Kate Payne

Updated on Oct. 30 at 9:32 p.m.

This story was co-reported by Iowa Public Radio News, the Center for Public Integrity and NPR.

The New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Waterloo. The senior high school in Fort Dodge. The Masonic Temple in Council Bluffs.

Iowa's Democratic Party plans to use a new Internet-connected smartphone app to help calculate and transmit results during the state's caucuses next month, Iowa Public Radio and NPR have confirmed.

Party leaders say they decided to opt for that strategy fully aware of three years' worth of warnings about Russia's attack on the 2016 presidential election, in which cyberattacks played a central role.

As human activities are increasingly threatening animal species, scientists say turtles are at a significant risk because of climate change. In Iowa, conservationists are taking an unconventional approach to finding and protecting turtles, with an unlikely helper.

A retired schoolteacher has trained his hunting dogs to find the reptiles for researchers. Counting the creatures will help conservationists manage the land better.

New photos from the United States Geological Survey illustrate the damage Hurricane Matthew dealt to Florida’s Atlantic Coast.