Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:50 a.m. CDT

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A man who was serving prison time for armed robbery was released last fall by Iowa corrections officials who claimed that he probably wouldn’t pose any danger to the public. Eight months later, Curtis Cortez Jones was accused of fatally shooting a cab driver during a robbery. Now newly released records show that Jones was paroled even though he had been deemed a high risk to commit more violence and had recently escaped from a halfway house.

WEBSTER CITY, Iowa (AP) — A former Webster City school board member has received two years’ probation in an Iowa sex abuse case. The Messenger reports that Paul Stenger was sentenced Wednesday morning in Hamilton County District Court on a charge of lascivious conduct with a minor. The 65-year-old Stenger had entered in June an Alford plea, which is a guilty plea without an admission of guilt.

MCINTIRE, Iowa (AP) — Apparently, it was a not so special election in the tiny town of McIntire, Iowa: nobody voted. Tuesday’s ballot asked two questions: Should the term of the mayor be raised to four years from two, and should the terms of council members be raised to four years, staggered, from two years. None of the 70 registered voters showed up to answer.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A Minnesota contractor who damaged a natural gas pipeline in western North Dakota last week has a history of striking pipelines. The most recent damage occurred while Carstensen Contracting was installing a water pipeline near Watford City. The Bismarck Tribune reports that it’s at least the second gas pipeline the contractor has damaged in North Dakota while installing water pipelines. The North Dakota Public Service Commission recently fined the company $15,000 in another incident from 2015.