In person Career Planning has resumed in Muscatine, Clinton, Maquoketa, and Monticello. IowaWORKS team members provide employment resources for Iowans in in these communities. Services provided include resume and job search assistance, tuition scholarships, paid work experiences, and on-the-job training opportunities.  Our staff also serve businesses by providing unemployment expertise, serving as the primary point of contact for businesses, and posting jobs. The hours and locations for the team members providing these services are listed below. Muscatine   Mondays, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday... Read More

LATEST: Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed a bill that would allow employees to escape employer covid mandates, including vaccination mandates, and allow greater use of medical and religious exemptions for people to refuse covid restrictions. On Friday night, Reynolds signed the bill, which the Iowa House and Senate had passed Thursday. It makes it tougher for businesses to require employees to be vaccinated or submit to other covid protocols such as regular testing. The bill gives greater leeway for employees to claim medical and religious exemptions against covid employer mandates and guarantees... Read More

See you Saturday at Contrary Brewing Co. in MUSCATINE! Gilda’s Club Hops for Hope is pouring in on Saturday, October 23rd, 2021 from 3 to 6 p.m. Fall festivities are just around the corner – join us at Contrary Brewing Company in Muscatine for an afternoon of beer tastings (flights), live music, and a pink pumpkin contest! Event Details: $20 ticket per person per beer flight: 6 delicious beers to try Live music by Alex Fishbach, acoustic guitarist Silent Auction Pink Pumpkin Contest – A pink pumpkin decorating contest in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. Judges will select... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: New Iowa covid-19 numbers show a positive trend, but are still on “high alert,” with over 1,000 daily new cases for the eighth week in a row — a significant increase over summer’s 100 per day average. October numbers for Iowa are down 23 percent from September, with hospitalizations falling 10 percent over the past two weeks. The Iowa Department of Public Health reported Wednesday that 598 Iowans are currently hospitalized for COVID-19, with 150 patients in the UCU. Only 55 percent of all Iowans are vaccinated, which is driving the continued spread, as most... Read More

“The Right Side of the Highway”, photographs & drawings by Randy Tracy, will be on display from September 17 through October 2 at Sunrise Galleries located at 114 E 2nd Street in Downtown Muscatine.  A reception to meet the artists will be held Friday, September 17 from 5:30 to 8:00PM. Tracy’s interest and love for art helped him to find opportunities to work in the art world. Through Crossroads, Inc (crossroadsmuscatine.org), he works as a gallery assistant at Sunrise Galleries helping to prepare art shows, finish framing projects, and maintain the gallery’s online retail website. “... Read More

MUSCATINE, IA – “The Right Side of the Highway”, photographs & drawings by Randy Tracy, will be on display from September 17 through October 2 at Sunrise Galleries located at 114 E 2nd Street in Downtown Muscatine.  A reception to meet the artists will be held Friday, September 17 from 5:30 to 8:00PM. Tracy’s interest and love for art helped him to find opportunities to work in the art world. Through Crossroads, Inc (crossroadsmuscatine.org), he works as a gallery assistant at Sunrise Galleries helping to prepare art shows, finish framing projects, and maintain the gallery’s online... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has ripped into President Joe Biden’s new covid-19 mitigation plan, calling it “dangerous” and saying “enough is enough!” Biden’s new vaccine requirement was announced yesterday, requiring all government employees to be vaccinated and companies with 100 employees or more to require workers to get vaccinated or tested for the virus every week. Companies violating the policy could be hit with heavy fines. There’s no timetable yet on when the mandates will come into effect. “It’s about protecting yourself and... Read More

MUSCATINE, IA – The Friends of Fairport Fish Hatchery has been awarded $47,368 REAP-CEP grant from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to fund educational signage to preserve and interpret the rich history of the Fairport Fish Hatchery. A major objective of the signage project is to convey the important interdependent relationship between the Fairport Fish Hatchery, Mississippi River mussels, and the pearl button industry, which dominated Muscatine from the 1890s to the early 1930s.  The hatchery was originally established by Congress in 1908 as the Fairport Federal Biologic Station to... Read More

Will Iowa residents, schools and businesses be forced by the federal government to comply with mask mandates and other covid-19 restrictions? This is the big question as a battle royale shapes up between Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, the Biden administration’s Education Department, and the Iowa Supreme Court, headed up by a Republican judge who was appointed by Reynolds in 2018. This week, Iowa was nailed with a civil rights investigation by the Biden administration’s Education Department over Gov. Kim Reynolds’ move to ban mask mandates. The federal government investigation levels the charge... Read More

BREAKING NEWS (UPDATED): Iowa has been slammed with a civil rights investigation by the Biden administration’s Education Department over Gov. Kim Reynolds’ move to ban mask mandates. The federal government investigation levels the charge that Iowa, and Gov. Reynolds’ actions, “create an unsafe learning environment for students with disabilities who are at heightened risk of severe illness from covid-19.” Iowa is one of five states to get hit with the investigations, the other four being Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah. “We’re advocating for... Read More