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.