SPM News

Yesterday on Siouxland Public Media you heard from Sioux City School Board Member Dan Greenwell. Greenwell attended a finance committee meeting this week where the school district outlined how it plans to spend COVID-19 CARES Act money. Greenwell expressed concern the district was spending a majority of the millions of dollars awarded toward virtual schooling. Today, we wanted to hear from the superintendent of the school district. Here is Dr. Paul Gausman.

The Iowa Department of Health recorded 43 more deaths due to complications of COVID-19, including two more in Woodbury County. The state also added more than 600 new cases. The number of hospitalizations at Sioux City’s two medical facilities has doubled in a day to a dozen patients. However, that number is less than 10% of the record high of 108 set back on December 1 st . Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds has announced the state will not move forward with plans to contract with Microsoft to build a

One member of the Sioux City Community School Board says he is concerned about how the school district wants to spend CARES Act Money. Dan Greenwell says there is too much emphasis put on virtual schooling. The Sioux City Community School District was awarded more than $20 million in federal emergency relief money due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On Monday, the district unveiled a draft budget to the district’s finance committee. Greenwell is part of that group . “$20 million is just the first

A second day of Arctic temperatures across Middle America have prompted rolling power outages Tuesday morning in Nebraska and a call for energy conservation in Iowa. Residents in Nebraska experiences some of the coldest weather they've seen early Tuesday, putting a strain on the power grid that saw the state's power utilities implementing rolling outages. Nebraska’s largest utilities — the Omaha and Nebraska Public Power Districts — said the planned power outages were over by midmorning and they

Siouxland is under a Wind Chill Warning until Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. The National Weather Service says expect dangerously cold wind chills of up to 40-below overnight. Last night’s weather set records across the region. Sioux City did as well, with a low temperature of -28. Nebraska also saw a number of low-temperature records broken and expected more to fall Tuesday — as a polar vortex pushed Arctic air into the Plains. Temperatures are expected to be below normal for almost a week. Frigid

This week on The Exchange we talk about what it is like to poor in America with the author of a new book called "Broke in America: Seeing, Understanding and Ending US Poverty." The authors Joanne Samuel Goldblum and Colleen Shaddux say the coronavirus pandemic has plunged millions more Americans to the brink of poverty, but the underlying causes of poverty have been ingrained in society, so that should be no surprise. I talked with co-auhtor Joanne Samuel Goldblum about poverty, its causes and

State officials will reduce next week’s share of Covid vaccine doses for a handful of Iowa counties that have lagged behind in getting the shots administered, according to Radio Iowa. Doses are being distributed, based on population. Iowa Department of Public Health acting director Kelly Garcia said the goal is for counties to get at least 80% of weekly doses out the door — and five counties are below that threshold. Garcia made her comments during a telephone town hall with AARP members. She

Siouxland Public Media provided extensive coverage of COVID-19 during 2020, including news stories, call-in shows, and special media projects. The station also lauched newscasts in five different langauges (Amharic, Oromo, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese) to keep more members of the community informed during the pandemic.

Today the state of Iowa is reporting another 22 COVID-19 deaths and an additional 841 confirmed cases, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health. At 10 a.m. today, the state was reporting 5,196 COVID-19-related deaths, according to the state's website . In Woodbury County, there have been 21 new cases added to the total case count in the last 24 hours and no further deaths. The 14-day positivity rate is 6.9%.

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