(Radio Iowa) – One quarter of the inmates and 14 staff members at the state’s maximum security prison currently have Covid and one of the inmates died of the virus early Thursday morning. According to a news release from the Iowa Department of Corrections, Mark Steven Bailey was transferred several days ago from the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison to University Hospitals in Iowa City, where he died likely due to complications related to Covid-19.

Bailey, who was 63, had been in prison since 2007, serving a 20-year sentence for two second degree robbery convictions in Polk County. He’s the 12th inmate to die after contracting Covid in the state’s prison system. In November, staff members at the prisons in Clarida and Mitchellville died with Covid.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:05 a.m. CST

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa public health officials have posted another 99 coronavirus related deaths, raising the state’s death toll to 3,120. The state this week modified the methodology for counting COVID-19 deaths and that added 399 deaths to the state total in the past three days. Iowa coronavirus positive cases increased by 2,246 Thursday pushing the state total to 251,028. Hospitalizations and admissions are lower with 863 people hospitalized with COVID-19. Hospitalizations and new positive cases have been trending lower, giving health care officials hope that Iowa may have avoided a post-Thanksgiving surge. Concerns remain around Christmas and New Year holiday gathering activities.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s Republican governor prevented Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller from joining on Thursday a brief opposing the Texas legal challenge to the 2020 presidential election in four other states filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. Miller says if he had been asked to join a Republican led brief supporting the Texas lawsuit he would have declined because he believes the 2020 elections were fairly and safely conducted by election officials of both parties. He said he was asked Thursday by a group of Democratic attorneys general to join a brief supporting the four states the Texas attorney general is suing but Reynolds refused to allow him to join.

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The Trump administration has carried out its ninth federal execution of the year in what has been a first series of executions during a presidential lame-duck period in 130 years. Federal prison officials in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Thursday executed a Texas street-gang member for his role in the 1999 slayings of an Iowa religious couple. The case of 40-year-old Brandon Bernard was a rare execution of a person who was in his teens when his crime was committed. He was 18 when he and four other teenagers abducted and robbed Todd and Stacie Bagley, of Iowa, on their way from a Sunday service in Killeen, Texas. Four more federal executions, including one Friday, are planned in the weeks before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa’s Republican governor prevented Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller from joining on Thursday a brief opposing the Texas legal challenge to the 2020 presidential election in four other states filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. Miller says if he had been asked to join a Republican led brief supporting the Texas lawsuit he would have declined because he believes the 2020 elections were fairly and safely conducted by election officials of both parties.

He said he was asked Thursday by a group of Democratic attorneys general to join a brief supporting the four states the Texas attorney general is suing but Reynolds refused to allow him to join.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. government advisory panel has endorsed Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, in a major step toward an epic vaccination campaign that could finally conquer the outbreak. The Food and Drug Administration is expected to follow the recommendation issued Thursday by its expert advisers. The group concluded that the shot appears safe and effective against the coronavirus in people 16 and older. A final FDA decision is expected within days.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds released the following statement Thursday, on FDA emergency approval of the Pfizer vaccine:   “The FDA approval for the Pfizer vaccine is great news for the state of Iowa and the entire country, and will allow us to move forward in our recovery from COVID-19 with even greater certainty.  Because of our proactive planning, our state is ready to receive shipments and quickly distribute them so that our health care workforce and long-term care residents will be vaccinated first.

“While this is a positive step forward, it will take time until the vaccine is widely available. Until then, we must continue to mitigate the virus by practicing public health measures so we can protect the most vulnerable and preserve hospital resources, while keeping our economy open and our kids in school.”

DES MOINES, IA – The U-S Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa reports that on December 3rd, 2020, a United States District Court Judge sentenced 52-year-old Joseph Lee Fultz, of Des Moines, to 324 months (27 years) in prison, for Production of Child Pornography. Fultz was ordered to serve ten years of supervised release to follow his prison term and comply with sex offender registry requirements upon release.

An investigation into his activities began in May of 2019, when the Des Moines Police Department received a report that Fultz produced child pornography of four minors, ages 10 and under, while they were under his care. Subsequently, Des Moines police officers executed a search warrant at Fultz’s apartment where they seized his computers and electronic devices. The investigation showed that Fultz produced and possessed child pornography images of the four minors, as well as two additional children, including an infant. All six children were located and identified.

The case was investigated by the Des Moines Police Department, Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. The case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa as part of the United States Department of Justice’s “Project Safe
Childhood” initiative, which was started in 2006 as a nationwide effort to combine law enforcement investigations and prosecutions, community action, and public awareness in order to reduce the incidence of sexual exploitation of children.

Any persons having knowledge of a child being sexually abused are encouraged to call the Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline at 1-800-284-7821.