Mt. Pleasant News

Eicher Emmanuel Mennonite Church(Wayland)Christmas Eve Service ? Dec. 24 at 8 p.m. New London Presbyterian ChurchAdvent Services ? Every Sunday at 10:30 a.m.Christmas Eve Candlelight Communion Service ? Dec. 24 at 7 p.m. Olds United Church of ChristAdvent Services ? Every Sunday in December at 10:30 a.m.Christmas Eve Service ? Dec. 24 at 7 p.m.

IOWA CITY ? Nearly 20 years after first discussing the need for additional space, the congregation and staff at Iowa City's St. Andrew Presbyterian Church plan to be in their new home for the holidays.?We're definitely eager to be in the new building,? said the Rev. Kyle Otterbein, associate pastor at St. Andrew.St. Andrew's new home ? a nearly 60,000-square-foot building just off of Camp Cardinal Boulevard in ...

CEDAR RAPIDS ? While a number of Cedar Rapids schools have improved, the latest round of Iowa School Report Card ratings released Wednesday keeps most of the district's schools in the lower half of its six-tier system.The school accountability system, run by the Iowa Department of Education, relies primarily on statewide assessment test scores and classifies public schools ? from the highest to lowest categories ...

Sunrise Terrace Nursing and Rehabilitation Center has earned U. S. News and World Report's five star rating as a top performer in nursing homes across the county.After evaluating 15,000 nursing homes across the U.S., Sunrise Terrace is one of 68 care centers in Iowa that made the list.U.S. News evaluated nursing home performance over time, averaging monthly data over a year, with much emphasis placed on strong ...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google said on Wednesday it is opening an artificial intelligence (AI) research center in China to target the country's local talent, even as the U.S. search firm's products remain blocked in the country.Google said in a statement the research center is the first of its kind in Asia and will comprise a small team operating out of its existing office in Beijing.Chinese policy ...

(Reuters) The U.S. Department of Justice has caught one of the people involved in creating the Mirai botnet, a network of infected electronics equipment used to knock major websites offline in massive 2016 cyber attacks, according to court papers.Paras Jha has agreed to plead guilty to computer-crimes charges in the case, according to federal court documents unsealed in Alaska on Tuesday.The Mirai botnet was ...

BIRMINGHAM - Democrat Doug Jones won a bitter fight for a U.S. Senate seat in deeply conservative Alabama on Tuesday, dealing a political blow to President Donald Trump in a race defined by sexual misconduct accusations against Republican candidate Roy Moore.The stunning upset makes Jones the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama in a quarter-century and will trim the Republicans' already narrow ...

CARPINTERIA, Calif./LOS ANGELES ?Firefighters in Southern California are slowly gaining control of one of the largest wildfires in state history, but residents may not enjoy much relief as experts said the flames are laying the groundwork for the next disaster - mudslides.The intense fire is burning away vegetation that holds the soil in place and baking a waxy layer into the earth that prevents the water from ...

NEW YORK - Investigators are searching for reasons a Bangladeshi man set off a bomb strapped to his body in a New York City commuter hub during the morning rush hour in what is being characterized as an attempted terrorist attack.Three people, including a police officer, suffered minor injuries when the suspect, Akayed Ullah, 27, set off a homemade pipe bomb early on Monday in an underground passageway between ...

WILLIAMSBURG ? It's that time of year when folks come from all over Iowa County and beyond to see a live nativity scene, complete with Sandman the camel, Poncho the burro and a few other exotic animals, who may not have been in Bethlehem that night, but are in this farmer's scene.Dennis Oliver, of Bellevue Farms located south of Williamsburg, who raises quarter horses and sheep along with exotic animals, sets up ...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - An earthquake of magnitude 6.2 hit Kerman province in southeast Iran on Tuesday, state media reported, giving no initial details of possible casualties.The quake struck near the town of Hojdak, according to state TV. The U.S. geological survey recorded its magnitude as 6.1 and said it struck at a depth of 57 km (35 miles).Another quake, which Iranian state media reported at 6.0 and the USGS ...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese F-15 fighters on Tuesday held drills with U.S. B1-B bombers, F-35 stealth aircraft and F-18 multirole combat jets above the East China Sea, south of the Korean peninsula, Japan's Air Self Defence Force (ASDF) said.The exercise was the largest in a series aimed at pressuring North Korea following its ballistic missile tests. The latest launch, on Nov. 29, featured a new missile type the ...