IOWA (IRN) – Iowa students and teachers will not return to their classrooms this spring. Governor Kim Reynolds announced Friday that schools will remain closed the rest of the school year due to COVID-19. Schools will be required to continue offering online programs. There will be no spring sports seasons. They will further assess the situation on summer sports as things progress. Reynolds said Iowa’s COVID-19 cases have not yet peaked. Reynolds also waived the August start date for schools so districts can make local decisions.

IOWA CITY, IA (IRN) – More than 60 employees at the University of Iowa Health Care campus in Iowa City have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Gazette. Of the 64 employees infected to date, four tested positive Thursday.

TIFFIN, IA (IRN) – Authorities have obtained search warrants as they investigate the suspicious death of a 15-year-old boy whose body was found over the weekend in a lake near Iowa City. The Gazette reports that the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office is not commenting on what led authorities to look in Coralville Lake for Noah Herring, who was last seen in nearby Tiffin on April 7.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – The Iowa Department of Public Health released new COVID-19 statistics today. There have been four deaths and 191 new cases in Iowa. The increase in positive cases is the largest single-day increase yet. That brings the total to 2,332 confirmed cases, and 64 deaths.

DES MOINES, IA (IRN) – Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds refused to say Thursday whether she was asked to join with other Midwest governors in coordinating the reopening of their state economies. The governors of seven Midwestern states announced they had agreed to work together to restart their economies amid the coronavirus pandemic, following similar pacts in the Northeast and West Coast. The Midwest agreement includes Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Kentucky. Five of the governors are Democrats and two are Republicans.

WATERLOO, IA (IRN) – Tyson Foods in Waterloo is a new hotspot for COVID-19 cases. KGAN-TV reports city and county leaders in Black Hawk County are frustrated. Sheriff Tony Thompson, who is also the Black Hawk County Emergency Management Director, says leaders took their own tour of the plant in recent days, and claims not enough was being done to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

IOWA (IRN) – U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst will release a memoir, titled “Daughter of the Heartland: My Ode to the Country that Raised Me,” on May 26. The Des Moines Register reports Simon and Schuster, the publisher, bills the book as a “candid, down-to-earth memoir” that recounts Ernst’s life from farm girl to her time in Kuwait as an officer in the Iowa Army National Guard to serving as Iowa’s first female U.S. senator.