w/ Ric Hanson

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LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – An ad for a fast food restaurant back in the mid 1980’s asked the question “Where’s the Beef?”  These days, people in the Midwest are asking, “Where’s the snow?”  Cities all across the region are setting records for the lack of the white stuff.  Lincoln, NE, is seeing its 297th day in a row without measurable snow. The former record was 295 snow-free days in 2004.

The National Weather Service says the 285 snowless days as of Wednesday in Omaha breaks the record 284 days that ended Dec. 30, 2006.  The Des Moines, Iowa, record of 277 days set in 1889 is being matched today (Thursday).   Elsewhere in the Midwest, Chicago and Milwaukee have yet to have their first measurable snow of the season.

But good news may be ahead for winter wonderland fans: The service says snow is in the forecasts for Saturday night or Sunday in Nebraska and Iowa, the next day in Chicago.

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has ordered all flags in the state to be flown at half-staff from 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.  Friday, December 7th, 2012, in honor of Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

Flags will be at half-staff on the State Capitol Building and on flag displays in the Capitol Complex, and upon all public buildings, grounds, and facilities throughout the state. Individuals, businesses, schools, municipalities, counties and other government subdivisions are encouraged to fly the flag at half-staff for the same length of time as a sign of respect.

w/ Ric Hanson

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A routine traffic stop early Tuesday morning in Lenox resulted in a chase and arrest. According to Lenox Police, an officer tried to stop a Cadillac at around 1-a.m. Tuesday, for failure to have a license plate. Immediately afterward, the car sped-off on 120^thStreet. During the ensuing chase, speeds exceeded 80-miles per hour.

A.J. Miller (Photo courtesy Lenox P-D)

The pursuit ended in Ringgold County after deputies from Taylor, Ringgold and Union Counties assisted in setting up a road block. The driver of the car, 35-year old A-J Miller, of Shannon City,  was arrested for driving with a suspended license, failure to have insurance, fail to obey traffic control devices, speeding 80 MPH in a 55 zone, felony eluding and operating a vehicle under the influence of narcotics.

Miller was brought to the Taylor County Jail, while the vehicle was impounded.

A traffic stop on Interstate 80 in Cass County Monday morning resulted in the arrest of two people on drug charges. Trooper Wayne Brosam with the Iowa State Patrol told KJAN News he stopped a 1996 conversion van with Illinois plates for speeding on I-80 at around 7:55-a.m., about two-miles east of the exit to Highway 71.

During conversations with the driver, 34-year old Tramaine McCray, in Brosam’s patrol  car, the Trooper says he observed numerous indicators of criminal activity. At the conclusion of the traffic stop verbal consent was given to search the van. During a hand search of the vehicle, approximately 16.5 pounds of high grade marijuana was located in a natural void in the headliner of the conversion van.

McCray, and a passenger in the van, 34-year old Demetrius Johnson, were taken into custody on charges that include Possession of Marijuana with the Intent to Deliver, Prohibited Acts and violation of the Drug Stamp Tax. They were later released from the Cass County Jail on $5,000 bond each.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Board of Regents President Craig Lang says the University of Iowa is not doing enough to protect students and employees from sexual misconduct in light of the resignation of a former athletics department counselor. Lang said Wednesday during a board meeting that the regents overhauled campus policies after a high-profile assault case involving Iowa football players in 2007.

Lang said one change required employees to participate in sexual misconduct training, and Iowa’s handling of the Peter Gray case shows the school “is not doing a good enough job in this area.” Lang says he expects the university will address “the obvious breakdowns” the case exposed. Gray resigned last month after he was accused of improperly touching athletes for years, conduct that allegedly dated back to the 1990s.

Here is the latest Iowa news from The Associated Press

A team of University of Iowa researchers has made a “surprising” discovery about cancer cells: they are likely to be tougher than the other cells moving through the blood stream. Michael Henry, a professor in the university’s College of Medicine, is the lead author of the study.  “For many years people have more or less assumed that these (cancer) cells would be very fragile and not able to withstand very high levels of fluid shear stress,” Henry says. “We found that, in fact, although normal cells are fragile and susceptible, the cancer cells exhibit a resistance.” Just like “wind shear” on a plane or a vehicle speeding down the highway, cells in the human body are exposed to “fluid shear” in the blood stream.

Henry says exposure to that kind of “shear stress” seemed to induce a “hardiness” in cancer cells. “What we’ve done so far is work with laboratory-based models. We still need to move our discovery into the clinic and look at real, circulating cancer cells in patients to see if our findings hold,” Henry says. “But what we’ve found so far would suggest that is going to be the case.” This discovery eventually could lead to a blood test that would measure dangerous the cancer might be. “In addition to knowing whether the cancer is going to be dangerous or not, we might be able to take cells out of a patient and very rapidly measure whether they are sensitive or resistant to potential drug therapies without having to look at all of the genes in the cancer,” Henry says.

The research findings were just published in a medical journal and Henry has applied for another grant, specifically to measure cancer cells in melanoma patients.

(Radio Iowa)