IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The University of Iowa plans to halt more than 100 campus construction projects in response to budget cuts approved by state lawmakers. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that the freeze went into effect Thursday and will last for about five months. Most of the halted construction is maintenance related, but it also includes some larger projects such as a wrestling facility, a hospital facility and an art museum facility.

Projects that are already in the construction phrase, critical to the university or related to public safety will continue. The Legislature cut the state Board of Regents’ budget by $11 million last month. The board responded by cutting UI and Iowa State University budgets by 2.4 percent. UI must make up a nearly $5.5 million shortfall before the fiscal year ends in June.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Los Angeles’ Eric Garcetti, like other Democratic mayors considering the presidential race in 2020, is hoping to show party activists that his experience running a city can preview success on the national scene. He plans to make his debut in Iowa, an early campaign proving ground, today (Friday), talking to union carpenters, seeing representatives from the Asian, Latino and LBGTQ communities and headlining a county party dinner.

Only a handful of presidents ever served as mayors, and they all had won higher offices before reaching the White House. Americans never have elevated a city leader directly to the presidency from city hall, and no sitting mayor has even won a major party’s presidential nomination. That doesn’t seem to deter New York’s Bill De Blasio and New Orleans’ Mitch Landrieu, also mulling 2020 bids. So, too, are Pete Buttigeig of South Bend, Indiana, and Julian Castro, housing secretary in the Obama administration and a former San Antonio mayor.

Democrats hold only half of the governorships they did 25 years ago — being governor is a more reliable stepping stone to the White House — and are locked out of power in Congress. The party’s emerging 2020 class is heavy with mayors, who claim a closer connection to their constituents and greater accountability to them than U.S. senators and representatives have. Only 16 Democrats are governors today, and few are signaling a 2020 campaign is on the horizon. Mayors with national aspirations seem less fazed than their predecessors by the idea that voters are looking for candidates with more national experience. Consider that Donald Trump was a political newcomer before winning in 2016.

Garcetti’s mission in Iowa is to make it clear to activists that his big-city experience can translate onto the national stage. He is the executive of a jurisdiction of roughly 4 million people, about a million more than the state of Iowa, heads a police department of 30,000 and oversees the nation’s busiest seaport. De Blasio, whose city is more than twice the population of Los Angeles, was the guest at a Democratic-leaning activist group’s annual dinner in December. Garcetti and others are also stepping forward on national issues such as immigration, a burning concern for Democrats in Iowa angry with the Republican-controlled Legislature and GOP governor for enacting legislation last week outlawing “sanctuary cities.” That’s a term for jurisdictions that limit local involvement in federal immigration enforcement.