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☀️ 46 – 88° in Logan | ☀️ 61 – 93° in Salt Lake

⛅ 48 – 89° in Manti | ☀️ 69 – 102° in St. George

🌅 Good morning!

FanX is underway in Salt Lake City — you may have noticed the crowds dressed in elaborate costumes near the Salt Palace Convention Center.

🚗 A group of us are on assignment to cover the convention that brings together fans of things like "Harry Potter," "DC Comics" and more.

Here are some stories you can expect from us over the weekend and next week🦸‍♀️:

Priscilla Presley from Lottie Elizabeth Johnson
"The Chosen" from Hanna Seariac
"High School Musical" from Margaret Darby
"The Lord of the Rings" from Natalie Issa

As Romney leaves the Senate, he hopes to influence future family policy

Sen. Mitt Romney's first and only senate term is set to end in January, but Romney is reintroducing legislation with the hope it will influence the debate on the child tax credit even after he leaves office.

What makes his plan different? Romney has spoken out on this issue throughout his time in the Senate, and he says his plan treats stay-at-home and working parents equally, promotes marriage and encourages work.

Here's what his plan would include:

Increase the child tax credit to $4,200 for families with children younger than 5, and $3,000 for families with a child between ages 6-17. Families could claim the credit for up to six children and choose to get payments monthly.
Extend to pregnant mothers a tax credit of up to $2,800, which could also be paid in monthly installments starting at 20 weeks.
Provide benefits for families who earn at least $20,000 a year. The credit would start phasing out at $200,000 for single-filers and $400,000 for couples.
Pay for the cost of an extended child tax credit by simplifying the earned income tax credit, and through other offsets like capping state and local tax deductions at $30,000 and eliminating the head of household tax filing option.
Works to eliminate the marriage penalty for families that receive the EITC.

Read more about what Utah families would stand to gain with Romney's plan.

Can college football please go back to the good ol’ days?

Has college football become too corporate and unwieldy?

Doug Robinson seems to think so.

What happened?: Thanks to NIL, the transfer portal and conference realignment, the environment around college football has transformed into an entirely different world even since he was writing about BYU football in 2010.

"Can we just go back to the days when college football’s biggest problem was the unfairness of the polls?" he writes. "We didn’t know how good we had it."

The good ol' days: He argues that the good ol' days of college football were better and referenced the UNLV quarterback — the starting quarterback — and how he is holding out for more money, saying he was promised $100,000 if he came to UNLV and no one has paid up.

"College holdouts are going to become the norm," Robinson writes. "It was better when players were being paid under the table and we didn’t know about it."

Read more about what Robinson thinks is wrong with college football today.

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Utah

Delta announces first-ever nonstop service from Salt Lake City to Seoul (Deseret News)
International Olympics leader in Utah to visit 2034 venues (Deseret News)
Serial sexual predator at center of KSL Investigation receives second prison sentence this month (KSL-TV)
Record-breaking heat to hold through the weekend (ABC4)
Plane crashes into Utah Lake; occupants 'submerged for an extended amount of time' (KSL)
Summit County fire danger level downgraded to ‘moderate’ (The Park Record)
Utah Red Cross volunteers mobilize as Hurricane Helene threatens Gulf Coast (KJZZ14)
Man found dead in semi in Tooele County; foul play suspected (KSL)
Jordan Schools are the latest with a phone ban, one that teachers will enforce (KUER)
About 1 in 4 Utahns report feeling lonely, more than national average (Axios)

Health

Alcohol can increase your cancer risk. Here's what experts say (CBS News)
Nursing aides plagued by PTSD after ‘nightmare’ COVID conditions, with little help (NPR)
To improve your sleep, do this activity before bed, experts suggest (Fox News)

Faith

Our society devalues children and mothers, a new book says. How did we get here? (Deseret News)
From one community to another: JustServe rallies volunteers to aid those affected by the Jasper wildfires (Church News)
How BYU freshman tight end Ryner Swanson is balancing football and preparing for mission to Kenya (Deseret News)

The Nation and The World

Helene is not just huge and deadly. It’s historic (Deseret News)
You can get into national parks free on Saturday. Here’s why (Deseret News)
Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe pays tribute to ‘legend’ Dame Maggie Smith (BBC)

Sports

For BYU’s Crew Wakley, the future is now (Deseret News)
Latter-day Saint leader sends BYU students a note about their treatment of Kansas State’s football team (Deseret News)
How did Aggies’ first practice of 2024-25 season go? ‘It was awesome, man’ (Deseret News)
Can Cougars, Utes stay perfect? Here’s what it may boil down to (plus predictions) (Deseret News)
How the 'She Jumps' organization is helping get more women on the mountain (Fox 13)
What Holly Rowe said about her cancer journey — and BYU and Utah football (Deseret News)
Can the 'Vampire Cougs' finally win a game in daylight hours? (Deseret News)

We are trying some new things with Utah Today and would love your feedback! You're welcome to email me at sgambles@deseretnews.com with thoughts, ideas and suggestions.

I might not answer right away, but I promise we are reading your feedback and considering your valuable opinions.

✨ Cheers ✨

— Gambles

More in Politics

Can college football please go back to the good ol’ days?

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