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

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole in the 1979 murder of an 18-year-old high school student. Jerry Burns was arrested in Dec. 19 2018, 39 years to the day after Michelle Martinko was found dead in her parents’ car outside a shopping mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She had been stabbed to death. Burns was convicted of first-degree murder in February and was sentenced on Friday. Cedar Rapids police have said they arrested Burns after DNA taken from a restaurant straw he had used matched DNA from the crime scene.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The family of a man killed by a Polk County sheriff’s deputy two years ago alleges in a federal lawsuit that the office is “covering up” the killing by refusing to release footage and records. The Des Moines Register reports that the family of Isaiah Hayes, of Ashland, Wisconsin, filed the lawsuit on June 30 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. It says the county has refused to release body camera or dash camera footage which shows the shooting of the 25-year-old Hayes in 2018. The lawsuit alleges the county is withholding the video because it would show Deputy Ryan Phillips “shooting Isaiah in the back while Isaiah did not pose a threat.”

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Authorities say a man has suffered life-threatening injuries in an explosion at a home just outside the Cedar Rapids city limits. The Linn County Sheriff’s Office says the explosion occurred around 2 p.m. Thursday as 24-year-old Joshua Thomas, of Marion, was working on the property. Officials say Thomas suffered severe burns from the blast and was taken by a medical helicopter from the scene of the explosion to an Iowa City hospital. Officials say Thomas was the only person on the property at the time of the explosion. Fire investigators were working to pinpoint the cause of the explosion, but Sheriff Brian Gardner said officials had narrowed down that it was fueled by natural gas or propane.

AMES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa State University says a program to administer coronavirus tests to students as they move back to campus has found 66 testing positive. That’s about 2.2% of the 3,037 students that have moved in to residence halls and campus apartments and taken tests. About half of the students testing positive chose to return home to complete isolation. The university has isolation rooms set up for positive cases and quarantine rooms for those who are notified of exposure through contact tracing. The tests are one part of the university’s coronavirus mitigation plan.