Listen to a three-minute summary of Iowa’s top news stories of 2025 below, anchored by Radio Iowa’s Matt Kelley:
After repeated rejections, Cedar Rapids won a state license for a casino in February and immediately broke ground. Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell said calling the project a long shot is an understatement. “I have said from the very beginning this was ‘David versus Goliath’ and by God, the story ended the same way,” O’Donnell says. “Let’s hear it for David!” The $275-million Cedar Crossing Casino and Entertainment Center is due to open in December of 2026.
In September, the Des Moines school superintendent was arrested by federal immigration agents after a chase. ICE claimed Ian Roberts was born in Guyana, not the U-S, and large parts of his resume and backstory were fiction. School board chair Jackie Norris: “There is new information that has been made public that we did not know,” Norris said, “and we have not been able to verify.” Roberts is scheduled to go to trial in March on a list of federal charges…