Iowa offers free tuition for 5 student season ticket owners
Mitchell Schmidt
Iowa City Press-Citizen
10:54 p.m. CDT July 29, 2014


A handful of University of Iowa students will be getting much more than a gameday experience at Kinnick Stadium when they purchase their fall football tickets. Five lucky Hawkeyes also will receive two semesters of free tuition.

UI has pledged free tuition to five randomly selected, current in-state students who purchase a six-game or seven-game season ticket by Friday. Winners will receive free tuition — valued at about $8,000 — for the fall 2014 and spring 2015 semesters.

The goal of the generous giveaway is to draw enthusiastic student fans to Kinnick, said Lisa Pearson, director of marketing for the UI Athletics Department, and is the result of sluggish season ticket sales this year.

“The fans in the stadium really feed off the energy from students, so we’d like to have a full student section,” Pearson said Tuesday. “We’re trying to get as many students into the stadium as possible.”

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http://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/education/university-of-iowa/2014/07/29/iowa-offers-free-tuition-student-season-ticket-owners/13348277/

University of Iowa Tuition Giveaway Gets OK
Any Student Now Eligible for Contest
By Vanessa Miller, The Gazette
Story Created: Aug 4, 2014 at 5:00 PM CDT
(Story Updated: Aug 4, 2014 at 6:11 PM CDT)


IOWA CITY, Iowa. -- A University of Iowa football season ticket promotion offering free tuition to five grand-prize winners has gotten approval to proceed after athletic department officials suspended it last week due to legal concerns.

The Johnson County Attorney’s Office and the State of Iowa’s Office of the Attorney General reviewed the program that will award five UI students $8,000 toward tuition and gave the go-ahead Monday — with one caveat.

Instead of the winners being chosen from those students who buy a seven-game or six-game season ticket package, students who choose not to buy a season ticket also can be entered into the contest by notifying the UI Athletics Department of their interest in being eligible for the drawing.

The original offer was suspended Wednesday after the state’s Department of Inspections and Appeals brought legal concerns about a purchase being required for the tuition giveaway. Officials were concerned the program qualified as a raffle, but didn’t follow state raffle regulations.

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http://www.kcrg.com/subject/news/university-of-iowa-tuition-giveaway-gets-ok-20140805#OVSjRC8HKysXBSCD.99

Arrest made after shots fired on pedestrian mall
Iowa City Press-Citizen
1:23 p.m. CDT July 27, 2014

One juvenile has been arrested and Iowa City Police are searching for another suspect after multiple shots were fired on the pedestrian mall early Sunday morning.

According to a media release from the Iowa City Police Department, at 1:36 a.m. officers on foot patrol heard the sound of gun shots on the pedestrian mall. Witnesses of the shooting described two suspects to the officers: The alleged shooters were described as two black males, one in a white t-shirt and the other wearing dark clothing. Witnesses told officers that the two suspects fled to the south of where the shots had been reported taking place, according to the release.

Police located a black juvenile two blocks to the south of the area of the shooting, according to the release. A loaded pistol was found in his possession and he admitted to firing multiple shots into the air while in the pedestrian mall. No injuries were reported from the incident.

According to the release, the juvenile suspect was charged with Reckless Use of a Firearm, a simple misdemeanor; Carrying Weapons, an aggravated misdemeanor; Going Armed with Intent, a Class D felony; and Intimidation with a Dangerous Weapon, a Class C Felony.

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http://www.press-citizen.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2014/07/27/multiple-shots-iowa-city-pedestrian-mall-juvenile/13237817/

Stop Giving Airtime to Crackpots
By Phil Plait

In very welcome news, BBC journalists have been told to stop inviting crackpots on news shows in the name of balance.

Oh, I do so love this. It’s precisely the right thing to do, sorely needed and sorely overdue. In this specific case, back in 2012 the BBC was criticized for news shows inviting on people with fringe views, especially when the science being discussed was solidly understood.

Obviously, the topic most abused in this way was the reality of global warming. That should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention at all.

But more broadly, most TV news shows do this, especially when they are done with a talk show format. It’s all too easy for a news program or other venue with a biased ideological objective (cough cough Fox News cough Wall Street Journal cough) to bring on people who sound authoritative, but who are in fact simply cranks or contrarians with outlandish claims. This sort of bias sows doubt, which is far easier to do than to debunk it.


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http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/07/07/crackpottery_bbc_journalists_told_to_stop_interviewing_science_deniers.html