day, and it was so popular that it’s now a city wide holiday yearly, and I believe it’s still going on.

Instantly, they saw people utilizing common space, public space, in ways that they were not used to doing. The smog thinned dramatically in one day. The green spaces that were built were utilized in ways that they hadn’t seen before. People just went out in the community and they enjoyed their community spaces in ways that they hadn’t seen. That, mixed with the investment in green spaces, the investment in moving away from fossil fuels, in pedestrian and bike infrastructure, that type of thing, it really made a huge positive impact on the city. I cannot wait to learn and read more about how they went about doing these things, and the nitty gritty on how these things were implemented, and the exact ways that they went about doing this because I’m very passionate about not only making the city more accessible and more public and more democratic, but making it a beautiful place, and making it one where you’re not afraid to get in the water.

Rigby: You’ve said you are a gun owner who dislikes gun culture. One quote that stuck with me is, “We sadly live in a country with many more guns than people, and with our current leaders, it will stay that way for the foreseeable future. I think we can avoid harm by strengthening our community networks and engaging in this type of gun violence intervention.” 

This view is pretty different from the left’s usual take on gun control, and pretty different from what I’ve grown up being taught. Could you expand on your thoughts about gun control a little bit?

Oliver: There’s been a lot of talk about the fact that, and it’s also something that I’ve addressed on my website, about how I hate the NRA too. People, with whatever agenda that they have, have gone through 10-plus years of my social media history and posted things that they consider to be bad. A few of those things were a 6-year old picture of me holding a gun, and a couple recent pictures of me just at the shooting range.

So, a little bit of background of my journey to becoming a gun owner, if you will. I’m someone who has been very public facing in my activism and the type of activism that I’ve done. I was in the streets when Michael Brown was murdered, I was at Standing Rock with Indigenous People in North Dakota when they were fighting the pipeline going through, I was at Mississippi Stand when we were fighting the pipeline in Iowa, I was at Donald Trump’s inauguration and I got arrested there protesting his first inauguration. I was in Minneapolis for Philando Castile, I was at Tamir Rice protests, I was in Minneapolis during the George Floyd uprisings.

Because of this public facing history of activism, and being arrested in D.C. during Donald Trump’s inauguration, I was heavily doxxed by extremely violent right wing nationalists, neo-nazis that had posted not only my address, but my partner’s address, and my family’s addresses, where they work, and sometimes what their phone numbers were. I think I was like 23 or 24 at the time, my partner and I, it was just something where we didn’t know what to do. These are the types of people where when political violence happens, 99% of the time it’s violent white supremacism right wing people. They commit the murders the vast majority of the time and they’re the people that I know that are capable of extreme violence, and have made direct threats to me and my family.

When I say that I have weapons, or I bought weapons for self defense, I don’t mean in the NRA talking point of ugh, what if someone walks in and steals my TV. If someone walked into my house to steal my TV I would let them have it. I think that lives matter more than property, and I think a lot of these NRA types, when they talk about self-defense, it’s actually just kind of murder fantasies about them wanting to be in a position where they can use their firearm. It’s the absolute opposite for me. Even if it was a neo-nazi, it would be the most devastating thing probably in my life if I had to use a firearm in self-defense.

Even with animals. I go back country hiking in bear country pretty frequently, so I have a handgun that is an absolute last resort if I’m being currently mauled by a bear, and I have all these other items. Pepper spray, bear spray is way more effective and all these other mitigations are way more effective, but if it comes down to it, I would rather shoot a bear than be eaten by one. Even if I had to shoot a bear, it would be devastating to me. Like I said, I’m a vegan. 

So, my reason for owning firearms, my philosophy surrounding firearms is so different than your average right wing person. It’s also put me in a place kind of like you mentioned in your question, a very unique person to where a lot of people where they’re in similar situations, like particularly with marginalized people, people who have faced similar threats. They’re like black, they’re trans, they’re part of the queer community, they are women who have stalkers. A lot of them don’t feel comfortable going to a racist organization like the NRA and asking for their help. So, if someone makes the hard decision to purchase firearms for self-defense for legitimate threats, and they feel comfortable coming to me and asking me, “Can you help me be safe when I’m going through this?” I will always do whatever I can for free. I have multiple times. I’m not telling people to buy firearms. I always tell them the risks involved, and make sure they really think this through because it is true that if you have a gun in your house, statistically you’re at much higher risk of gun violence, specifically marginalized people, specifically women. But, if they make that decision, I will be there to make it as safe as possible.

I even bought a safe that’s way bigger than I need, it’s like huge. My partner Juliet hates it because it takes up so much of our living room, and so they’ve tried to “yassify” my gun safe, make it look pretty. So many people have reached out to me because they’re like, “Hey, I have guns, but I have family coming over and I don’t have a proper place to store this.,” or, “I am currently expecting a child and I want a proper place to store this gun before I get rid of it,” or, “I really need my gun to not be in my house because my mental health is so terrible.” Usually, individualistic American gun culture does not have that community minded approach to gun safety, where people feel safe as a community to reach out and have these public resources that they can use. Countless times I’ve stored peoples’ guns in my gun safe for that reason. That’s the reason why the leader of the chapter of the Moms Demand Action endorsed me, it’s because of my commitment to gun safety in that way.

Amman: On Ross Nusser’s website he says that historical preservation is one of his most important values and at his last campaign event, he and his supporters were repeating similar things. The Iowa City Historical Preservation council is big into zoning and controlling what can and can’t be built in the city. Do you view that commission and its concerns about historical preservation as compatible with your affordable housing plans, or do you view them as NIMBY dog whistle?

Oliver: I guess it depends on who is saying it and their reasons for saying it. I’m someone who doesn’t think we need to be at odds at all. I think that we can maintain the character of a neighborhood, we can preserve important cultural things and buildings in our communities while at the same time adding density without having to tear down or heavily modify these places. I really like Friends of Historical Preservation because they’re really big on sustainability. If they have to demolish a historical site, they have a program, I’m blanking on the name right now [The Salvage Barn], but it’s for old historical buildings that have been torn down and they take the parts and the things from the historical building and store them there so if people who have a historical house or historical building, they need to repair it, they can recycle those things.

I think that it does not have to combat affordable housing. I don’t think it has to combat sustainability efforts. I think that they can work hand in hand. I really think that we should dispel the myth that you can’t have historical preservation while also building housing and adding density. I think we can bring the community together and really find a common ground on what type of architecture we want to use, and the scale of projects. There’s currently one being talked about now, it’s the rezoning of a place on North Governor street. They want to build what’s called the Goosetown apartments, and there’s lots of conversation going on there. A lot of people might think of zoning and this type of thing as boring, but I’m someone who has read lots of books about how zoning and city planning greatly affect cities, and how they are very political things that really play an important role. So, I don’t view these things as boring. A lot of people would. It’s fascinating how cool zoning can be.

Amman: On the topic of zoning, do you have a plan for that open downtown lot they’re talking about right now.

Oliver: Personally, I don’t have a plan. Obviously there are priorities of things. I don’t know exactly the stipulations or the costs involved, so I don’t know enough details to know what’s possible there, but I do know that the city has made a recommendation. There’s a few bids from different developers, and the city has made a recommendation to choose between one of the two. I’ve read both of the proposals, but I feel that I would need more context, and I would need to meet more with the city councilors and learn more about the process of how we got to this point to make an informed decision. I think it needs to be something that is very beneficial to the community and adds to our housing stock, I will say that.

Amanda: You’ve touched a little bit on the culture of community mindedness. A lot of times when it comes to politics, people feel like their voice isn’t heard. If you end up being elected, how do you plan to make yourself available to your constituents?

Oliver: I have my phone number on my website, and lots of people just cold call me, and I love that. I really want it to be known that I’m somebody who will meet with virtually anybody, and views everybody’s input in Iowa City as important. Not only just for me but I want people to feel that in general. I believe in the words of Henri Lefebvre or David Harvey, that people have a right to the city. I think that can start with more transparency with what the city is doing and the willingness of people to meet with anybody, the willingness of councilors to meet with anybody, so no one feels left out. 

Rigby: What are your plans and intentions of non-enforcement for specific state and federal laws that target certain community members, such as anti-trans laws or the ICE executive orders?

Oliver: In terms of anti-trans laws, there’s the TAC, the Trans Action Committee, and I’ve met with lots of people who are in that committee. I’ve met with lots of different transgender individuals with different backgrounds in Iowa City constantly about this type of thing. What I will say is that there are ideas that the Iowa ACLU will like, and think that there’s a good chance of being successful. Also, organizations like One Iowa, that’s an advocacy group for LGBTQ rights in Iowa. I remember phone banking for them when I was in like 7th grade. That was when gay marriage was being passed in Iowa. Remember when we had a state government where that was possible? That’s crazy. I don’t know if you all remember, I’m kind of old. Like I was saying before about how we can get creative with our wording, we can get creative with how our role as the city council can direct our city attorney in a way of how he interprets law. That’s kind of vague but that is a direction that a lot of these organizations like. 

When it comes to ICE, I think the city should do everything that it can in smart and strategic ways, like I was talking about with the mask mandate, we need to explore all options and work with lawyers and really try to explore how other communities are handling this. I don’t think it should be overlooked how much grassroots community organizing plays a role in protecting people in the community, and I think as a city, we can do so much in terms of providing education and resources to these grassroots organizations to effectively protect people. Tom Homan, he’s the director of ICE that Trump appointed, he went on I think CNN and was whining about how the people of Chicago know their rights too much and it’s making it hard for them to arrest people. So, he gets on TV and proves that if people, not only migrants know their rights, and if people in Iowa City know their rights, you do not have to talk to ICE, you do not have to talk to the police. Actually, I want Iowa City to have a culture where if ICE comes in here, they’re gonna get the door slammed in their face, and they know that we are a city that looks after each other and has solidarity with our neighbors, and we’re not gonna sell each other out. Those are directions I would love to go.

Rigby: Thank you for talking with us today, Oliver. Where can people can reach out to you if they have questions or concerns? 

Oliver: My website is https://www.oliverforiowacity.com/ 

You can read more about everything on there: how to vote, where to vote, when to vote, and at the bottom of the website, my phone number is on there. I love getting calls and texts. I haven’t gotten any weird ones yet. My email is on there. I get a lot of emails and I respond as quickly as I can. I kind of understand why people have secretaries now, because it’s extremely hard to keep up with all this, but I make it a point on principle to try my absolute best to respond to everybody and to meet with everybody in good faith. Absolutely reach out to me. 

You can reach Oliver at oweilein@gmail.com or (319) 269-5189

Note: We do not speak on behalf of the University of Iowa or the Board of Regents.

The post In Conversation with Oliver Weilein appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Knowles has become a controversial figure for his actions and political views, which includes public opposition of gay marriage, his belief that transgender people’s existence is a delusion that must be eradicated, and arguing colonization and expansion of the American Empire as something justified and noble. Knowles gave a speech in the Iowa Memorial Union entitled, “We are so Back: How the Libs Lost Everything”.  

The IMU functions within the university as being the center of campus life, with them describing it as, “Often the place where the university makes its first impression on potential students, faculty, and staff.” One of the five core values stated of the IMU is inclusion, “Affirming and celebrating all backgrounds and personal identities through inclusive and equitable policies, programs, services, and spaces.”

University of Iowa students, staff, and Iowa City community members gathered outside the IMU to protest Michael Knowles speech taking place within the building. For many of the protesters this was another episode in a long series of right wing influencers hosted and sponsored on university grounds. The election, the war in Gaza, and the general assault on LGBT rights has brought the student body’s divisions to the forefront and forced the university to question what does it mean to be tolerant.

“It seems to be a pretty big event, and it seems a little questionable to me,” said a protester present at the speech, “you know, hosting a homophobic, transphobic person at a university which like has policies ostensibly protecting gay and trans people.”

Another protester stated, “I think that inviting him and giving him this much of a platform 一 I think there is a difference than if he just came into the park and like, put some stuff up. But he’s being hosted in a university building with two policemen in the lobby providing protection. They clearly have this organized as a major event inside the IMU. It’s kind of what the entire building seems to be centered around right now, which is a bit, not just inviting, but explicitly platforming, and I think that’s like a fallacy of equality.” 

Those in attendance made efforts to affirm individual identities and made a point of stressing how the speakers’ and university’s actions have affected the mental health and sense of safety on campus for queer students. “The falling on free speech thing doesn’t really carry water anymore, because the last time they invited Matt Walsh or whatnot, there was conflict. It seems like they’re just spending more and more money on this extra police. So yeah, they’re 100% at fault,” one student commented on the university’s involvement, “I understand free speech but that dude can get that on the Daily Wire so that’s his free speech, but he need not come here. I understand why the YAF brought him here, but take him to some other venue because this is state sponsored. So, how are you going to feel safe in this school? Because it feels like, to our trans community, it feels like they hate me, and at best they’re indifferent to our voice.”

The overall well-being of transgender students was also a major concern of protestors, especially in light of the recent presidential election. As one protestor said, “Our trans sisters and brothers are scared right now, and this is like throwing fuel on the fire. We want to meet the fascists at the gate and let them know that we don’t give a shit about your president. We’re here to take care of our people.”

The two groups were sandwiched in between a 24-hour fundraising event for the University of Iowa’s largest student organization, Dance Marathon, which added to the crowds. Many of the passersby approached by KRUI had no knowledge of the YAF’s event and were simply trying to use the building to attend the Dance Marathon fundraiser or were there for academic purposes. 

However, a few onlookers contributed their opinion of the event. Many of them viewed the protest in a positive light, with one saying, “I think they’ve done a really good job organizing, and I know there’s a lot of different voices on campus, so it’s nice that people on more of the progressive side can have their voice heard and the conservatives can be inside and listen to a speaker. It’s awesome. It should double in size.”

Protestors were especially on edge given the large police presence inside and outside the IMU as on October 7th of 2023, peaceful protestors were arrested after demonstrating against a different anti-trans speaker at the IMU. They were charged with either disorderly conduct or interference with official acts. Those protestors were detained a month later in November of 2023. None of the participants were arrested at the protest and no property was damaged, but according to those present, Johnson County police officers reportedly pushed, grabbed, and behaved aggressively towards them.

Through this process, protestors learned that the UIPD and Johnson County Sherriff’s Office have both been involved in monitoring protests. UIPD has installed cameras that pan, tilt, and zoom around campus. This is along with monitoring social media accounts, searching specific terms leading up to events on platforms, and analyzing search results based on posts’ geolocation. It has been reported that UIPD tracks protestors based on their face, build, clothing, walk, temporary injuries, and their cars as they are leaving protests. That is why during the November 11th protest, a majority of protestors wore nondescript clothing, face masks, said to put their phones into airplane mode, and parked away from the IMU. It was also requested that no photos be taken that could identify protestors based on their faces.

Along with these precautions, many protestors were weary of stepping away from the corner section of the IMU due to the arrests last year that came from people blocking the intersection of Jefferson and Madison. This comes after the Iowa state government passed the “Back the Blue” law in 2021 which strengthened qualified immunity for police officers, banned common protest tactics like obstructing a street, and increased penalties for other protest actions. UIPD officers also came out to the crowd of protestors handing out “Free Speech at Iowa” cards that labeled what things protestors could and could not do.

Inside the IMU, Michael Knowles’ talk focused mainly on the criticism of transgender people and progressivism in western society. His traditional views on gender were on full display stating that women should grow out their hair so that their pronouns and identity are apparent. He also said that, “The transgender issue is not chiefly about women’s sports. We want that too, it’s a matter of justice. But most people don’t actually care that much about women’s sports. The trans issue is not even chiefly about protecting children, it is about the liberal elite trying to castrate little kids.”

After Knowles’ talk was over, KRUI staffers asked individuals what they thought of the event. One pair of event attendees said, “We’re both independent voters so we went and checked out the event inside and it was kind of what you would expect for something like this. All he was saying was kind of recycled talking points.”

Another attendee said, “I thought he was great, I thought he had good opinions. I don’t necessarily attend the University of Iowa but I’m not planning on it either, especially because of the kind of liberal ideologies that are here. I appreciated him coming out and sharing his opinion. I mean, that’s what press is about, it’s about people being able to share their opinions openly and not get demeaned for doing so.”

Debates around DEI, trans rights, and the general paradox of tolerance will likely continue to unfold on campus as the university juggles the safety and interests of its students, while attempting to maneuver and adapt to legislation that’s increasingly antagonistic towards academia’s discretion. “I think that there is a general pattern of ‘if you are tolerant, you have to tolerate me being hateful’,” said one demonstrator attending the protest, “that’s kind of what the university seems to have gone with with hosting these kinds of people, and it’s philosophical nonsense.”

This article was written with aid from Amanda Moy, Julia Wilson, and Claire Peery.

The post Michael Knowles and a Case Study of Tolerating Intolerance appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The federal government has recognized this and has attempted to address the rising shortage for decades. More recently the Biden administration has implemented multiple programs including investing in primary care facilities, and loan forgiveness for doctors who practice in rural and designated crisis counties. The programs have totaled more than a billion dollars yet haven’t had any large or noticeable impact on the shrinking pool of available doctors. This crisis has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which has caused many providers to burn out or retire early. In a report by the company Definitive Healthcare, more than 60% of doctors nationwide said their workload has increased since the pandemic, and between 2021 and 2022 more then 70,000 or 6% of physicians left the field.

There’s more behind this provider shortage then just burnout. People aged 65 and older are the fastest growing cohort and by 2030 nearly 80 million Americans will be in that category. On the supply side, young doctors and students are finding less incentive to become physicians. The pay and labor gap between physicians and other specializations that require just a few more years of education has caused many doctors to reject family medicine in favor of more specialized fields that come with higher pay and less workload.

A common culprit for the pay discrepancy between physicians and specialized fields falls on the RUC, a body of doctors that advises insurance companies and the federal government on how medical procedures should be priced. The RUC routinely rates general care procedures at a significantly lower cost than more specialized care, meaning doctors in general care get lower compensation from insurance for their work. In response to this market failure, nurses and physician assistants have filled the gap.

Between 2013 and 2019 the portion of healthcare visits handled by nurses and physician assistants nearly doubled, and according to the National Institutes of Health, “The proportion of visits delivered by nurse practitioners and physician assistants in the USA is increasing rapidly and now accounts for a quarter of all healthcare visits.” The trend of non-physicians filling the role of primary care has only grown since the pandemic, and continues to be one of the ways healthcare providers are attempting to meet demand with rising overhead costs and a shrinking pool of doctors. This practice has been touted as providing equal care while cutting costs by 25%.

Amy Sheaffer, President of A-1 Medical Staffing in Iowa has been in the field for over 20 years and says this isn’t the first time there’s been a shift in nurse’s responsibilities. “During World War I, the Red Cross created a volunteer nurse aid program as many nurses became overworked and tired. In the late 1960s, the physician assistant position was created as there was a shortage of primary care physicians due to access to healthcare and insurance increasing,” Sheaffer describes. 

She says what she is seeing today with many doctors leaving the medical field is nothing like we’ve seen throughout history. Sheaffer notes though that many nurses are altering their roles and how they approach their job to fill in some of those gaps. “Nurses are reconsidering their priorities for a better work life balance and choosing flexible work opportunities. We are also seeing many trying to further their education to practice advanced nursing. This allows them to be properly compensated and assist in reducing the physician shortage by filling the primary care gap,” she said.

She also notes that as the healthcare landscape evolves, so do the roles within it. The increasing complexity of insurance policies and hospital billing has placed a heavier burden on medical staff, requiring more administrative oversight than ever before. Just as past workforce shortages led to the creation of new roles, today’s challenges in reimbursement and claims processing have given rise to specialized professionals who focus on Denial Management. These experts work to ensure that hospitals and clinics receive proper payment for services rendered, reducing financial strain on both providers and patients.

While this shift in roles has cut costs, it has pushed much of that onto lower paid and overworked nurses and physician assistants. Consumers and lawmakers worry this trend may lead to a weakening in the doctor-patient relationship and worsen health outcomes for patients. Some worry that this will lead to a healthcare gap between people in different economic classes, with the wealthy being able to retain a personal physician, while those with less money will have to deal with an incongruent, rotating cast of doctors for routine checkups. So far though, data suggests that outside of emergency or specialty care situations, nurses and physician assistants have similar patient outcomes to traditional family doctors.

The post How Nurses are Affecting the Doctor Shortage appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Having a band make its way from the other side of the world, from a major European city not entirely well known to Americans, just to play at the back of a kombucha shop in the Midwest, greatly intrigued me. Upon seeing their name on the poster, I was determined to check it out. Zmar played second on the night. The first band that played was from Davenport, and had one of those spindly, hard to read black metal logos on the poster. They honestly weren’t really that enjoyable, so I’m not going to try and decipher their name or write much about them. 

Zmar though, were extremely enthralling. They played songs from their album Napořád which was released in May of last year. Vocals were howled and hissed like they were in desperation for survival. The lyrics in Czech emphasize this notion, with them being about manmade issues like patriarchy destroying the lives of women, and war wrecking the reality of many. It stabs at the most intrinsic of reactions.  

Backing this are these suspensions of dark, chaotic, and clouded instrumentation. It gave the songs a somewhat desolate atmosphere. Behind nearly each one though is this rupturing feeling of optimism, like streaks of light gleaming through the slits in the clouded dust. It builds the sentiment that if we try and stand up against systems of oppression, we can carry the world into a better place, even through all the pain and wreckage that it faces now. Even within the chords it would resolve on an uplifting hopefulness, and then ground itself in a tumultuous reality, before oscillating back again. It wills beauty into an unsightly world. 

It mirrored the images of the performance. The dark figures of the band were backlit by a spotlight angled on the ground, kind of like a low rising sun radiating on the peaked edges of dark mountains. Each member played with an unfeigned energy and immense vivaciousness. Despite the small, cold blue room that was still sparse with people, Zmar were able to transmit electricity through the few bodies of conduction that were there. It’s something that they are used to. Michal, the band’s vocalist, told me that small, tucked away venues like Wild Culture Kombucha were what they were used to playing in. For me, the piercing hopefulness of their performance reached that holy moment of fantastic live art where it sent literal chills coursing across my skin. 

Zmar came through Iowa City after playing Zegema Beach Records’ ZBR Fest, which got silly to say the least, during that weekend in Chicago. Coming along with them was screamo band Niboowin who gave just as great of a performance. Their new album giving in would come out later that week. Their set consisted of tearing, dynamic tracks with band members sometimes interchanging lyrics. Each song was lashed out in real visceral expression. Both bands are putting out some of the most musically spirited and emotionally punctual screamo. 

The post Zmar Brings a Beautiful World to Wild Culture appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Many have identified an alarming trend in the local and state government: authoritarianism in Iowa. What many thought to be relegated to distant, dystopian countries has found its way here. This has been after numerous laws and legislation have been passed that target minority groups, including transgender people, and punish people for their dissent. 

Lawyer, and Iowa City city council member Laura Bergus, along with V Fixmer-Oraiz, a Johnson County supervisor, both wrote on this direction that the Iowa government has been taken in an op-ed published in the Little Village magazine. There, they talked about Iowa’s Back the Blue Laws, and how they gave police officers more immunity, while limiting the power of protesters. The laws made it criminal to engage in common protest activities like blocking the street. 

These laws came into effect when seven protesters were charged at Chloe Cole’s speech in the Iowa Memorial Union in October of 2023. All seven identified as trans. This targeting of trans people both in the legislator and on the streets, along with the laws designed to quell dissent has shown the Iowa government’s more restrictive and authoritarian actions. 

In this interview, Laura Bergus elaborates on the authoritarian practices of the Iowa government. She points out the signs of authoritarianism in other places and correlates them to what is happening in the state. She also details the goals of recent legislation, why trans people are being targeted, and some steps to be taken to push back against this trend. 

The post Interview: Laura Bergus on Authoritarianism in Iowa appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The album is such a mess and surrounded by so much charged context it’s hard to even organize my thoughts for this review. As a long time follower and fan of West’s work I’ve bought into the story, the eras, the ego, all of it. All part of this grand narrative slowly taking the form of a 21st century tragedy. Now, this deceptive mask has been ripped off.

To an outsider perhaps the most significant and notable part of this project is the crass and unabashed bigotry on display, and yeah, there’s a lot of that. Like on the title track where he states “How can I be antisemitic? I just fucked a Jewish bitch,” and on the intro track “STARS” he says “Got Jews on the staff now.” However, the occasional offensive or conspiratorial line is drowned in a wave of sexual references and innuendos.

I’m well aware of how stereotyping and dismissing music, especially hip-hop, because of its sexual ethos is like the oldest, most tired, and most ignorant criticism in music history. However, this is relevant and stands out not just because of its quantity, but its incessant contradictions with Kanye’s previous statements and the album itself. Kanye’s last two albums, Donda and Jesus is King, were heavily self censored, and held back a lot of Kanye’s usual vulgar motifs and lyrics in favor of a more religious and spiritual tone. Before their breakup, he even said he thought Kim Kardashian, his wife at the time, was too sexualized to raise their children.

Image via Billboard

The song “TALKING” features both his and Ty Dolla $ign’s daughters and tackles common fatherhood fears of being a bad influence and watching your children grow up. Contrastingly, on “BACK TO ME”, the song immediately after, is the chorus “Big beautiful butt naked women just don’t fall out the sky ya know.” The song after titled “HOODRAT” features Kanye adlibbing and screaming “whore” multiple times while he continues delving into sexually explicit depictions. He even refers to his current wife, Bianca Censori, as a “bitch” and just a “reference” all while getting banned from entire cities for acts of indecent exposure, and slapping his wife’s nude photos on the album cover itself.  

Beyond just the sexual contrasts to his fatherhood ideals, there’s also a general lack of direction on this project. For someone who previously wholly threw himself into building immersive worlds and produced such strong thematic concepts in his art, this is a complete departure from anything interesting. Nearly every track on this album is either self-plagiarism or haphazardly produced. The song “PAID” is a blatant rip off of his previous house song “Fade”. “KEYS TO MY LIFE” samples his own single “Eazy”. The songs “STARS” and “PROBLEMATIC” are blatant attempts at recreating the progressions on “Ultralight Beam” and “Bound 2” respectively.

Kanye seemingly has no interesting or novel ideas in the tank, and is relying on non stop self references of his previous work, with butchered samples of classic songs and Tik Tok sound bites. What we got with this release is a hollow, vapid, empty, and cheap release with almost nothing to come back to, leaving me continually asking, “What was the point of this album?” I keep coming back to a moment on “BACK TO ME” where Kanye seems to ask himself the question I’ve wanted to ask him for a long time now, “Yeezy, how you doin?” He never answers it, as the only self-reflective moment on the album is interrupted by the chorus. 

Image via “TALKING” music video

I take a lot of factors into account when reviewing art, but perhaps the most important is, “Do I think the world is better with this in it?” I listened to this album the day it dropped with my girlfriend. While we were listening, the only moment I saw her perk up and smile was North West’s verse on “TALKING”. The music video features Kanye himself smiling at his daughter’s debut rap feature. Hundreds of comments on the video describe a similarly happy feeling they got from seeing her performance. So, I guess this album at least has one thing worthwhile to offer.

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