Des Moines Register

GOV. TERRY BRANSTAD: Just under half of Iowa's registered voters approve of the job Republican Terry Branstad is doing as governor, but by a single percentage point - 43 percent to 42 percent - say he doesn't deserve a sixth term in office, a new poll shows.

CATTLE KILLED: A severe storm that brought high winds earlier this week is being blamed for a barn collapse at Nora Springs that killed five head of cattle.

Valley alumni and supporters from across the country are backing the high school's fine arts community by purchasing seats in the soon-to-be constructed auditorium.

Just 50 minutes before Paige Cramer would walk across the stage at her own graduation, she thought back to how the seniors she knew as an underclassman at Johnston High School influenced her.

The Prairie Meadows Board of Directors on Wednesday approved an $18.5 million plan to upgrade and remodel the main gambling floor as part of the last phase of an overhaul that began with construction of a $32 million hotel.

A federal judge in Des Moines has ordered that a 3-year-old girl be sent back to Sweden within two weeks after he concluded that her Iowa-born mother has been unlawfully keeping the girl away from her father since August 2012.

Officials with the Iowa State Fair say it's time their signage along University Avenue measures up to the national reputation of the fair they represent.

The 12-year-old girl who was abducted along with Kathlynn Shepard this week told a local newspaper that the girls got in the kidnapper's pickup truck after he asked if they wanted to earn money mowing lawns.

The Iowa Senate approved a $1.7 billion health and human services funding bill Wednesday night intended to help some of the state's neediest people.

The Iowa Legislature on Wednesday approved its standing appropriations budget, a $2.99 billion spending bill that funds a huge chunk of K-12 education in the state and a grab bag of other programs, services and functions.