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Iowa early News Headlines: 3/11/20

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March 11th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:40 a.m. CDT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Officials say 22 Iowans are among the thousands of passengers and crew who were quarantined on a cruise ship docked in Northern California, and most of them are preparing to return home. Gov. Kim Reynolds said Tuesday that 18 of the Iowans will be flown home on a government-chartered plane and kept in isolation in their homes. None of them have shown symptoms of the COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but they will be screened before and after the flight. At least 21 of the roughly 3,500 passengers and crew on the Grand Princess cruise have tested positive for the disease.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Health officials say five more residents in eastern Iowa’s Johnson County have tested positive for new coronavirus. Officials said in a news release Tuesday evening that all of the new cases are people who had recently traveled on an Egyptian cruise. The new cases bring the total number of Iowa infections to 13. The release says 14 other tests have come back negative. Officials announced Iowa’s first COVID-19 cases on Sunday, as three individuals from Johnson County who had been on the cruise tested positive .For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — For the second time this academic year, a public university in Iowa is paying an administrator to stay home and look for other jobs as part of a legal agreement to quit and not sue. Iowa State University is paying former senior admissions official Consuela Cooper to telecommute until June 15 or until she finds a new job, whichever comes first. Cooper has agreed to resign and “not to seek or accept employment with the university at any time in the future.” It’s similar to a deal the University of Iowa reached with its new chief diversity officer last August.

INDEPENDENCE, Iowa (AP) — A man who was found guilty earlier this year of setting a fire that injured two people at his eastern Iowa home has been sentenced to 50 years in prison. Prosecutors say 45-year-old Shane Heins was sentenced Tuesday in Buchannan County District Court. A jury convicted him in January of arson and two counts of attempted murder. He’d pleaded guilty before the trial to domestic abuse assault for shoving his stepdaughter. Investigators say Heins set the fire March 2, 2019, in Independence in an effort to kill his wife, Christina Heins, and her uncle, Nick Necker. Both were taken for treatment to University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics in Iowa City.