The Dixie Chicks are back with a new song, “Gaslighter,” the title track of their upcoming new album, which is set to drop May 1st.
The trio co-wrote the tune with Jack Antonoff.
The band also released a video for the clip, in which they don military uniforms, as archival images of vintage American flash on the screen.
“Gaslighter” is the Dixie Chicks first album since 2006’s “Taking The Long Way.”
Today in 1983, Ronnie Dunn debuted on the country charts as a solo act. Eight years later he returned to the charts as one half of the duo Brooks and Dunn with singing partner Kix Brooks. The song was “It’s Written All Over Your Face”, and peaked at #59 on the Billboard Country Chart. The following year (1984), Dunn would have a minor hit with “She Put The Sad In All His Songs”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTvdzczeJi8
Montezuma’s girls’ basketball team is ready for another shot at the Class 1A State Basketball tournament. The Bravettes take on St. Ansgar in the State quarterfinals Wednesday afternoon (3/4) at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines. Montezuma is the fourth seed in the tournament with a 23-1 record, while Saint Ansgar is seeded fifth with a 21-2 mark. Montezuma Coach Janel Burgess talks about the differences between last year’s team that went to State and this year’s edition of the Bravettes.
“I think we’ve got similarities, but I think our depth is a little different. I think we go eight deep and we have eight offensive threats through and through. I think you look at leadership is very similar. But I think any time you’re doing something for the third time, it’s like our nerves are a little more relieved a little bit. And this is pretty much matter of fact ‘This is what we need to do and this is your next opponent in front of you.’ And you don’t think about it being perhaps your last, but most importantly….it’s really actually our most important 32 minutes ahead of us and we’ve got to continue to get better.”
You can hear the Montezuma Bravettes at State on KBOE-FM. Our live coverage from Wells Fargo Arena starts at 3 Wednesday afternoon with tip-off scheduled for 3:15.
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE
Scientists say they have used the gene editing tool CRISPR inside someone’s body for the first time, a new frontier for efforts to operate on DNA, the chemical code of life, to treat diseases.
A patient recently had it done at the Casey Eye Institute at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland for an inherited form of blindness, the companies that make the treatment announced Wednesday. They would not give details on the patient or when the surgery occurred.
It may take up to a month to see if it worked to restore vision. If the first few attempts seem safe, doctors plan to test it on 18 children and adults.
“We literally have the potential to take people who are essentially blind and make them see,” said Charles Albright, chief scientific officer at Editas Medicine, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company developing the treatment with Dublin-based Allergan. “We think it could open up a whole new set of medicines to go in and change your DNA.”
Dr. Jason Comander, an eye surgeon at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston, another hospital that plans to enroll patients in the study, said it marks “a new era in medicine” using a technology that “makes editing DNA much easier and much more effective.”
Doctors first tried in-the-body gene editing in 2017 for a different inherited disease using a tool called zinc fingers. Many scientists believe CRISPR is a much easier tool for locating and cutting DNA at a specific spot, so interest in the new research is very high.
The people in this study have Leber congenital amaurosis, caused by a gene mutation that keeps the body from making a protein needed to convert light into signals to the brain, which enables sight. They’re often born with little vision and can lose even that within a few years.
Scientists can’t treat it with standard gene therapy — supplying a replacement gene — because the one needed is too big to fit inside the disabled viruses that are used to ferry it into cells.
So they’re aiming to edit, or delete the mutation by making two cuts on either side of it. The hope is that the ends of DNA will reconnect and allow the gene to work as it should.
It’s done in an hour-long surgery under general anesthesia. Through a tube the width of a hair, doctors drip three drops of fluid containing the gene editing machinery just beneath the retina, the lining at the back of the eye that contains the light-sensing cells.
“Once the cell is edited, it’s permanent and that cell will persist hopefully for the life of the patient,” because these cells don’t divide, said one study leader not involved in this first case, Dr. Eric Pierce at Massachusetts Eye and Ear.
Doctors think they need to fix one tenth to one third of the cells to restore vision. In animal tests, scientists were able to correct half of the cells with the treatment, Albright said.
The eye surgery itself poses little risk, doctors say. Infections and bleeding are relatively rare complications.
One of the biggest potential risks from gene editing is that CRISPR could make unintended changes in other genes, but the companies have done a lot to minimize that and to ensure that the treatment cuts only where it’s intended to, Pierce said. He has consulted for Editas and helped test a gene therapy, Luxturna, that’s sold for a different type of inherited blindness.
Some independent experts were optimistic about the new study.
“The gene editing approach is really exciting. We need technology that will be able to deal with problems like these large genes,” said Dr. Jean Bennett, a University of Pennsylvania researcher who helped test Luxturna at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
In one day, she had three calls from families seeking solutions to inherited blindness.
“It’s a terrible disease,” she said. “Right now they have nothing.”
Dr. Kiran Musunuru, another gene editing expert at the University of Pennsylvania, said the treatment seems likely to work, based on tests in human tissue, mice and monkeys.
The gene editing tool stays in the eye and does not travel to other parts of the body, so “if something goes wrong, the chance of harm is very small,” he said. “It makes for a good first step for doing gene editing in the body.”
Although the new study is the first to use CRISPR to edit a gene inside the body, another company, Sangamo Therapeutics, has been testing zinc finger gene editing to treat metabolic diseases.
Other scientists are using CRISPR to edit cells outside the body to try to treat cancer, sickle cell and some other diseases.
All of these studies have been done in the open, with government regulators’ approval, unlike a Chinese scientist’s work that brought international scorn in 2018. He Jiankui used CRISPR to edit embryos at the time of conception to try to make them resistant to infection with the AIDS virus. Changes to embryos’ DNA can pass to future generations, unlike the work being done now in adults to treat diseases.
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Marilynn Marchione can be followed on Twitter: @MMarchioneAP
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
RADIO IOWA NEWS – The Iowa Senate has voted for some limitations if Iowa voters eventually approve a constitutional amendment that automatically restores voting rights to released felons. The plan would require felons to have paid all the restitution they owe victims before they’d be allowed to vote.
“Instead of adopting the view that all felons are now the new victim here in Iowa, what we’re trying to do here in the Senate is say let’s bring this back to the victims, where this process all started to begin with,” Senator Dan Dawson, a Republican from Council Bluffs, said this evening during senate debate.
Last year, Governor Kim Reynolds called on her Republican colleagues in the legislature to draft a constitutional amendment to automatically give felons voting rights when they’re released from prison. The House passed the proposal in 2019, but it stalled in the Senate. Dawson said that’s because these proposed limitations are necessary for some criminals.
“I like to think I live in a place called ‘Realville,’ and inside ‘Realville’ there’s bad people there and they do bad things,” Dawson said. “And we shouldn’t kid ourselves to believe that once they exit prison all is well and they’re new members of society.”
The bill would require some felons to apply to the governor for their voting rights if they’ve been convicted of serious crimes, like rape, murder, homicide, child endangerment resulting in death and election misconduct. Dawson called the bill a good faith effort to resolve the issue.
“The most disappointing part of this entire process for the last 13 months when we’re trying to find a way to more standardize this process is the absolute lack of discussion around the victims,” Dawson said. “…The Iowa Senate is going to ensure that victims are included in this process — not just words, not platitudes.”
Governor Reynolds told reporters earlier today that she considers the bill a compromise she’d accept.
Senator Rob Hogg, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids, was among two senators who argued during tonight’s debate that every released felon should get their voting rights back, without conditions.
“It’s a way of reconnecting them to the community,” Hogg said. “It helps successful re-entry and it reduces crime and it reduces victims.”
The bill with proposed felon voting restrictions passed by a 37-11 vote and now goes to the House for consideration.
Two schools in Grinnell were locked down Tuesday (3/3) after someone reported spotting a suspicious person near one of them. Grinnell-Newburg Superintendent Janet Stutz says the district office was notified around 8:40 a.m. that the person was seen outside the high school, not far from a K-2 elementary school. Both schools locked the doors, and students and teachers were told to remain in their classrooms. Stutz says around 9:35 a.m., the person was found somewhere other than inside the school. It turns out no criminal action had taken place and the public was never in danger.
Kacey Musgraves is already stepping up to help those affected by the tornados that hit Nashville early yesterday morning. The singer held a “major closet sale” last night to raise money for Tennessee tornado relief.
Kacey’s items are on sale at Stage to Closet. She initially announced on Instagram that the sale would benefit Tennessee urban forest preservation, but after the recent devastation she announced on her Instagram Story the money will go to tornado relief.
“Heartbroken for East Nashville. I lived on this side of town (in this neighborhood until recently) for years,” she shared. “Many friends are severely affected. Thankful to be ok and thinking of those who aren’t.” She then added even though she still thinks forest preservation is needed, “tornado relief efforts need help first.” She also said she plans to add more items.
Today in 1980, Sissy Spacek played the lead role of Loretta Lynn’s life in “Coal Miner’s Daughter” which premiered in Nashville on March 4th.
Coal Miner’s Daughter is a 1980 American biographical musical film directed by Michael Apted from a screenplay written by Tom Rickman. It follows the story of country music singer Loretta Lynn from her early teen years in a poor family and getting married at 15 to her rise as one of the most successful country musicians. Based on Lynn’s 1976 biography of the same name by George Vecsey, the film stars Sissy Spacek as Lynn. Tommy Lee Jones, Beverly D’Angelo and Levon Helm are featured in supporting roles. Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, and Minnie Pearl make cameo appearances as themselves.
A film on Lynn’s life was intended to be made since the release of the biography. Production for the film began on March 1979, and Lynn herself chose Spacek to portray her on screen after seeing a photograph of her despite being unfamiliar with her films. The film’s soundtrack featured all Lynn’s hit singles which were all sung by Spacek as well as Patsy Cline’s “Sweet Dreams” sung by D’Angelo. The soundtrack reached the top 40 in the U.S. on the Billboard 200 and sold over 500,000 copies, thus being certified gold by the RIAA.
Coal Miner’s Daughter was released theatrically on March 7, 1980 and grossed $67.18 million in North America against a budget of $15 million, becoming the seventh highest-grossing film of 1980. It garnered critical acclaim and received seven nominations at the 53rd Academy Awards including for the Best Picture and winning Best Actress (for Spacek). At the 38th Golden Globe Awards, the film received four nominations and won two : Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actress – Musical or Comedy (for Spacek).
In 2019, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
Source: Wikipedia
Two schools in Grinnell were locked down Tuesday after someone reported spotting a suspicious person near one of them. Grinnell-Newburg Superintendent Janet Stutz says the district office was notified around 8:40 a.m. that the person was seen outside the high school, not far from a K-2 elementary school. Both schools locked the doors, and students and teachers were told to remain in their classrooms. Stutz says around 9:35 a.m., the person was found somewhere other than inside the school. It’s unclear where. No comment yet from Grinnell Police.
Oskaloosa’s reign as State 3A boys’ basketball champions is over. Pella defeated the Indians 62-51 Monday night (3/2) in Knoxville to win the 3A Substate 6 championship and advance to next week’s State tournament. The Indians and Dutch fought tooth and nail for three quarters. Oskaloosa led by three at halftime and by six midway through the fourth quarter….before Pella went off on a 10-0 run to take a lead they would never lose. The Dutch kept it going in the fourth quarter, as senior Logan Shetterly scored 29 points and classmate Treyton Sturgeon added 13 for Pella. Oskaloosa Coach Ryan Parker said when Pella began using a full court press in the third quarter, it made a difference in the game.
“We did some uncharacteristic things. Our pregame scouting report said ‘Stay in the moment; don’t play outside yourself.’ At the end of the day, that press…..the easiest thing to do when you’re getting pressed is to shoot it. We didn’t handle the ball extremely well there in the third and fourth quarter and that came back to cost us.”
Pella will take a 19-5 record into the 3A boys State tournament next week. Oskaloosa ends the season with a 10-14 record. Parker talked about his seven seniors.
“I talked about every one of my seniors in my post-game speech, everything they’ve contributed over the four years. They’ve got nothing to be disappointed about, they can’t hang their heads. They won a State title, not many people do that. They played four straight Substate finals, not many teams do that. And I talked with each one of them about what they’ve contributed to this program. And at the end of the day, we’ve got to look at Xavier Foster. He was a complete program-changer for us. We called it Xavier Foster effect, filling gyms in the away games and home games, changing shots at the rim. I’ll probably never coach a kid again like that.”
Xavier Foster ended his Oskaloosa career with 23 points as he takes his talents to Iowa State University next season.
Five other teams advanced to the 3A boys’ State basketball tournament Monday: Norwalk–last year’s State runner-up, Harlan, Sergeant Bluff-Luton, Center Point-Urbana and Mount Vernon. The rest of the Class 3A field will be determined Wednesday night (3/4). Pella will learn who their first opponent at State will be on Thursday morning (3/5).
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