Top Story 1 - Business Record

Elbert: Taxes: The big picture
Elbert: The future of food
Elbert: Out with the old ...
Elbert: The 2020 economy
Elbert: LBJ, Bush and Biden
The Elbert Files: ISU Football
Opinion: A different future
The Elbert Files: Trust issues
The Elbert Files: Fearless Holly Elbert
Elbert: 100 years of wonder
The Elbert Files: ‘’Tis well,’ we hope
The Elbert Files: Counting votes

If you’ve paid attention – and it’s hard not to this year – you’ve heard the scenarios about how this presidential election could produce a result other than the one rendered by voters.
Elbert: Gateway architecture
Elbert: Economy and elections
COVID chaos
The Elbert Files: C.Y. Stephens magic
The Elbert Files: Kim in Wonderland
The Elbert Files: Roxanne
Marketing: Taking full advantage of email marketing
Elbert: A forgotten grand plan
Marketing: Where did your confidence go?
The Elbert Files: Iowa’s school problem
The Elbert Files: The riverfront a century ago
The Elbert Files: Lincoln’s presidents
The Elbert Files: Get real about COVID
The Elbert Files: Eyesores
The Elbert Files: Painful words
The Elbert Files: More Iowa distractions
The Elbert Files: A cloudy farm forecast
The Elbert Files: Racial scar left by freeway
The Elbert Files: Downtown 50 years ago
The Elbert Files: Where Iowa’s economy is
The Elbert Files: ‘Detour Iowa’ distractions
The Elbert Files: Iowa’s summer of fear
The Elbert Files: Franken and Hughes
The Elbert Files: Virtual Des Moines
The Elbert Files: A dark farm forecast
The Elbert Files: We need Hoover and Ike
The Elbert Files: The Hippee Building
The Elbert Files: Who will cover pandemic claims?
The Elbert Files: D.M. and Lindbergh
The Elbert Files: Economic tsunami
The Elbert Files: Shaping the future
The Elbert Files: Des Moines’ Coliseum
The Elbert Files: Save our soil
The Elbert Files: Iowa shares fell 4% to 22%
The Elbert Files: Bad debt vs. good debt
The Elbert Files: Feed vs. food
The Elbert Files: Final caucus thoughts
The Elbert Files: Iowa’s civil rights hero
The Elbert Files: Caucus conundrum
The Elbert Files: A move that never happened
The Elbert Files: A history of lunch in D.M.
The Elbert Files: Use and misuse of words
The Elbert Files: U.S. Grant in Des Moines
The Elbert Files: Impeachment and the Dow
The Elbert Files: Skywalk stories
The Elbert Files: Iowa needs hemp

From half a block away I could tell something was bothering my friend K.C. The closer he came, the more animated he got.
The Elbert Files: Farming and insurance

Farming and insurance are at opposite ends of the risk-taking spectrum, which makes it interesting that Iowa’s status as an insurance capital is rooted in the state’s agricultural heritage.
The Elbert Files: Impeachment twists

The House impeachment hearings a week ago contained several unexpected twists, including the fact that three key witnesses were first-generation immigrants.
The Elbert Files: Bryson's 'Body' book
Elbert Files: Ethics and technology

It’s easy to see unethical behavior in the past, Stanford University’s Martin Hellman will argue next week when he delivers the Robert Stewart Distinguished Lecture at Iowa State University. Slavery was wrong, as was denying voting rights to women and minorities, he noted in an email.
The Elbert Files: Springfield vs. Des Moines

I’ve spent a good part of my career covering Des Moines’ transformation from a down-in-the-mouth community in the early 1970s into a 21st-century model of urban design.
The Elbert Files: Ames, a Hobby Shop Town

Mike Templeton, owner of the Hobby Shop, the second-oldest business on Main Street in Ames, knows a lot about model airplanes, cars and trains.
The Elbert Files: How merger affects Iowa

The pending merger of Gannett and GateHouse Media could be both a boon and a curse for newspaper readers in Ames, Burlington, Boone, Perry, Nevada, Adel and Hamburg.
Elbert Files: Tales of three cities

Here’s a bit of trivia: The population of Iowa’s capital city is larger than the combined populations of the capitals of New York and Illinois.
The Elbert Files: Skeptical editing

The recent situation involving the Des Moines Register and its controversial profile of Carson King has me recalling lessons learned during my time as an editor at the publication during an ethics scandal that occurred 20 years ago.
The Elbert Files: Trump is no Jackson

I was walking toward the Des Moines Art Center on a surprisingly cool day when my friend K.C. joined me. He didn’t say anything at first, which was unusual. He appeared to be deep in thought, which was understandable given all that had happened in recent days.
The Elbert Files: New role for caucuses

Climate change has me reconsidering my long-standing opposition to Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses.
The Elbert Files: Exploring on two wheels

Central Iowa’s High Trestle Trail reminded me recently how enjoyable biking can be.
The Elbert Files: A wobbly stock market

The Dow: September is historically a volatile month for investors, but it’s hard to imagine it being worse than August this year.
The Elbert Files: East Village history

A nomination that recently placed a four-block commercial area in the East Village on the National Register of Historic Places contains many interesting nuggets.
The Elbert Files: Putting lipstick on a pig

Gov. Kim Reynolds has created an interesting distraction from Iowa’s dirty water problem.
The Elbert Files: Trump’s ‘memory hole’

I was standing on the Grand Avenue bridge surveying the site of the future federal courthouse when my friend K.C. joined me.
The Elbert Files: Carnegie and Mom

My mother was born the day after Andrew Carnegie died, not that they had much in common beyond the fact that both were born at home in sparse surroundings.
The Elbert Files: A Lustron home story
The Elbert Files: Iowa’s tax windfall
The Elbert Files: The MLK bypass story

The next time you’re south of downtown on Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, imagine what the area would look like if the road had been built as an elevated, six-lane expressway, like Interstate 235, instead of as a graceful boulevard.
The Elbert Files: Ike and the 1950s

“When people my age get nostalgic, the place we often go to is the 1950s.