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VINTON – In the ten months since a 100-mph wind storm blew through Benton County in the middle of the night, broken and snapped trees still fill Vinton. “We estimate that, maybe, 80% of our trees were damaged on July 11,” said Mayor John Watson. As this town of 5,000 rebuilt through the winter and [...]

MANCHESTER – Manchester police are confirming two people were found dead inside a home on the city’s north side on Sunday.  On Sunday evening, the Iowa Department of Public Safety classified the deaths as a “double murder”. Throughout the early hours of the investigation, Manchester Police Chief Bruce Trapp would not confirm any information more [...]

CEDAR FALLS – Quentin Hamilton packed up and left Cedar Falls around Independence Day in 2005.  He was fresh off his graduation at Cedar Falls High School and ready for the world, starting with the U.S. Marine Corps and basic training at Camp Pendleton in California. “You really, really realize what you miss when you [...]

WEST LIBERTY – For a school with about 80 seniors in the Class of 2012, West Liberty High School doesn’t fit the exact mold for the “best” of Iowa. “I heard the news yesterday and I was really excited about it,” said principal Jim Hamilton on Thursday. What makes West Liberty stick out – with [...]

WATERLOO – 31 years after the violent deaths of an older Waterloo couple, investigators say a California man walked into the station on Tuesday and said he did it. “(He) came into the police department and said he wanted to talk to somebody about the Huntbach Murder that happened back in 1981,” said Captain Tim [...]

IOWA CITY – For the past two weeks, Jordan Ramos has thrown herself into a place where her experience at a downtown Iowa City bar is now fodder for hundreds, perhaps thousands of online comments. “I’ve completely stopped reading the comments,” said Ramos, 21, a junior at the University of Iowa.  “I was starting to [...]

INDEPENDENCE – The late afternoon may be one of the few times the Independence Junior/Senior High School isn’t crowded during the school year. “We have the most students that we’ve had in ten or 15 years,” said Jen Sornson, who is in her third year as the principal there.  “We have over 600 students in [...]

CEDAR FALLS – If cinema is a means of escape for two hours, a documentary about bullying will, instead, pierce the emotions of people with the tragic reality of what happens when despair and intimidation go too far. “I think it’s really important that we move beyond the ‘kids will be kids and that’s part [...]

CEDAR RAPIDS – Dozens of small children played in the sidewalks and yards on Wednesday afternoon, under a relenting sun.  One of the first truly sticky days of the year. Yet, just an hour before, the 1400 block of 4th Avenue SE was cleared out amid a surge of what neighbors say were gunshots. Tracey [...]

WATERLOO – When drug investigators and law enforcement officers serve a search warrant, they strive to be ready for whatever they encounter on the other side of the door. “Drugs and guns — they seem to go together,” said Captain Tim Pillack of the Waterloo Police Department.  “That’s why we have the ‘VCAT’ unit”. Late [...]

  CEDAR RAPIDS – We really are the 1%. Not necessarily the economic 1% but Iowa’s six electoral votes account for 1.1% of the nation’s 538 electoral votes.  “It’s still important for (President) Obama’s electoral success map and the Electoral College that he still has to get to 270 electoral votes and six votes in [...]

WATERLOO – Phil Henderson was terrified, bleeding and helpless to save his dog, Phoenix. “Probably ten minutes,” Henderson said on Friday when asked how long a pitbull attacked his eleven-year-old dog while they were on a walk Wednesday night in his Waterloo neighborhood. If not for a Waterloo police officer happening to drive by during [...]

  MONTICELLO – Brian Meyer has spent most of his life around bowling.  He is trying to hang on a little longer. “$114,000.” Meyer said on Thursday when asked the dollar amount to keep the Legacy Lanes in Monticello from an upcoming sheriff’s sale. On Thursday night, amid the evening’s league bowlers, Meyer told his [...]

  CEDAR RAPIDS – Tammy Prohaska usually does not have to worry about her three youngest children as they walk home from school. Yet after an incident on Tuesday evening in her northeast Cedar Rapids neighborhood, Prohaska, a mother of five, is a bit shaken. “Three of my kids walk home together but, today, I’m [...]

WASHINGTON COUNTY – A rainy Saturday night may have saved several homes from becoming a victim to a massive home explosion along their street. The blast destroyed the home at 3070 192 nd Street in rural Ainsworth.  People reported flames shooting twenty five feet high, and the force of the explosion could be felt several miles [...]

  CEDAR RAPIDS – With the largest lottery jacket ever in the nation’s history, a steady stream of customers filled the grocery stores and gas stations of Eastern Iowa. So many of them out to snap up the $1 MegaMillions tickets.  Facing the long odds in 175 million to 1, the Friday drawing is expected [...]

DAVENPORT – Vice President Joe Biden is following the White House’s push to make manufacturing success a hallmark to build support in Iowa. “Manufacturing is back,” Biden said to a crowd of about 400 people at PCT Engineering on Davenport’s north side.  “It’s good news for America and even better news for America’s middle class, [...]

KCRG-TV 9′s Chris Earl has contributed to this report. BUCHANAN COUNTY (AP) — A 44-year-old radiologist followed his ex-girlfriend to her new boyfriend’s home in a small Iowa town before killing her and committing suicide in a burst of violence that left residents shaken, a prosecutor said Friday. Timothy Roses shot Lindsay Nichols, 22, in the [...]

  WATERLOO – Lindsay Nichols left Waterloo East High School nearly four years before but, for two hours, on Thursday night, her legacy lingered at the school where she excelled. “It just hit me now that she’s gone,” said Kelsey Summers, 21, a classmate at Waterloo East and longtime friend said Thursday at a vigil [...]

  DUNKERTON – For a full week, Jim Stanton has had a tough time sleeping. The superintendent of Dunkerton Community Schools has found his small school district on the receiving end of unwelcome headlines and news stories throughout the state and even beyond. “Nobody wanted that,” said Stanton on Thursday afternoon in his office.  “If [...]