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Local News Highlights: Daily Briefing

Morning must reads for Monday, August 28, 2017

Good Monday morning from Salt Lake City. Today is the 240th day of the year. There are 125 days remaining in 2017.

The clock:

• 50 days until ballots for the 2017 general election are mailed to voters (10/17/2017)
• 71 days until the 2017 election (11/7/2017)
• 147 days until the opening day of the 2018 Utah Legislature (1/22/2018)
• 192 days until the final day of the 2018 Utah Legislature (3/8/2018)
• 435 days until the 2018 midterm elections (11/6/2018)
• 1,163 days until the 2020 presidential election (11/3/2020)

Today's political TL; DR -

• Our "Political Insiders" aren't convinced that Operation Rio Grande will lead to lasting change in downtown Salt Lake City [Utah Policy].
  
  
• The Utah Republican Party is raising money and gathering supplies to assist in the relief effort following the devastation from Hurricane Harvey [Utah Policy].
  
  
• A new study of the 2016 election shows the number of Bernie Sanders supporters who ended up voting for Donald Trump was enough to put him in the White House [Utah Policy].
  
  
• On this week's "Beg to Differ" podcast, Bryan Schott and Mike Winder speak with Count My Vote's Rich McKeown about the likelihood they'll relaunch their ballot initiative next year [Utah Policy].
  
  
• Operation Rio Grande organizers are warning residents in neighborhoods around the embattled area to be on the lookout for a "ripple effect" as those displaced by the crackdown are moving elsewhere [Deseret News, Tribune].
  
  
• Those arrested during the criminal crackdown phase of Operation Rio Grande are entitled to public defenders, but it's not clear who will pay for that increased caseload [Tribune].
  
  
• Utah Native American tribes are getting ready for a legal battle if President Donald Trump follows through on a recommendation to reduce the size of the Bears Ears National Monument [Tribune].
  
  
• Former Deputy Salt Lake County Recorder Julie Dole is asking the Salt Lake County to approve severance pay for her because she says she's facing a financial hardship [Deseret News, Tribune].
  
  
• Murray Mayor Ted Eyre passed away Friday morning at the age of 71 [Deseret News, Tribune].
  
  
• Utah Democrats need to hold a second state party convention to finish work on the party platform they couldn't complete in June [Deseret News, Tribune].
  
  
• The family of a man who died while in custody at the Uintah County Jail says policies in place at the jail prevented him from receiving adequate medical care [Tribune].
  
  
• The Utah Insurance Department will pay out $10 million to settle some of the debts from the now defunct Arches Health Plan, but nearly $30 million in unpaid medical claims remain [Deseret News].
  
  
• Clean air advocates are getting antsy after Utah informed the EPA they would miss another deadline for reducing pollution along the Wasatch Front [Tribune].
  
  
• Jared Whitley argues that President John Adams deserves his own monument, which would satisfy both sides of the current debate about statues [Utah Policy].

National headlines:

• Massive flooding in Houston from Hurricane Harvey could lead to the biggest national disaster in Texas' history [Washington Post]. President Trump plans to travel to Texas to survey the damage on Tuesday [New York Times]. The head of FEMA says the recovery from Hurricane Harvey will take "years" [Axios].
  
  
• While he was tweeting about the recovery and cleanup efforts by the federal government in Houston in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, President Donald Trump still took time to take a swipe at Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill [USA Today].
  
  
• Bombshell! While he was running for president in late 2015 and early 2016, Donald Trump's company was pursuing a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow [Washington Post].
  
  
• President Donald Trump took to Twitter over the weekend to complain about Mexico being "very difficult" in negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Mexican government responded with a statement that they would not renegotiate the treaty "through social media" [The Hill].
  
  
• Secretary of State Rex Tillerson broke with President Donald Trump over the response to violence at a neo-Nazi rally in Virginia saying the president "speaks for himself" and not the rest of his administration on the issue [Associated Press].

On this day in history:

• 1565 - Pedro Menendez de Aviles sights land near St. Augustine, Florida and founds the oldest continuously occupied European-established city in the continental United States.
  
  
• 1609 - Henry Hudson discovers Delaware Bay.
  
  
• 1955 - Black teenager Emmett Till is brutally murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent Civil Rights Movement. Till was accused of whistling at a white woman.
  
  
• 1957 - Senator Strom Thurmond begins a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on the Civil Rights Act of 1957; he stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.
  
  
• 1963 - At the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech.
  
  
• 1968 - Rioting takes place in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention, triggering a brutal police crackdown.

Today At Utah Policy

'Political Insiders' doubt Operation Rio Grande will have a lasting impact on downtown Salt Lake City By Bryan Schott, Managing Editor Operation Rio Grande, the multifaceted operation to clean up violence and drug abuse surrounding the homeless population in downtown Salt Lake City is entering its third week....

This patriot can solve the monument debate � and should have had his own decades ago By Jared Whitley All 10 years I lived in the DC area, my home was within walking distance of Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway....

Utah Republican Party raising funds for Texas hurricane relief By Bryan Schott, Managing Editor The Utah GOP is raising money and supplies in order to send a truck to Houston to assist with relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey....

Bernie Sanders supporters helped put Donald Trump in the White House By Bryan Schott, Managing Editor A new analysis shows voters who backed Bernie Sanders during the presidential primaries pushed Donald Trump over the finish line in three critical states that gave Trump his electoral college victory in 2016....

Beg to Differ podcast: Don't count your votes before they 'Hatch' By Bryan Schott, Managing Editor Bryan Schott and Mike Winder make you the smartest person in the room when you discuss politics....

Wise Words

Power

"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Lighter Side

Books

"Hillary Clinton is coming out with a book called "What Happened." Out of habit, Bill Clinton immediately came out with his own book called "Baby, I Can Explain." Conan O'Brien