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DRUGS IN JAILS: The chief state medical examiner says methamphetamine killed a Mitchell County jail inmate.

BOONE WOMAN'S SHELTER FIRE: Officials are not identifying the woman yet but said she was an adult. No one else was home at the time, authorities said. Officials are still investigating the cause of the fire and why the victim was unable to escape.

See how homeowners, small business owners, landlords, local governments, taxing entities and pretty much everyone else will be affected by the Iowa Legislature's wide-ranging tax reform.

IOWA LEGISLATURE: Iowa House and Senate negotiators have reached a deal on a sweeping tax relief plan that helps business property owners, limits residential and agricultural property tax hikes, lets workers keep a bit more of their earnings, and assists low-income wage earners.

• Video reactions: Gov. Terry Branstad | Sen. Michael Gronstal

MEDICAID EXPANSION PROPOSAL: Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad isn't alone in scorning the Obama administration's prescription for government health coverage for those who can't afford private insurance, and he's not alone in seeking another way to cover some of them.

A young man on the cusp of being a father was fatally shot in the head last month in a Des Moines apartment, allegedly by a teenage girl in a mask who initially had gone to his door looking for marijuana, papers filed in Polk County District Court show.

Will voters care enough about how Medicaid expansion turned out in their state to take it out on politicians at the ballot box?

Governors or lawmakers in these states have rejected the full Medicaid expansion prescribed by the Affordable Care Act, but are looking at accepting federal money to pay to cover uninsured people in alternative ways.

Lawmakers on Thursday approved a $40.7 million budget for the departments of agriculture and natural resources, a $5.4million increase over current year funding.

West Des Moines police launched an investigation and called social workers after a woman found an unattended 2-year-old wandering outside her apartment, officials said.

President Ben Allen is retiring from the University of Northern Iowa this month to wide acclaim for his fundraising prowess and solidifying a signature teacher education program.

Several firefighters fell through the floor and at least one was injured while extinguishing a blaze that gutted a building north of downtown Des Moines on Thursday.

Dozens of students, parents and staff from a Dubuque high school are unsure what to do after a Cedar Rapids travel agency closed without making arrangements for a planned trip to New York despite about $30,000 in advance payments.

Police cars, firetrucks and a mobile command center lined the street behind the main Des Moines post office Thursday morning. At 9 a.m., an alarm rang.

An Iowa City cosmetology school failed to keep equipment clean, didn't provide proper oversight of students and didn't post a public notice telling customers that the people cutting their hair or polishing their nails were students, state regulators say.

Iowa is one of 26 states to receive a failing grade for its disclosure requirements on independent political campaign spending, according to a national watchdog group.

An Urbandale eighth-grader said Thursday he doesn't want the racist act that happened to him in school last week to ever happen to anyone again.

Several Southeast Polk parents told the school board Thursday that they would consider moving their children if a $35 million warehouse complex is built near the district's Pleasant Hill campus.

Several Southeast Polk parents told the school board Thursday that they would consider moving their children if a $35 million warehouse complex is built near the district's Pleasant Hill campus.

Several Southeast Polk parents told the school board Thursday that they would consider moving their children if a $35 million warehouse complex is built near the district's Pleasant Hill campus.