English Bulldog Puppies for Sale in Cedar Rapids, IA

Wartburg University claimed the 2026 NCAA Division III Wrestling Championship tournament, leading all teams with a score of 110 points. The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse finished as the runner-up, scoring 68 points.

The 2026 DIII wrestling championships began March 13 and ran through March 14 at Alliant Energy Power House in Cedar Rapids, IA. The championship qualifiers were announced on Monday, March 2, and brackets were released Wednesday, March 11 on NCAA.com.

Below you can find the complete schedule of the 2026 DIII wrestling championship.

The official 2026 DIII wrestling brackets were released Wednesday, March 11. Click here to see every bracket weight-by-weight.

*All times Eastern

Johnson & Wales tied with Wartburg College for the 2025 title. Wartburg now has 16 national championships, making it the winningest team in DIII wrestling history. Below is the complete history of the DIII wrestling championship.

PALO, Iowa—There are two restaurants in Palo, not counting the chicken wings and pizza sold at the only gas station in town.

All three establishments, including the gas station, stand on the same half-mile stretch of First Street, an artery that divides the marshy floodplain of the Cedar River to the east from hundreds of acres of cornfields on the west.

During historic flooding in 2008, the Cedar River surged 10 feet above its previous record, cresting at 31 feet and wiping out homes and businesses well outside the floodplain.

Nearly 20 years later, those structures have been rebuilt, but Palo residents still worry about the river. Except these days, they worry that data centers will drink it dry.

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In an effort to shield residents and natural resources from the negative impacts of hyperscale data center development in rural Linn County, officials have adopted what may be one of the most comprehensive local data center zoning ordinances in the nation.

The new ordinance requires data center developers to conduct a comprehensive water study as part of their zoning application and to enter into a water-use agreement with the county before construction. It also places limits on noise and light pollution, introduces mandatory setbacks of 1,000 feet from residentially zoned property, and requires developers to compensate the county for damage to roads or infrastructure during construction and to contribute to a community betterment fund.

“We are trying to put together the most protective, transparent ordinance possible,” Kirsten Running-Marquardt, chair of the Linn County Board of Supervisors, told the nearly 100 residents who gathered for the draft ordinance’s first public reading in early February.

But seated beneath a van-sized American flag hanging from the rafters of the drafty Palo Community Center gymnasium, residents asked for even stronger protections.

One by one, they approached the microphone at the front of the gym to voice concerns about water use, electricity rates, light pollution, the impacts of low-frequency noise on livestock, and the county’s ability to enforce the terms of the ordinance. Some, including Dorothy Landt of Palo, called for a complete moratorium on new data center development.

“Why has Linn County, Iowa, become a dumping ground for soon-to-be obsolete technology that spoils our landscape and robs us of our resources?” Landt asked. “While I admire the efforts of the Board of Supervisors to propose a data center ordinance, I would prefer to see all future data centers banned from Linn County.”

The county is already home to two major data center projects, operated by Google and QTS. Both are located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa’s second-largest city, and are therefore subject to its laws. The new ordinance would apply only to unincorporated areas of the county, which make up more than two-thirds of its geographic footprint.

In October 2025, Google informed the Linn County Board of Supervisors of early plans to construct a six-building campus in Palo, part of unincorporated Linn County, alongside the soon-to-reopen Duane Arnold Energy Center, Iowa’s sole nuclear power plant. Later that month, Google signed a 25-year power purchase agreement with the plant, committing to buy the bulk of the electricity it generates.

Google has not yet submitted a formal application to the county for the second campus, but its announcement last year, as well as interest from another, unnamed, hyperscale data company, prompted Linn County officials to begin work on an ordinance setting the terms for any new development, said Charlie Nichols, director of planning and development for Linn County.

“I just don’t want to be misled by anything. … I want to know as much as possible before we go ahead with this,” Sue Biederman of Cedar Rapids told supervisors at the public meeting in February.

In drafting the ordinance, Nichols and his staff drew on the experiences of communities nationwide, meeting with local government officials in regions that have seen massive booms in data center development, including several counties in northern Virginia, the “data center capital of the world.”

As data center development balloons, many communities that initially zoned the operations as warehouses or standard commercial users are abandoning that practice, Nichols noted.

The extreme energy and water demands of data centers simply cannot be accounted for by existing zoning frameworks, he said. “These are generational uses with generational infrastructure impacts, and treating them as a normal warehouse or normal commercial user is just not working.”

Loudoun County, Virginia, for example, is home to 198 data centers, nearly all of which were built before the county required conditional or “special exception” use designations for data centers. At the urging of hyperscale-weary residents, the county is now in the second phase of a plan to establish data-center-specific zoning standards.

Similar reassessments are taking place across the country, Chris Jordan, program manager for AI and innovation at the National League of Cities, wrote in an email to Inside Climate News. “We’re seeing tighter zoning standards, more required impact studies, and in some cases temporary moratoria while communities assess infrastructure capacity,” Jordan wrote.

The Linn County, Iowa, ordinance goes one step further than tightening existing zoning rules. Instead, it creates a new, exclusive-use zoning district for data centers, granting county officials the power to set specific application requirements and development standards for projects.

No other counties in the state have introduced similar zoning requirements, said Nichols. In fact, few jurisdictions nationwide have.

“Linn County’s approach is more comprehensive than many local zoning updates we’ve seen,” Jordan wrote. The creation of a data center-specific district, especially one that requires formal water-use agreements and economic development agreements, goes further than typical zoning amendments for data centers, Jordan said.

Despite the layers of protection baked into the new ordinance, Linn County still has limited ability to protect local water resources. Without a municipal water utility, permitting in rural Iowa communities falls to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), explained Nichols. Similarly, electric rates fall under the jurisdiction of the state utilities commission and cannot be regulated by the county.

Data centers may tap rivers or drill deep wells into shared aquifers, so long as that use complies with the terms of their water-use permit from the Iowa DNR. That leaves the Cedar River and public and private wells, which provide drinking water to much of Linn County, vulnerable.

Residents fear a new, large water user will dry up their wells, as occurred near a Meta data center in Mansfield, Georgia.

“We know that we can have multi-year droughts. The question is, are we depleting that river and the water table faster than it’s running?” Leland Freie, a Linn County resident, told supervisors at the first public meeting on the ordinance.

Without superseding state authority, the Linn County ordinance attempts to claw back a bit more local control, Nichols explained.

As part of their zoning application, data centers would submit a study “prepared by a qualified professional” assessing the capacity of proposed water sources, anticipating demands and cooling technologies, and developing contingency plans in case the water supply is interrupted.

Requiring a water study ensures, at a minimum, a baseline understanding of local water resources and dynamics near proposed data centers. That’s something the state of Iowa generally lacks, said Cara Matteson, a former geologist and the sustainability director for Linn County.

DNR staff told Matteson that water data gathered in Linn County by qualified researchers on behalf of a data center applicant would be incorporated in state-level permitting and enforcement decisions.

The department confirmed in an email to Inside Climate News that it would use the additional local water data.

If a data center’s application is approved, developers would then enter into an agreement with Linn County, outlining terms for water-use monitoring and reporting to both the county and the DNR. The agreement could also include contingency plans for droughts.

Still, the county has limited ability to act on the water monitoring data it’s seeking. The DNR doesn’t just issue water-use permits; it also issues penalties for permit violations.

Linn County’s zoning rule underwent several modifications in response to questions raised by attendees at the first two public readings, Nichols said.

From its first reading to final adoption, the ordinance has expanded to include language setting light pollution standards, requiring a waste management plan, including the Iowa DNR in the water-use agreement to address potential well interference issues and requiring an applicant-led public meeting before any zoning commission meetings.

“I am very confident that no ordinance for data centers in Iowa is asking for more information or asking for more requirements to be met than our ordinance right now,” said Nichols at the final reading.

The Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance has said that it strongly supports current and future data center development in the area. The new ordinance is not an effective moratorium, Nichols said. He said he “strongly believes” that a data center can be built within the adopted framework.

Google spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.

New rules may prompt data centers to develop elsewhere, acknowledged Brandy Meisheid, a supervisor whose district includes many of Linn County’s smaller communities. But the ordinance sets out to protect residents, not developers, Meisheid said. “If it’s too high a price for them to pay, they don’t have to come.”

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Iowa may be known for its agriculture and farmland, but don't ignore the charming small towns and historic communities around the Hawkeye State. If that's what you're looking for, head to eastern Iowa, where the quintessentially Midwest town of Clinton is tucked along the mighty Mississippi River and the state border with Illinois. This small city has a population of just over 24,000 and is an excellent spot for nature, history, and shopping.

Clinton is located between Chicago, rated the "world's most beautiful city" in 2025, and Cedar Rapids — about 2.5 hours from Chicago and 1.5 hours from Cedar Rapids. The city is on the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway, a national scenic byway which connects a number of historic sites across Iowa and beyond to cover 14 states on a transcontinental journey. Clinton's location on the Mississippi River means you'll find plenty of impressive scenery here, particularly as Clinton is home to the widest part of the Mississippi River.

Things to do in Clinton, Iowa

Eagle Point Park, first established in 1888, is a must-visit in Clinton for scenic views. Besides the one-room schoolhouse, the 1930s stone castle, and the waterfall, the observation point from the north end of the park has a spectacular view of the Mississippi River. For an alternate view of the same area, head to Lock & Dam 13. Travel Iowa notes you might see bald eagles here in the winter months. If you'd prefer your river views with food or drink, stop by Clinton Marina and the Candlelight Inn Restaurant. Enjoy one-of-a-kind Chicken George Tenders, a special chicken recipe, from a table on the verandah, with panoramas of the Mississippi. Wide River Winery, a 15-acre vineyard that's family-owned, also has superb river views from its wine cellar in Clinton.

History buffs will enjoy a deep dive into the local history here, too. Start at the Sawmill Museum, which details Clinton's vital part in the lumber industry and includes a permanent exhibit with original equipment from the Struve Mill. The Clinton County Historical Society & Museum, housed in a heritage building that dates to 1858, features exhibits on early settlers to the area and the lumber business here. Admire the 1880s architecture of the George M. Curtis Mansion, the former home of a lumber baron, which has 20 rooms across the three-story property. If you still haven't had your fill of historic sites, check out the beautiful Clinton County Courthouse, which was built in 1897 and is still in use today.

Where to go shopping in Clinton, Iowa

Come to Clinton and prepare to shop 'til you drop because this city has a number of excellent antique shops that are perfect for browsing. Start at Broken Spoke Antique Mall, where you'll find a treasure trove of reasonably priced items from collectibles to vintage clothes. Next, stop by Riverfront Antiques, which one Google reviewer described as "There's a wide variety of things, whether it's vintage bags or antique items, they have it all. Cool furniture for good prices too!" Other reviewers note the unique items, including furniture and friendly staff. Visit The Underground for vintage vinyl records and collectibles, and round it off with a trip to Ancient Dragon Antiques for more retro finds, including a collection of glassware highlighted by Google reviewers. Whether you're on the hunt for a special gift or happy to browse, there are lots of antique shops around town to keep you busy.

If your interest is piqued and you're ready to plan a trip, the closest major airport to Clinton is Quad City International Airport, about a 50-minute drive away in the scenic riverfront city of Moline. Check into a room at Fisher House Bed and Breakfast — a renovated 1880s Queen Anne Victorian property with four guest rooms. You can also add the lively city of Davenport to your vacation itinerary, another town situated on the Mississippi River that's less than an hour away by car.