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

MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa (AP) — Democratic White House hopefuls are campaigning in the more than two dozen Iowa counties that went from supporting Barack Obama to Donald Trump in 2016. They hope showing up in counties Democrats lost will help prove they can take on Trump this year. Their visits may also help Democrats win back these counties in November by energizing Democrats and engaging disaffected Republicans. And they hope to win some delegates by focusing on these counties across the state.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Defense lawyers for the man charged in the killing of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts are asking for his trial to be delayed. Lawyers for Cristhian Bahena Rivera say they need to delay the Feb. 4 trial date so they have time to appeal a judge’s ruling that allowed key evidence to be used against their client. The Iowa Supreme Court will consider whether to take the appeal before trial. Rivera’s lawyers also say they want to depose several individuals recently added to the prosecution’s witness list, including Tibbetts’ boyfriend at the time of her July 2018 disappearance.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Iowa regulators have gone beyond their counterparts in North Dakota by requiring owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline to provide expert analysis to back up the company’s claim that doubling the line’s capacity does not increase the potential of a spill. Energy Transfer wants to double the capacity of the pipeline to as much as 1.1 million barrels daily to meet growing demand for oil shipments from North Dakota, and is seeking permission for additional pump stations in the Dakotas, Iowa and Illinois to do it.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Less than two weeks before the first voting contest of the 2020 primary season, virtually every Democratic presidential contender is trying to rally their supporters behind a decidedly optimistic theme: unity. Despite their consistent efforts, however, unity has proved to be a fleeting concept. Hillary Clinton slammed Bernie Sanders in an interview published Tuesday, representing the latest — and perhaps, the loudest — flash point in the Democratic Party’s high-stakes nomination fight that has exposed dangerous divisions based on gender, race, age and ideology that threaten to undermine the urgent quest to defeat President Donald Trump in 2020.