Your Clear Mortgage forecast

Happy New Year! Highs in the 30s and dry conditions continue through Saturday.

For help with pre-approvals or refinancing, get in touch with Originating Branch Manager Carrie Hansen at carrie.mortgage.

Meximodo, a new restaurant in Central New Jersey, opened recently and claimed the world record for its tequila/mezcal library. The place has 1,000 on hand. That shatters the previous record of 600 which was held by two bars in Las Vegas and London. Mexico is apparently not playing this game. (Fox News)

In 2023, 49% of restaurants reported lower check averages and 53% reported lower profits compared with the year before, according to the James Beard Foundation. At the same time, dining out has grown more expensive: The latest consumer-price index showed the cost of food away from home increased 5.3% over the 12 months ended in November.

Trostel's Greenbriar will serve Steak Diane through Jan. 3. The classic dish is a pan fried steak with a cream and booze sauce. The Johnston bar uses tri tip steak and whiskey instead of the continental version with tenderloin and cognac.

— Jim Duncan, jd91446@aol.com

FROM KCCI: Caitlin Clark breaks more records, climbs scoring ladder in blowout win

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Caitlin Clark has so many awards, she's not sure where all of them are at. She's going to add a couple more commemorative basketballs after the fourth-ranked Iowa women defeated Minnesota 94-71 on Saturday. ... READ MORE FROM KCCI

FROM WHO-TV: Police: Man says he ‘accidently’ fired gun inside eastern Iowa hospital

WATERLOO, Iowa — A man told police he ‘accidently’ fired a gun inside an eastern Iowa hospital Friday morning. At around 9:40 a.m. Waterloo Police responded to a report of a gun being fired at the MercyOne hospital in the 3400 block of West 9th Street. When first responders arrived on scene they found damage from a single gun shot in a restroom, but the suspected shooter was not on the campus. ... READ MORE FROM WHO-TV

FROM WOI-DT Local 5: Whatcha watching? Iowans share their top flicks of 2023

"Barbie", "Oppenheimer" and "Priscilla", oh my! Iowans of all ages shared their top movies of the year with Local 5...READ MORE FROM WOI-DT Local 5

Miles galore at Shuler Elementary: Rosenow leads Strider program

By Rich Wicks

Shuler Elementary School in Clive has an exercise program that’s really caught on with the kids. The Striders program, which started seven years ago, welcomes kids to walk and/or run, with volunteers tracking each student’s distance. Prizes are given out for reaching certain milestones.

Mandy Rosenow is a parent of a Shuler student, and she also serves as the head of the Striders program. Rosenow said, “We have a group of parent volunteers, two volunteers every day. We run Striders Monday through Thursday. We’ve finished for the fall, so Striders is done until the spring. It’s a big chunk of time in the afternoon, so it can be challenging to get volunteers for the whole year. There are 63 parents on my email list that will look and see if they have time to fill in,” Rosenow said. “It’s from about 11a.m. to 2p.m.”

The basic process is that volunteers keep track of how many out-and-back “laps” each child has completed. Each out-and-back equals roughly one-third of a mile. The first half of an X is made at the turnaround, and the X is finished when the student gets back to the starting point. Rosenow continued, “And when they’ve got 75 X’s, they’ve run a marathon. They get a trophy for their first marathon, and then they get a medal for their second marathon. And we just didn’t plan on kids running more than that, but last year, we had one fifth grader that ran six marathons and another one that ran five. Last year, we gave out 147 marathon awards.”

Read more in the December Clive Living magazine.