Situational Analysis | September 15, 2021

Welcome to Wednesday - already halfway through the week and incredibly, already halfway through the month. Legislative interim day committee meetings are today. Head over to le.utah.gov for the links to follow along.

G’mar chatima tova to all our friends observing the beginning of Yom Kippur tonight. 

Be in the Know

1. California Governor Gavin Newsom crushes the Republican-led recall effort. Despite warnings that the race would be close, Newsom was ahead by a 30-point margin with an estimated 2/3 of the ballots counted. The pandemic was the #1 issue for many voters. 

2. Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls. Its own in-depth research shows a significant teen mental-health issue that Facebook plays down in public. More than 40% of Instagram’s users are 22 years old and younger, and about 22 million teens log onto Instagram in the U.S. each day, compared with five million teens logging onto Facebook, where young users have been shrinking for a decade.

3. Americans' incomes fell in 2020, census data show. It's the first significant decline in household income in nearly a decade. Median household income was down 2.9% from the prior year, when it hit an inflation-adjusted historical high.

Utah Headlines

General

• Judge tosses out James Huntsman's lawsuit seeking return of tithing (Deseret News)
• The world’s hunger calamity is spiraling out of control. Here’s how Latter-day Saint Charities has responded. Leaders call for action at G20 Interfaith Forum to manage this growing crisis. (Deseret News)
• Moab officers responded to previous incident involving missing woman, fiancé (ABC4)
• East Coast woman stopped in Ogden before her apparent disappearance (Standard-Examiner)
• Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are different in America than in Israel, but no less meaningful (Deseret News)

Politics

• Romney to Blinken: 'You knew there was no way you were going to get all these people out in time' (Deseret News)
• Four county attorneys call for repeal of death penalty in Utah (Fox13)
• Dueling redistricting groups set for public hearings in southern Utah (The Spectrum)
• No vote from state lawmakers on $3M plan for Salt Lake City homelessness overflow shelter (Salt Lake Tribune)

COVID Corner

• 1274 new cases, 13 new deaths
• Salt Lake City Council extends mayor’s mask mandate for schools for at least the next 30 days. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Utah parents are refusing to talk to health officials, so COVID-19 cases in schools are undercounted, the state says (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Tooele becomes first Utah high school to hit 'Test to Stay' threshold this year (Fox13)
• USU study: Counties with high rate of Trump voters had higher COVID-19 infection rates (KUTV)
• Park City doctor describes treating COVID deniers, overburdened hospital conditions. ‘Rather than hope, we’re seeing hate in their eyes’ (Park Record)

Housing

• Salt Lake City is no ‘Gotham City,’ but business coalition says crime, camping has to stop (Deseret News)
• Future of SLC overflow homeless shelter in question (ABC4)

Infrastructure

• Utah has $100 million of federal aid money to spend on water, but it needs 10 times that (KUER)

National Headlines

General

• The Counterterror war that America is winning. The United States has centered its efforts on invasions and insurgencies. But another campaign appears to be having greater success. (The Atlantic)
• Hawaii is spending $1 million to destroy dangerous, famous 'Stairway to Heaven' mountain trail (The Hill)
• Female athletes flee Afghanistan as Taliban bar women in sports (Bloomberg)
• Top general was so fearful Trump might spark war that he made secret calls to his Chinese counterpart, new book says (Washington Post)
• Three former U.S. intelligence operatives admit to working as ‘hackers-for-hire’ for UAE (Washington Post)

Politics

• Most states have cut back public health powers amid pandemic (AP)
• Trump aides aim to build GOP opposition to Afghan refugees (AP)
• Biden to meet with business executives on vaccine requirements (The Hill)
• Centrists throw wrench in House Democrats’ drug pricing plans. The standoff is threatening the entire health plank of the party's mammoth social spending proposal. (Politico)
• Abbott approval rating wanes as most Texans say state on 'wrong track' (The Hill)
• Justice Department announces ban on no-knock entries, chokeholds (Politico)

Elections

• Few voting issues reported with California recall election (AP)
• GOP’s Elder concedes California recall, hints: ‘Stay tuned’ (AP)

International

• A Haitian prosecutor sought charges against the prime minister in the president’s assassination. He was fired. (Washington Post)

Policy News

New Utah Foundation report: Civic engagement in Utah

Despite improvements, Utah voter turnout at low end in 2020.

Today, the Utah Foundation launches its new Utah Social Capital Series with The Measure of a Citizen: Civic Engagement in Utah. This first installment in the series focuses on civic engagement. It presents data and analysis on three key measures: voter turnout; citizen attendance at public meetings; and the number of advocacy organizations. It looks at Utah’s performance on these measures over time, comparing the Beehive State both to the seven other Mountain States and to the nation at large. (Read More)

Romney honors Utah servicemember killed during Kabul airport terrorist attack

U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) today honored Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover of Sandy, who was among the thirteen U.S. servicemembers and more than 100 Afghans killed during the horrific terrorist attacks outside of the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 26. He also honored Cpl. Wyatt Wilson of Carbon County, who sustained life-threatening injuries during the attacks. (Read/Watch More)

Romney presses Secretary Blinken on disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal

U.S. Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) today at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing pressed Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. He highlighted the importance of ensuring that U.S. legal permanent residents and partners, including SIV applicants, are safely evacuated from Afghanistan. (Read/Watch More)

Sens. Lee, Tuberville introduce bill requiring Senate vote for CDC Director

Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) today introduced the Restoring Trust in Public Health Act which would require that nominees for Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) be confirmed by the United States Senate.  Recently, the CDC has impacted the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans through its COVID-19 guidelines and eviction moratorium all under directors that have not been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.  (Read More)

Number of the Day

That's 'The Point' with Alan Matheson

By Holly Richardson

Alan Matheson, the executive director for the Point of the Mountain State Land Authority, joined me yesterday to discuss the development slated for the point of the mountain. The 608-acre development is being designed with future needs in mind: easily accessibility to housing, work, green space and recreation, transit focused on reducing the need for cars, plans to reduce water needs by 40% over traditional development and plans to leverage cutting-edge Smart Cities technology.

Looking to the future, Matheson says the development will be able to house around 15,000 people and can accommodate 35 to 40,000 high paying jobs in technology, biotech and other areas.

The Framework Plan that was just released in August includes input from over 10,000 Utahns. You can read more about the plan here, and watch our discussion here. 

Upcoming

• "Celebrating Women" virtual conference by USU Extension – Sept 18, 9 am - 1:15 pm. Register here
• A virtual discussion on civic education with Sen. John Cornyn with the Hatch Foundation - Sept 20 @ 10:30 am. Register here
• Utah Foundation Annual Luncheon with Shaylyn Romney Garrett – Sept 23 @ 12 pm. Register here
• One Utah Summit held at SUU – Oct 4-6. Register here
• Women in the money: Utah Financial Empowerment Conference with Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks – Oct 8, 8:30 am - 4 pm. Register here
• Growth, Grit and Grace - SLC Chamber's Women & Business Conference and ATHENA awards – Nov 19, 8:00 am - 3:30 pm Register here

On This Day In History

From History.com

• 1857 - William Howard Taft is born. The 27th president of the United States also became the 10th chief justice of the United States. In 1911, during his presidential term, he proposed an idea that became known as the Chamber of Commerce.
• 1890 - Agatha Christie is born.
• 1928 - While conducting experiments on a strain of influenza, Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
• 1959 - Nikita Krushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the US
• 1963 - Four Black school girls are killed in a Birmingham, Alabama church bombing.
• 1977 - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is born. A Nigerian writer whose works range from novels to short stories to nonfiction, she gave a TED talk on The Danger of a Single Story, viewed over 28 million times.
• 1981 - The US Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves Sandra Day O'Connor for the US Supreme Court.
• 2008 - Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy

Wise Words

“The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Lighter Side

The only losing basketball coach in University of Kansas history is James Naismith—the man who invented basketball in 1891.

Reader's Digest

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