Situational Analysis | July 26, 2021

Welcome to Monday and the last week of July. I hope your holiday weekend was delightful.

Today is National Disability Independence Day, marking the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act being signed into law in 1990.

Be in the Know

1. A tragic 20-car pile-up in Millard County has resulted in at least 7 people dead, with more in critical condition. A dust storm dropped visibility to almost zero, leading to the collisions. Just devastating.

2. Ballots are in the mailbox if your municipality has one or more primary elections AND is not participating in ranked-choice voting. 

3. The Nature Conservancy is launching a three-part series on the Great Salt Lake. Part one is now available and asks the question: "Will we choose the save the Great Salt Lake?" Check it out.

Utah Headlines

General

• Back in the saddle: Ogden Pioneer Days rodeo a big draw after year off (Standard-Examiner)
• Utah County icon Steve Densley, 74, dies of complications from diabetes (Daily Herald)
• Spanish Fork barn engulfed in flames started by fireworks. More than 100 tons of hay were lost. (Fox13)
• Modern Christian pioneers need our help, too. The U.S. is on track to admit an astonishingly low number of refugees this year. Many of them are fleeing religious persecution. (Deseret News)

Politics

• Inside Utah Politics: Utah’s record high real estate market and what buyers need to know (ABC4)
• Faith leaders are calling on Congress to tackle immigration reform (Deseret News)

COVID Corner

• Why the delta variant is more contagious: “Part of the challenge that delta presents may be tied to this finding. The variant’s viral load ~1,000X higher than previous strains." (Deseret News)
• An Alabama mother who lost her son to covid says not getting the vaccine is her biggest regret (Washington Post)
• ‘I’m sorry, but it’s too late’; Doctor describes dying COVID-19 patients begging for vaccine (Fox13)
• Man who made fun of vaccination efforts on social media dies of Covid
  “I got 99 problems but a vax ain't one," Stephen Harmon said in a tweet last month. (NBC News)
• The delta variant will drive a steep rise in US COVID deaths, a new model shows (NPR)
• How the Delta variant is upending assumptions about the coronavirus (Reuters)
• How concerned should we be about breakthrough coronavirus infections? Very, says one expert.“At the beginning of the pandemic, the CDC said that a close contact was somebody that you’re indoors with unmasked for 15 minutes or more. The equivalent of that with the Delta variant is not 15 minutes, it’s one second.” (Stat News)

Drought/Wildfires/Heat

• Great Salt Lake hits all-time historic low (Fox13)
• Water guesswork: Cache ranks worst in state for tracking water use (Herald Journal)
• Pleasant View announces possible fines, criminal charges for repeated misuse of culinary water (Fox13)
• Northern California wildfires merge, forcing more from their homes (LA Times)

Economic Development

• Utah’s hottest staffing agency expands into Pleasant Grove; ribbon-cutting today (July 26) at 11 am (Utah Business)

Education

• Parents of high-risk kids worry about sending their kids back to school without mask requirements amid the latest COVID spike (KUER)
• UVU students excel at annual SkillsUSA competition (Daily Herald)
• WSU, BYU students doing 'study abroad' program in our own backyard this summer, doing archeology work at an ancestral Puebloan habitation center in southeast Utah (KSL)

Elections

• Candidate Daines highlights her first four years as Logan mayor as primary looms just ahead (Cache Valley Daily)

Housing

• Burned by hot housing market, some buyers are backing off (Salt Lake Tribune)

Legal

• The hate-crime case in which no one was intimidated. A Utah arrest shows the danger of laws that let government enforcers chill speech that they don’t like. (The Atlantic)

Local Communities

• Park City fire chief dies of injuries sustained in off-duty accident (Park Record)

National Headlines

General

• U.S. population growth, an economic driver, grinds to a halt. The Covid-19 pandemic compounds years of birth-rate decline, putting America’s demographic health at risk (Wall Street Journal)
• 1960s civil rights activist Robert Moses has died (AP)
• More than 200 people in 27 states now being monitored for monkeypox (The Hill)
• Indiana University to honor Fauci with distinguished leadership award (The Hill)

Olympics

• USA gymnastics team advances to the finals, but former Ute MyKayla Skinner misses the cut (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Heart broken’: MyKayla Skinner reacts to Olympic run ending (ABC4)
• Gymnastics team, tired of ‘sexualization,’ wears unitards (AP)
• Olympics Latest: Russian athletes take gymnastics lead (AP)
• Ariarne Titmus outduels Katie Ledecky over final leg of epic 400-meter race in Tokyo (Washington Post)
• They’re Olympic gold and silver medalists. And they’re 13 years old. (Washington Post)
• Japan's Olympic organizers lied about its weather, and now athletes are paying the price (Yahoo)

Politics

• Arizona Sec. of State Katie Hobbs' message to Donald Trump: "Like most grown-ups, take your loss and accept it and move on. Nothing that's going on here is going to change the outcome, and this is nothing more than being a sore loser." (The Hill)
• Jan. 6 select committee takes shape with Kinzinger addition. The nine-member panel set to have seven Democrats and two Republicans (Roll Call)
• Ronny Jackson, former White House doctor, predicts Biden will resign (Hint: He won't) (The Hill)
• This week: Bipartisan group tries to clinch infrastructure deal amid hurdles (The Hill)
• In a new letter sent to the Senate, the FBI admits it never meaningfully investigated the claims against Brett Kavanaugh because it was only empowered to talk to people that were approved by the Trump White House. (New York Times)

Economy

• Bitcoin jumps to a six-week high (Wall Street Journal)

Education

• Sparked by pandemic fallout, homeschooling surges across US (AP)

Elections

• ‘We’re f---ed’: Dems fear turnout catastrophe from GOP voting laws. There’s growing concern — bordering on alarm — about the potential impact in 2022 of the raft of new voting restrictions. (Politico)

International

• UN: Women, children casualties on the rise in Afghanistan (AP)
• Tunisian democracy in crisis after president ousts government (Reuters)

Policy News

ICYMI: Gov. Spencer Cox and Attorney General Sean Reyes announce $26 billion agreement with opioid distributors/manufacturer

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Attorney General Sean D. Reyes today announced a historic $26 billion agreement that will help bring desperately needed relief to people across the country who are struggling with opioid addiction. The agreement includes Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen – the nation’s three major pharmaceutical distributors – and Johnson & Johnson, which manufactured and marketed opioids. The agreement also requires significant industry changes that will help prevent this type of crisis from ever happening again. The agreement would resolve investigations and litigation over the companies’ roles in creating and fueling the opioid epidemic.
Utah’s portion of the settlement is 1.1889%, for a total of $309,114,000 dollars to be paid over 18 years.

Tragically, just last year, opioid overdose deaths rose to a record 93,000, a nearly 30 percent increase over the prior year. Many, many more have seen their lives torn apart by the disease of addiction. The damage also impacts their families and friends and their broader communities that suffer the consequences. (Read More)

Number of the Day

Upcoming

• Securing the American Dream: A conversation with Tim Scott presented by the Hatch Foundation – Aug 11 @ noon. Register here
• Utah Foundation Breakfast Briefing: Mental health in anxious times – Aug 26 @ 9 am. Register here
• Utah Foundation Annual Luncheon with Shaylyn Romney Garrett – Sept 23 @ 12 pm. Register here

On This Day In History

From History.com

• 1533 - Francisco Pizarro orders the death of the last Sapa Inca Emperor, Atahualpa - 200 conquistadors conquered an empire of 10 Million
• 1775 - US Postal Service established
• 1866 - Beatrix Potter is born. The English author, illustrator and scientist is best known for her children’s book The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
• 1908 - FBI is founded
• 1945 - Winston Churchill resigns
• 1947 - President Harry S. Truman creates the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the U.S. Air Force, National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he signs the National Security Act of 1947.
• 1948 - President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 ending discrimination in the military. Truman’s order ended a long-standing practice of segregating Black soldiers and relegating them to more menial jobs.
• 1972 - The horrors of the 40-year Tuskegee syphilis experiment finally come to light (and then an end) with an exposé in the New York Times. With the promise of free medical care, 600 Black men were enrolled in a project meant to last six months, 399 with syphilis, 201 as a “control” group. Penicillin was available by 1947, but was never offered to the men (or their infected family members). The project only ended after a whistleblower went to a reporter with the Associated Press. 
• 1990 - President George H.W. Bush signs the Americans with Disabilities Act into law.
• 1996 - The All American Red Heads play their last official game.

Wise Words

"I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations."
-Beatrix Potter

Lighter Side

“Next up, fact: karate, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing are making their Olympic debut. Fiction: Frisbee golf is next, bruh.”

— JIMMY FALLON

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