The health of the Colorado River affects the livelihood of all Utahns.

The Colorado River is in crisis. Deadlines for decisions regarding its future are rapidly approaching. Learn more about the river’s past, present and future and how it affects us all.

Utah Headlines

General

• ‘Who am I going to ride bikes with now?’: A small Utah community’s shock after murder-suicide leaves 8 family members dead. Police say a father shot and killed his wife, mother-in-law and five children (Deseret News)
• How first responders get help after horrific crimes (KSL)
• Grief and tragedy: Navigating the conversation with children (KSL TV)
• 'Not acceptable': Utah traffic deaths surpassed 300 again in 2022 (KSL)
• Tom Huckin: Our ‘exceptionalism’ gets in the way of progress
  Just claiming that the U.S. is ‘Number One’ doesn’t make it so. (Salt Lake Tribune)

Politics

• Utah House Republicans want school vouchers but not free fares for UTA (KUTV)
• Bill would require Utah school districts to notify parents of change in student name, pronouns (KSL Newsradio)
• Utah lawmakers to consider bills, spending on domestic violence victim services (Fox13)
• Non-profit leads push to legalize psychedelics in Utah (Fox13)
• Tax cuts, water, housing and transgender surgeries for minors: What to expect from Utah Legislature in 2023 (Deseret News)
• Water and education funding tops Utah House Republicans' wishlist (KUER)
• Gaps in Utah’s domestic violence response leave some victims with few safe options. A new bill could change that. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Rep. Kay Christofferson: We can’t meet Utah’s expanding demand without our quarries (Deseret News)
• The Republican Party of the early 21st century is barely recognizable. What is its future? (Deseret News)
• New Utah County auditor sets sights on transparency with newly shaped office (Daily Herald)
• After a tumultuous past year, Cache County executive David Zook looking ahead (Cache Valley Daily)

Business

• Business veteran Alex Dunn joins Larry H. Miller Company as firm continues new trajectory (Deseret News) 
• Salt Lake City, Delta sign major deal to extend the carrier’s Utah hub (Salt Lake Tribune)
• FTC proposes banning noncompete clauses for workers. The move would allow former employees to take jobs with rival companies or start competing businesses (Wall Street Journal)
• Economy adds 223,000 jobs in December, marking two straight years of strong growth, as well as a slowdown, which could help smaller employers that have struggled to hire (Washington Post)

Environment

• Dense, wet snow making a dent in Utah’s drought (KSL TV)
• This Nevada lithium mine project faces lawsuit even as U.S. tries to go green (Deseret News)
• Jeffrey McCarthy: The climate crisis and the threat to democracy
  If climate change generates extreme politics, the reverse is also true. (Salt Lake Tribune)

Family

• Utahns to no longer receive federal pandemic funds, assistance helping families pay for food and rent (Fox13)

National Headlines

General

• Arthur Cyr: Pope Francis deserves support as he pursues the path of his predecessors toward fundamental concerns of universal importance (Deseret News)
• Roommate sees masked man in apartment night of University of Idaho homicides. DNA evidence, phone records and footage of a white Hyundai Elantra were clues that led investigators to Kohberger (Deseret News)
• The white sedan: How police found suspect in Idaho slayings (AP)
• Another strong month of hiring would put Fed in tough spot (AP)
• Texas fires Chris Beard amid felony domestic violence charge (AP)

Politics

• What to expect from Arizona’s new governor Katie Hobbs (Deseret News) 
• McCarthy offers deal to end standoff in House speaker fight (AP)
• Speaker delay halts national security briefings for lawmakers (The Hill)
• Gaetz on Trump backing of McCarthy: ‘HR wasn’t always his strong suit’ (The Hill)
• With the House in chaos, C-SPAN shows footage Americans don’t usually see (Washington Post)
• What McCarthy’s concessions could cost him — and the GOP (Washington Post)
• Stabenow’s retirement scrambles Michigan Senate race in 2024 (AP)
• A rising star in Connecticut politics dies in a collision with a wrong-way driver (NPR)
• McCarthy foes relish the fight: ‘A really beautiful thing’ (AP)
• As Taliban erases women’s rights, Biden encounters limits of U.S. sway (Washington Post)
• Trump is sued in death of Capitol Police officer after Jan. 6 (New York Times)

Ukraine 🇺🇦 

• Battered and strained by war, Ukraine’s economy adapts to survive. After 10 months of Russian destruction, Ukraine’s economy shrank by 30 percent. But companies have packed up and moved, switched products and found support abroad. (New York Times)

World

•  Kenyan LGBTQ activist’s body found in metal box (AP)

Number of the Day

Tweet of the Day

Upcoming

• Utah Economic Outlook and Public Policy Summit with the Salt Lake Chamber — Jan. 12, 2023, Salt Lake City Marriott, 8 am - noon, Register here
• Legislative session begins, Jan. 17, 2023, le.utah.gov

On This Day In History

• 1412 - Joan of Arc is born.

• 1759 - George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Custis.

• 1838 - Samuel Morse demonstrates the telegraph.

• 1907 - Dr. Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center, Casa Dei Bambini, in Rome, Italy.

• 1919 - Theodore Roosevelt dies.

• 1941 - Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks to Congress on the “Four Freedoms” - freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to worship God in his own way, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

• 1942 - FDR commits to biggest arms buildup in U.S. history

• 1945 - George Herbert Walker Bush marries Barbara Pierce.

• 2001 - Al Gore presides over a joint session of Congress that certifies George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 presidential election.

• 2021 - Insurrection at the US Capitol by Trump supporters who refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election

Wise Words

“Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.”

—Maria Montessori

On the Punny Side

A Physicist and a Biologist had a relationship…

But there was no Chemistry.

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