Police are looking for a 13-year-old boy who ran away from a wayward youth program in the remote desert area of western Beaver County.

Roberto Madrigal, who is from California, has been in The Redcliff Ascent wilderness therapy program for about a month. A Beaver County Sheriff’s Office spokesman said early Thursday that he doesn’t know when Madrigal escaped, from where or how.

While Madirgal is believed to have water, “dehydration is a concern because of the weather conditions,” according to the sheriff’s office.

The boy is wearing tan shorts and a brown shirt.

The sheriff’s office encouraged campers staying in the West Desert near Pine Valley, about 35 miles north of St. George, to be on the look out for Madrigal and to call 911 if he is seen.

As expected, the mostly-made-in-Utah TV series “Yellowstone” has been renewed for a second season.

Which is good news for the local economy. According to the Utah Film Commission, the production will spend an estimated $28 million in the state during production of Season 2 — which will begin shortly — and employ about 320 Utahns as members of the cast and crew.

“‘Yellowstone’s’ return to Utah is a strong testament for our professional crew and our beautiful scenery,” said Utah Film Commission Director Virginia Pearce. “The economic and cultural impact of a show this size and stature will have a lasting effect on our industry reputation.”

The film commission also announced that the Governor’s Office of Economic Development Board has approved a state film incentive — up to 25 percent of the local production costs — for Season 2.

Oscar nominee Taylor Sheridan — who co-created, wrote and directed all 10 hours of Season 1 — will return as showrunner. Although the series is set in Montana, about two-thirds of Season 1 was filmed in Utah — a percentage that could be higher in Season 2, according to Sheridan.

Season 1 of the hourlong drama is currently airing Tuesdays at 7 p.m. on the Paramount Network cable channel. Kevin Costner stars as the patriarch of the family that owns the largest contiguous ranch in the United States. He's a powerful figure who does battle with land developers and the adjacent Indian reservation — battle that has turned deadly.

Season 2 of “Yellowstone” is expected to air in 2019.

Here is Utah’s Thunderous 10, which is a term I just made up, subjectively listing and labeling the top athletes in reverse order with some inexact mixture of the highest profiles, the biggest contributions, the best connections with ordinary people, the greatest athletic achievements and auras and promise across all sports and/or teams in the state.

Let’s get to it.

10. (Tie) Preston Summerhays and MyKayla Skinner

We’ll start with a bit of a bail-out — a tie — right off the top, which makes the Thunderous 10 the Thunderous 11. Whatever.

At 15, Summerhays is not even old enough to drive — at least not a car, but … man, can he swing a club. He may not be as well-known as the other names on this list and he may actually attend high school in Arizona, but his family golfing tradition and his youth — dude still wears braces — is a major part of the intrigue surrounding him. Not only did he just win the Utah State Am, beating all the full-grown adults here, but he posted numbers in qualifying rounds for the United States Amateur that boggle the mind — a 60 and a 65 at Soldier Hollow. That right there is enough to land him on this list.

Skinner, the world-class gymnast who competes for Utah, was an alternate on Team USA at the last Olympics and could pursue the Olympics again in 2020. As Ute gymnastics fans know, her strongest events — near best-in-the-world strong — are vault and floor.

9. Tanner Mangum.

He may not even start at quarterback for BYU this fall, but if he does and if he sees any kind of success, Mangum’s will be one of the great comeback stories in recent memory. Not only is he returning from a serious Achilles injury — is there any other kind involving that particular body part? — he’s also attempting to make up for a completely forgettable performance a year ago when a once-sure QB prospect fell off a cliff, possibly to never become what he was supposed to be. Well … we’ll see.

8. Grayson Allen.

This entire list could be filled with Jazz player names — Ricky Rubio, Derrick Favors, Jae Crowder, Dante Exum, Royce O’Neale, and others — but, then, that would be boring. Suffice it to say that Allen, the team’s first-round draft pick from Duke, has caught the attention and imagination of Jazz fans, none of whom know exactly how much he will contribute or whether he’ll get his face caved in by some frustrated NBA veteran eager to knock that pug-like expression off the rookie’s face.

7. Tyler Huntley.

Part of this is because, whether anybody likes it or not, quarterbacks are the faces of their teams in pro and college football, and Huntley is the starter at that position for what will be the best team in the state in 2018. The Utes have the talent and a shot at accomplishing this season what they’ve never before done — finish atop the South Division in the Pac-12. USC is USC, with all the talent and capability that implies, but the Trojans are rebuilding, such as it is, and while they are, Huntley will hold the keys to Utah climbing over them. If he leads the offense the way OC Troy Taylor wants him to, if he can wise up, running only when it’s expeditious to do so, and refines his decision-making, allowing the stars around him — such as Zack Moss — to do what they can do, it could be an extraordinary season for the Utes, even with a most difficult schedule.

6. Kyle Beckerman.

Remember Mehdi Ballouchy? Of course you don’t. He’s the guy Real Salt Lake traded in July, 2007 for Beckerman. The old war horse battles on now. He is soccer in this state, having anchored RSL over a span that included stints on the U.S. mens national team and the captaincy of a team that won the MLS Cup, an achievement that seems like it happened a lifetime ago. He’s not what he once was, but Beckerman, as much as anyone else associated with RSL, represents the connection between the team and its community.

5. Joe Ingles.

The pugnacious and personable Aussie has found his place in Utah, a spot that not all that long ago few thought he could find or fill. He auspiciously has handed Mrs. O’Reilly, his former teacher at school in Adelaide who told him as a kid that he was wasting his time pursuing a professional basketball career, a full cup of shut the hell up. And he still half-growls, half-giggles when her name is brought up. She didn’t see him becoming one of the NBA’s most efficient three-point shooters, as well as a quality defender. She didn’t see him becoming something of a radio star in Salt Lake City, where Ingles connects with fans every week during the season by sharing tidbits of his life with the people for which he plays.

4. Nick Rimando.

He’s the only wall spoken of these days that doesn’t start a major argument around the dinner table — the Wall of the Wasatch. Now 39 years old, Rimando is the best goalkeeper in MLS history. Like Beckerman, he’s played for the USMNT, and is bolted to RSL’s glory years, having won an MLS Cup. He’s also continued to perform at a high level, even as the shadows of his long career have begun to darken the mouth of the goal he keeps at Rio Tinto.

3. Tony Finau.

What you need to know about Finau are two things: First, when he was a kid growing up in Salt Lake, he and his brother didn’t have the money to buy buckets of balls to hit willy-nilly at the driving range, so they hung an old mattress on the wall in their garage, fashioning targets on said mattress and hammering balls day after day at them until the boys darn-near perfected the craft of doing so, and, second, Finau will win a major tournament — maybe more than one — sometime in the not-too-distant future. Count on it. He’s the only PGA golfer this year to have finished in the top 10 at the Masters, the U.S. Open and the British Open, highlighted by that gutsy Masters performance after having dislocated his ankle prior to the first round.

2. Rudy Gobert.

Defensive player of the year in the NBA who has joined with a certain teammate to defend Utah, as a state and as a desirable franchise for which to play, at every turn. Does not want to chase a championship where the chasing is easiest. Rather, wants to win one here, where his trajectory as one of the game’s most impactful players was launched, where it is most appreciated.

1. Donovan Mitchell.

Shocking, I know. He’s perfected a rare double-barreled pursuit of humbly learning by listening to people like Quin Snyder about how he can fulfill his potential as a young star in the NBA and moving to the beat of his own personal rhythm, appreciating what’s happening, unafraid to show how much he cares about embracing the fans and their city, about winning, about sharing the good moments with teammates, about being enthusiastic and charismatic and … what’s this, polite? I know. It’s crazy. It’s wacky. It’s weird. But Mitchell appears to be everything you always thought a great player should be, could be, what you would be — if you were talented enough to walk and run and jump and shoot and spin and dunk in his same shoes. I once asked him if he, with all the attention he was getting, was going to get all fatheaded and become a jerk. “No,” he said. “If I did, my mom would kill me.”

GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Jake Scott weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.

Gerardo Valerio-Romero was in Utah County custody, accused of repeatedly sexually abusing his 8-year-old stepdaughter, when he was diagnosed with cancer.

The day after the medical determination, the 49-year-old Mexican citizen was in LDS Hospital receiving cancer treatment, marking the start of an ongoing saga that exposed a rift between the county’s sheriff and its commission as well as medical bills that threaten to top $1 million.

Even at a discount, Valerio-Romero’s cancer treatments have drained the county jail’s medical budget. His case is set for trial early next month, and he’s caught the interest of federal immigration officials who will look at possibly deporting him if he’s acquitted. Until then, he’s in Utah’s court system, where his case is stalled and costs from his treatment continue to climb.

“It’s a Catch-22,” Sheriff Jim Tracy said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed a detainer on Valerio-Romero when he was arrested in March 2017, meaning ICE asked to be notified when he was convicted or acquitted on six counts of felony aggravated sexual abuse of a child. (He also faces eight felony charges related to forgery and one count of unlawful possession of another person’s identification.)

“A detainer is basically saying, ‘Hey, listen, when you’re going to be releasing him, let us know so that we can pick this guy up,’” ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said Wednesday.

Valerio-Romero’s trial has twice been delayed, once last August at the request of prosecutors and again in December, when he asked for a new attorney and rejected a plea deal offered by the state (the details of which haven’t been disclosed).

The defendant has waived his right to a speedy trial, the court docket shows.

His next three-day trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 8. It’s unclear whether he’ll be ready to stand trial. If not, Tracy said, his medical treatment will continue to ring up costs for the county.

Valerio-Romero has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him. Court filings indicate he may have used the name Jesus Melgoza for work and cashing checks. His attorney, Clayton Simms, didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The case was catapulted to the public spotlight early this month, when Tracy took the microphone during public comment at a County Commission meeting and announced he is quitting, partially over the inmate’s medical bills. His last day is Aug. 3.

Commissioners said at the time they were caught off guard by Tracy’s abrupt resignation. They said they believed the office could shift money around to cover immediate costs before the commission can meet next month and adjust its budget.

Commissioner Nathan Ivie was also critical of Valerio-Romero, saying he “shouldn’t even be in this country” because of a prior conviction.

Tracy said Valerio-Romero’s previous conviction wasn’t an offense for which he could be deported.

The sheriff said he was frustrated with the county’s funding of his department over the past 10 years. While he said Valerio-Romero’s case isn’t the only reason he’s quitting, he said Wednesday that things came to a head when he asked for emergency budget help from the commission.

He said commissioners will vote early next month — just after his exit — on emergency funding through year’s end.

“The solution to this problem … was adding additional money,” Tracy said. “This guy pops up with a million-dollar [problem], which we don’t even have. That’s why there was the crisis. The solution has always been from Day One you’re going to have to transfer money” to cover medical costs.

“It’s a mess,” he added. “That’s the final straw that broke the back.”

Unsatisfied with earning just the adulation of a state, the Jazz are now trying to woo a continent of fans.

For a second straight year, Utah has looked to Australia for its preseason opponents, hosting the National Basketball League’s Perth Wildcats on Sept. 29 and the Adelaide 36ers on Oct. 5 at Vivint Smart Home Arena. Last season, the Jazz played host to the Sydney Kings, the first NBL team to play an NBA team in the United States, and Israeli club Maccabi Haifa.

In between, the Toronto Raptors, with former Ute Delon Wright, will visit the Viv on Oct. 2.

The Jazz, of course, have a strong connection to down under, with Aussie natives Joe Ingles and Dante Exum both on the roster and mainstays in the rotation.

The Australian teams the Jazz will face are two of the best franchises in the NBL. Perth has made 32 straight playoff appearances in the NBL, and Adelaide was the league’s runner-up last season, losing to Melbourne United in a winner-takes-all fifth game of the NBL’s Grand Finals.

Both teams also feature familiar faces to Jazz fans. Bryce Cotton, the diminutive point guard who played part of the 2014-15 NBA season with the Jazz, was named the NBL’s MVP for the 2017-18 season playing for Perth. Nathan Sobey, featured on the Jazz’s 2017 summer league team, plays for Adelaide.

Following the preseason home games, the Jazz will head out on the road to face Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers on Oct. 7, then the Sacramento Kings on Oct. 11.

The NBA’s regular-season schedule will be announced in mid-August.

It was perhaps not a big deal for Dan Reynolds, the Imagine Dragons frontman, to sell out a stadium in Utah County last summer for a concert. But Reynolds, a devout member of the Mormon church, knew what an accomplishment it was to get 17,000 people there for a show whose purpose was to generate awareness and support for LGBTQ youths.

Reynolds also knows that, successful as 2017’s LoveLoud Festival was, it couldn’t be a one-time event if he wants to make a legitimate difference.

“It did a really good job of starting a conversation and getting the ball rolling,” Reynolds told The Salt Lake Tribune, “but we have a long ways to go and a lot of work to be done.”

So the LoveLoud Festival is back, this year without the endorsement from the LDS Church that the first event had — a change that Reynolds said contributes to his pessimism about change in the church.

The festival moved this year to the 45,000-capacity Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City. The half-day series of speakers and musical performers takes place Saturday, beginning at 3:30 p.m. Tickets range from $29.50 to $99.50, and Reynolds’ LoveLoud Foundation said proceeds will go toward raising $1 million to benefit local and national LGBTQ charities, including Encircle, The Trevor Project, and the Tegan and Sara Foundation.

Stephenie Larsen, Encircle’s founder and CEO and a board member of the LoveLoud Foundation, said last year’s event was an incredible experience.

“I was sitting there thinking, ‘Is this really happening in my hometown?’ You could not have left that concert without feeling uplifted and like your life had changed forever,” Larsen said. “I think it will have a similar impact [this year]. I really think people will look at LGBTQ individuals in a more positive way.”

There will be musical performances by Imagine Dragons, EDM star Zedd, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, teen singer-songwriter Grace Vanderwaal and Neon Trees frontman Tyler Glenn. The myriad other speakers and performers include Apple CEO Tim Cook, dancer Julianne Hough and singer Tegan Quin.

‘Not the most positive answer’

Reynolds started LoveLoud for one simple reason: “Our LGBT youth — statistics and evidence show that they are some of the most at-risk.”

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released last November reported that Utah’s suicide rate among young adults ages 10 to 17 had more than doubled from 2011 to 2015 and had grown at an annual clip nearly four times faster than the national average. A study by the Family Acceptance Project concluded that “lesbian, gay and bisexual youth who come from highly rejecting families are 8.4 times as likely to have attempted suicide as peers who reported no or low levels of family rejection.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Utah-based faith, teaches that while being gay is not a sin, acting on it is. It opposes gay marriage, and in 2015 put forth a policy that labeled same-sex Mormon couples “apostates” and barred their offspring from religious rituals such as baptism until they turn 18.

Even if there’s not direct causation there, Larsen said, there’s undoubtedly correlation.

“Kids, on average, realize they’re gay at 12, but they don’t come out ’til 22. In that decade, they’re hearing nothing but negativity about who they are, and getting nothing but shame and isolation from family and friends,” she said. “No wonder they become suicidal.”

The LDS Church has taken what some see as positive steps within the past year to address the issue.

Last summer, the church approached Reynolds with the offer of an endorsement for LoveLoud and posted a statement of support on its newsroom website. In June, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir joined forces with the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus for a performance in Mountain View, Calif. And earlier this month, the LDS Foundation, the charitable division of the Mormon church, donated $25,000 to Affirmation, an LGBTQ support group, to pay for suicide prevention training.

While Reynolds said he’d had conversations with church officials about another endorsement (“I plead with them to do so. I think that it’s essential for creating safer homes within the Mormon community,” he said), the church later declined.

It instead issued a general statement — which did not refer to LoveLoud by name — saying, in part: “We remain committed to support community efforts throughout the world to prevent suicide, bullying and homelessness. Every young person should feel loved and cared for in their families, their communities and their congregations.”

Asked about its decision not to offer a specific endorsement this year, the church said its comments would be limited to the statement.

Asked if he saw genuine progress coming from his church, Reynolds was blunt in his pessimism.

“I think that it’s small steps. Do I feel like the church has made any large steps? I’d be lying to you if I told you I thought so,” he said. “… I do believe Mormons are having this conversation in their homes, because it’s unavoidable. And that has been the goal, to make it [so ubiquitous] in the press that Mormons are faced with having to have this conversation at the dinner table.

“It’s not the most positive answer,” Reynolds added dejectedly. “We’re making small steps, but it’s frustrating because small steps just don’t seem enough when we’re losing kids every month. And that’s the reality of it right now. … We have a long ways to go, and not a lot of time.”

Larsen did not criticize Affirmation’s acceptance of the church’s donation — a decision that prompted its vice president to resign in protest — but she said Encircle wouldn’t follow suit: “We never want to take [the church’s] money, because it’s a PR stunt.”

While church President Russell M. Nelson receiving imminent divine revelation to change existing doctrine regarding same-sex relationships is unlikely, that doesn’t make the status quo any less untenable, Larsen said.

“Without a big step, these individuals will be second-class citizens within their church and community,” she said. “For someone to be told that their nature goes against God is extremely traumatic and damaging.”

‘Break the cycle’

In the meantime, she, Reynolds and Quin view LoveLoud as a way to help make up for some of that through its awareness campaign and fundraising efforts.

Quin and her identical twin sister are the Canadian pop band Tegan and Sara. Both sisters identify as LGBTQ, and they founded the Tegan and Sara Foundation to fight for health, economic justice and representation for LGBTQ girls and women.

When Reynolds reached out to Tegan Quin to see if the group would perform at LoveLoud, she made a counteroffer — she’d help him organize and book the event.

“The more Dan and I talked about it, the more I wanted to be bossy and insert myself and be involved,” Quin said. “I see a lot of parallels between the work LoveLoud is doing and the compassion that they’re trying to push into the community and the work we do with our foundation. So I’m really excited to be involved.”

Larsen said making the populace at large better informed of what’s at stake is paramount.

“What are we doing as a community and as a state to make them think their lives are not worth living? Until we shine a light on the causes, we’re going to have these problems,” she said. “There’s nothing about being gay that inherently makes you suicidal. The community you grow up in and the messages they send you is what makes you feel suicidal.”

Listening to LoveLoud’s speakers, and not just its musical performers, is the perfect way to spread that message, Reynolds said.

“To have people like my parents out in the crowd who maybe have never sat down and listened to someone from the trans community tell their story, that could be life-changing for them,” he said.

“People getting up and sharing their stories, and the conversation that’s happening — you’d have to have a piece of coal in your heart to not be moved and feel some empathy and compassion,” Quin agreed.

She added that while “Dan was already coming at it straight from his heart, which is a great place to come at it from,” she would like to see future LoveLouds expand representation and increase diversity.

Reynolds said this year’s LoveLoud has already outsold last year’s, and he’s hoping, ultimately, it can double the first incarnation’s attendance figure.

In the meantime, he remains — like the title of his Sundance- and HBO-featured documentary — a “Believer.” A believer in the fundamental goodness of humanity, and a believer that being LDS and LGBTQ need not be inherently incompatible.

“I think people are starting to say enough is enough. I believe in the hearts of Mormons, I believe we’re good people and we want to love fully, and sometimes that can just be difficult to do, especially if we’re being taught different things in our church and communities and we’re raised with those things,” Reynolds said. “So I hope we can break the cycle.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, call The Trevor Project at 866-488-7386, or visit its website, where you can talk to someone via text or chat.

Police have found the 55-year-old man who went missing Thursday morning from Midvale.

Darrel Lance was last seen just before 9 a.m. at 663 E. Acoma Rd. He was without his medication and believed to be endangered. Officers found him later that afternoon. He was in fair condition and was taken to the hospital, according to Unified Police.

Since 2016, Utah law has mandated that any public school or library applying for state money must provide filtering software on its computers to prevent access to child pornography and other obscene material on the internet.

A new study from the United Kingdom suggests the filtering technology isn’t up to the job.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford, finds that such filters are “entirely ineffective” at keeping young people from getting to online porn and similar material.

“There is little empirical evidence that Internet filters provide an effective means to limit children’s and adolescents' exposure to online sexual material,” said the study, written by researchers Andrew K. Przybylski and Victoria Nash at the Oxford Internet Institute. It was published July 1 in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking.

State Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, has advocated for laws to combat pornography — he sponsored a resolution to declare porn a “public health crisis” — but he said technological fixes are no match for good parenting.

“I don’t think there’s any substitute for having that conversation with your kids,” Weiler said. “I don’t think there’s a silver bullet.”

Weiler earned national press when he explored the idea of requiring filtering software on all mobile phones. He said he dropped the idea because it was “clearly a violation of the First Amendment.”

Utah is one of 25 states with laws mandating schools or libraries or both to develop policies to protect children from offensive material online, according to the National Council of State Legislatures. Twelve of those states, including Utah, require filtering software as part of that solution.

This year, the Legislature passed and Gov. Gary Herbert signed into law a requirement that internet service providers notify customers that the providers can block pornography or other material “harmful to minors.” Providers have until year’s end to conform to the new law.

Though he has not looked at the Oxford study’s methodology, Weiler said he’s unsurprised that young people would try to thwart filtering software.

“Whenever you tell people you can’t see [something], it’s obviously going to become taboo and increase people’s desire to want to see it,” Weiler said. “That’s just human nature.”

Internet filters have been in place in the Salt Lake City Library system for a couple of years, said Andrew Shaw, the library’s communications manager. Though the city considered going without state funding, ultimately it put in the filtering software to conform to the Utah Legislature’s wishes.

“With a library of our size, we have a little leeway to make that decision,” Shaw said. “For a smaller library, they don’t have that option.”

At the Salt Lake City Library, software from a Boston-based company, iboss, allows different settings for the computers used by adults than the ones used by children. For adults, filters block child pornography, adult porn and nudity, malware and viruses, and proxies. The children’s computers have filters that block all of those, plus sites dealing with alcohol, tobacco, drugs, violence, hate, dating and personals, and the umbrella term “adult content.”

The study’s authors noted that internet filters “are costly to develop and maintain.” Also, filters often fail by not blocking enough, letting offensive material slip through, or by blocking too much, “restricting access to necessary health, cultural and social information.”

That problem is one the American Library Association, which advocates for the nation’s libraries, has warned against for years.

“Basically, the study confirms what the ALA has been arguing from the beginning,” said James LaRue, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

“There is underblocking, so the filters won’t stop people if they’re determined,” LaRue said, adding that some filters “also overblock. They block access to things that have nothing to do with pornography.”

Some topics that might be blocked by an overly sensitive filter, the study’s authors noted, include medical information and resources for LGBTQ teens.

“Those topics that are the most sensitive and most important are the ones that fall victim to the filter,” Shaw said.

The best line of defense against offensiveness in a library is a good librarian, LaRue said. “When we find out someone is misbehaving in public, you say, ‘Excuse me, could you behave yourself?’"

The Mormon Land newsletter is a weekly highlight reel of developments in and about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whether heralded in headlines, preached from the pulpit or buzzed about on the back benches. Want Mormon Land in your inbox? Subscribe here.

This week’s podcast: Pioneer myths

By all accounts, the Mormon migration from Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley was a monumental journey, one that helped shape the LDS Church and the American West.

But through the years, the truth about the trek, as with many epic events, has gotten twisted and turned.

In a special Pioneer Day edition of “Mormon Land,” historian Ardis Parshall helps separate the fact from the fiction.

Listen here.

Breastfeed a child in church, lose your recommend

A northern Utah mother has been denied a recommend for entry into LDS temples not because she violated any of the beliefs and behaviors spelled out in the firmly established (and not to be veered from) interview questions.

Nope. Her “sin” — breastfeeding her 18-month-old child in the foyer of her Mormon meetinghouse without a cover.

The woman’s stake president brought up the issue during her recommend interview.

“He quoted from the ‘For the Strength of Youth’ pamphlet, told her ‘it’s a modesty issue’ and blamed her for the men and boys having impure thoughts,” a recent Exponent II blog reported. “… When the sister insisted that ‘this isn’t my problem,’ he rebutted, ‘It is your problem. And if you do it again, we’re going to kick you out of the building’”

The post generated a lot of buzz — and not a little backlash — leading to news stories and a follow-up blog.

To be clear, the LDS Church has no written policy regarding breastfeeding in its buildings. A spokesman told The Salt Lake Tribune in 2013 that “countless thousands of mothers have been accommodated in church for generations, simply by everyone observing common sense, discretion and respect.”

The big question about LGBTQ Mormons and suicide

Few, if any, would argue that many LGBTQ Mormons aren’t hurting. They may struggle to find a place in their faith, in their families or with their LDS friends.

But are Mormon doctrines (eternal marriage between a man and a woman) and policies (like the November 2015 bombshell declaring same-sex LDS couples “apostates”) actually to blame for the rising suicide rates in Utah and elsewhere in the West’s so-called Mormon Belt?

The short answer: There’s no proof of that. But there are factors worth exploring — as this story from KUER’s Lee Hale, an accompanying “RadioWest” program with Doug Fabrizio and a 2016 Tribune article reveal.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline — 1-800-273-8255 — offers 24/7 help.

Youth parade reaches end of the road

After 80 years, the Days of ’47 Youth Parade has reached the end of the line. Saturday marked the final march in downtown Salt Lake City of this Pioneer Day staple.

Why has the youthful procession hit a dead end? It was putting too much strain, organizers say, on Mormon congregations, which also provide floats on a rotating basis for the holiday’s primary (not LDS Primary) event, the big Days of ’47 Parade.

Happy holiday, says commander in chief

President Donald Trump sent holiday wishes to Utahns celebrating Pioneer Day, praising the Mormon migrants for their “ingenuity, industry and unwavering” faith.

“Their stories and accomplishments are lasting reminders of the importance of religious freedom,” he said, “and the enduring strength and spirit of the American people.”

Later, Trump’s Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, offered his well-wishes in person — at the Days of ’47 rodeo in Salt Lake City — and expounded on the need for faith liberties, an issue of importance to current Mormon leaders.

“Utah also understands that freedom of religion is a cornerstone of American exceptionalism,” Zinke said. “ … Today we have a man in the White House who respects religious freedom.”

Emphasizing the ‘world’ in the Mormon world

The 16 million-member LDS Church was birthed in the United States and is based in Utah, but the religion is lengthening its stride in a quest to become a truly global faith.

It’s not quite there yet, insiders say.

Ignacio Garcia, a professor of history at LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University, says Mormon multiculturalism can occur only “if saints of color have their history told, are empowered by their religious identity, and have an institutional role. If we don’t, then Mormonism — a faith many of us love dearly — remains a white religion with shades of color in which Latinos and others remain governed and acted upon and not agents unto themselves.”

But that shift is happening fast, especially under the faith’s new president.

“Virtually every change that has been made under President [Russell M.] Nelson’s tenure has clearly been with the global church front and center in his and the leadership’s minds,” says Patrick Mason, a Mormon historian at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California. “Nelson clearly has an authentically global outlook.”

Fatal shooting at Mormon services

A deadly shooting rocked Sunday’s services at a Mormon meetinghouse in western Nevada.

A gunman burst into the building and opened fire, killing one man and wounding the victim’s brother. Police in Fallon still were searching for a motive.

Barely a month after taking the church’s reins, Nelson lamented U.S. laws “that allow guns to go to people who shouldn’t have them.” His comments to Mormon millennials in Las Vegas came in the wake of the fatal shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., which claimed the life of a Mormon girl and 16 others.

Called to … stay away

The tens of thousands who attended this year’s Hill Cumorah Pageant may have noticed something missing: full-time Mormon missionaries.

Yes, for the first time since its debut in 1937, the spectacle, which started as a missionary tool, had no full-time LDS proselytizers acting in the show, passing out pamphlets or attending performances with potential converts.

The mission president in nearby Rochester forbid his young charges from attending the pageant.

That missionary responsibility shifted to area Latter-day Saints.

“Members are encouraged to invite nonmember friends to the pageant,” a church spokesman said, “while missionaries play a critical role in preparing those people to have meaningful experiences there.”

An LGBTQ change at BYU

BYU’s unofficial LGBTQ club has officially changed its name — from Understanding Same-Gender Attraction to Understanding Sexuality, Gender, and Allyship.

Same acronym. Different words. Expanded vision.

“The previous name hasn’t really felt like it fit the organization for quite a while now,” said Liza Holdaway, the group’s president. “It just hasn’t been very accurate of who we are.”

The organization still hopes to win recognition from the Provo school and hold its meetings on campus.

Kirby’s take on the ‘block’

So, you’re tired of the three-hour block (who isn’t?). Well, you don’t have to plead with the bishop, write to the prophet or pray to the heavens to shorten your time in church.

You can do that right now, says Tribune columnist Robert Kirby, by leaving whenever you feel like you’ve had enough church on any given Sunday.

Quote of the week

Mormon Land is a weekly newsletter written by David Noyce and Peggy Fletcher Stack. Subscribe here.

Los Angeles • Larry Scott, as Larry Scott does, dug in.

When it was his turn at center stage during Wednesday’s Pac-12 Media Day in Hollywood, the Pac-12 commissioner went on the offensive when asked why the conference has fallen so far behind the other Power 5 leagues in terms of revenue and other metrics. The subject came up because, well, that has pretty much been the national narrative about the Pac-12 in what has been a nightmarish year for the conference.

Pac-12 teams went a historically bad 1-8 in bowl season. (Utah fans won’t miss an opportunity to remind conference cohorts who saved the league from going epically bad).

No Pac-12 team made it out of the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The ongoing drama surrounding the Pac-12 Network and DirecTV seems it will never die. Scott did say Wednesday there’s no update on that, so DirecTV subscribers, once again, must find another way to tune into Utah or other Pac-12 games when they’re being broadcast on the conference’s network.

And then it was unveiled that the Pac-12 came in at No. 5 out of the Power 5 Conferences in terms of revenue at the end of the spring.

“I’m confident our schools have the resources they need to continue to win championships more than any other conference,” Scott said. “I see no sign of it slowing down.”

The Pac-12 commissioner pointed to what he normally points to, some of it very valid: No other conference wins as much as the Pac-12 does across the board on an annual basis. The conference has a dozen national title contenders in any number of Division I sports every fall, winter and spring. Scott pointed to the fact that no other conference has producee as many Olympians or gold medalists as the Pac-12. At the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Pac-12 affiliated athletes won 55 medals.

But this is almost always a football and men’s basketball discussion, given that those two sports deliver far and away the most revenue. Scott knew that was coming, so he got out in front of it.

He acknowledged that some fans might not care that Oregon State won the College World Series or that USC won a track & field title or that UCLA won the gymnastics crown, but the Pac-12 schools do. Scott said, in total, Pac-12 schools have combined to invest $1.5 billion in the last decade in capital improvements. Every school, he noted, has now upgraded their football facilities.

“There’s no example I can point to in football or basketball that our schools have not been able to invest how they want to,” Scott said.

However, Pac-12 schools average about $30 million in revenue each year, a little more than $10 million behind the average SEC school. In an interview with CBS Sports in May, Washington State president Kirk Schulz said bluntly, “we’re falling behind.” Schulz added in an interview with USA Today schools must stop worrying what the Pac-12 is providing and “start doing some of our own creative things to bring in additional revenue.”

The SEC, Big 10, Big 12 and ACC are financially in better shape than the Pac-12 and there are a bunch of reasons why. But many point to the beleaguered Pac-12 Network, which paid out a reported $2.5 million per school last year. Scott, boasted Wednesday — as he often does — that the conference has positioned itself quite well because it currently owns its own network and with the rise of digital streaming, the conference is in good shape to maneuver the next step.

But the numbers don’t lie. The Pac-12 takes in significantly less money from its network than the SEC and Big Ten do in their shared network arrangements with ESPN.

The Pac-12 is in its seventh year as a conference and with the its network Not much will change in the near future, because most of the P5 conferences are in the middle of their current network agreements. Scott forsees “period of stability where you won’t see revenue changes up or down.” But come 2024, those deals will expire and the Pac-12 will have options.

Scott said “couldn’t be more delighted” that the Pac-12 is the only conference in the country to have complete control of its media rights and that will allow itself to adapt and take advantage of the new media landscape, he explained.

There is also the painful topic of late Saturday night kickoffs.

Most of the Pac-12′s current prime time matchups kickoff at 7:30 p.m. Pacific or 8:30 p.m. Mountain, with the games not ending until 2 a.m. Sunday morning east coast. The conference can’t do anything about time zones. The fear is, if and when the league produces a national title contender, it too, could wind up playing in the wee hours at a time of the season when national exposure will make all the difference.

Football, fair or not, is the driving force behind most all athletic departments. The conference’s product in recent years has struggled. Outside of Washington’s inclusion in the 2017 NCAA College Football Playoff, it has been, well, kind of thin as of late. In an interview with the Salt Lake Tribune last month, new Utah athletic director Mark Harlan was asked how the Pac-12 can close the revenue gap that appears to be widening versus the other Power 5 conferences.

Harlan said it’s cyclical, largely dependent on how high-revenue sports can fare on an annual basis.

“It just seems that every now and then a conference will bring in more money and then the next year, another conference will bring in more money,” he said. “The Pac-12 has a great product. I see only great upside going forward.”

The Pac-12 currently has four major sources of revenue: bowl money, TV rights deals with ESPN and FOX, the Pac-12 Network and March Madness earnings.

Scott says he is well aware of the Pac-12′s revenue shortcomings vis a vis the conference’s P5 rivals, and remains “laser focused” on creating new income streams to help close the gap. But money, Scott insists, isn’t the Pac-12′s only measure of success.

Which is true. One good, turnaround year, with a Pac-12 football team earning a a national playoff berth or a conference team or two making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament, will almost certainly shift the national narrative about the league.

Yet, the numbers tell the larger tale. And unless that is eventually addressed, the Pac-12 runs the risk of falling farther behind.

Salem, Ore. • A dispute over acts of Congress in 1906 and 1937 has put the Trump administration in court — and into the unusual position of supporting a proclamation by former President Barack Obama.

Contrary to President Donald Trump’s numerous efforts to shred Obama’s legacy, Justice Department lawyers are in Obama’s corner as they defend his expansion of a national monument in Oregon.

That puts the Trump administration in direct opposition with timber interests that Trump vowed to defend in a May 2016 campaign speech in Eugene, 110 miles south of Portland.

However, that opposition may be temporary in a case full of ironic twists that focuses on a unique habitat where three mountain ranges converge. It is home to more than 200 bird species, the imperiled Oregon spotted frog, deer, elk and many kinds of fish, including the endangered Lost River sucker.

A federal judge is being asked to consider limits of power among all three government branches. For the Trump administration, the case is about protecting the power of the president of the United States, even if it was Obama who exercised his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906 that allows a president to declare a national monument.

During his last week in office, Obama nearly doubled the size of Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in heavily forested southern Oregon, to more than 150 square miles. Commercial timber harvesting is prohibited in the monument except for ecological restoration, so logging companies and local governments were deprived of revenue from timber that was suddenly placed out of their reach.

In March 2017, the American Forest Resource Council, a timber-industry advocacy group, sued the federal government in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, charging that Obama's expansion of the monument was unlawful. A group of Oregon counties that receive revenue from logging sued separately in the same court.

The advocacy group insisted that Obama exceeded his authority because Congress in 1937 designated much of the land in question for timber harvesting to allow local communities to prosper. The expanded area included 62 square miles designated by Congress for “permanent forest production,” the group said, telling the court its members “rely on timber sourced from federal lands in and around the Monument to support profitable operations.”

Some observers, seeing the Trump administration develop a record of favoring business interests over environmental concerns, figured it wouldn't fight the lawsuits.

"I was worried that the timber industry and DOJ would come to an agreement that would not be good for the monument," said Susan Jane Brown, an attorney for environmental groups.

Instead, after a lengthy pause in the court proceedings, Justice Department attorneys in June asked the judge handling both lawsuits to rule in the government's favor without trial.

"I don't see this at all as the administration siding with the environmentalists, but rather doing all they can to shore up presidential power," said Rhett Lawrence, conservation director of the Sierra Club's Oregon chapter.

In taking that approach, the administration lawyers said even the judiciary branch has little say in the matter. When a president acts with authority delegated to him by Congress, they wrote, judicial review "if available at all, is extremely limited in scope."

"A suit against the President in his official capacity is a suit against the United States itself," wrote Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Wood and two Justice Department attorneys.

They noted that Congress, under the Antiquities Act, gave the president the power to declare objects of historical and scientific interest as national monuments, and to reserve federal lands for their protection.

Cases challenging presidential authority under the Antiquities Act usually fail, said Lawson Fite, the forest council's general counsel. But he said this one is different because of the statute Congress passed in 1937.

"Our case is about whether the president has the authority to unilaterally disregard an act of Congress," Fite said in an email.

Fite says history backs his side, citing a 1940 letter from the Interior Department’s head lawyer under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In it, solicitor Nathan Margold concluded that Roosevelt could not expand another national monument into land designated by Congress for other purposes.

"This is quite an interesting case as it so depends on separation of powers," Fite said. "We don't agree that the president's power is so broad."

In December, Trump downsized two national monuments in Utah, following Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recommendations. Zinke also has urged the president to shrink Cascade-Siskiyou and Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada.

A final irony: Even if Trump's administration prevails in court in defending Obama's expansion of the Oregon monument, the president might wind up reducing it.

Brown represents environmental groups that have intervened in the lawsuits on behalf of the government defendants. She said if Trump shrinks Cascade-Siskiyou, "we'd probably challenge it in court."

"We think the Antiquities Act does give the president discretion to establish monuments, but not to shrink or abolish them," Brown said.

The case continues in early August when the next briefs are due.

Farmington • A 20-year-old man will serve at least the next five years in a Utah prison for the shooting death of a 19-year-old.

The Standard-Examiner reports Layton resident Bostin Cole Osborn-Crookston was sentenced Wednesday after police say he shot Ogden man Bryan Brooks Jr. in the face Jan. 29, 2017, in Layton during a drug deal gone awry.

Brooks died from his injuries the following day.

Osborn-Crookston pleaded guilty to amended charges on March 7. He was originally charged with first-degree felony murder, which was later reduced to a second-degree felony manslaughter charge as a part of his plea.

Osborn-Crookston was given credit for time served in the Davis County Jail, which as of Wednesday was 541 days.

It was not immediately clear when Osborn-Crookston will be transferred to a Utah prison to serve his sentence.

Provo • Authorities say a Utah home has been badly damaged by a fire sparked by used fireworks in a trash can.

The Daily Herald reports the blaze started early Wednesday morning in Pleasant Grove, after the homeowners and others set off fireworks in the neighborhood on the popular holiday Pioneer Day.

Fire Chief Dave Thomas says they threw them in the trash, where investigators believe the embers sparked a fire on a nearby wall that spread to the attic and torched much of the roof.

Thomas says it was a difficult fire to fight and left damage significant enough to make the house unlivable.

No one was injured, and the family is now living with relatives.

Albuquerque, N.M. • The threat of wildfire in the American Southwest has been significantly dampened by the monsoon season, but national fire and climatology experts said Wednesday the region is still grappling with the long-term effects of drought.

The experts focused on the situation across Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, which is currently home to the largest swath of severe and extreme drought in the U.S.

"Most of the West is dry," said Nancy Selover, Arizona's state climatologist. "You've got dust storms across Interstate 10 in southern New Mexico, and we've got really dry range conditions. We've got lakes that are drying up. It's pretty ugly."

The region didn’t see much winter snow or spring rains, and the summer rains that have developed so far haven’t benefited everyone, Selover said. Monitors that track daily stream flows show parts of New Mexico and Colorado are still low, and several major reservoirs around the region are well below capacity, she said.

New Mexico’s governor issued a drought declaration this month, groundwater levels are dropping across much of Arizona as crops are being irrigated, and the price of hay has doubled in southwest Colorado as fires persist in other parts of that state. In Utah, several counties have drought declarations in place after having the warmest and least snowy winter since the 1800s.

Ranchers across the states also have been forced to cull their herds.

On the fire front, the rains that have developed in recent weeks are helping to increase vegetation moisture levels. That means fires that do start are less likely to spread quickly, said Ed Delgado with the National Interagency Fire Center in Idaho.

The monsoon season is what he describes as the shut-off valve for fire season in the Southwest. "When the monsoon kicked in in early July, we started to see a huge decline in fire severity, fire size and the number of fires," he said.

There are still dry areas in northern Utah and northwestern Colorado that fire managers are monitoring.

Overall, the fire center reported Wednesday that activity has picked up in other areas of the West as 14 new large fires were sparked. Most are burning in Oregon and Idaho, but crews also are working to get a handle on a lightning-sparked fire in northern New Mexico.

More than 17,000 firefighters and support personnel are working across the West, according to the center.

Mitt Romney is vastly outraising his Democratic opponent in the Utah race to win the Senate seat left open by retiring Sen. Orrin Hatch.

Campaign-finance records show he raised $2.4 million this spring, a haul that dwarfs the $142,000 brought in by Democrat Jenny Wilson.

He spent nearly that same amount between April and June, a reporting period that included his Republican primary election. He easily bested state lawmaker Mike Kennedy in the June 26 race.

Wilson, who was unopposed, spent about as much as she raised during that period.

The Salt Lake County councilwoman ended July with about $84,000 in cash on hand, compared to about $1.2 million in Romney's account.

Romney is the high-profile favorite to win in his conservative adopted home state of Utah, though Wilson is campaigning hard.

This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday, July 26, 2018. You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below:

• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/25/bagley-cartoon-monumental/" target=_blank><u>Monumental Bull</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/23/bagley-cartoon-pioneer/" target=_blank><u>Pioneer Parade is for the Birds</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/21/bagley-cartoon-spy-who/" target=_blank><u>The Spy Who Did(n’t) Love Me</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/18/bagley-cartoon-gumby/" target=_blank><u>Gumby Government</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/19/bagley-cartoon-inland/" target=_blank><u>Inland Port Parlay</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/17/bagley-cartoon-ultimate/" target=_blank><u>The Ultimate Protest</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/16/bagley-cartoon-taking/" target=_blank><u>Taking a Knee</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/13/bagley-cartoon-barbarian/" target=_blank><u>Barbarian at the Gate</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/12/bagley-cartoon-an-orrin/" target=_blank><u>An Orrin for All Seasons</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/11/bagley-cartoon-hes-just/" target=_blank><u>He’s Just Putin Us On!</u></a>

Want more Bagley? Become a fan on Facebook.

A loaded gun was left in a bathroom at the Living Planet Aquarium, where the property has a posted ban on weapons, but Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill says no law was broken. At least 20 municipalities in Utah have signed on to buy power from a planned nuclear reactor, but environmental and economic costs are causing concern. And a new police station opens up on North Temple to combat crime pushed into the neighborhood by Operation Rio Grande.

At 9 a.m. Friday, Salt Lake Tribune reporter Taylor Stevens, government and politics editor Dan Harrie, and editorial page editor George Pyle join KCPW’s Roger McDonough to talk about the week’s top stories.

Every Friday at 9 a.m., stream “Behind the Headlines” online at kcpw.org or tune in to KCPW 88.3 FM or Utah Public Radio for the broadcast.

Limited housing supplies on the Wasatch Front are stifling sales of single-family homes and pushing prices to new highs.

In keeping with trends seen in many parts of the country, home sales fell between April and June in Salt Lake County as a result of tight inventories, declining by 4.6 percent compared to the same quarter last year, according to new numbers released Thursday by the Salt Lake Board of Realtors.

The region’s “strong economy continues to attract thousands of people,” said Adam Kirkham, the board’s president. He predicted that workers moving to Utah combined with new families already in the state would probably keep housing supplies tight "for several more years.”

The latest report shows that in Tooele County — something of a go-to area for bargain hunters in recent years — sales slowed by nearly double the rate seen in Salt Lake County year over year, down 8.8 percent. They also fell by 0.7 percent in Davis County.

Sales rose, meanwhile, by 4.3 percent in Weber County and 3.2 percent in Utah County.

A five-county surge in home prices shows little signs of letting up, with the median price tag for a single-family home in Salt Lake County now at $352,500 compared to $327,000 for the same quarter last year and $345,000 in the first three months of 2018.

But that 7.8 percent jump was relatively small compared to price gains in some adjacent counties.

Year over year, the cost of a home spiked an astonishing 20.9 percent in Tooele County in the second quarter, 10.1 percent in Utah County, 9.8 percent in Davis and 9.6 percent in Weber.

A recently released study found that housing prices in Utah have increased by an average of about 3.3 percent annually over each of the past 26 years, the country’s fourth highest rate overall. Experts say the trend is being driven by several factors, including dwindling availability of undeveloped land, rising costs of building materials, and a shortage of construction labor, particularly in skilled trades.

Officials are now talking more openly than ever about the effects of a housing deficit across Utah's urban center, with some warning that a persistent gap between new households being formed and available homes threatens to dampen the state's rate of economic growth.

Business and municipal leaders have launched a campaign to bring attention to deficient supplies of apartments, existing homes and new home construction across the state. A report commissioned by the Salt Lake Chamber has estimated that the number of dwellings built in Utah between 2011 and 2017 was about 50,000 below the number of new households formed.

James Wood, a leading Utah economist and Ivory-Boyer Senior Fellow at the University of Utah, said in a recent blog post that, in addition to higher housing costs, the shortage is pushing down vacancy rates and increasing the number of so-called “doubled-up households,” with families in shared living arrangements.

Upward movement in dwelling costs is also thought to be increasing the number of Utah households spending more than a third of their incomes on housing. Kirkham and others have also noted that those rising home prices across the five-county region spanning Ogden, Salt Lake City and Provo are impeding first-time homebuyers, in particular, from entering residential markets.

New listings of homes for sale came in at 6,608 for the second quarter, the Realtors group reported, down nearly 1.4 percent from the same quarter a year before. And as a further indication of tight markets, median sales prices of condominiums along the Wasatch Front have also jumped. The median price for a condo in Salt Lake County now sells for $237,300, up 5.5 percent compared to a year earlier.

Second-quarter data for single-family homes show median prices now stand at $335,000 in Utah County, $316,200 for Davis County, $266,000 in Tooele County and at $241,000 for Weber County.

The 84004 ZIP code in Alpine saw home prices rise by more than 44 percent in the second quarter, the highest increase for all ZIP codes along the Wasatch Front. That pushed its median home price to $720,000, which also led prices in the five-county area. Areas in Provo, Holladay and Salt Lake City also saw price hikes above 25 percent.

Emigration Canyon (84108) and the Avenues (84103) are Salt Lake County’s most expensive neighborhoods, with median prices at $604,000 and $590,000, respectively.

Farmington (84025) had the top second-quarter median price in Davis County, at $437,500, while Eden (84310) had the highest price in Weber County, at $476,000, and Stockton (84071) was the highest-priced area of Tooele County, at $295,000.

On July 24, 1847, Brigham Young and 146 other Mormon pioneers made their way into the Salt Lake Valley. They had left the United States and found themselves in Mexican territory.

At the time, the Mexican-American War was raging, and within a year Mexico would cede the Salt Lake Valley to the United States. But that was not in the Mormons’ plans. They were trying to leave the United States to escape violence and persecution.

But once they were in the new territory, they settled in the valley without the approval of the Mexican government or the indigenous people who already lived in the arid land near the Great Salt Lake. The Mormon history in Utah reveals them to be both persecuted migrants and colonizers.

In Utah, July 24 is celebrated as Pioneer Day. From my perspective as a scholar of Mormon history, revisiting the story of the Mormon settlement of the Salt Lake Valley has profound implication for the ways the leadership of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today thinks about issues of immigration.

The history of Mormon immigration

Before they made their way to Salt Lake City, the Mormons lived in New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. The church encouraged Mormon converts to gather together, and, by the 1840s, some 25 percent of the population of the Mormon settlement in Illinois were British converts and immigrants.

The Mormons’ neighbors were suspicious of them for a number of reasons. They were perceived as outsiders because many were immigrants, but they were also clannish. In elections, the Mormons voted as a bloc. They tended to keep their trade and economic activity among themselves. As their numbers swelled into the hundreds and thousands, their neighbors feared their influence.

Similarly, their religious practices attracted suspicion. In the 1840s, the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, began practicing polygamy, and though he tried to keep it secret, rumor quickly spread. As one Missouri writer described them in 1837, they were a “mass of human corruption, [a] tribe of locusts, that still threatens to scorch and wither the herbage of a fair and goodly portion of Missouri by the swarm of emigrants.”

Through the 1830s and 1840s, the Mormons fled from one state to the next. In 1838, Missouri’s governor issued what historians often call the “extermination order,” directing the state militia to drive out Mormons.

For several months, Missourian forces and an ad hoc Mormon militia fought across several counties in the western portion of the state. By 1839, the Mormons had settled in Nauvoo, Ill., hoping to escape such tensions.

But, in June 1844, Joseph Smith was assassinated by a mob in Carthage, Ill. His successor Brigham Young determined that the United States was not safe for the Mormons. He selected the Salt Lake Valley as the place for their settlement because, as Young said, it was “a place on this earth that nobody else wants.”

Mormonism as an immigrant religion

The Mormon leadership today remembers that they are historically a religion of immigrants. Indeed, the church in the United States still is. Mormonism is growing faster in Latin America than in any other region of the world, and nearly 10 percent of the church’s membership in the United States is Latino or Latina.

These reasons lie behind the church’s consistent support for a humane immigration policy. The church officially supports increasing opportunities for the “Dreamers,” people brought to the United States as children. It has offered criticism of the punitive practices the Trump administration has implemented toward migrant families.

Its leadership helped to draft the Utah Compact, a statement of principles that urges a “humane approach” to immigration that emphasizes the importance of being “a place that welcomes people of goodwill.” After all, as church leaders stated in an official statement, “Most of our early church members emigrated from foreign lands to live, work and worship.”

At the same time, it is also true that the Trump administration’s immigration policies enjoy about 50 percent approval in Utah, a state that has about 2 million Mormons.

Indeed, recently President Donald Trump nominated Ronald Mortensen to oversee the State Department’s refugee program. Mortensen, a Mormon and former officer in the U.S. foreign service, has blasted the Utah Compact and other of the church’s statements on immigration for being too favorable to immigrants.

Mortensen attacked the church for being “biased in favor of illegal immigrants” and said its positions “weaken the rule of law.”

The disputed legacy of Mormon immigration

Mortensen’s stand reveals the divided mind of the church. Though its leadership remembers Brigham Young’s entrance into the Salt Lake Valley as a reason for sympathy to immigrants today, Mortensen’s hard line brings to mind a different aspect of Mormon history.

Despite Young’s assertion that nobody else wanted the valley, it was indeed populated by thousands of Native Americans when the Mormons arrived. Mormon-Native interaction was uneasy, characterized by alternating cooperation and spurts of violence.

Though Young sometimes sought to work peacefully with Native tribes, he was also willing to enforce his will upon them with violence. Mormon settlers gradually displaced Native Americans from the land and resources they depended upon to support themselves.

In consequence, wars between the Mormon settlers and Native peoples broke out in the 1850s and 1860s. As with most other areas in the United States, Native people were eventually confined to reservations.

Aspects of this legacy persist. Recently, for instance, Mormon elected officials have supported the Trump administration’s decision to reduce the size of the Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah. The monument was created by President Barack Obama in 2016. It is centered on a pair of large buttes called the “Bears Ears,” which are held as sacred or significant by a number of Native American groups. Many Native leaders therefore protested the Trump administration’s plan and Utah leaders’ support for it.

The conflicts over Bears Ears on the one hand and recent immigration policy on the other show that the church’s own experience as a migrating people, but also as a colonizing people, oppressed and oppressor in turn, continues to shape the church’s position on immigration today.

Matthew Bowman is an associate professor of history at Henderson State University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

South Salt Lake Mayor Cherie Wood was denied a salary increase by a 4-3 vote of the City Council on Wednesday — with the male-dominated no vote prompting one female council member to question whether sexism was a motive.

Councilwoman Sharla Bynum tried to tell colleagues she saw the same thing happen in 2014 when a proposed raise for Wood also was rejected.

”I’m not making any accusations," she said during Wednesday night’s meeting, “but I sometimes wonder if it’s a female mayor sometimes because it was a boys club back then and that just —” Bynum was then cut off by several male councilmen decrying her remarks as “inappropriate” and “offensive.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Bynum continued, “but I can’t help but wonder because it’s happened now twice.”

Three men and one woman made up the council majority turning down the raise, while two female members and one male councilman voted for it.

The rejection came right after a unanimous vote of the council to reject a pay increase for themselves. Several members said having all city elected officials go without an increase would send a good-faith message to residents, especially in light of a proposed water utility fee.

Wood, who has been mayor since 2010, is paid a salary of $81,492 plus benefits. The 6 percent raise proposed Wednesday — and already approved for other full-time city employees — would have brought her up to $86,460.

She has had only one salary increase while in office: a 4 percent boost in 2011.

In an interview Thursday, Wood neither embraced nor denied the possibility that sexism was behind the salary vote. But she suggested the question was worth exploring.

Usually, she said, a full-time mayor receives the same increase as full-time city employees.

Saying the vote had “raised some questions," Wood noted she had also suggested four highly qualified female candidates for positions as department directors with the city, whose appointments were also opposed by the same four council members who blocked her pay raise.

“So that’s happened in the last two years,” Wood said. "It makes me question what’s going on and if it is an issue in our city with this current council.”

The mayor said she also was “surprised” by the outraged response of the male council members to Bynum’s comments.

“I don’t feel that her comments were accusatory. I thought she was just asking questions," the mayor said. "I don’t want to put words in her mouth but I feel like it’s probably a bigger question if you [consider] four female directors that have not been approved by the same four.”

Bynum did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Councilman Shane Siwik lashed out Thursday at the suggestion of sexism, saying it was “a desperate attack when you lose an argument to label somebody a bigot after the fact.

“There was absolutely zero sexism in our vote,” Siwik said. "We just didn’t think the mayor should get a raise — it’s that plain and simple.”

Siwik also defended the rejection of several of the mayor’s appointees, saying in one case, council members lacked confidence in the person’s experience, and in another, the candidate was married to a former council member.

“When she keeps bringing friends that we feel are too crony-istic — if that’s even a word — it doesn’t matter the gender," Siwik said. "In fact just last night we unanimously approved a female planning commissioner.”

The council and mayor have had several run-ins in recent years, including allegations of nepotism and mixing of politics and official business in City Hall. Two of the councilmembers — Siwik and Mark Kindred — challenged Wood during last year’s election, with Wood pulling out a narrow win over Kindred.