Latest news with #IowaCentralCommunityCollege
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Health
- Miami Herald
College athlete — brother of NFL player — shot and paralyzed in MN, dad says
A college football player was shot outside a Minnesota home, paralyzing him and ending his football dreams, according to local authorities and the victim's father. Michael Blidi Jr., who earned a scholarship to continue his football career at Iowa Central Community College, was shot May 29 in Brooklyn Park, police said. 'According to the victim, he was standing on the sidewalk when a vehicle stopped, the suspect got out of the vehicle, fired a single shot, and struck him in the abdomen,' the Brooklyn Park Police Department said in a Facebook post. The accused gunman fled, police said, and no arrests have been announced as of June 4. 'Thursday night, our son fell victim to gun violence, sustaining a gunshot wound that has shattered our family,' the victim's father, Michael Blidi Sr., said in a Facebook post. 'His football career has been abruptly terminated.' A standout at Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania, according to Blidi Jr. was a member of the Stonehill College football team in Massachusetts during his freshman season. Set to transfer, Blidi Jr. has now been told he will not walk again, his father said in a GoFundMe. 'His dream was terminated by a gunshot wound to his spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the knee down,' according to Blidi Sr., who described his son as 'a loving child full of life.' Emilio Diaz, a former high school teammate of Blidi Jr., described him to PennLive as a 'genuine kid' who 'devoted himself to wanting to get better.' 'I'm glad to know he is alive right now and his medical team is doing everything they can to keep him alive and on this earth,' he told the publication. 'I'm a faithful young man. This is a horrible tragedy, but it can lead to a larger triumph because I know Mike, and if he can do everything that he can, there's no doubt God has something planned for him, and I know that he is capable of more.' Blidi Jr. is the brother of former Auburn University defensive tackle Philip Blidi, who signed as an undrafted free agent with the Tennessee Titans in April.
CBS News
2 days ago
- General
- CBS News
Football player paralyzed after he was shot outside Brooklyn Park home
Federal raid sparks clash between law enforcement, protesters in Minneapolis, and more headlines Federal raid sparks clash between law enforcement, protesters in Minneapolis, and more headlines Federal raid sparks clash between law enforcement, protesters in Minneapolis, and more headlines A Brooklyn Park football player's dreams were cut short last week when he was shot outside his family's home. According to a GoFundMe post, Michael Blidi Jr. is paralyzed from the knees down. He had recently received a full scholarship to play football at Iowa Central Community College, after spending his first year at Stonehill College in Massachusetts. Police say the shooting happened around 12:30 a.m. on the 6000 block of Garwood Road. He was standing outside on the sidewalk when a vehicle stopped. A suspect got out of the car, fired a single shot and hit Blidi in the abdomen. Police say the suspect fled the scene. According to CBS 21, Blidi graduated from Milton Hershey High School, a private school in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Brooklyn Park police say the shooting is under investigation.
USA Today
14-05-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Former Nebraska defensive lineman transfers to Western Illinois
Former Nebraska defensive lineman transfers to Western Illinois Former Nebraska football defensive lineman David Borchers transferred to Western Illinois on Monday. He made the announcement on social media. Borchers entered the program as a walk-on after initially signing with Iowa Central Community College. He made the transition to the defensive line in 2024 after redshirting in 2023. He did not appear in any games in the 2024 season. The defensive lineman officially entered the transfer portal on April 29. Borchers was originally a three-star prospect and was ranked among the top 20 players in the state of Iowa in his recruiting class, per 247Sports Rankings. He officially enrolled at Nebraska on July 1, 2023 Borchers measures six feet four inches and weighs 300 pounds. His size can certainly be an asset, allowing him to play either side of the football. On top of this, he still has the opportunity to remain close to home. Now he has a chance to make a name for himself at the FCS level. Contact/Follow us @CornhuskersWire on X (formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Nebraska news, notes, and opinions.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Triton Cheer makes state history with first All-Girls National Championship
FORT DODGE, Iowa — Triton Cheer of Iowa Central Community College made history after winning the All-Girls National Championship for the first time in the state of Iowa. 'Normally, I just see it on TV, I never thought that I would be in that position, so being in that position, I was like this doesn't even feel real,' said rookie flyer Ka'Maiya Hunt. 'I definitely went to sleep with my medal on.' While Triton Cheer is no stranger to medals and national titles, this is the first time it has won a national title in the All-Girl Division. 'That was one of my goals when I joined the all-girls team. I want to be the first all-girl team to win,' said third-year back spot and Fort Dodge native Laila Taylor. Every year, the Tritons have two co-ed teams, and occasionally there's an all-girl team. Head Cheerleading Coach Amanda Murphy said their last all-girls team was in 2023. That team ended their season as runners-up in the national championship, being edged out by the competition by just tenths of a point. As a junior college, athletes only have up to three years of eligibility. This year, many third-year athletes returned to fight for the national championship one last time. When Coach Murphy saw the strong female talent on her roster, she got permission from the college to make a third team this year. 'These are the moments you just want to stay in forever': Clark grateful for Carver return While managing three teams came with its challenges, the coaching staff said the all-girl team made it easier. 'When you think of a dream team to coach, that was this all-girl team. They showed up every day to practice, ready to practice, they called their own practices,' said Coach Murphy. However, it wasn't always easy. Three weeks before the NCA College Nationals in Daytona Beach, Florida, three Triton cheerleaders were involved in a head-on car accident while traveling to an all-star cheerleading competition in Omaha. All three athletes escaped with just minor injuries, but one of the athletes broke her arm and she was on the all-girl team. Coach Murphy said they had to rework their entire routine. 'Every great time has adversity that they have to overcome,' said the 19-year head coach. 'Nothing is ever given to you. You have to earn it.' And that's exactly what the Tritons did, rep after rep. When they arrived at Daytona for the two-day competition, the team called their own 8 a.m. practice, surprising even the coaches with their dedication to perfecting the routine. From setbacks to snapbacks, the squad hit their stunts when it mattered the most and beat their competition by over two points, which is almost unheard of in a sport that comes down to the tenths and hundredths of a point. '[Hearing our names called for first] was the best feeling in the world. Nothing can replace that feeling of just being able to see my teammates, see my coaches, everybody's just so proud of each other,' said third-year back spot Molly Tomash, who unexpectedly came back to cheer this season for the redemption arc. 'I cried,' said Taylor. 'It felt like relief. All the hard work paid off, like all the practices, the late nights, the arguments, the tears, the laughter, all of the memories paid off.' There's a tradition in cheerleading where winners at the NCA College Nationals in Daytona Beach, Florida, celebrate in the ocean. And that's exactly what the Tritons' all-girls team did alongside one of the Tritons' co-ed teams, which also won first place in their division. Experience the 'dark side of the bloom' when corpse flower named Stink Floyd blooms at Reiman Gardens Despite many of the athletes graduating this year and officially retiring from cheer, the rookies say this isn't the end for the all-girls team. 'It definitely puts a little pressure on next season just because now we have an expectation to live up to,' said Hunt. 'I just know that if I need anything or if the team needs anything, we can always go back to [the alumni] and they can help us out.' As for Triton Cheer, Coach Murphy said this win will help the program. 'Iowa Central has always been known, I feel like, as a co-ed program, so we're trying to make it known that we're not just a co-ed program. We have a very good all-girl team,' she said. Iowa news Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to
New York Times
05-05-2025
- Business
- New York Times
As Iowa Farmers Plant, They Consider Rain, Rates, Tariffs and Trump
It was time for Beau Hanson to lay down his bets. Like other farmers in western Iowa, in early April Mr. Hanson was preparing for spring planting. The decisions he made then could determine whether he would be in the red or the black come fall harvest. In farming, there are always uncertainties, and all around Monona County, where Mr. Hanson lives, farmers are weighing them. It has been a tough few years. A wet spring in 2024 meant some farmers had to replant three times. This year, it's too dry. The price of soybeans has been going down, while the cost of seed and fertilizer has remained high, as have the interest rates on the loans that farmers take out to buy those things. Rates have reached 9 percent, more than double what they were three years ago. And now, there is an extra variable: a trade war. The 145 percent tariff that President Trump imposed on Chinese imports in April was met with a retaliatory 125 percent tax on U.S. goods going into China. In practice, that means a hefty tax on Midwestern crops. China is the largest importer of U.S. soybeans, buying some $12.8 billion worth last year. The new tariffs, along with various taxes, bring the effective tariff for the crop to 155 percent, according to the American Soybean Association. Even before Mr. Trump set off the current tariff war, some farmers in Iowa were looking at the possibility of a third consecutive year of losses. Everything is slowing down. Lenders are becoming more cautious. Machinery and heavy equipment sellers feel the mood shift, too, as farmers eke out another year from aging tractors, planters and other big machinery, rather than buy new ones. 'Every year is uncertain,' Mr. Hanson said. 'But this year, it's especially tough.' Mr. Hanson grew up in Castana, Iowa, and played football at the local high school. After attending Iowa Central Community College, where he was an offensive lineman, Mr. Hanson, 35, returned home and bought the farm next to the house he grew up in. Unlike many of his peers who left farm life for jobs in bigger cities, he is trying to build his future on the fertile soil tilled by four generations of his family. He farms 700 acres with some combination of soy and corn, and he hedges his bets with 400 head of cattle. His three children, involved in 4-H, care for a few newborn British White Park calves in the barn. Like many rural Iowa communities, Monona County voted heavily for Mr. Trump, 72 percent, in the election. Mr. Hanson won't discuss his vote and notes that he sits on the county fair board and sells seed to customers all around the area. 'I don't want to be political,' Mr. Hanson said, kicking the dirt with his tan work boots and choosing his words carefully. 'But a trade war is not likely to help grain prices here.' An Echo of the 1980s Over five days in early April, I crisscrossed rural communities in western Iowa, talking to farmers. The roads were familiar to me. I grew up driving tractors and working the fields on my family's small corn and soybean farm in Blencoe, about 20 miles southwest of Mr. Hanson's house. In my teens in the 1980s, I poured coffee for farmers who sat at long tables at Helen's Cafe in Onawa. I eavesdropped as they compared rain amounts, crop yields and the size of the fish they caught. I knew we had a good year when Dad bought a new pickup. During a particularly bad year, my birthday present was a clock radio, purchased from the local farm supply store, most likely so my parents could claim it as a farm expense. The concerns that farmers voice these days are reminiscent of my teenage years. 'The '80s, the '80s, the '80s,' said Gary Jensen, who farms land in the Loess Hills, a rugged terrain that juts up abruptly from the Iowa plains. 'It comes up all the time.' The 1980s were a dark time for American farmers. A trade embargo against the Soviet Union led to plummeting grain prices just as the Federal Reserve boosted interest rates to as much as 20 percent in an effort to rein in inflation. Land prices plunged, decreasing the value of the collateral that farmers had used to obtain loans. By some estimates, 300,000 farmers defaulted on loans, resulting in the largest number of bank failures since the Great Depression. The Farm Crisis crushed many a small town. At 33, Mr. Jensen is too young to have experienced that time, but he has heard enough to know that things can go south fast, and he needs to be careful. When we met, he was preparing his red Case tractor for planting season. When I asked how old the tractor was, he laughed. It was manufactured in 1989, three years before he was born. He's not planning to replace it. 'There's not going to be any new equipment anytime soon,' he said. Farmers are tightening their belts, said Barry Benson, a senior vice president of agribusiness banking at FNBO, the First National Bank of Omaha. 'They're going to run the combine one more year or run the tractor another year,' he said. In the months before spring planting, Mr. Benson and other lenders typically meet with farmers to talk about the size of operating loans they will need for the coming season. Someone with a relatively small farm, around 400 acres, may take out a $250,000 loan to pay for seed, fertilizer and leasing the land, and repay the loan after harvest. But Mr. Benson estimated that a third of last year's loans couldn't be repaid and had to be restructured, which, for some farmers, meant taking out another loan. Others had to sell equipment or land. Dan Dotzler, the president and chief executive of the United Bank of Iowa in Ida Grove, said his bank had had 'some hard and long' conversations with farmers. 'We really try to work things out, do everything we can, because these are longstanding relationships,' he said. 'But we also recommend farmers look for ways to get additional income to supplement living costs. You've got to go to town and get a job to support yourself and your family. It's a different environment now than it was a few years ago.' Mr. Dotzler remains optimistic, believing that if farmers keep expenses down, they will, for the most part, be fine. But he is also worried about high interest rates, costly machinery repairs and the lack of a Farm Bill in Congress. And, of course, tariffs. 'There's so much unknown about what's going to happen with the tariffs and how it's going to affect everything,' Mr. Dotzler said. 'There is just a lot of wait and see on that front, which leads to anxiousness.' 'Exports, Exports, Exports' One way the farm economy recovered from the 1980s was through exports, particularly with an emerging market: China. China was booming and in need of soy and other feed for its own livestock industries. From a starting point of zero in the 1990s, China became a critical market for U.S. agricultural goods, hitting a peak in 2022, when it imported $36.4 billion worth of products, including soybeans, corn, sorghum, poultry and pork, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Export markets like China are essential because American farmers produce way more than U.S. customers can buy. The industrialized farms that cover the Midwestern landscape use modern planters that practically drive themselves using GPS technology and drop seeds at the perfect depth and width, all in a small fraction of the time it takes farmers using older equipment. In addition, the seed itself not only generates more crop per acre, but is better at protecting the young plants against pests and diseases. The result is ever-increasing yields. Corn, which is used in animal feed and ethanol production, has a larger domestic market, with exports accounting for about 15 percent of the harvest. Soybeans, however, are much more sensitive to trade wars. Roughly 40 percent of the soybean crop is exported. 'Exports, exports, exports — that's where the market is,' said Milo Ruffcorn, 66, a farmer from Mondamin, Iowa. 'We have to have someone to sell our corn and soybeans to.' Concerned that a drawn-out trade war between the United States and a major agricultural buyer like China could stifle soybean prices, Mr. Hanson and many other farmers are betting big on corn this year. Prices for both crops have fallen around 40 percent since May 2022. For farmers, eyeing prices at dismal, potentially money-losing levels, the math is simple: Go for yield. That means corn, which produces more per acre. Mr. Hanson decided to plant corn on 90 percent of his acres. This year, farmers are expected to plant 95 million acres of corn, the highest amount in five years, according to the U.S.D.A. On paper, Mr. Hanson calculates that after paying rent on his 700 acres, buying crop insurance, seed and various chemicals and paying back his operating loan, he can make a profit of $60,000, or about $85 an acre, on corn. With soybeans, his calculations come out to a loss. 'It doesn't make any sense to go into the field and plant a crop, expecting a loss,' Mr. Hanson said, shaking his head. The Trump Safety Net Karol King tucked into a pork tenderloin sandwich with a side of macaroni salad at Frannie's Cafe on Main Street in downtown Onawa. My father worked for Mr. King in the 1990s and 2000s, putting up irrigation systems. A lifelong Republican who voted for Mr. Trump, Mr. King, 78, gives the president high marks for his tough stance on tariffs, particularly against China, even if it causes some pain for farmers like himself. 'It's going to be tough, but they are weaker than we think,' he said, 'and we are their biggest customer.' But even if there is a standoff with China on trade and grain prices remain low, Mr. King and other farmers believe Mr. Trump will bail them out. 'For some reason, he likes farmers — and blue-collar workers,' Mr. King said. 'We're not going to be hung out to dry.' Mr. Trump has not discouraged that belief. In mid-April on his social media platform, Truth Social, he posted that American farmers were on the 'front line' of a trade war with China, adding, 'The USA will PROTECT OUR FARMERS!!!' During Mr. Trump's first term, he imposed tariffs on China that were met with Chinese retaliatory duties on soybeans, corn, wheat and other American products. The U.S. government provided an emergency rescue package of about $23 billion to farmers to ease the pain. President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Congress continued some of the subsidies, including a $10 billion payout last year to make up for low commodity prices. Mr. Hanson said the money he had received from the government helped him break even on some land and squeeze out a small profit on other fields. All of the farmers I chatted with in Iowa said they would like to sell their corn, soybeans and other commodities at a good price in the market. And almost all of them said they would take the taxpayer money if it was offered. 'I would prefer to have corn above $5 a bushel and $11 beans,' Mr. Hanson said. 'Without that, we'll need a safety net to protect family farms like mine.' Still, Mr. Hanson isn't betting on a handout. 'Are we going to get a government payment to help us out this year?' Mr. Hanson shrugged. Another uncertainty.
