Today’s Morning News from the KXEL NewsCenter:
State officials say nearly half of Iowa’s counties have rejected new doses of COVID-19 vaccine because of a lack of demand, this despite a public information campaign meant to increase interest in immunization. The state reported yesterday that 43 of Iowa’s 99 counties declined additional shipments of the vaccines. Of the 43, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified 12 as having a high rate of coronavirus transmission.
Meanwhile, as supply of the COVID-19 vaccine continues to increase, eligible individuals may now walk in without an appointment to receive a vaccination at select UnityPoint Health vaccine locations. For example, anyone age 16 and over can walk in to receive a vaccine between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. at UnityPoint Clinic Express–United Medical Park located at 1731 W. Ridgeway Ave. in Waterloo. Additional community vaccine clinic locations will be announced on a daily basis. Appointments may still be scheduled.
And Black Hawk County will host a community COVID-19 vaccination clinic this weekend. According to the Black Hawk County Public Health Department, it will be held at the National Cattle Congress Hippodrome on Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on both days. The Pfizer vaccine will be administered for those who are 16 and older. County health officials say walk-ins are welcome but patients can guarantee their vaccine by scheduling an appointment.
A top workplace safety regulator has warned leaders of the Iowa Legislature that conditions inside the state Capitol are hazardous and may be exposing workers to the coronavirus…but stopped short of issuing any violation of state regulations. The statement came in a “hazard alert letter” dated last Wednesday.
Cedar Rapids Police have identified the man who was found shot to death last week in a driveway several blocks east of Interstate 380. Police said yesterday in a news release that 26-year-old Davvion Izael Flemings died in the shooting. Officers were called to the home just after 9:30 p.m. last Thursday on a report of shots being fired and people running from the home. Officers found Flemings behind a parked vehicle in a driveway with several gunshot wounds. Police, firefighters and medics administered emergency care, but Flemings died at the scene. No arrests in the case have been made.
Authorities in Des Moines have charged two white men accused of attacking a black man with hate crimes. It happened last Saturday in the city’s Capital Heights neighborhood. Police say 35-year-old Joseph William Rossing and 49-year-old Robert Ray Shelton, both of Des Moines, were talking in the street when the victim drove by and yelled at the men to get their children out of the street. Police say the men pried open the victim’s door and punched and kicked the victim in the face while yelling racial slurs at him. Police say in court documents that Rossing is on parole for various convictions and is a member of a white supremacist gang. Police say Shelton is currently on probation.
A judge has found a man suspected of killing a coworker at a northern Iowa meat processing plant too mentally unfit to stand trial. A judge has ordered 26-year-old Lukouxs Brown to be turned over to the Iowa Department of Corrections’ Medical and Classification Center. The judge found that Brown suffers from a mental disorder that prevents him from understanding the first-degree murder charge brought against him. He was charged after the February stabbing death of 50-year-old Wayne Smith at the Prestage Foods plant in Eagle Grove.
Two Iowa men convicted for their roles in a violent 2018 home-invasion robbery followed by a shootout with police have been sentenced to decades in prison. 35-year-old Michael Bibby was sentenced this week to up to 60 years in prison. He was convicted earlier this month of trying to kill former police chief Tom McAndrew, as well as assault, robbery, burglary and willful injury causing serious injury charges. An accomplice, 26-year-old Dalton Cook, was also sentenced, to 35 years. Police say the men, both of Ottumwa, were among three men who broke into an Ottumwa home on Aug. 3, 2018, shot and injured a man in front of the home and later engaged police in a shootout that killed another accomplice, David Roy White of Fairfield.
