Iowa
Potential kratom ban in Iowa City prompts fraudulent emails
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa City may ban the herbal substance kratom, and the potential ban has prompted suspicious emails to officials.
Kratom can produce opioid- and stimulant-like effects. It is also largely unregulated.
Lots of people are against the Iowa City ban, or at least it would seem that way if you didn’t look too closely.
Iowa City Mayor Bruce Teague said he got an email from a friend. It was against the ban of kratom. It had her name and her Iowa City address. The giveaway: she’d just called Teague and mentioned she was living in Des Moines.
“I forward her the email and a text and said, ‘Did you send this?’ She said, ‘Absolutely not,’” said Teague.
City officials said they received almost 100 of these emails.
According to Bobby Kuzma, Director of Offensive Cyber Operations for ProCircular in Coralville, sending emails that seem to be from real Iowa City citizens would actually be incredibly easy to do.
“At a guess, the names were probably pulled from a voter registration list so that they appear to be members of the community or from a property owner list,” said Kuzma.
He added, “It’s something that someone with basic computer skills could probably throw together in under 30 minutes with free software.”
Kuzma said, when it comes to hearing from constituents, elected officials needed to “trust but verify.”
He added, “It’s obviously important for our elected officials to pay attention to what’s going on with their constituents and what their constituents’ concerns are. But when there’s a sudden surge of feedback about a particular topic, diving in a little deeper absolutely makes sense.”
Luckily, that’s exactly what officials in Iowa City have been doing.
“There’s a lot of weird stuff happening with this,” said Teague.
TV9 did reach out to the City Clerk’s office in Iowa City to get a copy of the email to share with Kuzma, but we haven’t received it yet.
The meeting Tuesday was just a first consideration; the kratom ban ordinance will be back on the agenda at the council’s next meeting.
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HOUSTON — Freshman Keaton Wagler scored 25 points and Illinois ended Iowa’s underdog March Madness run by dominating in the frontcourt, beating the Hawkeyes 71-59 on Saturday to advance to the Final Four for the first time since 2005.
This will be the sixth trip to the Final Four for Illinois, which has never won a national title. The Fighting Illini will face either Duke or UConn next weekend in Indianapolis.
The much taller Illini (28-8) outrebounded Iowa 38-21 in the South Region final. David Mirkovic led the way with 12 rebounds.
Coach Brad Underwood’s emphasis on recruiting in Eastern Europe has paid off in this tournament. Tomislav Ivisic of Croatia, who stands 7-foot-1, and his 7-2 twin brother Zvonimir have shined in March.
Andrej Stojakovic, who was born in Greece but whose father is Serbian three-time NBA All-Star Peja Stojakovic, scored 17 points for third-seeded Illinois.
His famous father watched proudly as his son punched his ticket to the Final Four, and Wagler’s parents — who met when they played basketball at a junior college in Kansas — cheered wildly throughout for their son, who was named MVP of the region.
Bennett Stirtz scored 24 points for the ninth-seeded Hawkeyes (24-13), who knocked off top-seeded Florida in the second round as part of an impressive run under first-year coach Ben McCollum, a four-time Division II national champion at Northwest Missouri State.
No. 6 seed Tennessee (25-11) defeated No. 2 seed Iowa State (29-8), 76-62, on Friday in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 at United Center in Chicago, Illinois.
The Vols advanced to their third consecutive Elite Eight under 11th-year head coach Rick Barnes.
“One, very humbled by it,” Barnes said. “Certainly proud of our basketball team. They worked really hard. Defensively, I thought we knew we would have to have a great effort defensively. Certainly Iowa State, outstanding. T.J. (Otzelberger), outstanding program, coach.
“This time of year is always tough when you lose a key guy like they did, and that’s part of the tournament. That’s the tough part about it, but just really proud of our guys and the effort they made and against a team that they play as hard as any team we played all year. The start of the game, I don’t think we’ve seen anything like that all year, and we were able to withstand it. Again, just really proud of the effort from our entire team. Everybody had a hand in us winning this game.”
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CHICAGO − Tennessee basketball’s Men’s NCAA Tournament game against Iowa State will start a little later than planned.
The Sweet 16 game between the No. 6 Vols (24-11) and No. 2 Cyclones (29-7) will now tipoff at 10:25 p.m. ET at the United Center on TBS.
The game was originally scheduled for 10:10 p.m. before the 15-minute delay. There is also the standard 30-minute break in between tournament games. Tennessee and Iowa State won’t begin until 30 minutes after the end of No. 1 Michigan (33-3) and No. 4 Alabama (29-5).
Iowa State forward Joshua Jefferson status
Iowa State’s star forward Joshua Jefferson is questionable against Tennessee basketball according to the NCAA player availability report released at 6:32 p.m.
Jefferson sprained his ankle in the opening minutes of Iowa State’s first-round game against Tennessee State. He sat for the remainder of the game and missed the Cyclones’ win over Kentucky on March 22. Iowa State didn’t need the All-Big 12 forward as it generated 20 Wildcat turnovers in its 19-point victory.
Wynton Jackson covers high school sports for Knox News. Email: wynton.jackson@knoxnews.com
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