Situational Analysis | August 9, 2022

Hello to Tuesday. It's a day that deserves celebration: National Book Lovers Day. Two of my summer favorites were "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson and "The Woman They Could Not Silence" by Kate Moore. What's one of the best books you've read recently? I'd love to know.

Be in the Know

• We lost two more icons. 😢 Olivia Newton-John passed away at age 73, after a multi-decade battle with breast cancer. From 1973-1983, she was one of the world's most popular entertainers, with 14 top-ten singles, 4 Grammy's and of course, starred in "Grease," setting a fashion trend of leather pants, big hair and big hoop earrings. David McCullough, best-selling author and historian, died at age 89. Mr. McCullough won Pulitzer Prizes for two presidential biographies, “Truman” (1992) and “John Adams” (2001). â€œPeople often ask me if I’m working on a book,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in 1992. “That’s not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book."

• Former President Trump said FBI agents executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The FBI is reportedly investigating misconduct related to classified documents allies of the former president allegedly brought to the residence after he left office. Jennifer Graham calls it a risky move that will re-energize Trump supporters while GOP lawmakers threaten to investigate the FBI.

• The Pentagon announced a $1 billion military aid package for Ukraine on Monday that will include ammunition for HIMARS artillery, mortars, surface-to-air missile munitions, 1,000 Javelin anti-tank weapons, Claymore anti-personnel mines, and medical supplies, among other equipment. This will be the largest of 18 military aid packages the U.S. has sent Ukraine since August 2021. Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters Monday the U.S. estimates between 70,000 and 80,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since fighting began. Meanwhile, Russia continues to shell a nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. 

Rapid Roundup

• Zachary Quinto, who played Spock in newer "Star Trek" films, just had a "Twilight Zone" moment with a phrase written by his great-grandfather in 1899, President Russell M. Nelson is now longest-living apostle in Latter-day Saint history, Idaho teens went to Ukraine to gift families new homes, a Utah hiker is in critical condition after being hit in the head by a falling rock and tourism in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area created $410 million in economic benefit in 2021.

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Utah Headlines

General

• How one Latter-day Saint family in Cedar Hills, Utah opened their home to Ukrainian refugees (Deseret News)
• Andy Larsen: Do young adults choose to stay in Salt Lake City when they start working? How about Provo? New data tracks where America’s 16-year-olds live 10 years later. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Gabby Petito’s parents seek $50M in claim against Moab police for not recognizing their daughter was in danger (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Utah to study feasibility of statewide seismic retrofitting program (KUTV)

Politics

•  Derek Monson: How tribalism fuels partisan contempt and how we can calm it (Deseret News)
• ‘Orwellian?’ ‘Bag of hammers?’ How Utah’s Mike Lee, Mitt Romney see inflation reduction bill (Deseret News)
• Rep. Merrill Nelson: The Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe places abortion law back in the hands of state legislators, where it should always be. Marriage laws should be there as well (Deseret News)
• Bruce Fuller: Romney’s lonely crusade to lift America’s families (Salt Lake Tribune)

Business

•  Data shows gender pay gap opens early. Disparities among male and female college graduates appeared within three years, a WSJ analysis of federal data for 2015 and 2016 graduates shows (Wall Street Journal)

Education

• Taking your kid to college for the first time? Here’s the ultimate college dorm checklist (Deseret News)
• Get your kids ready for school with the best back-to-school sales (Deseret News)

Environment

• Dredging up the past. The West has a troubled history with lakes, development and loss. Our newest dilemma? The largest human-made island project in history. (Deseret News)
• Polling shows strong support for Utah Lake dredging, but critics say the survey is biased (Salt Lake Tribune)
• ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ poised to bring millions to Utah energy transition (Salt Lake Tribune)
• A 'major win' for wildlife enthusiasts: What's next for Utah's newest wildlife management area (KSL)
• Drought persists across Utah despite monsoonal moisture (KUTV)

Health/Well-being

• Cancer, arthritis patients struggling to get medicine after abortion ruling. (Deseret News)

Housing

• USU students scramble for housing after apartments drop them from lease. Again. (KSL)
• Housing market consumer confidence falls to lowest level in over 10 years (Deseret News)
• ‘No more avoiding it’: As calls for sanctioned homeless camps in Salt Lake City grow, Mendenhall resists. Could legal homeless encampments clean up the Jordan River? West-side council members think so. (Salt Lake Tribune)

National Headlines

General

• Market rout sends state and city pension funds to worst year since 2009. Simultaneous declines in stocks and bonds hammered the funds in the year ended in June, adding to pressure on government finances. (Wall Street Journal)
• Man who shot Ahmaud Arbery gets life sentence for hate crime (Politico)

Politics

• What does the Inflation Reduction Act mean for the average American? (Deseret News)
• Trump and Pence choose opposite sides in the contentious GOP primary for Wisconsin governor (NPR)
• Republicans erupt over FBI’s Mar-a-Lago raid (The Hill)
• Johnson steps on political land mine with Social Security, Medicare comments (The Hill)

Ukraine 🇺🇦 

• A young man attempts to escape Russian-occupied Ukraine — then he goes silent (NPR)
• Ukrainian resistance grows in Russian-occupied areas (AP)
• Accounting of bodies in Bucha nears completion: 458 bodies, of which 419 bore markings they had been shot, tortured or bludgeoned to death. (Washington Post)
• How Russia Took Over Ukraine’s Internet in Occupied Territories (New York Times)

News Releases

Zions Bank to celebrate the reopening of the “building shipped by mail”

After two years of extensive renovations, Zions Bank will celebrate the re-opening of its historic Parcel Post Bank with a ribbon cutting and community celebration on August 12 at 1:30 pm in Vernal.

Known as the “building shipped by mail,” the Parcel Post Bank garnered national attention while it was being built in 1916. Vernal businessman William H. Coltharp found that he could ship the bricks by U.S. mail for less than half the price of sending them by freight wagon. He shipped 80,000 individually wrapped bricks, packed in 50-pound bundles, by parcel post 407 miles from Salt Lake City through Mack, Colorado to Vernal. The shipment overwhelmed the U.S. Postal Service, prompting new postal regulations nationwide. “It is not the intent of the United States Postal Service that buildings should be shipped through the mail,” U.S. Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson wrote. (Read More)

Report shows more Utah children are struggling with anxiety or depression

Children in the United States are facing an unprecedented mental health crisis, according to a new 50-state report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The 2022 KIDS COUNT® Data Book reports that nationwide, children were more likely to experience anxiety and/or depression during the first year of the COVID-19 crisis than in previous years: Nearly 12% (11.8%) of children ages 3 to 17 experienced anxiety and/or depression in 2020, compared to 9.4% in 2016. Currently, 7.3 million children in this age group reportedly experienced these mental health challenges in the first year of the COVID pandemic – an increase of 1.5 million children (26%) in just four years.

This mental health crisis has also hit children of color, as well as children who identify as LGBTQ+, harder than their peers. Among high school-aged children, 12% of Black students, 13% of students of two or more races, and 26% of American Indian or Native Alaskan students attempted suicide, compared with 9% of high school-aged kids overall. A staggering 23% of LGBTQ+ high school students report attempting suicide, compared to 6% of their non-LGBTQ+ peers. (Read More)

Owens introduces bill to empower parents to solve the learning loss crisis

Rep. Burgess Owens (UT-04) introduced the Raising Expectations with Child Opportunity Vouchers for Educational Recovery (RECOVER) Act to empower parents to solve the learning loss crisis facing today’s students. As of May, states and school districts had yet to spend 93% of the education funding allocated to them under the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan Act. The RECOVER Act would allow states and school districts to use those unspent funds to issue Child Opportunity Scholarships directly to parents. (Read More)

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Upcoming

• Interim Days — Aug 16-18, le.utah.gov
• Women in the Money with Utah State Treasurer's Office — Sept. 15-16, Salt Lake Sheraton + online, Register here
• Interim Days — Sept. 20-22, le.utah.gov
• ULCT Annual Convention — Oct 5-7, Salt Palace Convention Center, Register here
• Interim Days — Oct 18-20, le.utah.gov
• General election â€“ Nov 8

On This Day In History

• 1757 - Elizabeth Schuyler is born. She later marries Alexander Hamilton. Following the deaths of her husband, she co-founded the Orphan Asylum Society, the first private orphanage in New York City. She lived to age 97.
• 1842 - The Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed. United States Secretary of State Daniel Webster and Britain’s Alexander Baring, Lord Ashburton, come to an agreement regarding the Canadian and U.S. border east of the Rocky Mountains. The border had been in dispute since the end of the Revolutionary War.
• 1945 - The US drops its second atomic bomb, this time on Nagasaki.
• 1969 - Charles Manson cult kills five, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate.
• 1974 - Gerald Ford is sworn in as US president after Richard Nixon’s resignation becomes effective at noon.
• 1919 - Leona Woods Marshall Libby is born. She became a physicist and the only woman on the team that built the world’s first nuclear reactor.
• 1995 - The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia dies at age 53.
• 1995 – Roberta Cooper Ramo becomes the first woman to hold the office of president of the American Bar Association
• 2014 - Unarmed teenager Michael Brown is killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

Wise Words

"Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice." 

—Steve Jobs

The Punny Side

The swordfish has few predators in the wild.

Except for the rare penfish, which is said to be mightier.

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