Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press…

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A new audit report blames the national Democratic Party’s involvement in the Iowa caucuses for problems that delayed the results for days at the beginning of the 2020 presidential nominating battle. The report was commissioned by the Iowa Democratic Party. It criticizes the national party’s role in delaying development of an app used to report results and in demanding a last-minute data conversion tool that failed on caucus night in February. But the report also says the state party should have bolstered its back-up phone system for compiling results after the rollout of the app was slow. That phone system was overwhelmed on caucus night.

URBANDALE, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man has been arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder in connection with a woman’s death in a Des Moines suburb. Urbandale Police said officers found a woman with severe head trauma around 6:45 p.m. Saturday at a home in the 4000 block of 90th Street. The woman died at the scene. Her name and age weren’t immediately released. Urbandale Police Sgt. Chad Underwood said 35-year-old Dustin Sample, of Urbandale, was arrested Sunday morning and charged with first-degree murder.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa reported 1,239 new COVID-19 cases and one more death linked to the coronavirus on Sunday. The state was reporting 256,248 cases of the virus and 3,213 deaths as of 10 a.m. Sunday. The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Iowa decreased over the past two weeks, going from 2,102.14 new cases per day on Nov. 28 to 1,324 new cases per day on Saturday. Iowa officials said 749 people were hospitalized with the virus on Saturday, which was down from 820 on Friday. Iowa’s statewide 14-day positivity rate was 15.2% on Sunday. Our of the state’s 99 counties, 58 had a 14-day positivity rate above 15%.