After 171 years of statehood and 40 previous male chief executives, Iowa has it’s first female governor. Kim Reynolds took office yesterday as former Governor Terry Branstad leaves to take office as U.S. Ambassador to China. Dianne Bystrom is the director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women in Politics. Now that the state has a female governor and has a woman serving in Congress, Bystrom says it’s not unlikely we’ll see more women getting elected in the statehouse by way of a phenomenon

Anonymous sources have played a big role in the flurry of reporting and rapid-fire revelations surrounding the Trump administrations and investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and possible collusion with members of the Trump campaign. During this River to River conversation, host Ben Kieffer talks with Steve Berry, who is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and a Professor Emeritus at the University of Iowa, as well as Kathleen Richardson, who is Dean of the School of

This broadcast originally aired in June 2015. Humans have now had access to the sky for more than a century thanks to engineering and ingenuity, but the evolution of the human brain has not kept up with its creations.

On this news buzz edition of River to River , guest-host Ben Stanton talks with Iowa Public Radio reporter Sarah Boden about how transportation costs are creating an education funding disparity between rural and urban Iowa. Other interviews during the hour include: Des Moines Register reporter Grant Rodgers on a court case that could test Iowa's new "stand your ground" law; Iowa storm chaser Zach Sharpe on this week's severe weather; investigative reporter Bill Petroski of the Des Moines

In Iowa, the craft beer industry has been booming. New breweries have been opening everywhere from Clear Lake to Iowa City to Des Moines. J. Wilson is minister of beer at the Iowa Brewers Guild. He says the growth is a return to what the beer industry looked like before prohibition. “Slowly, you’ve seen home brewers transitioning into the professional realm,” says J. Wilson. “We produced about 41,000 barrels of beer in 2014. The five year projection was that we would more than triple that by

The Republican Senator Bob Corker says the Trump administration is “in a downward spiral” On this politics day edition of River to River , host Ben Kieffer is joined by political scientists Rachel Caufield of Drake University and Dave Andersen of Iowa State University. They give their analysis of a White House reportedly in chaos, discuss the reaction from Congressional Republicans and Democrats, and take calls from Trump supporters who see what’s going in the White House differently. They also

"Constitutional crisis" is a phrase heard a great deal in the news lately. On this edition of River to River , host Ben Kieffer talks with presidential historian Tim Walch about what constitutes a constitutional crisis. Walch also discusses several instances when the U.S. government threatened to break down - during the Civil War in the 1860s, the Great Depression in the 1930s and during the Watergate crisis in the 1970s. "When you're in the middle of a crisis, or you're in the real time of

When Matthew Rooda began working on a pig farm, he very quickly discovered one of the biggest problems facing pork producers was large sows rolling over and killing their piglets. This news buzz edition of River to River , we hear how Rooda's new invention keeps track of health data about pigs and prevents piglets from being crushed. Rooda is the C.E.O of SwineTech and is a University of Iowa student graduating this spring. Also in this program, host Ben Kieffer talks with Des Moines Register

In this special edition of River to River, host Ben Kieffer takes a tour of a new exhibit at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum that opens this weekend. Museum Director Tom Schwartz gives some insight into American Presidents as people. The museum has recreated the entrance to the White House so that visitors will enter a new exhibit on a red carpet into the “White House.” There are life-size color cutouts of four presidents: Washington, Lincoln, Hoover and Trump. The main

What is time? Why does it always seem to move forward? Why is the earth made of matter and not of anti-matter? Are there really just three dimensions? Are we alone in the Universe? How big is the Universe? The short answer is, "we have no idea," and that's the point of a new book by Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson. During this hour of River to River , host Ben Kieffer talks with Cham and Whiteson about their new book We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe. “There could be a 4 th