From the Associated Press (11:20 a.m.):
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) – A fire Sunday afternoon at a Cedar Rapids mobile home left a woman dead. Officials say that when firefighters arrived at the fire at the home in southwest Cedar Rapids, they found smoke and flames coming from the roof. Crews entered the home and found a woman inside. Firefighters moved the woman outside but she was pronounced dead at the scene. She was later identified as 63-year-old Mary Jo Carlson. Investigators are still investigating the cause of the fire.
DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) – Attorneys for an Iowa family said in a lawsuit that they believe the way the Dubuque school district responded to bullying contributed to a girl being sexually assaulted at school in 2019. The lawsuit says the district refused to allow the girl to transfer to another high school after she was routinely bullied by a male student. The Dubuque Telegraph Herald reports the family says the district also failed to prevent contact between the two students even though the bullying continued. Police investigated after the assault was reported but no charges were filed. The district’s attorneys deny that the school system did anything wrong.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Two Iowa men have been charged with vehicular homicide because they were racing on their motorcycles at speeds over 150 mph with a third man who died in an October crash. Des Moines Police say Michael David Crabb, 35, and Brady Joe Clausi, 23, were charged Jan. 6 with vehicular homicide by drag racing and vehicular homicide by driving recklessly. The Des Moines Register reports that Crabb was arrested Sunday morning while Clausi was already in jail on unrelated charges. The crash happened on Oct. 19 when Clausi and Crabb were racing with Kyle Eugene Robert Hogue, 37, on Iowa Highway 28. Hogue crashed after he struck the median and lost control of his motorcycle. He died later at a hospital.
With abortion access increasingly restricted across much of the South and Midwest, two Illinois clinics near St. Louis on Friday announced a new logistics center to help abortion seekers get to their clinics. Activists on both sides are convinced the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling is imperiled, with nearly two dozen states likely to impose sweeping bans if the conservative-led court overturns it. Several states have already imposed new restrictions on abortions that have led women from those states to seek the procedure in states such as Illinois. The new logistics center in Fairview Heights, Illinois, is jointly operated by Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinic in that city and the independent Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois.
ANKENY, Iowa (AP) – An Iowa man accused of making and placing several homemade bombs in a Des Moines suburb has pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges. The Des Moines Register reports that 47-year-old Chad Williams, of Johnston, pleaded guilty Thursday to possessing a firearm as an unlawful drug user and making a destructive device. In a deal with prosecutors, a third count was dropped. Williams admitted in the plea hearing that he planted the homemade explosives in Ankeny last year. Two detonated as planned. The third was found intact by an 8-year-old girl. No one was injured. He faces up to 10 years in prison on each count when he’s sentenced in May.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Charges against a Missouri man accused in a deadly Iowa attack have been upgraded. The Des Moines Police Department said in a news release that an amended charge of first-degree murder was filed Friday against 52-year-old Tony Wayne Hyde. He was arrested in September after a Polk County deputy witnessed 62-year-old Timothy Guy Thacker being assaulted and stopped to intervene. Thacker had sustained serious head and facial injuries. He was rushed to a hospital, where he died five days later. Hyde was booked into the Polk County Jail on a felony count accusing him of causing serious injury. The decision to upgrade the charge was made after Thacker’s death was ruled a homicide following an autopsy.
