IOWA CITY – Officials with the Iowa Department of Corrections said Friday, prison inmate, 59-year old Delbert Duane Anderson, was pronounced dead due to natural causes Friday afternoon, at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Anderson had been serving a 30-year maximum term for the crimes of Burglary 1st Degree and Willful Injury Causing Bodily Injury from Johnson County. His incarceration began on December 29, 2006.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 2:50 a.m. CST

DE SOTO, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa State Patrol says a passenger who was standing outside a car that had crashed into a guardrail was killed when another car hit her. Television station KCCI reports the incident happened early Saturday morning along I-80 near De Soto in central Iowa after a vehicle lost control due to slippery road conditions and hit a guardrail. Investigators say a passenger in the car, 51-year-old Carmen Benitez, was standing outside the wrecked vehicle when a second car hit her. Officials say Benitez died at the scene. The 26-year-old driver of the second car was treated for injuries at a nearby hospital.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A federal judge in Nebraska has awarded more than $610,000 to an Iowa company that sued after it said it wasn’t fully paid for masonry work at a national veterans cemetery in Omaha that opened in 2016. The Lincoln Journal Star reports that Seedorff Masonry, of Strawberry Point, Iowa, sued Archer Western Construction, of Chicago, and its insurer in 2018, saying it hadn’t been paid nearly $610,000 for labor and limestone it supplied for the Omaha National Cemetery. On Thursday, a judge in Omaha awarded that amount, plus $138,000 in interest and costs, to Seedorff.

LECLAIRE, Iowa (AP) — Officials in eastern Iowa say train traffic has resumed in downtown LeClaire a day after a derailment sent more than a dozen freight cars and tankers off the tracks just yards from the Mississippi River. The LeClaire Fire Department said in a news release Saturday that all derailed cars had been moved away from the main track and would be hauled away by tractor-trailers throughout the day. Officials say Canadian Pacific Railroad had found no significant air or water contamination from the Friday morning derailment. No one was injured and no buildings were damaged in the derailment, although some vehicle in a nearby parking lot were damaged.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A group that insures local governments across Iowa is going to court to try to block the state auditor from reviewing its spending, including travel to out-of-state vacation destinations. The Iowa Communities Assurance Pool, which is owned by cities, counties and other governments, argues in a legal petition that it is not a “governmental subdivision” and that State Auditor Rob Sand has no authority to examine its finances. Sand’s office began reviewing the pool’s spending in October after The Associated Press reported that its directors have routinely held public meetings at vacation resorts in Florida every February and Michigan every August.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A federal judge in Nebraska has awarded more than $610,000 to an Iowa company that sued after it said it wasn’t fully paid for masonry work at a national veterans cemetery in Omaha that opened in 2016. The Lincoln Journal Star reports that Seedorff Masonry, of Strawberry Point, Iowa, sued Archer Western Construction, of Chicago, and its insurer in 2018, saying it hadn’t been paid nearly $610,000 for labor and limestone it supplied for the Omaha National Cemetery. On Thursday, a judge in Omaha awarded that amount, plus $138,000 in interest and costs, to Seedorff.

DE SOTO, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa State Patrol says a passenger who was standing outside a car that had crashed into a guardrail was killed when another car hit her. The incident happened early Saturday morning along I-80 near De Soto in central Iowa after a vehicle lost control due to slippery road conditions and hit a guardrail.

Investigators say a passenger in the car, 51-year-old Carmen Benitez, was standing outside the wrecked vehicle when a second car hit her. Officials say Benitez died at the scene. The 26-year-old driver of the second car was treated for injuries at a nearby hospital.

LECLAIRE, Iowa (AP) – Officials in eastern Iowa say train traffic has resumed in downtown LeClaire a day after a derailment sent more than a dozen freight cars and tankers off the tracks just yards from the Mississippi River. The LeClaire Fire Department said in a news release Saturday that all derailed cars had been moved away from the main track and would be hauled away by tractor-trailers throughout the day.

Officials say Canadian Pacific Railroad had found no significant air or water contamination from the Friday morning derailment. No one was injured and no buildings were damaged in the derailment, although some vehicle in a nearby parking lot were damaged.

LEHIGH, Iowa – The DNR is again reminding Iowans of deteriorating ice conditions after another extremely dangerous situation took place at Brushy Creek Lake on January 2, 2020.

The DNR reported that a man had fallen through the ice on Brushy Creek Lake approximately 50 yards from the north boat ramp. Fortunately, a nearby friend was able to push a sled to the man and pull him out of the water.

Although the ice may appear safe and thick enough for people to walk on, with the rollercoaster of temperatures lately, the ice conditions are deteriorating. With the freshly fallen snow from Friday into early Saturday it is impossible to see the ice below.

Brushy Creek Lake is a popular spot for ice fishing and draws in anglers from all across the state, but officials warn anyone coming to the lake or any others across the state.

w/ Chris Parks

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(Radio Iowa) — The non-profit group Speech First has filed a lawsuit against Iowa State University saying three policies instituted on campus have had a chilling impact on free speech. The president of the group, Nici Neily says one policy prevents students from writing chalk messages on campus.

“It seems it started with a pro-life group chalking pro-life messages and then a pro-choice group chalked their messages. And then everybody kind of got involved and there were a lots of political things going on,” Neily says. “And then at some point some offensive messages were chalked and the school put in place an interim ban — and then the student government voted on it and made it a permanent ban.”

Neily says the ban prevents communication at a key time when presidential candidates are visiting campus. “A lot of the students I talked to had learned about these events and either attended or organized counter events as a result of this chalking,” she says. “And so I think student’s political and civic participation is really impacted by this in particular.” Neily says the school also banned sending emails in support of candidates.

And she says they created a Campus Climate Reporting System to take reports of things students found offensive. “Turns out that often the speech that ends up being reported is political speech and it is religious speech. And the school has a portal where you can do this anonymously,” she says. Neily says the process used to react to the reports raised concerns with students.

)”The school will collect that information. The team that analyzes it is made up of university administrators, including university police — and then depending on what the report is — they’ll reach out to the reporter and they’ll reach out the person who has been reported on. And if needed — they’ll refer it elsewhere for further investigation,” Neily explains. She says this process has a chilling impact on the students’ rights to free speech.

“I think of it as kind of a Orwellian reporting system,” Neily explains.”Students are making what I think is a very logical decision to just avoid the hassle of going through an investigation altogether. And just avoiding having controversial discussions — because they fear the punishment by process.” Neily says these three things go directly against the idea of what should happen on a campus.

“You know, college campuses are the place where ideas should be vigorously debated. But unfortunately it seems like the window of acceptable discourse is narrow these days that students who express viewpoints outside of that orthodoxy, they face administrative proceedings,” Neily says. “Iowa State is a public university, it is a state actor, they have to uphold the First Amendment, period.”

Neily says Speech First has asked the court to declare that the chalking ban, email prohibition on political speech, and Campus Climate Response System are all unconstitutional, and to enjoin both the chalking ban and prohibition on electronic correspondence in support of candidates and ballot initiatives in advance of the February 3rd Iowa Caucuses. An I-S-U spokesperson says are reviewing the lawsuit and have not comment.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press at 3:25 a.m. CST

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A group that insures local governments across Iowa is going to court to try to block the state auditor from reviewing its spending, including travel to out-of-state vacation destinations. The Iowa Communities Assurance Pool, which is owned by cities, counties and other governments, argues in a legal petition that it is not a “governmental subdivision” and that State Auditor Rob Sand has no authority to examine its finances. Sand’s office began reviewing the pool’s spending in October after The Associated Press reported that its directors have routinely held public meetings at vacation resorts in Florida every February and Michigan every August.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Department of Human Services officials say they are temporarily withholding nearly $44 million in payments for this month to one of the management companies overseeing the state’s Medicaid program. Iowa DHS spokesman Matt Highland says in a statement Friday the agency has informed Iowa Total Care of the penalty for several compliance issues. They include unpaid claims, inaccurate claims payments, problems with pricing methods and pharmacy dispensing fees. Highland says the money will released to the company once the problems are resolved. The withheld amount represents about 26% of the nearly $170 million that would be due the company.

LECLAIRE, Iowa (AP) — Emergency crews werer scrambling to clean up following a train derailment in the eastern Iowa city of LeClaire that sent more than a dozen rail cars and tankers off the tracks in the downtown district. The derailment forced police to shut down a nearby highway and send a hazardous materials team to the site. The derailment happened around 11 a.m. Friday along U.S. Highway 67, just a couple of hundred feet from the banks of the Mississippi River. Police closed the highway in both directions and asked people to avoid the area. Scott County Emergency Management planner Brian Payne says the derailment involved a Canadian Pacific train and that no injuries were reported.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court says names of car owners ticketed by automated speed cameras are not public records. The court considered a lawsuit filed by former Ottumwa police sergeant Mark Milligan who was ticketed in 2016 driving a city-owned car. He filed an open records request for names of car owners caught on camera and ticketed and those not ticketed. Officials driving government cars often aren’t ticketed. The city denied his request, but a judge ordered their release. The city appealed. The supreme court concluded Friday that speed camera tickets are city citations not filed in court and therefore aren’t public record.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office reports the arrest on January 1st of a Clarinda man following a single vehicle injury accident that occurred in December of 2019. Dylan Taylor of Clarinda was charged with Driving While Barred-Habitual Offender, an aggravated misdemeanor. He was booked in to the Montgomery County Jail on $2,000 bond.