Top 9 of Iowa: 'Beautiful Girlfriend With Cancer' Inspires Nation, 80,000 Pop Tabs, Deportation Likely for Foreign Felon

Why nine? Because the Patch community includes nine sites in Iowa: Ames, Ankeny, Cedar Falls, Iowa City, Johnston, Marion, Urbandale, Waukee and West Des Moines.

9. Taylor Morris, the Cedar Falls sailor who lost parts of all four limbs while clearing explosives in Afghanistan, will receive a specially designed . Sinise, the actor who played Lt. Dan, a Vietnam veteran and double amputee, in the movie Forrest Gump, will put on a benefit concert in Cedar Falls to raise money for the project.

8. Talk about service. Waukee's newly hired City Administrator Tim Moerman wants local residents to call him up to tell him what he needs to know about the town as he gears up for his first day today (Feb. 18).

7. Jack Marren, a seventh-grader in Johnston, underwent brain surgery last year, so he knows firsthand how important it is for families to have a place to stay while their children are being treated at hospitals. Seeing the affect the Ronald McDonald House has on families, Jack decided to give back to the facility through one of its most well-known fundraisers – pop tabs. He's up to .

6. Ankeny has made another list of best places. Bloomberg Businessweek recently released its list of "Tmade the cut.  

5. A new poll shows a narrow margin of support for a new Linn County casino. But, the support is well within the margin of error. So, whether Marion voters, and other voters from the county, support or oppose the casino at the polls next month, remains up in the air.

4. Pundit Stephen Colbert “nailed it” Thursday in a parody of giant bank Wells Fargo’s firing of an Iowa man from a West Des Moines call center over a stunt involving a cardboard dime and a washing machine 50 years ago.

3. A native of China and former student of the University of Iowa in Iowa City who was facing first-degree kidnapping charges, pleaded guilty to lesser charges. Peng Tang was accused of sexually assaulting a woman showing him an apartment to rent, and then threatening to publicize picture of the sex acts if she went to police. His attorney expects Tang to be departed after his sentence.

2. Hy-Vee has been named the business of the year in Urbandale. The gargantuan Hy-Vee added 300 employees last year after reopening last year.

1. You may need tissues for this one. A young man who attends Iowa State University in Ames, posted a picture on Reddit that has inspired many across the nation for what love is all about. The young man, Riley Nicolay, returns the loving gaze of his girlfriend, Deidre Sechi, who is bald and battling cancer. Nicolay had shaved his head in support. The photo, captioned "Beautiful girlfriend is fighting cancer. She got this ****", gained more than 1 million views in a day.

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