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Salt Lake Parade of Homes

Gov. Spencer Cox pushed local leaders to do more to help make his goal of building 35,000 starter homes in Utah by the end of 2028 a reality.

A discussion was held for the leaders from the 48 mostly Wasatch Front municipalities during his “Built Here” housing summit.

“It was a collaboration moment more than anything else. It really was about sharing the good ideas. I mean, we’ve had lots of ‘woodshed’ moments. It was about going over the numbers,” the governor said.

“I said at the end, ‘All I’m asking is that you are all as passionate about this as I am, understanding that the very future of our state hangs in the balance here,’” Cox said, warning the municipalities that all of Utah’s top rankings nationally "go away if we don’t solve this in the next five years.”

So far, just over 5,000 starter homes have been built since his “Utah First Homes” goal was announced in December 2023, Lisa Riley Roche reported. Efforts are underway to allow “starter condo” projects to tap into the $300 million in public funds set aside for loans to builders.

How a trio of lifelong Washington County pals are hoping to help UVU make baseball history

When three southern Utah kids who came from the same neighborhood graduated high school and left to play baseball at different colleges, they figured that was the end of their shared baseball careers together.

Until this year, when all three of them ended up transferring to play baseball at Utah Valley University. Now the former neighbors are teammates and roommates.

“The odds of all that happening has got to be close to zero,” said Wolverine infielder Landon Frei, laughing.

The Washington County trio grew up playing together and even won the 4A state title for their Snow Canyon High baseball team in 2021.

“We all played on the same travel baseball team since we were like 7,” said Frei. “We played on the same youth football team growing up and all the way through high school. So we’ve had a lot of years playing on the same teams.”

Frei, Mason Strong and Carston Herman are part of the UVU team that will take on No. 12 seed Oregon for today’s NCAA tournament opener.

It’s the second time in school history for UVU to make a tournament appearance, after claiming the WAC tournament title last week.

The Wolverines begin the double elimination regional at 7 p.m.

Read more about the UVU teammates.

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Utah

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Photo of the Week by Isaac Hale

Spanish Fork first baseman Rhett Walburger (31) makes a snow angel in the ice used to douse head coach Hadley Thorpe after the Dons defeated Brighton 7-4 during the final game of the championship series in the 5A high school baseball state tournament held at UCCU Ballpark on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem on Saturday, May 24, 2025.