The Utah Jazz aren’t very different, but the Western Conference is.

In this week’s edition of the Weekly Run podcast, Tony Jones and new Tribune beat writer Andy Larsen break down where the Jazz might end up in the wild West and how the Jazz might approach playoff battles differently going forward.

There’s also a beef going on between two of the NBA’s stars, with Kevin Durant and CJ McCollum arguing about Durant’s decision to join the Warriors. What exactly does that reveal about Durant’s character?

Finally, you may remember Tony’s great piece on Jae Crowder’s rough season, and we look at how he’s approaching this upcoming season.

Here’s a rundown of this week’s podcast:

At 0:28 • Tony introduces Andy to the Tribune.

At 4:25 • What potential do the Jazz have next season?

At 6:00 • How will the Jazz adapt to facing Houston and Golden State in the playoffs?

At 19:03 • Kevin Durant and CJ McCollum’s fight, and what it says about Durant’s future on the Warriors.

At 30:25 • Who is making the playoffs, and who doesn’t in the Western Conference?

At 48:05 • Tony on his interview with Jae Crowder.

You can subscribe and listen on iTunes. Or, hey, just listen below on SoundCloud:

Vatican City • The nun no longer goes to confession regularly, after an Italian priest forced himself on her while she was at her most vulnerable: recounting her sins to him in a university classroom nearly 20 years ago.

At the time, the sister told only her provincial superior and her spiritual director, silenced by the Catholic Church’s culture of secrecy, her vows of obedience and her own fear, repulsion and shame.

“It opened a great wound inside of me,” she told The Associated Press. “I pretended it didn’t happen.”

After decades of silence, the nun is one of a handful worldwide to come forward recently on an issue that the Catholic Church has yet to come to terms with: The sexual abuse of religious sisters by priests and bishops.

An AP examination has found that cases have emerged in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, demonstrating that the problem is global and pervasive, due to the tradition of sisters’ second-class status in the Catholic Church and their ingrained subservience to the men who run it.

Finding their voices after years of silence

Some nuns are now finding their voices, buoyed by the #MeToo movement and the growing recognition that adults can be victims of sexual abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship. The sisters are going public in part because of years of inaction by church leaders, even after major studies on the problem in Africa were reported to the Vatican in the 1990s.

The issue has flared in the wake of scandals over the sexual abuse of children and recently of adults, including revelations that one of the most prominent American cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, sexually abused and harassed his seminarians. The extent of the abuse of nuns is unclear, at least outside the Vatican.

Victims are reluctant to report the abuse because of well-founded fears they won’t be believed, experts told the AP. Church leaders are reluctant to acknowledge that some priests and bishops simply ignore their vows of celibacy, knowing that their secrets will be kept.

However, this week, about half a dozen sisters in a small religious congregation in Chile went public on national television with their stories of abuse by priests and other nuns — and how their superiors did nothing to stop it. A nun in India recently filed a formal police complaint accusing a bishop of rape, something that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.

Cases in Africa have come up periodically. In 2013, for example, a well-known priest in Uganda wrote a letter to his superiors that mentioned “priests romantically involved with religious sisters” — for which he was promptly suspended from the church until he apologized in May. And the sister in Italy spoke to the AP to help bring the issue to light.

“I am so sad that it took so long for this to come into the open, because there were reports long ago,” Karlijn Demasure, one of the church’s leading experts on clergy sexual abuse and abuse of power, told the AP. “I hope that now actions will be taken to take care of the victims and put an end to this kind of abuse.”

What does the Vatican say?

The Vatican declined to comment on what measures, if any, it has taken to assess the scope of the problem globally, what it has done to punish offenders and care for the victims. A Vatican official said it is up to local church leaders to sanction priests who sexually abuse sisters, but that often such crimes go unpunished both in civil and canonical courts.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the issue, said only some cases arrive at the Holy See for investigation. It was a reference to the fact that the Catholic Church has no clear measures in place to investigate and punish bishops who themselves abuse or allow abusers to remain in their ranks — a legal loophole that has recently been highlighted by the McCarrick case.

The official said the church has focused much of its attention recently on protecting children, but that vulnerable adults “deserve the same protection.”

“Consecrated women have to be encouraged to speak up when they are molested,” the official told the AP. “Bishops have to be encouraged to take them seriously, and make sure the priests are punished if guilty.”

Challenges facing nuns and whistleblowers

But being taken seriously is often the toughest obstacle for sisters who are sexually abused, said Demasure, until recently executive director of the church’s Center for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University, the church’s leading think tank on the issue.

“They [the priests] can always say ‘she wanted it,’” Demasure said. “It is also difficult to get rid of the opinion that it is always the woman who seduces the man, and not vice versa.”

Demasure said many priests in Africa, for example, struggle with celibacy because of traditional and cultural beliefs in the importance of having children. Novices, who are just entering religious life, are particularly vulnerable because they often need a letter from their parish priest to be accepted into certain religious congregations. “And sometimes they have to pay for that,” she said.

And when these women become pregnant?

“Mainly she has an abortion. Even more than once,” she said. “And he pays for that. A religious sister has no money. A priest, yes.”

There can also be a price for blowing the whistle on the problem.

In 2013, the Rev. Anthony Musaala in Kampala, Uganda, wrote what he called an open letter to members of the local Catholic establishment about “numerous cases” of alleged sex liaisons of priests, including with nuns. He charged that it was “an open secret that many Catholic priests and some bishops, in Uganda and elsewhere, no longer live celibate chastity.”

He was sanctioned, even though Ugandan newspapers regularly report cases of priests caught in sex escapades. The topic is even the subject of a popular novel taught in high schools.

In 2012, a priest sued a bishop in western Uganda who had suspended him and ordered him to stop interacting with at least four nuns. The priest, who denied the allegations, lost the suit, and the sisters later withdrew their own suit against the bishop.

Archbishop John Baptist Odama, leader of the local Ugandan conference of bishops, told the AP that unverified or verified allegations against individual priests should not be used to smear the whole church.

“Individual cases may happen, if they are there,” he said Thursday. “Individual cases must be treated as individual cases.”

Not a new problem

Long before the most recent incidents, confidential reports into the problem focused on Africa and AIDS were prepared in the 1990s by members of religious orders for top church officials. In 1994, the late Sr. Maura O’Donohue wrote the most comprehensive study about a six-year, 23-nation survey, in which she learned of 29 nuns who had been impregnated in a single congregation.

Nuns, she reported, were considered “safe” sexual partners for priests who feared they might be infected with HIV if they went to prostitutes or women in the general population.

Four years later, in a report to top religious superiors and Vatican officials, Sister Marie McDonald said harassment and rape of African sisters by priests is “allegedly common.” Sometimes, when a nun becomes pregnant, the priest insists on an abortion, the report said.

The problem traveled when the sisters were sent to Rome for studies. They “frequently turn to seminarians and priests for help in writing essays,” the report said. “Sexual favors are sometimes the payment they have to make for such help.”

The reports were never meant to be made public. The U.S. National Catholic Reporter put them online in 2001, exposing the depths of a scandal the church had long sought to keep under wraps. To date, the Vatican hasn’t said what, if anything, it ever did with the information.

Sister Paola Moggi, a member of the Missionary Comboni Sisters — a religious congregation with a significant presence in 16 African countries — said in her experience the African church “had made great strides” since the 1990s, when she did missionary work in Kenya, but the problem has not been eliminated.

“I have found in Africa sisters who are absolutely emancipated and who say what they think to a priest they meet who might ask to have sex with them,” she told the AP. “I have also found sisters who said, ‘Well, you have to understand their needs, and that while we only have a monthly cycle a man has a continuous cycle of sperm’ — verbatim words from the ‘90s.”

Abuse spans several continents

The fact that in just a few weeks scandals of priests allegedly molesting sisters have erupted publicly on two other continents — Asia and Latin America — suggests that the problem is not confined to Africa, and that some women are now willing to break the taboo to denounce it publicly.

In India, a sister of the Missionaries of Jesus filed a police report last month alleging a bishop raped her in May 2014 during a visit to the heavily Christian state of Kerala, and that he subsequently sexually abused her around a dozen more times over the following two years, Indian media have reported. The bishop denied the accusation and said the woman was retaliating against him for having taken disciplinary action against her for her own sexual misdeeds.

In Chile, the scandal of the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, an order dedicated to health care in the Diocese of Talca, erupted at the same time the country’s entire Catholic hierarchy has been under fire for decades of sex abuse and cover-ups. The scandal got so bad that in May, Francis summoned all Chilean bishops to Rome, where they all offered to resign en masse.

The case, exposed by the Chilean state broadcaster, involves accusations of priests fondling and kissing nuns, including while naked, and some religious sisters sexually abusing younger ones. The victims said they told their mother superior but that she did nothing. Talca’s new temporary bishop has vowed to find justice.

The Vatican is well aware that religious sisters have long been particularly vulnerable to abuse. Perhaps the most sensational account was detailed in the 2013 book “The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio,” based on the archives of the Vatican’s 1860s Inquisition trial of abuse, embezzlement, murder and “false holiness” inside a Roman convent. Once word got out, the Vatican poured the full force of its Inquisition to investigate and punish.

It remains to be seen what the Vatican will do now that more sisters are speaking out.

One sister’s story — after years of hurt

The sister who spoke to the AP about her assault in 2000 during confession at a Bologna university clasped her rosary as she recounted the details.

She recalled exactly how she and the priest were seated in two armchairs face to face in the university classroom, her eyes cast to the floor. At a certain point, she said, the priest got up from his chair and forced himself on her. Petite but not frail, she was so shocked, she said, that she grabbed him by the shoulders and with all her strength, stood up and pushed him back into his chair.

The nun continued with her confession that day. But the assault — and a subsequent advance by a different priest a year later — eventually led her to stop going to confession with any priest other than her spiritual father, who lives in a different country.

“The place of confession should be a place of salvation, freedom and mercy,” she said. “Because of this experience, confession became a place of sin and abuse of power.”

She recalled at one point a priest in whom she had confided had apologized “on behalf of the church.” But nobody ever took any action against the offender, who was a prominent university professor.

The woman recounted her story to the AP without knowing that at that very moment, a funeral service was being held for the priest who had assaulted her 18 years earlier.

She later said the combination of his death and her decision to speak out lifted a great weight.

“I see it as two freedoms: freedom of the weight for a victim, and freedom of a lie and a violation by the priest,” she said. “I hope this helps other sisters free themselves of this weight.”

Muhumuza reported from Kampala, Uganda.

As the sexual abuse scandal surrounding Cardinal Theodore McCarrick continued to spread in the past week, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who heads the Catholic Church’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, acknowledged that “a major gap still exists in the church’s policies on sexual conduct and sexual abuse.”

O’Malley, who is also the archbishop of Boston, noted that while the church has a zero-tolerance policy for the sexual abuse of minors by priests, there is a need for clearer norms and procedures for investigating and judging bishops. But O’Malley’s statement raises further questions.

Who will set the norms for bishops?

Under canon law today, only the pope has authority over bishops and cardinals, although there were examples of bishops being tried by provincial councils in the ancient church. That is why only priests and deacons are subject to the norms and procedures set by U.S. Catholic bishops for dealing with accusations of sexual abuse. The bishops conference does not have the authority to set norms for their own bishops.

The pope needs to publish norms making clear that there will be zero tolerance for bishops who abuse children or allow abusive priests to continue in ministry. The McCarrick case also shows the need for zero tolerance for a bishop who has sex with his seminarians or priests. Any bishop involved in these activities should lose his office. Any cardinal should lose his red hat. There is no reason the pope could not publish these norms immediately.

Who will investigate allegations against a bishop?

The church needs better ways of investigating allegations against bishops. True, Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna of Malta has done an excellent job investigating cases for the Vatican, but there are few other clerics up to the task. A degree in canon law does not equip a person to handle such cases.

Smart American bishops use laypersons with expertise in investigating sex crimes — for example, detectives and retired police officers. The Vatican should do likewise.

Local police and courts should, of course, deal with criminal cases, even for bishops. When McCarrick was accused of abusing a minor in New York, it was reported to the police.

Pope Francis also empowered the Archdiocese of New York to conduct its own investigation, treating McCarrick like any other priest. The archdiocese hired an independent forensic agency, whose findings were given to the archdiocesan review board, which found the accusations “credible and substantiated.” That conclusion was then sent on to the Vatican.

This process worked, however, because McCarrick was already retired. A sitting diocesan bishop would be investigated by his own investigators and reviewed by his own review board, whose findings would not be credible. Someone outside the diocese, normally the Vatican, must do the investigation.

Who will judge an accused bishop?

Because only the pope can judge a bishop, O’Malley’s commission recommended in June 2015 that a new Vatican tribunal be established to investigate accused bishops and give its conclusions to the pope. Francis at first agreed to this recommendation, but Vatican officials talked him out of it. The actions of bishops continue to be handled by the traditional Vatican offices, such as the Congregation for Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for Evangelization of Peoples for missionary territories.

Critics have complained that the latter two offices are involved in the appointment of bishops and therefore may be reluctant to find guilt in a bishop they appointed in the first place.

The pontifical commission’s recommendation was correct. There is need for a Vatican entity to deal with bishops who have been accused of abuse or of not stopping abusive priests; the problem is common enough that a permanent Vatican agency is required.

In short, the church, which has never been very good at HR, needs to get its act together on sex in the workplace. It can learn from secular organizations that have had to develop best practices. It can adapt policies and procedures developed by psychologists and counselors to design its own ways of dealing with inappropriate sexual activity between priests and parishioners.

In his July 24 statement, O’Malley called for three actions: “First, a fair and rapid adjudication of these accusations; second, an assessment of the adequacy of our standards and policies in the church at every level, and especially in the case of bishops; and third, communicating more clearly to the Catholic faithful and to all victims the process for reporting allegations against bishops and cardinals.”

While the cardinal’s recommendations make eminent sense and should carry weight with the pope, who trusts him, there is a need for greater specificity in these recommendations.

What would an “assessment of the adequacy of our standards” involve and how long is it going to take? Who will do it? What does he mean by “transparent and consistent protocols”? What might we get from the church that we don’t already have now?

O’Malley’s commission has already worked on these questions. It needs to continue this work expeditiously, and the pope needs to listen to it.

The views expressed in this opinion piece do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.

He’s only been in the league a little over a year, but already Albert Rusnák knows that standings don’t mean all that much when you’re the team boarding a flight to somewhere to try to tip the scales in your favor and get a result on the road in Major League Soccer.

“This league,” he said this week, “is a little bit crazy.”

The Real Salt Lake midfielder voiced what many players in the league would: If you’re on the road facing the top team in MLS or the bottom one — as RSL is Saturday night at San Jose — you’re the automatic underdog. For RSL especially, the road has been a continued bugaboo in 2018.

The club, stocked with young talent much more comfortable under the lights at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, has not played well when RSL steps on a plane for an away match. Lining up against the league-worst Earthquakes on Saturday — a team that has just 12 points in 20 matches and one win at home in nine attempts — winning should seem doable for RSL.

It has been anything but, though.

RSL is 1-8-1 in 10 away matches this year, and the club’s road form has really hampered its ability to climb higher in the Western Conference standings. A win or a couple draws here or there and RSL is a bit more comfortable heading into the dog days of summer. Something eventually has to give, right?

Fans thought it was RSL’s 1-0 win at Seattle in late May, a potential building block to storm through the summer with its usual home-heavy schedule on tap. Instead, RSL has lost three straight on the road.

“We will try, 100 percent,” midfielder Damir Kreilach said. “Unfortunately we haven’t had like 20,000 fans behind us [on the road]. We have to be more concentrated.”

Especially in the wake of coughing up what will be two crucial points later on in the season as RSL allowed bottom-dweller Colorado to come back from a two-goal deficit last weekend at Rio Tinto Stadium to steal a draw in Sandy. San Jose is coming off a more disappointing home result on Wednesday, falling to the Sounders, 1-0.

The only home game the Quakes have won this year? The season-opener against Minnesota United on March 3. So yeah, if RSL was to stumble upon a match in which it can get its groove back on the road, this one is undoubtedly it. San Jose came to Rio Tinto Stadium last month, and like the Rapids, stole a point from RSL, too.

“We look at it is maybe we lost two points here at home and so we know we’ve got to make it up,” acting bench coach Freddy Juarez said. “Not only is it that, it’s a chance to win the series, it’s a chance to stay above the playoff line. There’s a lot of motivation.”

I was almost five hours into what was one of the hardest assignments I’ve ever had — explaining a popular weekly bike ride in Salt Lake City — when an Iraq War veteran walked up and gave me the answer. I get goosebumps when I think about our conversation.

I’d been assigned to cover the 999 Ride, a popular, meandering bike ride around town that’s happened every Thursday night for nearly seven years. It’s grown in popularity, and this week hundreds of people showed up at 9th East and 9th South around 9 p.m. and began a slow cruise through the city about 10 p.m.

I’d heard of the ride and had planned to join some week to see what it was about. I never made the time. Then the ride catapulted into the public spotlight on July 19, when 22-year-old Cameron Hooyer was hit and killed at a railroad crossing during that week’s ride. I was dispatched to find out what 999 was about.

But I wasn’t comfortable jumping in, making an announcement that a reporter was present and asking if anyone wanted their thoughts, feelings and emotions printed in The Salt Lake Tribune.

Several in this group were still mourning Hooyer’s death. I wanted to respect that. So I slowly rode with the pack of maybe 200 people, making our way south toward Fairmont Park at about 10:15 p.m.

The night’s ride, as is typical, took a new path from the week before. It stayed mainly on the south and east sides of town.

The group clogged 900 East. Several people flanked the sides and called out for anyone in the group to steer clear of oncoming traffic. A bit more cautious than usual, I was told. The group paused for a UTA TRAX train on the S-Line in Sugar House.

The ride is legal. Bikes have similar rights and rules on roads as car drivers. So the 999 Ride is almost as if drivers plan their 5 p.m. weekday traffic jams on Interstate 15 and slowly inch their way home together. But instead of rush hour road rage, this group is filled with a cacophony of laughter, chatter and music playing from speakers.

A man pulls a trailer with a speaker playing AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” Another man plays music from a speaker on a bike with a toddler in a carrier in the back. Really, there’s music coming from everywhere. If you don’t like the song, change the station by speeding up or slowing down and there’s a good chance you’ll find something more to your taste.

There are frequent shouts of “Happy Thursday!" that echo through the moving crowd of fast riders and slow riders. People ride mountain bikes, cruisers, road bikes, BMX bikes. Bikes that are lit with displays of neon lights, headlights, taillights, no lights.

“There’s so many people that come here for so many different reasons,” Mark Lavelle, 23, told me. “To have the streets to ourselves for a little bit. … We’re just having fun.”

For Greg Couch, the ride is a weekly opportunity to feel young.

At age 51, he’s ridden his bike about 1,000 miles this year. But he says he’s old.

“It’s just fun to hang out here and ride,” he says on a pit stop close to 11 p.m.

Having a reporter ride along this night unnerves some in the crowd, which loses a few dozen people on the way from Fairmont Park through sprinklers that spit swampy water across the dark roads in Sugar House Park.

When we stop, I try talking with the man whose occasional directions were enough to keep such a large group in motion. The Iraq veteran doesn’t think it’s such a good idea to talk to me. No conversation is off the record with a reporter, he warns his friend.

The vet, a Salt Lake City resident, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. He avoids me and talks about me with others in the group. I become more aware of glances from people during our stop at the park.

I overhear more about the video that was released earlier in the day showing the events leading up to Hooyer’s death. It turns out he wasn’t stuck between the tracks, the video shows. After a freight train passed the crossing at 900 S. 600 West, members of the group crossed. Then the lights began flashing again and the gates came back down. Some members of the group on the west side disregarded the warning lights and crossed. Hooyer rode around the gates and started to cross. The video ends as a Frontrunner train enters the frame with Hooyer in its path.

Seeing the video was a shock to some on tonight’s ride who believed Hooyer was trapped before he was killed. Some watched it just before taking off from 9th and 9th.

Tonight’s ride isn’t a memorial to Hooyer. One was held Saturday night at Liberty Park. Instead the ride was a return to the normal, if crowded, aimless tour of Salt Lake City.

The group leaves Sugar House Park and dwindles in size on its way to a park near the University of Utah. Once there, I sit alone for a few minutes before being approached by the veteran. He’s ready to talk with me. While he doesn’t want me to use his name, he allows me to tell his story.

After returning from the height of the war in Iraq, he suffered from PTSD and depression. He still suffers.

He met with doctors. He tried medications. He’s been committed. It didn’t help. He found out about the 999 Ride when the pack passed his house near Fairmont Park about a year ago as he was in the grips of a dark bout of depression, and he decided to join on a ride. 999, he says, has helped him.

Now, he is surrounded by friends. He still suffers, even tonight. But for one night a week, he is one of the riders playing music from a speaker on the back of his bike, feeling the freedom on the near-empty road. It’s nearing 2 a.m. and instead of lying awake alone with his thoughts, he’s talking with friends and fellow riders about where to get a late-night snack before everyone parts ways and gets to bed by 3 a.m. or later.

The ride makes sense to him, and he looks forward to it all week. But he’s afraid Hooyer’s death will lead the city to crack down on the ride, maybe prevent it from happening. He doesn’t know what would happen if that came to be.

As of now, there are no plans for any changes to the city’s approach to the ride. But they’re watching.

“We have let the officers know that it’s happening and where it’s happening and time frame,” Salt Lake City Police Department spokeswoman Christina Judd told me Friday afternoon. “But other than that we’re saying if there is a problem we’ll respond, but we’ll let everybody do what they want to do.”

Los Angeles • USC’s Porter Gustin is a freakish athlete, pass-rushing predator, conditioning consultant and Cameron Smith’s conscience.

Whenever he’s craving sweets, Smith hears the voice of his fellow linebacker. “I swear, I think about Porter,” Smith said. “Would he look at me and say, ‘Man, what a disappointment you are?’ His discipline, his level of passion to be great, is something I think about all the time.”

That's where the definition of “freak” expands, beyond the traditional label of a gifted athlete. Gustin, a senior from Salem Hills High School in southern Utah County, is proud to have made multiple lists of the most freakish college football players this summer. He embraces that description and teammates endorse it, because of Gustin's process, as much as the outcome.

Or does everybody do yoga and drink chicken, cauliflower, potato and raw egg smoothies?

Gustin made sports look easy at Salem Hills, where he also played basketball and baseball and competed in the javelin and shot put in track and field. His 14 sacks in three years as an outside linebacker for USC, even while he missed most of last season with injuries, have distinguished him, aside from his beard and flowing hair.

USC coach Clay Helton even wants Gustin, in his own way, to help determine the winner of the Trojans' quarterbacking derby in August. Practices will include more live situations than usual. “They're going to see bullets fly,” Helton said. “They're going to have Porter Gustin breathing down their necks to see how they function.”

That’s Gustin’s game. And as it turns out, it takes a lot of work to become a natural athlete. Freak? That’s a reward, not merely a designation.

USC LB and former Salem Hills HS star Porter Gustin on carrying on the long legacy of Trojan LBs and overcoming last year’s injury-riddled season. pic.twitter.com/JraUKWxti8

— Salt Lake Tribune Sports (@sltribsports) July 25, 2018

“I’ve worked really hard on my body, my physique, over the last eight years or so,” Gustin said during Pac-12 Media Day. “It’s something that I’ve strived for, so to have that be the final outcome, it does mean a lot.”

He got there by going beyond the Trojans' standard workouts, although he had to learn to keep his own sessions within the framework of conditioning coach Ivan Lewis' strategy. He's an adviser and advocate for his teammates, having talked to Helton and the staff nutritionist about getting more food for the players.

Proper food, of course.

“He's a freak, in all sorts of ways,” Smith said. “He's so disciplined and just wants to be great. We all want to be like him, but it's tough because he's trained his whole life for his body to be like that.”

His family also produced Lauren Gustin, a Salem Hills basketball star who was named The Tribune's player of the year in March. She's headed to the University of Idaho, in the state where the Gustins lived before moving to Elk Ridge.

Porter Gustin will be a big hit at the NFL Draft Combine in February. He’s 6-foot-5 and 255 pounds, with running, lifting and jumping skills that will produce remarkable numbers in those tests. He’s also a productive football player who made 13 tackles in a 2016 loss at Utah, his only appearance in the state as a Trojan.

Thor or @PorterGustin? 🧐#FightOn | #Pac12FB pic.twitter.com/2Cc0vuSlBq

— USC Trojans (@USC_Athletics) July 26, 2018

USC will come to town Oct. 20, during a senior season that Gustin hopes to maximize. The toe and bicep injuries that limited him to four games last year made him appreciate college football even more. “I’ve really grateful I’ve got another year to come out and play and show everything that I’ve worked for in the offseason and didn’t get to show last season,” he said.

Gustin and Smith, who plays inside linebacker, will anchor the defense of a USC team that is picked to repeat as the Pac-12 South champion. Smith made himself unforgettable to the Utes in October 2015, intercepting three passes (returning one for a touchdown) in the Trojans' win over previously unbeaten Utah. Gustin’s role is labeled the “predator” in USC’s scheme, with pass-rushing emphasis.

"You really just give it everything you got and put everything into it." - @PorterGustin

Watch his story. #OneForAll #FightOn pic.twitter.com/QPne39989W

— Clay Helton (@USCCoachHelton) July 27, 2018

The Pac-12 protocol is for each school to bring one offensive and one defensive player to Media Day. USC chose two linebackers, “because they represent what Trojans are,” Helton said. “They’re great players, they’re great men and great students. Both [will] graduate this semester. Both are going to play on Sundays.”

Gustin will become less of a freak in an NFL context, but he'll undoubtedly find ways to stand out.

This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday, July 29, 2018. You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below:

• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/26/bagley-cartoon-toting/" target=_blank><u>2A Toting Tots</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/25/bagley-cartoon-monumental/"><u>Monumental Bull</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/23/bagley-cartoon-pioneer/"><u>Pioneer Parade is for the Birds</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/21/bagley-cartoon-spy-who/"><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/"><u>Gumby Government</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/19/bagley-cartoon-inland/"><u>Inland Port Parlay</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/17/bagley-cartoon-ultimate/"><u>The Ultimate Protest</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/16/bagley-cartoon-taking/"><u>Taking a Knee</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/13/bagley-cartoon-barbarian/"><u>Barbarian at the Gate</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/12/bagley-cartoon-an-orrin/"><u>An Orrin for All Seasons</u></a>

Want more Bagley? Become a fan on Facebook.

Laruns, France • Having worn the leader’s yellow jersey over the Alps and through the Pyrenees, only one more challenging stage stands in the way of Geraint Thomas winning his first Tour de France.

Thomas takes an advantage of 2 minutes, 5 seconds over Dutch rival Tom Dumoulin into Saturday’s 31-kilometer (19-mile) individual time trial in the Basque Country.

The pressure of leading has reminded Thomas of the time he helped Britain to the gold medal in team pursuit on the track at the 2012 London Olympics.

“It comes down to tomorrow but I can take confidence with how I’m riding, and what will be will be,” he said. “There’s still one more big day to go.”

While Dumoulin is the time trial world champion, Thomas is quite capable in the discipline and acknowledged he should be able to protect his advantage.

“It’s going to be a tough day tomorrow. I’m really knackered,” Thomas said. “I’m still trying not to get carried away.”

He increased his lead after the final mountain stage on Friday, while Sky teammate and four-time champion Chris Froome lost his spot on the podium.

Primoz Roglic of Slovenia won the 200.5-kilometer (125-mile) 19th leg through the Pyrenees with an attack on the dangerous descent from the Col d’Aubisque.

A former ski jumper who rides for Team Lotto NL-Jumbo, Roglic finished 19 seconds ahead of Thomas, while Romain Bardet of France crossed third with the same time.

“I had legs today,” Roglic said. “I really tried a lot of times and finally I went away on the descent.”

Thomas received a six-second bonus for ending up second, while Dumoulin finished sixth and Froome eighth, both with the same time as the race leader.

Roglic leapfrogged Froome into third spot overall, 2:24 off the pace, while the defending champion now trails by 2:37.

After the hilly time trial, the race concludes with the mostly ceremonial finish on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Sunday

Froome initially fell behind on Friday’s climb up the Aubisque before latching back onto the lead group on the descent.

It was Roglic’s second Tour victory, having claimed Stage 17 in the Alps last year.

Roglic, who also excels at time trials, showed courage on a twisty descent made more difficult by clouds and fog hanging over the Aubisque.

When the road allowed, he crouched down on to his bike frame in a risky aerodynamic move known as “super tucking.”

Dumoulin accused the stage winner of ‘drafting’ behind a motorbike.

“Roglic was the strongest today, and a lot of respect for his victory. But he was flying downhill, and eventually I got dropped on a straight part just because he was on his tube and full in the slipstream of the motorbike,” Dumoulin said.

Roglic rejected the accusation.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t have influence on that. We all have the same possibilities to go the first one down. I didn’t notice anything unusual.”

The route from the pilgrimage town of Lourdes to Laruns took the peloton over three legendary climbs — the Col d’Aspin, the Col du Tourmalet and the Aubisque — before the dive down to the finish.

Mountain classifications leader Julian Alaphilippe was first over the Aspin and Tourmalet as part of an early breakaway.

Mikel Landa and Bardet then attacked from the yellow jersey group up the Tourmalet and joined the leaders before Roglic, Thomas and Dumoulin took over on the final climb.

—— Associated Press writers Samuel Petrequin and Ciaran Fahey contributed.

More Tour de France coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/TourdeFrance

Houston • Clint Capela has signed a five-year, $90 million extension with the Houston Rockets.

Capela, who was a restricted free agent, started a career-high 74 games last season in helping Houston reach the Western Conference finals.

The 6-foot-10 center averaged 13.9 points, 10.8 rebounds and 1.9 blocks — all career-highs — last season. The 24-year-old had 42 double-doubles last season and Houston was 25-2 when he scored 15 or more points.

Capela, who the Rockets drafted with the 25th pick in 2014, has steadily improved in his four NBA seasons and his development has helped him become a key piece of this team led by James Harden, who won his first MVP award last month.

The deal was first reported by ESPN.

“This is a hell of a way to run a desert.”

— Gov. Scott Matheson, 1983

That was one of the best quips ever by a politician, from Utah or anywhere else. It was uttered as Salt Lake City and nearby communities were struggling with a massive flood, the likes of which have not been seen since. Matheson couldn’t resist commenting on the irony of a state that usually has to deal with too little water being forced to deal with too much.

These days, Utah is back to normal. Dry as dust. There is reason to believe that Utah is actually facing a new normal. Even drier. And hotter. And without a decent winter’s worth of snowpack to fall back on.

But, in many places and many cases, we still aren’t doing a very good job of running our desert.

Witness events at the Benchland Irrigation Water District, which serves part of the Farmington area in Davis County. Earlier this week, for the first time in memory, the district’s reservoir went dry. Customers had drawn 25 million gallons from it, literally overnight.

The hit on the water supply came despite efforts by the district’s management to push their customers to curtail their consumption — especially for the wasteful purpose of watering their lawns — by issuing warnings, fines and, in extreme cases, threatening to shut off access to some customers altogether.

Or, in the estimation of one district board member Paul Hirst, the rapid draw-down might have not been in despite, but in spite. As in a way for some customers to express their anger at being asked to use less water. Even though simple common sense would suggest that in Utah, in July, there just isn’t that much water to use.

The problem is not limited to Davis County. Even though Utah is among the driest states in the nation, our normal per-person use is at or near the highest in the country. And we encourage this wasteful behavior by charging consumers far too little, especially for heavy users, and masking the true cost by supporting water systems through property taxes.

Whether the issue is the Benchland Irrigation Water District, the Bear River Basin, the Colorado River or the proposed Lake Powell Pipeline, the driest state in the nation likes to pretend that it is the wettest. The answer to a local shortage is never to use less, or charge more. It’s to propose spending billions to bring more water in from someplace else. Someplace that may not have any water to speak of.

This sense of entitlement among Utahns has to end. It’s not the fault of any government agency that the water some people want just isn’t here. (Unless the government entity is requiring property owners to keep green lawns. That needs to stop.)

The usage has to go down. That means the price will have to go up. And soon. Before it’s all gone.

Mormon feminists have launched a churchwide letter-writing campaign, urging LDS officials to issue a “statement of support for nursing mothers.”

“We need to remove the barriers and difficulties placed upon [Mormon] women for how they mother their children and we need to make it easier to be a woman in this church,” Carrie Stoddard Salisbury declared in an Exponent II blog. “Without such an official declaration, women will remain at risk for judgment and exclusion if their chosen way of nurturing their babies doesn’t align with the preferences of a local priesthood authority.”

Exponent II, which publishes a magazine for and about Mormon women, encouraged its readers to address the faith’s female leaders — including Relief Society President Jean B. Bingham, Young Women President Bonnie H. Cordon and Primary President Joy D. Jones — and ask for their active support in defending breastfeeding.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has no written policy regarding breastfeeding in its buildings. Church spokesman Eric Hawkins declined to comment on the request for such a policy or the women’s push for a statement of support.

This campaign was spawned by a breastfeeding incident that Salisbury reported earlier this week on Exponent II’s blog, which has generated hundreds of comments and outrage.

An LDS stake president, who oversees a handful of congregations, refused a “temple recommend” for a woman who nursed her 18-month-old child in the foyer of a Mormon meetinghouse without covering up.

A recommend gives the holder permission to enter LDS temples, attesting to the person’s adherence to church behavioral and belief standards. The questions are prescribed; none has to do with public breastfeeding.

The local lay leader said it was a “modesty issue,” Exponent II reported, and “blamed her for the men and boys having impure thoughts.” He insisted she cover up or use the mother’s room, off the restroom.

When the women refused and argued that he was “sexualizing breastfeeding,” the blog post said, the stake president would not sign her recommend because she was “not sustaining her leaders.”

She said she would seek “a higher authority.” He told her to go ahead. “I’ve already called Salt Lake. They agree it’s a modesty issue.”

The LDS regional leader also denied the woman’s husband a recommend, saying he did not “control” his wife as “patriarch of the family.”

The church also declined to comment, Hawkins said, on the stake president’s alleged actions and remarks.

The woman has said she doesn’t want to use her name for fear of reprisal in her northern Utah ward nor has she named the stake president. She does hope the publicity will push the church and its female leaders to take a stand that at least parallels the legal protections of the state.

“As a law-abiding entity, the LDS Church should not impose stricter guidelines or punishments on nursing women,” Salisbury wrote in a follow-up blog, “than reasonably exist in the state or country where she lives.”

Earlier this year, Utah was one of the last states to pass a law, making it clear that it’s legal to nurse a child in public. It declares that breastfeeding is allowed in public places “irrespective of whether the woman’s breast is uncovered during or incidental to the breastfeeding.”

For some Mormon women, the solution is simple: Add a line to the church’s Handbook, spelling out that nursing moms are welcome in meetinghouses covered or uncovered.

“Maybe that is micromanaging,” said Heather Moore-Farley, a Mormon mom of three in the Bay Area, but the church has lots of detailed instructions, including “what instruments can be played in [services].”

If LDS leaders want to “continue to hold up motherhood as a blessed calling,” she said, “they need to demonstrate that with actions.”

A perennial problem

Every couple of years, another story of a breastfeeding Mormon mother facing criticism, gossip or even reprimands from church leaders erupts.

In 2010, that was Moore-Farley’s own tale.

As a new mother in Provo, she got a call from her congregation’s Relief Society president, asking her to use a blanket or go to the mothers’ lounge in the women’s restroom to protect others’ sensitivities. Her bishop then suggested Moore-Farley and her husband pray about it.

They did and got the same answer: She was doing nothing wrong.

Sometime later, another ward member accused her of "contributing to the pornography problem" and "not keeping [her] covenants."

After that, she moved to the Bay Area, where she is a lactation specialist, and has had both accepting and judgmental experiences in church settings.

She breastfed uncovered in the Sacramento LDS Temple and “got a lot of support from temple workers there,” Moore-Farley recalled. “But I’ve also been shamed for breastfeeding in the Oakland Temple Visitors Center.”

A generational issue

When Moore-Farley’s Provo incident went public, LDS feminists asked for a similar churchwide statement, said Jenne Erigero Alderks, founder of the blog Birthing in Zion.

Back then, she recalled, the church said no statement was needed, that “it wasn’t a big deal and that people could handle it.”

But it continues to be an issue in some quarters, especially in the Mormon Belt of Utah, Idaho and Arizona, Alderks said this week — especially with men of a certain age.

Older men rarely saw their moms or wives nursing babies, she said. In the 1950s, bottle-feeding was more prominent and widely preferred. It was seen as more “scientific,” “clean” and “healthy.”

That began to change with 1960s feminists and the practice has been dominant across the country during the past two decades.

In fact, the Beehive State, with its predominant Mormon faith, has one of the highest percentages of breastfeeding moms in the nation, according to a 2012 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I know that Mormon women are still encountering [disapproval] from ward members,” the Seattle woman said in a phone interview. “But this is the first time in awhile I have heard [it being raised] in a power dynamic with a church leader.”

How can a Mormon leader say it’s wrong to nurse uncovered and deny of recommend to a woman who does it, she wonders, “if the church has no policy?”

Breastfeeding has become part of the church’s “modesty rhetoric,” she said, especially in the United States.

Her husband served an LDS mission in Germany, where women openly breastfeed at church, Alderks said. “He just had to get over [any squeamishness].” After all, there should be nothing sexual about nursing.

As to the stake president’s assertion that women should cover up so that men and boys don’t have sexual thoughts, she suggested he listen to what Jesus had to say.

“If you lust after a woman,” she paraphrased, “pluck your eye out.”

Time for change

A Davis County blogger for Sisters Quorum, who goes by Laura, has strong words about lactation.

“I’ve made being a militant breastfeeder a badge of honor in my life,” she wrote. “And yet, unlike some, I’ve never once been counseled by Mormon lay leaders for breastfeeding openly and uncovered. Most of the time it was shirt up, showing very little skin, but sometimes neck down, with my whole, gigantic breast exposed.”

That could be because critics were afraid to bring it up, the blogger and former doula wrote, or because “they had served missions in places outside of North America and had become accustomed to the act of women openly breastfeeding. Or maybe they just never noticed and no one ever complained.”

No matter what, she wrote, it’s a question of who owns a woman’s body.

“Our bodies aren’t objects to be owned. Our breasts aren’t sex toys for the benefit of the male gaze,” she wrote. “Our babies and our consciences get to drive our choices. We do not need to be hidden away to prevent society from facing reality.”

Whether to go to a mother’s room or covering or using formula, should be a choice made by individual women.

After all, the blogger wrote, “it is our bodies.”

The second LoveLoud Festival failed to earn an endorsement from LDS Church leaders, as it did for its inaugural event in Orem last year. But on Friday, festival organizers celebrated support and recognition from Utah state government.

At a kickoff for the event — to be held Saturday at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City — Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox read from a formal proclamation denouncing bullying and intimidation, acknowledging the state’s high youth suicide rate, and naming July 28, 2018, as “LoveLoud Day in Utah.”

“The LoveLoud Foundation offers hope and resilience to young people by letting them know that they are not alone,” the proclamation states, “and fosters a culture of hope, unconditional love, understanding, respect, acceptance, and inclusion.”

Cox, who is among the festival’s scheduled speakers, said Gov. Gary Herbert regularly issues proclamations that are routine and procedural. But the “LoveLoud Day in Utah” declaration, Cox said, is the result of close attention and sincere effort by the governor and his staff.

“You’re not different and we love you anyway,” Cox said. “We love you, period. Full stop, end of story.”

LoveLoud Day in Utah Declaration July 28, 2018on Scribd

The kickoff celebration was held at the future Salt Lake City home of Encircle, a support center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths that began in Provo and one of the LGBT organizations supported by LoveLoud proceeds.

Dan Reynolds, frontman of the rock band Imagine Dragons and founder of the LoveLoud Foundation, became emotional as Cox read the governor’s proclamation and later as he thanked attendees for their support and interest in the event.

A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Reynolds said it is not his intention that a “white, privileged, straight man” like himself be the center of a discussion around supporting LGBT youths. He said he instead hopes the LoveLoud spotlight can shift to organizations like Encircle and to the individuals who have experienced trauma and isolation due to their sexual orientation.

“I was always taught at church and my home, above all follow your heart,” Reynolds said. “Above all, follow your heart.”

Last year, the LDS Church released a statement naming LoveLoud and applauding the festival for its mission of preventing teen suicide and promoting tolerance and respect. Utah’s rate of teen suicide is among the highest in the nation, which some attribute in part to teachings by the LDS Church that it is a sin to act outside of traditional heterosexual relationships.

Ahead of this year’s event, the church released a statement that decried suicide, bullying and homelessness generally, without specifically referring to LoveLoud.

Stephenie Larsen, founder and CEO of Encircle, said Friday that a person should not be limited or defined by their sexuality. The goal of LoveLoud, Encircle and other LGBT support groups, she said, is equality for all in Utah.

“We choose no sides,” she said, “only love.”

Encircle’s Salt Lake City location, at 331 S. 600 East, will be the organization’s second, with plans to expand to a new location in St. George. The locations have the appearance of a residential property, which Larsen said is intentional to be and feel like a home that LGBT youths can go to as needed.

“The goal of Encircle is to one day be obsolete,” Larsen said. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one day there was no need for houses like this?”

The LoveLoud Festival opens at 2 p.m. Saturday, with performances beginning at 3:30 p.m. The event is scheduled to include musical performances by Imagine Dragons, Neon Trees frontman Tyler Glenn, EDM star Zedd, and Lincoln Park’s Mike Shinoda, among other acts, as well as remarks by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Lt. Gov. Cox, and Steve and Barb Young.

To say Koa Smith was at the right place at the right time is perfectly accurate.

To say he got lucky — that’s missing the point.

Perched precariously on his surfboard, the 23-year-old from Hawaii rode a wave off the coast of Namibia, on the western shore of Africa, for 120 straight seconds. He stayed upright for nearly a mile (1.5 kilometers) as he traveled through an unheard-of eight barrels — the hollow formed by the curve of the wave as it breaks over the rider’s head.

Almost as amazing — Smith and videographer Chris Rogers filmed the entire ride using both a drone that hovered overhead, and a GoPro attached to a mouthpiece that Smith wore while he rode.

“I’d like to think that everything I’ve done my whole life led up to that moment,” Smith said of his masterpiece over a one-of-a-kind wave last month, the likes of which has never been documented before.

Smith owes his success to being every bit as much a calculated scientist as a devil-may-care risktaker.

Much as a meteorologist tracks storms several days before they hit, Smith and many world-class surfers have mastered the art of reading weather charts to predict when and where the greatest sized ocean swells will hit. It’s one thing to know they’re coming, quite another to get to where the action is, and Smith is more than willing to drop everything in search of the perfect wave.

“He can be in one place one day, and you call him and he says, ‘I’m taking off for Africa tomorrow,’” says Smith’s publicist, Ryan Runke.

The locale of his greatest triumph is called Skeleton Bay — a mystic stretch of beach fronting the South Atlantic on the western coast of Africa.

Don’t bother trying to go unless you know someone who knows the area. It’s a two-day plane ride from Hawaii, followed by a car ride through the desert, culminating with a journey down a stretch of sandy, unmarked roads that lead to the ocean. The final stop is at a stretch of beach where a lucky handful of surfers share space with hundreds of aggressive seal colonies, thousands of jackals and, once in the water, the occasional great white shark.

“When you’re out there, you’re really out there, and you’re kind of on your own,” Smith said. “But when you’re out there, you’re not thinking about it. You know you’re sacrificing your life for this.”

Smith grew up on Kauai and said he got into surfing the way many Hawaii kids do.

“There’s not much to do there,” he said. “My parents would drop us off at the beach. You start playing in the sand, playing in the ocean, body surfing, boogie boarding and it keeps evolving. I started surfing when I was 3. My brother is four years older. When he started, it was, ‘If he can do this, I can do this.’”

Smith qualified for 10-and-under nationals when he was 6; he had his first Nike contract by age 12.

Though surfing has been around much longer than its distant action-sports cousin of snowboarding, athletes in the ocean sport are now faced with some of the same questions the snowboarders dealt with 20 years ago.

Surfing is making its debut at the Olympics in 2020 and there figures to be a divide between those who want to keep it as a lifestyle sport — chasing waves and footage — and those who see a more lucrative path on a competitive side, which, in surfing’s case, already has a well-established history.

Though the Olympics are not his immediate goal, Smith does surf in plenty of contests — “If you compete, you have to be really good at riding bad waves,” he says — and has not ruled them out.

“There’s something about performance pressure that allows you to dig deep and feel something you couldn’t real feel any other way,” he said.

In a way, though, he’s won his gold medal. That day on Skeleton Bay will live on, both in his mind and on the video, for a very long time.

“There was a point where I was at four barrels and I was already like, ‘This is amazing,’” he said. “It looked like the wave was over, but it formed again. I figured, the drone’s there, I might as well stay on. And I was like, ‘Whoa!’ This went from a good wave to like a life-changing wave.”

Through three games of The Basketball Tournament, a $2 million winner-take-all event, Team Fredette’s strategy has stayed the same: Fall behind by double-digits early, then let former BYU star Jimmer Fredette take over.

That happened again Friday night, as Fredette poured in all 41 of his points in the final three quarters and led Team Fredette to a 104-91 win over the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Champs in a Super 16 game at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

Second-seeded Team Fredette will meet the winner of No. 1 seed Scarlet and Gray (Ohio State products) and No. 12 Prime Time Players on Sunday in a quarterfinal game at 1 p.m. on ESPN.

Fredette, who scored 62 points in his team’s first two games, scored 25 points in the second half alone Friday. He was 13 of 21 from the field and 9 of 10 from the free-throw line — after having made 22 of 22 free throws in first- and second-round wins.

Team Fredette trailed 34-20 at the end of the first quarter before Fredette and Idaho product Jeff Ledbetter heated up. Ledbetter finished with 17 points.

“We just played our brand of basketball,” Fredette said. “We got stops, we rebounded, and we got out in transition for easy basketball. We were making our threes, moving the ball. When you got guys who are big and can make buckets, it opens everything up for me, and guys like Jeff that shot the ball great tonight. It was just a fun game, especially in the second half.”

Jordon Crawford, Fredette’s former teammate with the Westchester (N.Y.) Knicks of the G League, ended the game with a 3-pointer.

Former BYU stars Brandon Davies and Charles Abuou contributed to Team Fredette’s win, especially Davies, who made a nifty putback after a rare missed 3-pointer by Fredette to spur a run in the third quarter.

Team Fredette led 97-84 when the Elam Ending went into effect the first time the clock was stopped under the four-minute mark in the fourth quarter.

Minneapolis • Maya Moore, arms outstretched and her right hand gripping a basketball, has been on billboards this summer in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and New York. She’s in the same “wings” pose as the classic photo of Michael Jordan, whose Nike shoe line includes Moore, the Minnesota Lynx forward, as an endorser.

WNBA games are attracting more viewers. The star power around the league has rarely, if ever, been this deep or this strong. There’s a long way to go to capture more attention in the crowded mainstream of American sports, but these women have been busy building a bigger brand.

“You travel around, you see people interested, you hear the buzz,” Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi said. “We have a lot of work still to do, probably, but it is trending in the right way, and we’ll take that as a positive.”

The All-Star Game this weekend in Minnesota is the perfect time for the players to pause and take some pride in just how far they’ve come, even if their quest for higher salaries has only just begun. For Lynx guard Seimone Augustus, one of four players from the home team taking part in this year’s showcase, the evidence of this growth has come around town at the grocery store and the movie theater.

“I know little girls know who we are. I’m talking about young boys and men who get geeked up about seeing us,” Augustus said.

According to ESPN, the per-game viewership average of 247,000 for telecasts this season is up 38 percent from last year’s ratings before the All-Star break. The game on Saturday afternoon will be broadcast on ABC for a ninth time, with an all-time high of 13 cameras in use. Video game maker EA Sports announced on Friday that NBA Live 19 will allow users to create female players for the first time.

“That’s awesome. This is the year of the woman,” Atlanta Dream forward Angel McCoughtry said, adding: “I think stuff is about to take off. I can feel it. We’re going to be in more stuff. People are going to want our brands.”

The Lynx are the sixth of the current 12 teams to host the midsummer game, joining Connecticut (four), New York (three), Washington (two), Phoenix (two) and Seattle (one). Teams in Orlando, which relocated to Connecticut, and San Antonio, which moved to Las Vegas, have also hosted.

“For as much as I hate the Lynx, they have such wonderful fans,” Taurasi said, smiling. “They’re so loyal. They come to the games and they come to compete, too, and you can appreciate that as a player.”

The format changed this year, with captains Elena Delle Donne and Candace Parker picking the 11-player teams last week rather than the squads being based on conference affiliations. Team Delle Donne has nine players from the Western Conference and two from the Eastern Conference, with five guards and six forwards. Team Parker has seven players from the West and three from the East, with four guards and seven forwards.

The starters were revealed on Friday night. Delle Donne, the Washington Mystics forward, has Taurasi, Lynx center Sylvia Fowles and guard Sue Bird and forward Breanna Stewart of the Seattle Storm in her lineup. Parker, the Los Angeles Sparks forward, has teammate and guard Chelsea Gray in hers with Moore, McCoughtry and Dallas Wings center Liz Cambage.

Moore, the All-Star Game Most Valuable Player award winner in 2015 and 2017, was the leading vote-getter ahead of Delle Donne and Parker, but she declined the opportunity to serve as captain due to other obligations.

“For whatever reason this year, I feel more celebratory and excited to be here,” Moore said. “I want to celebrate and enjoy this.”

Especially if she has the chance to bump or taunt Augustus or fellow teammate Sylvia Fowles during the game.

“I’ll definitely develop a float game if I see Syl coming down the lane on one of my drives,” Moore said. “Seimone has been saying she’s got something for me. We’ve been waiting a long time for this. Seimone, I think, is the one who suggested the format just so she could set this moment up.”

Lynx forward Rebekkah Brunson, who replaced Los Angeles Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike on Team Parker due to an illness, wasn’t eager to guard Fowles.

“Because I’ve seen what she does to people, and I don’t want to get on that train,” Brunson said.

A’ja Wilson, the Las Vegas Aces forward and the only rookie selected, compared the selection process to “picking dodgeball teams” in childhood. There’s still a competitive edge to the event, though, despite the fun-and-games environment.

“Don’t let none of this fool you: Everyone’s trying to win,” said Wings guard Skylar Diggins-Smith. “There’s still bragging rights.”

Spanish Fork • A janitor has been charged with sexually abusing students at an elementary school south of Salt Lake City.

The Daily Herald reports that Adrian Villar was charged Friday with aggravated sexual abuse of a child and lewdness involving a child.

He is accused of following a student into a bathroom in February 2017 at Sierra Bonita Elementary School in Spanish Fork, and of exposing his genitals. Court documents also say Villar grabbed the student’s arm to touch his genitals.

Another child accused Villar of pulling down his pants and inappropriately touching him in a school shed.

Villar denied accusations in a police report.

The newspaper reports that Villar had been warned about breaking school district policy in the past.

The federal government gave a $2.5 million boost Wednesday to help build new facilities at the Provo airport needed to expand an aircraft refurbishment company — and create 400 new high-paying jobs now, and up to 800 eventually.

“It’s kind of a big deal,” said Provo Airport Manager Steven Gleason. “It’s going to be spectacular for the airport. Right now we have about 650 full-time employees that work at the airport. This will take us over 1,000.”

Duncan Aviation currently operates in Provo at a temporary 15,000-square-foot hangar. A first phase of expansion will build 220,000 square feet of office and hangar space and add 400 jobs. “At eventual build-out, it will have about a 400,000-square-foot campus [on 45 acres], and anywhere from 700 to 800 jobs,” Gleason said.

The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department announced it is providing a $2.5 million loan to Provo to help install water, sewer and storm water lines along a new half-mile road to the expansion site for the company. It will serve Duncan, plus 50 adjacent acres that now lack water and sewer service.

Gleason said the Duncan expansion site is on property that the city recently bought that lacked utilities and access. He said obtaining that extra space helped Provo win a competition to house a Western hub for Duncan, one of the world’s largest privately owned jet maintenance companies.

“They customize and refurbish jets tip to tail. They do everything: paint, carpentry, design. Anything that can be done to the inside or outside of a jet, they do it,” he said.

The loan “is going to help us create 400 positions that are high-salary, skilled positions,” with more expected later.

“This investment will bring jobs, infrastructure improvements, and economic growth that will benefit the community of Provo for years to come," Eric Cobb, HUD’s Rocky Mountain deputy regional administrator, said in a prepared statement.

HUD said the average wage for employees at Duncan is expected to be between $28 and $30 an hour.

HUD said Duncan plans to invest about $80 million to build and outfit hangars.

Florham Park, N.J. • There was no sign of Sam Darnold as the New York Jets opened training camp.

The No. 3 overall draft pick officially became a contract holdout when the team began its first practice of the summer Friday without its prized rookie quarterback.

“He’s not here,” coach Todd Bowles said, “so I’m coaching the other (89) guys.”

Darnold joins Chicago linebacker Roquan Smith, the No. 8 choice, as the only unsigned picks from the entire draft.

Under the NFL’s labor agreement, contract holdouts by rookies are uncommon because deals are slotted based on draft position. Darnold will receive a four-year, fully guaranteed contract worth $30.247 million, including a $20 million signing bonus.

“It’s part of the business,” Bowles said. “We’ve got two other quarterbacks who can play, too.”

The dispute seems to hang on contract language. If a player is cut during his rookie contract, offset language provides the team with financial protection. Not having offset language allows a player to receive his salary from the team that cut him, as well as get paid by another team that signs him.

Offset language is common in rookie deals. Both Baker Mayfield, the No. 1 overall pick by Cleveland, and Josh Allen, seventh overall by Buffalo — the quarterbacks drafted before and after Darnold — have offsets in their contracts. In fact, Allen and Darnold share the same agent in Jimmy Sexton.

“Anytime you’re not here, you lose something,” Bowles said. “It’s been a day. Obviously, when he comes in, we’ll get him caught up. Right now, I’ve got (89) other guys to worry about.”

The 21-year-old Darnold is expected to compete for the Jets’ starting job with 39-year-old Josh McCown, the incumbent who is coming off the best season of his career, and Teddy Bridgewater, working his way back from a knee injury nearly two years ago.

Both McCown and Bridgewater received an increased workload during the team’s 2½-hour practice as the only signed quarterbacks on the roster.

“I feel like I can have some ice cream tonight,” a smiling McCown said. “Maybe an extra bowl or so. It was good work from our standpoint, Teddy and I. We’re excited about it, both as competitors and loving the game. You do what they ask you to do and practice as hard as you can. ... We’ll be excited when Sam gets here, obviously, but until then, we’re going to carry the load and be excited to do it.”

Darnold is considered the future of the franchise, and he impressed his teammates and coaches during offseason workouts and minicamp with his work ethic, ability to quickly grasp the playbook and to not repeat mistakes. The former USC star’s progress will be the top story line for the Jets during training camp.

When Darnold shows up, of course.

“Obviously, from a learning standpoint, you want to be here as a soon as possible,” McCown said, adding that the players understand the business side. “There’s no substitute for being here.”

Darnold acknowledged during the offseason that he had to make several adjustments since joining the Jets, including calling plays in the huddle — something he hadn’t done much at USC. He also said the increased pace of the game is evident, even in practice.

But the Jets are confident Darnold will be a quick study — and a potential franchise-type quarterback.

After failing to lure Kirk Cousins to New York in free agency, the Jets positioned themselves to be able to get one of the top available quarterbacks in the draft. They moved up three spots from No. 6 overall and acquired the third selection from Indianapolis in a trade in March. It cost them the No. 6 pick, two second-round selections this year and a second-rounder next year, but general manager Mike Maccagnan and the Jets were willing to pay the steep price for a QB who could re-energize the franchise.

After Cleveland took Mayfield with the No. 1 overall pick and the Giants selected running back Saquon Barkley at No. 2, the Jets found themselves staring at the scenario they dreamed of: getting the guy they wanted all along in Darnold.

Now, they just need to get him under contract and on the field.

“He can bring so much value to this team,” Bridgewater said of Darnold. “We know how important he is to the quarterback room, as a young guy, also. We look forward to him being here and pick up right where he left off in the spring.”

NOTES: S Rontez Miles was the only Jets player to open camp on the physically unable to perform list. Miles tore cartilage in his left knee during organized team activities in May. ... DL Courtney Upshaw, signed after a three-day tryout during minicamp last month, is on the active/non-football injury list. Upshaw spent the last two seasons with Atlanta after being a second-round draft pick by Baltimore out of Alabama in 2012. ... RB Eli McGuire left practice with a foot injury. Bowles was not immediately certain of the severity or if McGuire might miss time. ... WR Terrelle Pryor (ankle) and S Marcus Maye (ankle) sat out team drills.

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When Utah’s former Attorney General Mark Shurtleff sued the Salt Lake County district attorney and nearly every public agency involved in a now-dismissed public corruption case against him for $60 million, he told reporters to “stay tuned” for more alleged scandal.

Nearly two months later, he delivered.

Attorneys for Shurtleff filed a 73-page amended complaint in his lawsuit against Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, the state, the FBI and individual agents and police officers. The document, which grew by 52 pages from the original federal complaint, says Shurtleff, a Republican, was targeted in an alleged long-running, politically motivated investigation.

Shurtleff, who has always maintained his innocence, was charged with bribery and corruption in 2014. The case was dismissed in July 2016.

The newly revealed allegations — which include unlawfully serving a search warrant at Shurtleff’s home and misconstruing and fabricating evidence — paint Gill, a Democrat, as the ringleader in the sweeping investigation, accusing the district attorney of aggressively pursuing the case against Shurtleff after the three-term attorney general endorsed Republican Lohra Miller over Gill for Salt Lake County district attorney in 2010. The lawsuit also accuses Gill of using the criminal corruption cases against Shurtleff and his successor John Swallow (seen as the most sweeping political scandal in Utah history) to gain political favor in the 2014 D.A. election.

Swallow was acquitted of his charges in March and has since sued the state to reimburse him for legal fees.

Gill, reached by phone Friday afternoon, told The Salt Lake Tribune he hadn’t read the newly filed complaint, but he denied the accusations that he had “masterminded and controlled” the separate investigations of Shurtleff.

“If that’s the case, I have a lot more power than I realize,” Gill said. “There are multiple independent investigations, and they did their own stuff. I just basically did my job.”

The Department of Justice, the FBI and local law enforcement investigated Shurtleff.

Gill says he stands by his work, adding that Shurtleff’s prosecution was handled by Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings. Gill prosecuted Swallow’s corruption case.

The complaint says Gill used Rawlings, a Republican, as “political cover” so he “could claim that his investigation was not political.”

According to the lawsuit, Shurtleff’s attorneys plan to bring in Rawlings to testify. As the chief prosecutor in the case, the complaint says Rawlings determined by July 18, 2016, that there was no probable cause against Shurtleff — and that there never had been.

Rawlings will apparently tell jurors that when he told Gill and FBI Agents Scott Nesbitt, Michelle Pickens and Jon Isakson about his decision to file a motion to dismiss the charges against Shurtleff, they objected and threatened him.

He filed the motion that day, and the case was dismissed 10 days later.

The complaint also says authorities cherrypicked and distorted evidence to justify search and arrest warrants in the case.

In the complaint, Shurtleff’s attorney Ted McBride outlines and attempts to refute each of Shurtleff’s original charges based primarily on those allegations.

For instance, McBride argues that text messages Shurtleff sent while acting as a confidential informant in an FBI bribery case were used against him in applications for warrants without that context, casting Shurtleff as “complicit” in the alleged scheme.

The complaint also says Gill coordinated with media to distort Shurtleff’s reputation and that authorities used “excessive” force when they searched Shurtleff’s house.

Authorities reportedly wore body armor and wielded assault rifles, though the allegations against Shurtleff weren’t related to violence.

Shurtleff wasn’t home during the search, but his children were reportedly “threatened, seized, searched and physically, verbally and emotionally abused,” according to the complaint.

In a news release, McBride characterizes the new complaint as the first step for Shurtleff “to regain his reputation.”

“Mr. Shurtleff never solicited a bribe, accepted a bribe, or did anything contrary to the best interests of the state of Utah,” McBride said.

Shurtleff is seeking $60 million for emotional distress and humiliation he and his family suffered and $20 million in lost wages and medical expenses, in addition to attorney fees and punitive damages.

Renton, Wash. • Bobby Wagner reacted as though he was hoping the question would come.

With all the changes on the Seattle Seahawks defense — the leaders, the voices, the veterans no longer around — will there be a new focus on a group of linebackers that at times has seemed underappreciated?

“It has always been about the guy in the middle,” Wagner said emphatically. “So for me, it’s not no different because that’s how I look at it, but from the outside maybe it is different because those guys are gone and you guys are looking for someone who is going to be that leader. Y’all ain’t got to look. You’re looking at the guy right here. I will be that guy and we’re going to be fine.”

And with that, any question about who the leading voice is on Seattle’s defense was quickly answered.

For most of the past half-decade, Seattle’s highly regarded defense was defined by the secondary with the catchy nickname and the flashy personalities. From there, attention often shifted to the defensive line and the type of chaos Michael Bennett and others created on — and sometimes off — the field.

Then there was Wagner and fellow linebacker K.J. Wright. They have been regarded as two of the best in the league at their positions and sometimes have received that level of recognition. But they were often relegated to a secondary role on their own team in terms of recognition even with Wagner being voted first-team All-Pro three times and Wright being a Pro Bowl selection.

“The attention has gone elsewhere, I guess,” Wright said. “Nothing will change. We’ll still be the bad-ass linebackers on this team. We’ll still lead the way. Stuff will still be run in order. We’ll still make plays and it’ll be fun out there.”

Seattle’s offseason defensive overhaul saw Bennett, Richard Sherman and Sheldon Richardson find new homes; Cliff Avril and Kam Chancellor step away from the game due to neck injuries, and Earl Thomas hold out in search of a new contract. There are changes everywhere across Seattle’s defensive alignment, with the exception of the linebackers.

Wagner has been calling Seattle’s defense from the moment he arrived in the NFL and became a starter as a rookie from Utah State. His partner the entire time has been Wright. With the departures, those voices they’ve used together for the past six seasons will be even louder.

“Yeah, they had the name, they got a lot of the attention and now the attention may shift to the linebackers,” Wagner said. “But we pride ourselves on being the guys that lead this team and that has been my mindset since I stepped in. I had coach Norton teach me the way.”

Ken Norton Jr. has returned to Seattle to be the defensive coordinator. He was a mentor for Wagner and Wright as the linebackers coach when both arrived in the NFL. Now he’s returned with an even bigger imprint on what Seattle does defensively.

“He’s the linebackers guy and he put that responsibility more on us. He calls on me in the meeting room to answer most of the questions, calls on Bobby to answer the questions because he knows that we’re all on the same page,” Wright said. “He knows that we’re the guys that can share our leadership abilities, share our knowledge of the game. He’s putting that on us.”

There may also be some schematic tweaks that give Wagner and Wright more freedom defensively. Wright said he believes the adjustments will make Seattle more fundamentally sound defensively and the linebackers could be the benefactors.

“I think this defense is hungry,” Wright said. “We have a lot to prove. Myself, the secondary with all the guys leaving, the (defensive) line with the guys leaving. It’s going to be fun because you’ve got guys who want to come and show who they are.”