text/html; charset=utf-8

Good morning, Utah Today readers! Here’s today’s forecast:

⛈️ 49 – 68° in Logan |💧 60% chance

🌥 57 – 74° in Salt Lake City |💧 50% chance

☀️ 64 – 85° in St. George

Happy Friday! Congratulations on making it through the week. Here’s the lineup of some of your favorite stories as a reward.

———

🫣 Sen. Mike Lee has support of all Republican senators — except one: Nothing I can write will explain this story adequately, so you should go ahead and read it yourself. Is this feeling of awkwardness what it feels like to be British?

🏈 ‘The definition of grit’: How No. 21 BYU beat a top 10 team at home for the first time since 1990 on a wild Saturday night in Provo: In some of the biggest Utah news of the week, the Cougars beat Baylor!

👨🏻 Can BYU become a ‘fanbase of Ted Lassos’?: Speaking of the big game, Hal Boyd wrote this great piece about the great impression BYU fans left on Baylor fans. They were compared to Ted Lasso in the most flattering way possible.

😢 Doomsday Mom: A timeline of the Lori Vallow-Chad Daybell murder case: An up-to-date timeline of everything you ever wanted to know (or didn’t want to know) in this sordid murder case.

💉 Is it too soon to get a flu shot? 3 things you need to know: All the current advice on getting vaccinated for the flu and Covid-19 this fall.

💸 Why food prices are rising at the fastest clip in 40 years: Has anyone else noticed that food is really expensive all of the sudden? That’s because prices were up 11.4% in August.

Tell me: Do you like this weekend roundup of stories you may have missed? Reply and let me know!

———

Also on our minds: Utah might get the Olympics… just not in 2030, Elizabeth Smart brings her self-defense class to SUU and what a Harvard professor learned from Abraham Lincoln about when the Constitution was ‘broken.’

Why has child poverty in the U.S. fallen dramatically in 25 years?

Only 19 years ago, 1 in 4 children in the United States were living in poverty. By 2019, that number has dropped significantly to 1 in 10 children, although experts do not have a consensus as to why. Among the data analyzed, less unemployment, employment opportunities for single mothers, higher minimum wages and programs like SNAP helped account for a significant portion of the downward trend.

What else contributed and why? Read Lois Collins' analysis of the report here.

Are Republican voters trying to lose?

Two things are top of mind for Republican voters this upcoming election season:

Who former President Donald Trump endorses
Who comes out swinging against the establishment

All that being said, many of these candidates like Mehmet Oz, Blake Masters and Don Bolduc have all cleared the Republican primaries by razor thin margins.

Read Suzanne Bate’s analysis of the upcoming election here.

Health:

Utah surpasses 5,000 COVID-19 deaths this week (KSL)

Economy:

Pressure builds on housing market as mortgage rates cross 6%, a first since 2008 (Deseret News)

Education:

Elizabeth Smart Foundation bringing self-defense class to SUU campus (Deseret News)

Faith:

What a Harvard professor learned from Abraham Lincoln when the Constitution was ‘broken’ (Deseret News)
Dare to be different (Deseret Magazine)
President Oaks reflects on the teachings of women in his life (Church News)

Northern Utah:

'A rainbow flag is not a political statement': Pride flags debated at Logan school board (Herald Journal)

Central Utah:

Stockton receives $640K grant from state to help solve its water problems (KSL)

Southern Utah:

Trial set for southern Utah man accused of rape, promoting 'pure seed' lineage (KSL)

The West:

New project will use stormwater to create wetlands at the Great Salt Lake (KSL)

The Nation:

Migrants dropped in Martha’s Vineyard, on VP Harris’ doorstep (Deseret News)

Sports:

How Kalani Sitake brought BYU back — and through its most challenging era (Deseret News)
Another huge tennis star is about to retire (Deseret News)
Why Utes’ blowout win over SUU was a game of firsts — and so ‘invaluable’ (Deseret News)

Thanks for reading Utah Today! If you have any comments, questions or suggestions we’d love to hear them — just reply to this email or send an email to newsletters@deseretnews.com.

— Kathleen

More in Politics: