The Republicans running things announced last week that they are locating a $15 billion steel mill in Southeast Iowa, near Keokuk and Fort Madison in hard-pressed Lee County. Knowing next to nothing ...

Divided government would strike a blow for moderation

Iowa is setting up for a course correction one month out from the November midterm elections. The Republicans’ 10-year grip over the state’s politics is slipping. Iowa is aiming to elect a …

Sand, Jones offer a measure of relief

It’s so noisy out a fella can scarcely hear himself think. You may seek refuge in the back yard listening for the songbird, but the hedge trimmer has a job to do. The dog barks at the hedge …

Iowa’s midterm elections remind us that all politics is local as clean water and cancer emerge as prevailing issues, unique from other battleground states. Sure, stupid, it’s the economy. …

Ready or not, here it comes: They’re automating the packinghouse. Marble Technologies of Lincoln, Neb., uses artificial intelligence to eliminate human labor (and error) in packaging for …

Two guys roam Scheels in West Des Moines, a bromance in the brew. Zach confides to Bobby that he likes Mepps spinners. Chartreuse. Bobby goes uh huh. So cool. Just two guys, doing what …

Dad wore polished black wing tips and a blue suit 24/7. He went to the Elks Lodge every day and to Mass every Sunday. He did not spit on the sidewalk. He helped to defeat Hitler, Mussolini and …

Josh Turek

An elderly man from Alta died after a vehicle hit him while he was walking in the Walmart parking lot. The driver was Latino. No charges had been filed; the incident was under investigation. …

Rob Sand in Storm Lake.

Iowa’s pork consolidation started in earnest about 50 years ago when swine started to move indoors. In 1976, Iowa had an estimated 60,000 hog farms producing 15 million head. Today, according to …

Imagine 1,500 foreigners showing up in rural Iowa who can’t speak English, are pacifists, refuse to take loyalty oaths, live communally with no pay, and shun social convention. Arrest them! …

President Trump and the ayatollahs blew up any hopes of taming inflation with renewed bombing of Iran and the Persian Gulf, just as fuel prices were softening. Gas jumped and stocks slumped when …

Chris Jones and his boss at the water works used to ask as they gathered daily to discuss the roiling river’s polluted water: “Where’s the outrage?” Iowans are freaking out over our …

“I am apt to believe that [Independence Day] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts …

Two million Knicks fans reveled in lower Manhattan for a ticker-tape parade last Thursday morning as I skedaddled to LaGuardia for country roads to take me home. What an awful place, huh? Worse …

Calls from left and right are building to break up Big Ag as beef prices rise, food plants close and workers are locked out from the slaughterhouse. Republican Zach Lahn separated himself in the …

Chris Jones fancied himself trolling for walleyes in the backwaters of the Upper Mississippi River near Lansing in his retirement. Instead, the 65-year-old found himself disembarking at …

Rob Sand called on Memorial Day as he drove home from a family weekend at Okoboji to catch up, he said, after having read my column about politicians swimming in money. Halfway through, he says …

Rob Sand has $18 million cash on hand in his run for Iowa governor, but here is the crazy part: He’s a Democrat, and it is only May. Think what the Republicans can do with real money by …

April showers bring May flowers, but not enough to fill Storm Lake’s cup. Already the city is asking residents to conserve water with a dry spring, high demand and a system that has not kept pace. …

Republicans yammer on the TV that you wouldn’t want to see Iowa become Minnesota, Illinois or California. You wouldn’t want 10,000 lakes getting in the way of corn or tech bros buying up all …

For the third year in a row, Iowa has the second-highest rate of new cancers in the country, according to the annual report from the Iowa Cancer Register (ICR) published in March. It’s also one of onl...

Gov. Kim Reynolds can put up her pointy-toe cowboy boots and reflect on 10 years of solid damage done under the golden dome. She might not be remembered as the worst. The Iowa History Journal …

Every morning a new horror hatches such that you forget the day before, or the year before, with its daily minor cataclysms. Trump is on the computer holding a machine gun warning Iran that they …

Abby Elsbernd from the Quad Cities was glad to learn that the revered and recently retired football coach at Northern Iowa, Mark Farley, is known as the “walk-on from Waukon.” The Grinnell …

Ashley Hinson and Randy Feenstra might regret hitching their wagons to Donald Trump’s star. It could turn out to be the Hindenburg. Rep. Hinson says she is honored to fight beside Trump …

President Trump took over the TV to tell the world that he intends to bomb Iran back into the Stone Age. God Bless America. And YABADABADOO! I had been thinking that I might be losing my …

Art Cullen is the editor and co-owner with his brother John of the Storm Lake Times Pilot, a weekly newspaper in that Northwest Iowa county seat – a town of about 12,000. He has a lot to say to and ab...

Your typical dude avoids doctors and their probes because they would just find something wrong with him. Who needs that? Been there myself, for sure. Sometimes you’re forced to go and a blood …

Talking with the legendary Art Cullen about his new book.

Storm Lake is a portal for refugees in pursuit of happiness, whatever that may be. Lao. Sudanese. Karin. It ain’t easy trying to be free. That’s an immediate impression after a sneak …

Penpal David Yepsen senses a shift heading into the midterm elections: Rural folks are honked off and voting for change. The retired political columnist for The Des Moines Register and former …

Fog set thick outside while serotonin ran thin inside on this early March morning of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in Iowa. If I had the gumption I would go jump in the lake. It only gets worse …

Belle Plaine farmer Zach Lahn caught the nation’s attention last week talking up conservation agriculture with none other than Tucker Carlson, who was too far over the line for Fox News and is an …

Leading legislators bent on hobbling Iowa’s community newspapers so they can keep the public in the dark are lurching forward. A bill to eliminate public notices from newspapers cleared the Senate …

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Art Cullen says agricultural issues like water pollution and cancer risk could sway the midterm elections.

That damn socialist mayor out in New York threatened to hike property taxes by 9.5% unless he can ram through a wealth tax. Wait a New York minute: Property taxes on our humble metal shed along …

That damn socialist mayor out in New York threatened to hike property taxes by 9.5% unless he can ram through a wealth tax.

“The Rock Island Independents had a mighty fine line,” the Republican senators sang at the bar. “I may be right and I may be wrong but you're gonna miss me when I'm gone.” So they pushed …

By Mike Hlas IOWA CITY, Iowa – So now we’ll see how Iowa men’s basketball draws for an 8 p.m. game this coming Tuesday. The guess here isn’t really a guess at all. It won’t be standing room only when ...

Kim Reynolds has occupied the spot as the most unpopular governor in America nearly as long as Terry Branstad wore a mustache in Terrace Hill. She ran up a whale of a deficit and is skedaddling after ...

As usual, Iowa’s Republicans cut the heart out of Iowa’s public schools.  3 minutes:     Former President Biden famously said:  “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget and I will tell yo…

The Sac News shared on Facebook my column from last week lamenting our loss of freedom, which generated a lot of insight in the comments, like “Art Cullen sits down when he pees.” That …