The inside story of Kevin Young & BYU; Search & Rescue encouraging hikers to be prepared; Mike Lee rallying Senate to kill foreign aid bill
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The Utah Policy newsletter is your one-stop source for political and policy-minded news. We scour the news so you don't have to! Send news tips or feedback to Holly Richardson at editor@utahpolicy.com.

 

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Situational Analysis | April 23, 2024

It's Tuesday and National Cherry Cheesecake Day! 🍒

What you need to know

  • Reps. Blake Moore, Celeste Maloy and John Curtis attended a field hearing for the Federal Lands Subcommittee of the House Committee on Natural Resources in Hurricane yesterday. The biggest complaints raised at the hearing were over the BLM's decision to reverse approval of a right-of-way for the Northern Corridor, a 4½-mile road that would run through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area. Critics say time and location excluded local voices.

Rapid relevance

  • The inside story of how Kevin Young landed at BYU; Utah County Search and Rescue crews are encouraging hikers to be prepared this spring; also, it appears that while Jay Ugarte declared his intent to collect signatures, the Utah County Clerk cannot verify that he submitted enough to qualify for the ballot for Utah County Commission Seat C.
 

Drones, E-Bikes and Self-Driving Cars – What’s the future of transportation, and what does it mean for our cities?

Have you ever wondered how advances in transportation will affect our city planning and development? Join Envision Utah at Little America on Thursday, May 16, at 7:45 a.m. to be a part of the conversation on the future of our cities and towns. Tickets are available at envisionutah.org.

 

Utah Headlines

Political news

  • Another Harvard grad endorses Utah Sen. Mitt Romney to be the university’s next president: Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Deseret News)
  • At congressional hearing in southern Utah, local frustration on display over fed control of land (Deseret News)
  • Curtis, Maloy host subcommittee 'field hearing' to discuss possible highway through conservation area (Fox13)
  • Navajo Nation prods Utah’s delegation to expand radiation-exposure compensation (KUER)
  • Utah Sen. Mike Lee rallying Senate to kill foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel (KSL)

Election news

  • Chris Stewart endorses 3rd Congressional District candidate: Stewart Peay (Deseret News)

Utah news

  • UTA set to extend S-Line streetcar service for first time. Here's what to expect (KSL)
  • Developer releases statement on progress of slope stabilization in Draper neighborhood (KUTV)
  • For 150 years, site markers didn’t name who committed Utah’s Mountain Meadows Massacre (KUER)
  • Campbell's awards $20,000 grant to Cache Community Food Pantry (Cache Valley Daily)

Business/Tech

  • What jobs are safe from AI? Here are 4 career fields to consider (Deseret News)
  • Voyager 1 is sending data back to Earth for the first time in 5 months (KSL TV)
  • Beware of scam tickets for PGA TOUR in Utah, resort says (ABC4)
  • 'Blizzard' is betting favorite for Utah NHL team's new name (Fox13)

Crime/Courts

  • Compliance supervisor at Uintah and Ouray Reservation sentenced to federal prison for extortion (KSL)
  • ‘Angels are angry’: FBI agent describes ‘manipulating’ texts between Lori and Chad Daybell (KSL TV)
  • Remembering one of Utah’s most heinous murder cases, 50 years later (KSL TV)

Culture

  • We finally have a streaming release timeline for ‘The Chosen’ Season 4 (Deseret News)
  • Riverdale man brings Disneyland to life in his basement (Standard-Examiner)
  • 'Wheelchair Dad' reveals completed bedroom remodel on birthday (KSL)

Education

  • Many in Gen Z ditch colleges for trade schools. Meet the 'toolbelt generation' (NPR)
  • Years after serious issues, Utah State says students feel safe. Here’s what students and staff told us. (Salt Lake Tribune)
  • Utah’s best high schools for 2024 (Salt Lake Tribune)
  • Salt Lake City schools is the latest district to ponder what to do with smartphones (KUER)

Environment

  • Salt Lake City plants 250 trees for Earth Day (KSL TV)
  • Critics continue opposition to Parleys Canyon quarry proposal (KSL Newsradio)
  • Utah’s reservoirs and streams in ‘impressive’ shape, state says (Standard-Examiner)
  • The Explore Act, one of the largest outdoor recreation bills ever, poised to impact Utah (St. George News)
  • Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. (Washington Post)

Family

  • America’s new stay-at-home moms are increasingly women who don’t earn enough to pay for child care (AP)

Health

  • Medical marijuana card numbers spike in Utah (KSL Newsradio)
  • Generative A.I. arrives in the gene editing world of CRISPR (New York Times)
  • Nationwide health alert issued for ground beef over potential E. coli risk (The Hill)

Housing

  • Challenge Accepted: How renters can overcome barriers to homeownership (Washington Post)
 

National Headlines

General

  • Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at Yale, NYU (Washington Post)
  • Columbia University shifts classes to remote-only after a wave of protests on campus (NPR)
  • UnitedHealth says hackers possibly stole large number of Americans' data (Reuters)
  • Rail spikes hammered, bullet train being built from Sin City to the City of Angels (AP)

Political news

  • Trump tried to ‘corrupt’ the 2016 election, prosecutor alleges as hush money trial gets underway (AP)
  • A tabloid publisher is set to tell jurors how he helped Trump kill negative stories in 2016 (AP)
  • US Supreme Court to hear challenge to Biden's 'ghost guns' curbs (Reuters)
  • Supreme Court declines to hear Kari Lake voting machine lawsuit (The Hill)
  • Greene faces uphill battle to oust Johnson (The Hill)

Election news

  • Can Biden make Trump seem like Mitt Romney? (New York Times)
  • Republicans are starting to worry about RFK Jr. (Politico)
  • Biden’s polls improve as Kennedy and third-party factor shifts (Washington Post)
  • Manchin endorses Wheeling mayor to replace him in Senate (The Hill)

Ukraine 🇺🇦

  • Ukraine says it controls village that Russia said it had captured (Reuters)
  • Ukraine's Zelenskiy expresses gratitude to Biden, says deal on ATACMS in place (Reuters)
  • A Russian strike on Kharkiv’s TV tower is part of an intimidation campaign, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says (AP)

Israel and Gaza

  • Israel wants Hamas out of Gaza but even rooting it from the north hasn’t worked (Wall Street Journal)

World news

  • Russian man sentenced to 5 years of labor for criticizing war in Ukraine (Washington Post)
  • Mexico's leading presidential candidate is stopped by masked men at checkpoint (NPR)
 

Number of the Day 

Number of the Day, April 23, 2024

 

News Releases

OED to receive $62 million for Solar For All program

The Utah Office of Energy Development (OED) has been selected to receive $62,450,000.00 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the Solar For All program. Utah is proud to be one of sixty recipients. Solar for All will increase access to the benefits of solar power for traditionally underserved and low-income communities in Utah. OED’s Solar for All program adheres to the three objectives of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund: reducing climate and air pollution, delivering benefits to low-income and disadvantaged communities, and mobilizing financing to spur additional deployment of low-cost solar energy. Additional outcomes include helping vulnerable communities gain energy independence and resiliency and improving the grid. (Read More)


UVU Cheer Team, Dance Team and Green Man Group collectively named Game Day Division I National Champions

Utah Valley University’s (UVU) Cheer Team, Dance Team, and Green Man Group were collectively named Game Day Division 1 (D-1) National Champions at the 2024 NCA Cheerleading competition in Daytona Beach, Florida last week. UVU’s Advanced D-1 All Girl Cheer team placed third.

Earlier in the year, UVU’s D-1 Hip Hop and Jazz teams placed second and third respectively at the Universal Dance Association (UDA)’s 2024 College Cheerleading and Dance Team National, held January 12-14 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. (Read More)

 

Tweet of the Day

Screenshot 2024-04-23 at 7.18.26 AM

 

Upcoming

  • April 23 — WTC Innovation Summit, 8:30 am-12:00 pm, Register here
  • April 25 — Giant in Our City, 6:00-9:00 pm, Grand America Hotel, 
  • April 26 — YWCA Leader Luncheon, Grand America Hotel, 11:30 am-2:00 pm, Purchase tickets here
  • April 27 — State GOP and Democratic Conventions
  • May 13-15 — Interim Days
  • June 6 — Bolder Way Forward 2nd Annual Summit, Zions Technology Campus, 9:00 am-2:00 pm, Register here
  • June 18-19 — Interim Days
  • August 20-21 — Interim Days
  • September 17-18 — Interim Days
  • October 15-16 — Interim Day
  • November 19-20 — Interim Days
 

On This Day In History 

  • 1564 - William Shakespeare is born.
  • 1616 - William Shakespeare dies at age 52
  • 1791 - James Buchanan (15th president) is born.
  • 1872 - Charlotte E. Ray became the first Black female lawyer in the United States.
  • 1928 - Shirley Temple Black is born. The cheerful and curly-haired child actor, singer and dancer was later appointed U.S. Ambassador to Ghana (1974) and Czechoslovakia (1988).
  • 1933 - Annie Easley is born. She became a computer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist and one of the first Black Americans to work as a computer scientist at NASA,
  • 2005 - First YouTube video gets uploaded.
  • 2007 - Barbara Hillary became the first Black woman and the oldest person (at age 76) to reach the North Pole.
  • 2024 - Widespread flooding across southern China forces the evacuation of 110,000 people with warning of a "once in a century" flood on the Bei River

Quote of the Day

"People have their biases and prejudices, yes, I am aware...But my thing is, if I can't work with you, I will work around you."

—Annie Easley


On the Punny Side

I'm writing a book about hurricanes and tornadoes...

It's only a draft at the moment.

 

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