Situational Analysis | July 7, 2022

It's already Thursday and today is World Chocolate Day. What a great day!

Be in the Know

• Gallup is out with its annual look at Americans’ confidence in various institutions, and … it’s bad. No institution say improvement and 11 of the 16 researched saw significant declines. “This year's poll marks new lows in confidence for all three branches of the federal government—the Supreme Court (25%), the presidency (23%) and Congress (7%),” Jeffrey Jones writes. “Five other institutions are at their lowest points in at least three decades of measurement, including the church or organized religion (31%), newspapers (16%), the criminal justice system (14%), big business (14%) and the police. … Americans’ confidence in institutions has been lacking for most of the past 15 years, but their trust in key institutions has hit a new low this year.”

• Bye, bye Boris. The scandal-ridden British prime minister Boris Johnson announced he would step down - after he was abandoned by most of his Conservative lawmakers. Some 50 of his Cabinet ministers resigned en masse and even those closest to him told him it was time to go. "I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world. But them's the breaks," he said. Ukraine advisor Mykhailo Podolyak thanked him for supporting Ukraine, while Russia rejoices over his downfall. He will stay on until a replacement is chosen.

Rapid Roundup

• Officers are asking the public NOT to search the area where Dylan Rounds may have disappeared from, motorcycle fatalities increase on Utah roads, a 100-year-old veteran of WWII said through tears that the America they fought for has "gone down the drain," Elon Musk reportedly had twins with a top exec at one of his companies last year, weeks before he and his official girlfriend had their second child, and finally, the story of Fred the mastodon who died looking for love - apparently in all the wrong places. 

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Utah Headlines

General

• Value of U.S. dollar hits 20-year highs in boon for travelers but bust for many businesses (Deseret News)
• Religion summit shines bright light on the real human toll of religious violence, persecution (Deseret News)
• Police respond to bomb threat at Ogden-Weber Technical College, no device found (KSL TV)
• Busy Bee Baggers create book bags for children in need (KUTV)
• Why go to space? “We must continue to invest in space if we want to flourish as a society and as a species,” says Senior Research Fellow Eli Dourado (CGO at USU)

Politics

• Utahns on guns: Red flag laws? Yes. Assault weapons ban? Yes. Universal background checks? Yes. New Deseret News/Hinckley Institute poll shows strong support for gun control measures (Deseret News)
• Utah’s trigger law requires rape victims seeking an abortion to report to police. But prosecutors say the law isn’t clear enough. Physicians can face up to 15 years in prison if they perform an abortion without verifying a rape victim reported to police. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Justice Department sues Arizona over new voter registration laws (Deseret News)
• A Utah woman emailed her lawmaker about abortion. His response on ‘barbaric slaughter’ surprised her. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Woman behind 'Sharon Says So' podcast explains how we stop 'screaming at each other' (KSL)
• Bluffdale mayor responds after husband charged with threatening city councilman (KUTV)
• Bill to tweak property taxes and water use is advancing on Utah's Capitol Hill (Fox13)

Education

• 'Art is a good teacher': New public exhibit draws attention to the drying Great Salt Lake (KSL)

Environment

• How much will UDOT’s Little Cottonwood traffic solutions really cost? (Deseret News)
• Are nuclear and natural gas plants ‘green’? Europe says yes (Deseret News)
• 'This is a happy day': Stericycle ceases incineration operations after 9-year battle (KSL)
• Biologists’ fears confirmed on the lower Colorado River as non-native smallmouth bass are found (AP)
• A U.S. uranium mill is near the Ute Mountain Ute tribe in White Mesa, Utah. A study may reveal if it poses a health risk (NPR)
• Shell has big plans to drill in the Gulf of Mexico despite climate and political debate (Wall Street Journal)

Health

• What a new study uncovered about the practice of intermittent fasting and COVID-19 (Deseret News)
• What COVID-19 did to U.S. life expectancy and where it ranks among causes of death (Deseret News)
• Forget ‘stealth omicron.’ Here’s the latest subvariant causing most COVID-19 cases (Deseret News)

Housing

• SLC project will upgrade nearly 300 apartments dedicated to seniors and the disabled (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Utah's housing market is changing in these 3 ways (KUTV)

National Headlines

General

• 😮 Michigan police apologize for using pictures of Black men as targets (Deseret News)
• It's time to rethink the 'last place you'd expect a shooting' narrative (NPR)
• The NASA engineer who made the James Webb space telescope work.
  Greg Robinson turned a $10 billion debacle into a groundbreaking scientific mission. Every moonshot is the result of marginal improvements. (Wall Street Journal)

Politics

• What prompted the unprecedented FBI, MI5 joint address? The directors of the two intelligence agencies sent a clear signal on the ‘massive shared challenge’ China presents (Deseret News)
• Shanghai police data goes public: Possibly one of the ‘largest data breaches in history’ (Deseret News)
• House Republicans weigh national abortion restrictions (The Hill)
• Former FBI leaders who drew Trump’s ire were both audited by IRS (Washington Post)
• Graham’s relationship with Trump comes back to bite him (The Hill)
• Secret Service denial of Hutchinson story fuels attacks from both sides (The Hill)

Ukraine 🇺🇦 

• A not-so-distant war. Mariya Manzhos, who grew up in Ukraine and recently became a U.S. citizen, spent the early days of the Russia-Ukraine war trying to get her parents to safety. (Deseret News)
• Ukrainians cling to life at front line: ‘We are patriots’ (AP)
• Russia’s war in Ukraine to overshadow G-20 talks in Bali (AP)
• Video investigation: Russia is using a secret network to steal Ukraine grain (Wall Street Journal)
• Russia strikes Snake Island - again - after Ukrainians plant their flag (Washington Post)

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Upcoming

• Hatch Center Webinar: Preserving Judicial Integrity — July 14, 11:00 am, MDT. Register here
• ULCT Annual Convention - Oct 5-7, Salt Palace Convention Center, Register here
• General election â€“ Nov 8

On This Day In History

• 1456 - A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death
• 1861 - Nettie Stevens is born. She discovered the X and Y chromosomes.
• 1865 - Mary Surratt becomes the first woman executed by the US government for her role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. She was joined on the gallows by Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt.
• 1928 - Sliced bread is sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company, Missouri, using a machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder. Described as the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.
• 1930 - Building begins on the Hoover Dam.
• 1930 - Arthur Conan Doyle, British writer (Sherlock Holmes), dies at 71
• 1946 - James Earl “Jimmy” Carter marries Eleanor Rosalynn Smith at the Plains Methodist Church in Plains, Georgia. 
• 1976 - Female cadets enrolled at West Point for the first time.
• 1981 - Sandra Day O’Connor nominated to the US Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan
• 2019 - US women’s soccer team wins record 4th World Cup title

Wise Words

"I care very much about women and their progress. I didn't go march in the streets, but when I was in the Arizona Legislature, one of the things that I did was to examine every single statute in the state of Arizona to pick out the ones that discriminated against women and get them changed."

— Sandra Day O'Connor

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