Before you vote
Iowa
The year since Election Day 2025
GovBrief tagged 24 stories to Iowa since Election Day 2025. Here are 20 worth remembering, 10 of them from Iowa.
25days until Election Day, Nov. 3In Iowa
10 storiesAgriculture Department defunds 2 of 3 programs studying the foodborne parasite Cyclospora and moves the third to Iowa, where no scientist will follow, during a record outbreak, POLITICO reports.
30,000 cases, 922 hospitalized, 2 dead
Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer beat Trump's fraud suit over a 2024 poll, as an Iowa judge rules the First Amendment protects it.
Poll showed him losing the state
Ottumwa, Iowa, council opens with a Satanic Temple member's "Hail Satan" invocation under its open prayer policy, and a pastor rises to "reverse this curse."
Same speaker booked for Election Day
A federal judge in Iowa holds an ICE officer in contempt for "astonishing" defiance of a court order, as a second judge warns the agency against treating detainees as "bargaining chips."
ICE's own lawyers advised defying the order
The FTC and four states sue the leading transgender-health provider group, alleging it falsely marketed gender-affirming care for minors as medically necessary.
Major medical groups back gender-affirming care
Iowa Gov. Reynolds signs laws requiring in-person abortion pill prescriptions, parental consent for HPV vaccines, and shielding providers who deny care for religious or moral reasons.
HPV exception was sexual abuse safeguard
FTC forces ad firms Dentsu, Publicis, and WPP to settle, barring brand-safety standards conservatives say hurt Breitbart and Musk's X.
Settlements include DEI in protected criteria
Internal ICE documents reveal plans for a privately run detention network spanning Minnesota and four neighboring states, with capacity to transfer 1,000 detainees up to 400 miles.
Contract between $20 and $50 million
Federal judge keeps a jury's $425,000 award to a Black Ottumwa, Iowa, teacher whose district failed to discipline students who repeatedly called him the n-word.
Principal took no offense to slur
Health Secretary Kennedy uses a $9,000-an-hour Air Force jet to campaign with Iowa Republicans, after Trump ousted his first-term health secretary over private-jet travel, Washington Post reports.
Commercial flight to Des Moines: $250
Across the country
6 storiesTrump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial applies for national banking charter, months after Trump pardoned Binance founder whose exchange bought $2 billion in its stablecoin.
Family stablecoin worth $3.4 billion
Commerce Department imposes export controls on Anthropic's two newest AI models, forcing the company to shut them off for all users days after launch.
Verbal evidence of narrow jailbreak
DOJ creates $1.776 billion fund to pay anyone "weaponized" by past administrations as Trump drops his $10 billion IRS suit.
Drawn from federal Judgment Fund
Trump nominates Project 2025 workforce-section coauthor Dennis Kirk as Interior's inspector general, the office fielding five congressional requests including the Reflecting Pool review.
Watchdog seat vacant 18 months
ProPublica review finds immigration agents detained 506 US citizens since January 2025, including at least 70 children, as DHS denies arresting citizens by mistake.
About a dozen citizens deported
Documents show Homeland Security bought five planes for $304 million from then-Secretary Noem's donor on her last morning, including a $108 million luxury 737.
Gulfstreams marked up $11 million apiece
Fighting back
3 storiesIowa federal judge orders third bond hearing for truck driver held 10 weeks, says government wants to "whipsaw" him with retroactive mandatory detention rule.
Stopped at weigh station while asylum pending
Democrat Renee Hardman wins Iowa Senate special election with 71% of vote, blocking Republican supermajority and becoming first Black woman in chamber's history.
Third Democratic special election win
Iowa public defender fired for posting Bible verses about Charlie Kirk's death sues state for First Amendment violation after appeals board ordered her reinstatement.
Written overnight. In your inbox by morning.
610+ straight nights.
Not one missed.
One simple email every morning. 9,400+ stories since January 2025, every one linked to its source.
Free. Unsubscribe anytime.
