Gazette Daily News Briefing, January 15
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette Digital News Desk, and I’m here with your update for January 15, 2024.
It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Iowa Caucus Day. It also is very, very cold today.
According to the National Weather Service it will be partly sunny with a high near -3 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area. Wind chill values could be as low as -40 degrees.
The one silver lining is it will gradually become slightly warmer as the week goes on, and weather models for the following weeks have temperatures bouncing back into the 20s and 30s.
But until those predictions come to pass, make sure to bundle up.
The Perry High School Principal who put himself in harm’s way to protect students during a school shooting earlier this month died on Sunday,
According to reporting from the Associated Press, Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger was critically injured during the Jan. 4 attack. Marburger was commended by public safety officials for putting himself in danger in an attempt to protect his students.
Likewise, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds issued a statement in reaction to the news.
"Our entire state is devastated by the news of Dan Marburger's death," Gov. Reynolds said in a statement Sunday. "Dan courageously put himself in harm's way to protect his students, and ultimately gave his own life to save them. He will forever be remembered for his selfless and heroic actions. May he rest in peace."
An 11-year-old middle school student was killed in the shooting, and six other people were injured. The 17-year-old student who opened fire also was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
With mounting scientific evidence showing exercise can reduce stress, anxiety and symptoms of depression, one Iowa State University associate professor wants to know why and how, and whether the type and amount of exercise matters.
ISU associate professor of kinesiology Jacob Meyer recently landed two National Institute of Mental Health grants providing him resources to try to answer those questions.
The longer of the two projects — a $3.6 million, five-year study — gives him three years to recruit 200 adults with depression for a 16-week trial to test whether resistance training, also known as weight training, can be as helpful as aerobic exercise like running or biking has been shown to be.
The second, a $1.5 million, two-year study, aims to explore whether exercise might amplify benefits of therapy.
These inquiries are a continuation of Meyer’s research into the impact of exercise on depression,
From 2020 to 2022, Meyer and his ISU team led smaller pilot studies that produced “promising results” about the benefits of exercise. They found — among other things — that 30 minutes of exercise might reduce depression symptoms for at least 75 minutes after the workout and also amplify therapy benefits.
The Gazette’s reporters and photographers will be getting plenty of exercise tonight for the Iowa Caucus. The Gazette will have caucus coverage tonight on thegazette.com, a liveblog featuring on-the-scene photos and thoughts from voters, and will have several pages of coverage in the E-edition of the Gazette for Tuesday morning. Head to thegazette.com for information about how to participate in the caucus, caucus results as they come in and candidate reactions to those results.
Stay warm everybody.
