Olivia Cohen

Chicago, Minneapolis

Environmental and Energy Reporter at The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, IA)

Environmental and Energy Reporter at Report For America

Environment and Energy reporter for @Report4America & @GazetteDotCom | Bad Tweeter | Fan of public records, philosophy & piping-hot coffee

Articles

Iowa AmeriCorps workers scramble to find stability after program cuts

4 days ago | thegazette.com | Olivia Cohen

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. When Candace Cropp hung up the phone after finding out her work with AmeriCorps ended prematurely, her 10-year-old son asked her what was wrong. “Mommy doesn’t have a job anymore,” Cropp told him. He wrapped his arms around her and told her he loves her.
New black bears found living in northeast Iowa

1 week ago | thegazette.com | Olivia Cohen

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. Although it is typical to see more black bears roaming in late spring as they head into their breeding season, new bears overwintered in Iowa this past season — bringing about three to four bears to the state.
Uncertainty looms as more cuts are made to AmeriCorps

1 week ago | thegazette.com | Olivia Cohen

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. Although she served as an AmeriCorps volunteer nearly 20 years ago, Jamie Nagel was devastated when she found out the service program was facing federal budget cuts and grant revocations. An Iowa native who now lives in Des Moines, Nagel said that she joined AmeriCorps right out of college.
Alliant Energy's Linn County solar field now operational

2 weeks ago | thegazette.com | Olivia Cohen

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. What Alliant Energy calls the largest solar field in Iowa is now operational in Linn County, and is getting a new name. Alliant, which owns and operates the field near Palo, announced the facility would be changing its name to Pleasant Creek Solar after being known as Duane Arnold Solar throughout the project’s development and construction.
What They’re Thinking: Nonprofits keep working to ensure clean energy tax credits remain in Iowa

3 weeks ago | thegazette.com | Olivia Cohen

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. Amber Markham has served as director of external affairs for the Nature Conservancy’s Des Moines office since 2018, but she’s worked in government relations for the last two decades.
MidAmerican seeks to add small charge to customers’ monthly natural gas bills

3 weeks ago | thegazette.com | Olivia Cohen

MidAmerican Energy The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. MidAmerican Energy has asked Iowa regulators to approve the addition a small charge to customers’ natural gas bills. If approved by the Iowa Utilities Commission, the charge — called a capital investment charge — would add about 17 cents to customers’ average monthly bills, increasing them by about 0.4 percent.
AmeriCorps volunteers sent home amid federal DOGE cuts, eliminating a ‘first line of defense’ in dis

4 weeks ago | thegazette.com | Olivia Cohen

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. Volunteers who respond to disasters and aid nonprofits through the federal AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps were informed Tuesday they have been let go from service, effective immediately. Volunteers were told they would exit the program early “due to programmatic circumstances beyond your control,” according to an email obtained and reported by the Associated Press.
Six new counties had positive cases of chronic wasting disease, DNR says

1 month ago | thegazette.com | Olivia Cohen

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. Six new Iowa counties have been added to the list of places where chronic wasting disease -- a neurological illness that affects deer, elk and moose -- is confirmed. First-time detections of chronic wasting disease were found in Shelby, Pottawattamie, Davis, Wapello, Cedar and Story counties during the 2024-25 surveillance season.
Farm crisis shapes Iowa producers who grew up in the 1980s

1 month ago | thegazette.com | Olivia Cohen

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. For about four years,Sean Dengler drove some 90 minutes each way from his home in Urbandale to his family’s farm in Tama to pursue his love of farming. He would help out on his multigenerational farm with his father and grandparents when he could.
U.S. butterfly population declined 22 percent in two decades

1 month ago | thegazette.com | Olivia Cohen

The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced. Nathan Brockman has been researching butterflies for years in Iowa. “Insects have the ability to bounce back. They're really resilient creatures for the most part,” said Brockman, Reiman Gardens’ director of entomology at Iowa State University.