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Futures Files

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A Hot Mess for Commodities Canadian wildfires and smoke continue to affect commodities through Friday. The hot, dry conditions associated with the fires have hindered wheat, canola and barley crops in and around Canada and the US states experiencing smoke coverage. The timber industry faces commodity price uncertainty due to potential lost harvests, and oil field disruptions lead to reduced production and shipping. Supply chain disruptions add to fire woes. Climate change fueled disasters cost the US hundreds of billions annually. Heat Deletes Abundant Wheat Continued heat waves in ...

From the Mayor’s Desk: Alphabet soup

Columnists

RAGBRAI Unless you live under a rock, you should know that RAGBRAI is coming to town this coming Wednesday, doubling our population for one day. There will be some street closures so if you are working, leave a little early. The Marshalltown RAGBRAI group is still looking for volunteers. ...

Property tax relief: Putting Iowa homeowners first

Columnists

When your home state is repeatedly rated as one of the worst in the country for property tax burdens, something has to change. When you are consistently hearing from Iowans worried about property taxes year after year, something has to change. And when the same entities complaining about ...

ISU's Lake LaVerne: A Time Capsule of Emotions

Columnists

I see where Iowa State's Lake LaVerne has been drained and they are dredging it to make it deeper. (I don't know why they call it a lake. Being from rural Iowa, I would call it a pond.) In the process of dredging Lake Laverne they have found all kinds of odds-and-ends of stuff like it was a time capsule of Iowa State University. They found an old cannon, bicycles, a bowling ball and enough junk to fill a scrapyard. The cannon they surmise may have been used to celebrate touchdowns at nearby Clyde Williams' Field, and then stolen from Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity in the early seventies. The ...