Ed Thomas, a long-time Aplington-Parkersburg High School athletic director and football coach, was shot in the school's weight room this morning. He later died at Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo, IA. The school is in Parkersburg, about 80 miles northeast of Des Moines.

Interstate 80 is closed in Cedar County, Iowa, east of the Iowa City area, due to flooding from the Iowa River and Coralville Lake. The flooding that has devastated cities in eastern Iowa has travelled downstream and is now threatening Iowa City and Coralville, both of which have issued evacuations for low-lying areas. Flooding on the Cedar River earlier filled Waterloo, Cedar Falls, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with record-breaking water levels.

A tornado slammed a Boy Scout camp in the remote hills of western Iowa, killing at least four people and injuring 40, most of whom were on a hike when the twister struck.

We have had a lot of violent weather this summer. Tornadoes are usually a phenomenon of spring but not this year. Last night a tornado torn through a boy scout camp killing four.

Outdoor Advertising Industry to Provide 2008 Iowa Caucus results as they polls come out.

The website of the Democratic Party of USA has a very interesting information on what the republican candidates for the U.S. Presidency have said about Iowa Caucus. We present them below from www.democrats.org

Here is my best educated guess of how things will pan out at the end of the night in anticipation of Iowa Caucus Results. This is just order of finish, not percentages. On that end, I think we’ll see some pretty tight numbers between 3rd through 5th place on the Republican side and among the top three on the Democratic side.

The first votes in the Iowa caucuses will be counted on Thursday night. The caucuses, in which Democrats and Republicans get to choose their presidential candidates, are the traditional pre-elections leading up to the presidential elections in November. Both parties have large numbers of candidates eager to take over from President George W Bush. Voters in the state of Iowa are to give a first indication of who has the best chances of taking up residence in the White House.

The Bald Eagle Blog on the Des Moines Register, Monday, January 1, 2008, endorsed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for President.

Today's Republican presidential debate in Iowa will include perennial candidate Alan Keyes. This is the first time Alan Keyes has been invited to any debate.

Many have probably lost track of Chelsea Clinton, who is 27 years old now. Chelsea is hitting the trail today in Iowa... though with not nearly the glitz of the "Oprah-bama" tour.

Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) records show the Thanksgiving holiday rates near the top for crash-related fatalities. For the most current 10 years in Iowa, traffic deaths over the Thanksgiving weekend averaged five fatalities, with two of the five fatalities involving alcohol. Of the six holidays tracked by the Iowa DOT, Thanksgiving is the third deadliest for both total fatalities and fatalities involving alcohol.