Utah Headlines

Political news

• Sen Kirk Cullimore: This Pioneer Day, let’s reclaim the spirit of self-governance (Deseret News)
• Utah lawmaker Doug Fiefia to lead national task force on AI policy (KSL)
• Utah County puts controversial voting method that resulted in election errors on hold (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Rep. Trevor Lee wants Utah Tech University to return to its old ‘Dixie’ name. Here’s what the school says. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Cox calls for mental health care expansion on Utah State Hospital’s 140th anniversary (Utah News Dispatch)

Utah

• Why 2 Utah campsites ranked in the best places to camp in the region (Deseret News)
• What's happened in the year since Utah got the 2034 Winter Games? (KSL)
• Days after retiring, a Utah man learned his nest egg may be gone. The state blames a ‘misuse of investor funds.’ (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Utah food pantry faces closure over 'big beautiful bill' changes to SNAP benefits (KUTV)

Municipal

• USDA to relocate operations to 5 regional hubs, including Salt Lake (KSL)
• Hooper leaders hope to move beyond discord as mayor rebuffs critics' charges (KSL)
• Southern Utah continues economic momentum with strong job growth (St. George News)
• A northern Utah city will soon build its ‘most important’ trail connection (Salt Lake Tribune)
• West Valley City ‘reluctantly’ OKs the sale of the Utah Grizzlies. Here’s what happens next to the Maverik Center. (Salt Lake Tribune)

Biz/Tech

• Meta launches new teen safety features, removes 635K accounts that sexualize children (AP)

Crime/Courts

• Former police officer arrested after police chase, alleged threats with ax (KSL)
• Utah Supreme Court to hear Menzies appeal (Fox 13)
• Former death row inmate will be moved from prison to jail to await new trial (KSL)

Culture/Community

• A gathering of community at the Deseret News Marathon (Deseret News)
• ‘They didn’t discover this land, there were people that lived here,’: Shoshone Tribal Elder tells the untold side of the Pioneer Day story (ABC4)
• In tragedy, today’s Latter-day Saint pioneers match faith of their peers from the 1800s (Deseret News)

Education

• Utah after-school/summer program advocates breathing a bit easier after Trump administration releases some frozen funding (Deseret News)

Environment/Energy

• Opinion: Nuclear power in Utah is not safe or affordable (Deseret News)
• How much water do data centers use and are we prepared? (Deseret News)
• Ahead of hot weekend, two Utah fires reach 100% containment (KSL)
• Utah has water problems now. What if the megadrought lasts another 25 years? (KUER)

Faith

• Judge guts lawsuit that sought to stop the Heber Valley Utah Temple (Deseret News)

Family

• Perspective: Birthrates are falling but Elon Musk does not have the solution (Deseret News)
• The US fertility rate reached a new low in 2024, CDC data shows (AP)

Health

• How to treat cuts and scrapes safely at home (KSL TV)

Housing

• New cluster of for-sale town houses planned for a high-profile SLC corner (Salt Lake Tribune)
• Trump order pushes forcible hospitalization of homeless people (Washington Post)

National Headlines

General

• The stand-out kindness, family love and faith of Malcolm-Jamal Warner (Deseret News)
• Hulk Hogan, icon in professional wrestling, dies at age 71 (KSL)
• Grammy-winning jazz musician Chuck Mangione dies at 84 (Reuters)
• Documents released after Bryan Kohberger's sentencing detail strange happenings weeks before (AP)
• Early Hawaiian petroglyphs on a beach are visible again with changing tides and shifting sands (AP)

Political news 

• Appeals court blocks Trump's order curtailing birthright citizenship (Reuters)
• Jay Evensen: When will the national debt hit home? (Deseret News)
• Jay Evensen: The national debt and deficit explained (Deseret News)
• Trump administration drives rise in Supreme Court emergency filings (Deseret News)
• Democrats face potential lose-lose situation in government funding fight (Deseret News)
• Republicans subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell — even though they admit they don’t trust her (Deseret News)
• Amid Epstein furor, Ghislaine Maxwell seeks relief from US Supreme Court (Reuters)
• Trump’s onetime friendship with Jeffrey Epstein is well-known — and also documented in records (AP)
• Jeffrey Epstein's book included letters from Bill Clinton, Leon Black (Wall Street Journal)
• Justice Dept. told Trump in May that his name is among many in the Epstein files (Wall Street Journal)
• Trump calls Epstein saga a Democratic ‘con job’ (The Hill)
• US House Speaker Johnson says Epstein case 'not a hoax' (Reuters)
• Appeals court finds Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship unconstitutional, upholds block (AP)

Immigration/deportation

• Migrant sent to El Salvador prison by the Trump administration says he was beaten by guards (AP News)
• Mexican national married to a Marine Corps veteran seeks release from immigration custody (AP)

Ukraine/Russia

• Russian attacks kill two in east Ukraine, 33 hurt in Kharkiv (Reuters)
• Musk ordered shutdown of Starlink satellite service as Ukraine retook territory from Russia (Reuters)

Middle East

• Dozens of kids and adults in Gaza have starved to death in July as hunger surges (AP News)
• European countries are set for Iran talks, but expectations for a breakthrough are low (NPR)

World news

• Familiar Flashpoint Leads to Deadly Clashes Between Thailand and Cambodia (New York Times)

Number of the Day

News Releases

Lee applauds USDA shift from Washington to Utah

U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) issued the following statement in response to this morning’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that the agency will be shifting its focus and staffing away from Washington D.C. and toward agricultural hub locations across the country, including one in Salt Lake City, Utah: “The people making decisions about how our forests are managed and our food is grown shouldn’t be distant bureaucrats,” said Senator Mike Lee. (Read More)

Owens pushes for new Saratoga Springs post office

On Pioneer Day, Congressman Burgess Owens (UT-04) introduced the Saratoga Springs Post Office Act, legislation that will transfer roughly 20 acres of unused federal land to the U.S. Postal Service for the construction of a new post office in Saratoga Springs, Utah. The bill ensures the facility is built and operational within two years. (Read More)

Moore, Peters reintroduce legislation to help tackle housing crisis, boost public transit use

Representatives Blake Moore and Scott Peters (D-CA) and Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Jim Banks (R-IN) reintroduced the bipartisan, bicameral Build More Housing Near Transit Act to encourage the construction of low- and middle-income housing in transit-served, walkable locations. (Read More)

Owens protects Utah’s sheep industry, calls for tariff relief on foreign lamb imports

In support of Utah’s sheep industry, Representatives Burgess Owens (UT-04) and Celeste Maloy (UT-02) sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and U.S. International Trade Commission Chair Amy Karpel urging the implementation of a Tariff Rate Quota (TRQ) on lamb meat imports from Australia and New Zealand to restore fair market conditions for American producers. (Read More)

Tweets of the Day

Upcoming

• Aug 7 —  Titan of Public Service gala with Sen. Tom Cotton hosted by the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation at the Grand America Hotel. More Information Here
• Aug 12 — Municipal primary
• Aug 18-20 — Interim Days
• Sept 11-12 — Women in the Money Conference, Sheraton Hotel and online, Register here
• Sept 15-17 — Interim Days
• Oct 6-8 — One Utah Summit, Cedar City, More information here
• Oct 13-15 — Interim Days
• Nov 4 — General election
• Nov 17-19 — Interim Days
• February 4-7, 2026 — Summit, with Silicon Slopes and Visit Salt Lake

On This Day In History

• 1775 - Anna Tuthill Symmes is born. The 9th First Lady of the United States is one of many firsts. She is the only First Lady to be both the wife of a president (William Henry Harrison) and the grandmother of one (Benjamin Harrison), too. She never lived in the White House, either. Exactly one month after President Harrison’s inauguration, he died making her the first First Lady to be widowed during her tenure and the one with the shortest tenure.
• 1917 - Dancer and spy Mata Hari is sentenced to death by a French court for spying on Germany’s behalf during WWI. 
• 1920 - Rosalind Franklin is born. She was an English chemist who was the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.
• 1941 - Emmett Till is born.
• 1972 - AP reporter Jean Heller breaks the news about Tuskegee syphilis experiments the US government conducted on Black men over 40 years
• 1978 - Louise Joy Brown is born. She is the first person born who was conceived through in vitro fertilization.
• 1984 - From the Russian spacecraft Salyut 7, Cosmonaut Svetlana Savisskaya performs the first spacewalk by a woman. 
• 1985 - Rock Hudson announces he has AIDS. He died a few months later, having brought awareness to a mostly unknown, highly stigmatized disease.
• 2007 - Pratibha Patil becomes the first female president of India.

Quote of the Day

"There is simply no way our nation can progress if its women population is left behind."

— Pratibha Patil

On the Punny Side

How do you make 7 even?

Take away the S.

– Advertise With Us –

Subscribers may receive special messages with information about new features, special offers, or public policy messages from clients and advertisers.