One of the stranger educational experiences this past year has been learning about the diverse arsenal of abuses available to men in power. Luring women into hotel rooms and rubbing against their terrified bodies, a la the allegations facing screenwriter James Toback? Forcing them to ask permission before using the bathroom, as R. Kelly's accusers have alleged? Every time new accusations land, I've wondered, with foot-dragging curiosity, what specific, surprising fetish would horrify us this time. Harvey Weinstein's alleged abuse of women set the bar so very high.

The allegations against CBS chief Leslie Moonves, which came out late Friday, were a litany of behaviors we might now place in the mid-range of awful. The range for which we've employed a suite of clinical terminology: "sexual misconduct." "Forcible kissing."

The specific surprise with Moonves came not from any sexual pervertedness but from psychological perversity. "I recognize that there were times decades ago when I may have made some women uncomfortable by making advances," Moonves said in a statement. "But I always understood and respected - and abided by the principle - that 'no' means 'no.' "

The specific surprise for me was that Moonves, a public voice in the Me Too movement who has also been involved in a national commission on eliminating sexual harassment, probably thinks he's a good guy.

He might have, as one victim alleged in the New Yorker, thrown himself onto her in a business meeting, trying to kiss her as she squirmed - but, by her own account, he eventually unlocked the door when she begged him to. He might have, as another woman alleged, pulled her skirt up during a different work conversation and begun to "thrust against her" - but, by her own account, she didn't tell him no. Fearing for her safety, she claimed in the piece, she instead scrambled to her feet and joked her way out of the room.

Over the weekend, Moonves’s wife offered him her support: “I have known my husband, Leslie Moonves, since the late ’90s,” Julie Chen tweeted. “... Leslie is a good man.”

Moonves might have obeyed the classic good-man rule: No means no.

But, if the New Yorker accounts are correct, he also obeyed a whole bunch of other garbage rules that have been condoned by society for a long time: A man's job is to pursue; a woman's is to fend him off.

Or maybe: Keep trying, and you might wear her down.

Or maybe: She might secretly want it; she just needs some convincing to turn a no into a yes.

For decades, a man could follow all of those rules and still be "a good man."

In other words, we’re no longer talking about a bad guy — we’re talking about a bad society. We’re talking about a bad society that has allowed “sexual misconduct” to regularly maraud under terms such as “dating.” And that has allowed some women to desperately reach for a door handle, wondering whether tonight’s the night they’ll be raped or murdered, while their dates stand by and bemusedly wonder, “Should I try one more time?”

Nearly a year into the Me Too movement, this is where the conversation needed to go all along, of course. To the part where we realize we don’t need a lice comb — we need a fumigation. But this is the part where the discussions get hard, and the solutions aren’t easy.

The staggeringly high bar set by Harvey Weinstein was necessary. Women's claims against him allowed no room for debate; everyone could tell he was disgusting.

But Weinstein also proved to be a useful distraction. Everyone could tell he was disgusting, including plenty of men who had also done gross things. They just weren't as gross as Harvey.

"James is absolutely not a Harvey Weinstein," said a woman who accused actor James Franco of sexual misconduct, on "Good Morning America" this year.

"Geoffrey Rush is not Harvey Weinstein," said actress Rachel Griffiths about her acquaintance. Rush stepped down from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts following accusations of "inappropriate behavior."

Thank God this doesn't seem as bad as Harvey Weinstein, I thought when I first read the New Yorker piece about Moonves, and then I hated myself: We were talking about the potential devastation of women's careers and psyches, and here I was, weighing the Moonves allegations not against genuinely good behavior but against a man whose preferred attire for a business meeting was reportedly an open bathrobe.

But I can't have been the only person who thought that.

Our job is to live in the gray now. To wrestle with the society we've produced. To understand we're not talking about good guys vs. bad guys, but about good guys who are also bad guys.

It’s time to understand that we don’t have to be the worst in order to be very bad.

Monica Hesse is a columnist for The Washington Post’s Style section and author of “American Fire.”

Utah's primary defensive scheme requires only two linebackers. That's just one of the reasons the linebacking group is among the Utes' strongest position areas in 2018.

Chase Hansen’s move from safety to rover and Cody Barton’s improvement at the other linebacker spot give the Utes a strong foundation. Hansen brings good credentials as a playmaker and tackler and Barton was among the stars of Utah’s offseason program, as identified by senior center Lo Falemaka.

Donavan Thompson and redshirt freshman Devin Lloyd will enter preseason practice Wednesday as the backup linebackers on the two-deep roster. Junior college transfer Bryant Pirtle is on the 110-player camp roster; he’s expected to report next week after finishing academic requirements.

Coach Kyle Whittingham has said he's unable to comment about the status of BYU transfer Francis Bernard, who's also completing academic work. He's not on the roster this week, although he's expected to join the program at some point. Another question is whether Bernard will have a scholarship. Utah's camp roster includes the full allotment of 85 scholarship players, according to a school news release.

Hansen led the Utes with 90 tackles as a safety in 2016, before missing a big chunk of the 2017 season with injuries. Whittingham has called him “one of the best defenders in the Pac-12.”

Barton has been a steady, if unspectacular player for three years. He made a big impression on Falemaka this summer.

“Definitely, keep your eyes on Cody Barton,” Falemaka said last week during the Pac-12 Football Media Day. “He’s killing every single workout. He’s a linebacker, beating receivers in drills. He’s a freak athlete, and he’s going to be a great player.”

Hansen mentioned Lloyd, his backup, as a young player who also made a good showing during the summer.

Thompson showed some good signs last season, when he appeared in all 13 games (five starts) and made 38 tackles.

Salt Lake City • Amazon has started the hiring process for its new distribution center in Salt Lake City expected to open later this year.

Amazon spokeswoman Lauren Lynch said in an email that Amazon has already begun accepting applications online and has in-person hiring events scheduled for Wednesday and throughout the month.

The company is looking to hire about 1,500 full-time employees for the distribution center.

Most of the positions open come with a starting wage of $12.50.

Lynch says the company typically grants wage increases for new hires "every few months, even in the first year."

Amazon employees are also eligible for 20 weeks of paid maternal/paternal leave, health insurance, 401(k) and Amazon stock options immediately upon start of employment.

Upper Lake, Calif. • A massive wildfire in Northern California has torched more than 1,000 homes in and around the city of Redding, authorities said Wednesday as some evacuees were allowed to return home.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said another 440 buildings, including barns and warehouses, have also been destroyed by the fire, which is now the sixth most destructive in California history.

The huge Redding-area blaze, which started July 23, forced 38,000 people from their homes and killed six. It has scorched 180 square miles (470 square kilometers) and is 35 percent contained.

New blazes continued to explode and threaten more homes in what has become an endless summer of flame in the Golden State.

North of San Francisco, a fire threatened homes in an old ranching and farming area near Covelo. About 60 homes were ordered evacuated as the blaze erupted late Tuesday and winds whipped flames through brush, grass, oak, pine and fir near the Mendocino National Forest, officials said.

The area was only about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of where twin fires in Mendocino and Lake counties have burned an area nearly three times the size of San Francisco, destroyed 10 homes and threatened 12,000 more.

The Lake County seat of Lakeport remained under evacuation orders and was a virtual ghost town, although people were allowed back home in several smaller communities as firefighters shored up containment lines. Containment grew overnight to 24 percent.

Jessyca Lytle fled a fast-moving wildfire in 2015 that spared her property but destroyed her mother's memorabilia-filled Lake County home.

Lytle found herself listening to scanner traffic Tuesday and fire-proofing her mother's new home as another wildfire advanced.

"Honestly, what I'm thinking right now is I just want this to end," Lytle said, adding that she was "exhausted in every way possible — physically, emotionally, all of that."

Paul Lew and his two boys, ages 13 and 16, evacuated Saturday from their Lakeport home.

"I told them to throw everything they care about in the back of the car," said Lew, 45. "I grabbed computers, cellphones, papers. I just started bagging all my paperwork up, clothes, my guitars."

Lew, who is divorced from Lytle, is camped out at the house in the nearby community of Cobb that she fled in 2015. He is watching over her chickens, sheep and other animals. With a laugh, he said repeated fire alerts have made him an emergency preparation expert.

"It's like three a year," he said. "It's kind of crazy."

To the east, another blaze Tuesday night raged through grassy cattle lands near Yuba City, covering more than 1 1/2 square miles (4 square kilometers) in a few hours.

The area is mainly a ranching area of barns and other buildings and no evacuations were ordered, said Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The new fires erupted without warning and spread with shocking speed through forest and brush that have literally become tinder.

"It just goes on and on," McLean said.

"We had this rain at the beginning of the year and all that did was promote the growing of grass and brush," McLean said. "It's a Catch-22. It's growing more product to catch on fire.

"We've never really been out of the drought," McLean added. "We need several years of significant rainfall ... to bring California back."

He also had a warning for people visiting rural and wilderness areas.

"Pay attention," he said. "Don't park the car on dry grass ... no campfires, no flame. It doesn't take anything to start a fire right now."

In Shasta County's Carr Fire, Redding police on Tuesday asked for help from the public locating four people who are still missing. A relative identified the latest known victim as Daniel Bush, 62.

Bush had returned to his mobile home in the community of Keswick last Tuesday after undergoing quadruple heart bypass surgery, but he was unable to drive and would have needed help to evacuate when the fire came through the neighborhood on Thursday, his sister, Kathi Gaston, told the Redding Record Searchlight.

Gaston said her brother had wanted to stay in his own home, but he had spotty cell service and, with the power out, he might not have gotten word of the fire.

Gaston said she could not get to her brother's house because, with the fire approaching, sheriff's deputies had blocked the roads and then she herself had to evacuate.

"If we'd been able to go in when we wanted to, he'd be alive right now," she said. "I'm very upset about it."

National Park Service officials said Tuesday that the scenic Yosemite Valley and other areas will be closed at least through Sunday due to heavy smoke from the so-called Ferguson Fire. The closure began July 25.

It was the longest closure at Yosemite since 1997, when floods closed the park for over two months.

___

Har reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writer Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco also contributed to this report.

A 17-year-old Park City girl has been charged with drug crimes in the latest chapter of a teenage substance abuse saga that has played out for two years in the Utah resort town.

The teen previously gave a TEDx Talk in Park City about drug addiction. A video of that speech has recently been removed from YouTube.

The defendant is already connected to the overdose deaths of two Park City boys in 2016, and her parents are defendants in a lawsuit over one of those boy’s deaths. The criminal charges filed in 3rd District Juvenile Court say U.S. Customs and Border Protection intercepted shipments of ecstasy intended for the girl.

Then, on July 11, U.S. postal inspectors intercepted another package of ecstasy intended for the teen. She was charged July 20 with four felony counts of distribution of a controlled substance.

Prosecutors also asked, citing the teen’s role in the death of the two 13-year-old boys in 2016, a judge to issue a warrant of detention for the teen. It was unclear whether the girl is currently in a juvenile detention facility. The Salt Lake Tribune typically does not name juvenile defendants unless they have been certified to stand trial in adult court.

Police in Park City began issuing public alerts after friends Grant Seaver and Ryan Ainsworth, both 13, died within two days of each other in September 2016. They ingested a synthetic opioid known as “pink” or “pinky.” It also is known as “U-47700.”

Court records say the boys and other children were ordering the drugs from China and sharing them, including with the girl charged in the latest case.

Seaver’s family in march filed a lawsuit in state court in Summit County against the parents of Ainsworth. The parents of the teen who has been charged as well as a third teen’s parents also are named as defendants.

The Seavers allege the parents knew months or days before Grant’s death that their children were ordering and sharing drugs but did not alert law enforcement or other parents. The plaintiffs are seeking “damages greater than $300,000.”

The defendants have asked the lawsuit be dismissed. They have denied liability for Grant’s death and said he assumed the risk of his activities. A judge has yet to rule on the dismissal motions.

Provo • Expectations for the BYU football team are as low as they have been since the latter half of the Gary Crowton era.

A 4-9 season — the worst in nearly 50 years — will do that to a program.

Gone are the days when Bronco Mendenhall crowed about contending for national championships, made “Quest for Perfection” T-shirts and trotted out other such nonsense. The most immediate goal now is getting to six wins, which would qualify the Cougars for a bowl game after they missed one last winter for the first time since 2004.

With preseason camp opening Thursday, it is hard to put a gauge on expectations because BYU doesn’t belong to a conference and therefore isn’t subject to preseason polls. But a quick scan of message boards and social media websites tells the tale: The school’s sizable fanbase isn’t expecting 2018 to be the Year of the Cougar.

BYU coach Kalani Sitake, who enters his third season in desperate need of a turnaround, has surely noticed.

“I don’t mind being the underestimated team,” he said. “That’s OK. We can really circle the wagons a little bit, and play with a chip on our shoulder, and have an axe to grind and all those wonderful things you can say when you are the underdog. I feel like this is an easier position to come from to motivate our players, if they are not motivated already.”

No question, the Cougars will be underdogs. They will be favored to lose their first three road games (Arizona, Wisconsin, Washington) by two touchdowns or more.

Yes, the team has issues. Here are a few of them as they prepare for the Sept. 1 opener at Arizona:

Who will emerge as the starting quarterback?

This question will dominate the first two weeks of camp. New offensive coordinator Jeff Grimes and quarterbacks coach Aaron Roderick are determined to settle the issue as quickly as possible, and already have a plan to whittle it down by a candidate or two by the middle of next week. Based on comments from Sitake and offensive coaches at Media Day last June and defensive coach Ed Lamb last week, senior Tanner Mangum and sophomore Joe Critchlow are probably the frontrunners.

Freshman Zach Wilson might be the wildcard — there’s a reason Grimes recruited the Corner Canyon product hard last December immediately after being named Ty Detmer’s successor — and could be used a bit like Austin Kafentzis (now a safety) was last year. The new redshirt rule that allows players to participate in up to four games without losing their year of eligibility throws an interesting wrinkle into the race.

Will the offseason emphasis on accountability pay off?

Immediately after the disappointing 2017 season ended, Sitake fired Detmer and several other offensive staffers and held a fiery team meeting to demand commitment changes from his players, himself and the coaches who stayed behind.

Grimes and Sitake said after spring camp that the culture was slowly changing, but weren’t ready to call it a complete success. At Media Day, it was revealed that at least two projected offensive contributors — running back Ula Tolutau and tight end Joe Tukuafu — were no longer with the program. That’s not a good start.

• Will the receiving corps — bolstered by the addition of fifth-year transfer Dylan Collie and highly touted freshman Gunner Romney — be good enough?

The Cougars had all sorts of offensive problems last year, evidenced by the fact that they finished near the bottom of almost every statistical category in the country, and the most glaring deficiency was at receiver.

Returnees Micah Simon, Aleva Hifo, Neil Pau’u, Akile Davis and Talon Shumway must improve, Collie must deliver numbers similar to his last season at Hawaii, and Moroni Laulu-Pututau must find the move to tight end to his liking after missing all of last year with a Lisfranc foot injury.

Can the Cougars find a pass rush?

Sitake was seen as a defensive genius at Utah because his units there featured outstanding pass rushers that put pressure on opposing quarterbacks and enabled his cornerbacks to play man-press coverage. His 4-3 scheme depends on it.

Former basketball center Corbin Kaufusi made some plays last year, but got pushed around too much. His improvement will be vital, because fellow senior Sione Takitaki has been moved to linebacker.

Where are the playmakers?

BYU’s offense was seriously devoid of big plays in 2017, but coaches didn’t rush out to find immediate help from the junior college ranks. At running back, they will ride Doak Walker candidate Squally Canada, who is serviceable (but not spectacular) when he is healthy, but lacks breakaway speed.

Freshman Zach Katoa, although fumble-prone in spring ball, should also see some carries, and Riley Burt might finally be given a chance to show what he can do.

Hours after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions joined Utah’s top federal prosecutor in calling on Congress to repair a law meant to keep violent career criminals locked up — pointing to the recent deaths of two teens in Utah County as evidence — one of Utah’s senators introduced a bill to do just that.

Sessions, speaking in Little Rock on Wednesday, said a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision that cut part of the Armed Career Criminal Act for being too vague has been “devastating for Americans across the country," and said law enforcement is missing a crucial tool.

The Armed Career Criminal Act affects defendants who have been convicted of three designated types of felonies if, on a fourth conviction, they are charged with having a gun. The law mandates that person can be sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

After the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that a clause in the law, a catch-all defining what types of felonies are considered violent, was unconstitutionally vague, many inmates petitioned for release. Nationally, Sessions said, 1,400 inmates have been let go.

In Utah, 211 inmates filed for shortened sentences between January 2015 and January 2018, according to data provided to The Salt Lake Tribune by Utah’s U.S. Attorney’s office. Of those, 30 were successful.

About two-thirds of those people released in Utah went on to re-offend, including two people linked to the deaths of Brelynne “Breezy” Otteson and Riley Powell and Rose Martinez.

Soon after Sessions' remarks, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, both Republicans, announced legislation to address the issue: The Restoring the Armed Career Criminal Act.

“Criminals released early from prison as a result of that decision have gone on to commit heinous crimes, including the murder of three innocent Utahns. Our bill will bring much-needed clarity to the law while empowering prosecutors to pursue justice,” Hatch said in a statement.

A spokesman for Hatch said the senators had been working on the legislation for weeks.

Across the country, Sessions said about 42 percent of inmates who’ve been released early have committed new crimes.

“These are not the mythical ‘low-level, nonviolent drug offenders,’ who we are always told are being excessively imprisoned. These are criminals who have already committed multiple serious offenses and then were caught with a gun,” Sessions said.

To make his point, the attorney general cited an Arkansas case where a man, who got his sentenced shortened because of the ruling, went on to assault a co-worker, breaking his nose and eye sockets. In another case, Sessions said, a man was released who later allegedly raped a 62-year-old woman and an autistic homeless man.

He also pointed to the deaths of Otteson and Powell.

“In Utah, a career criminal released by this decision tortured and murdered two teenagers and then threw their bodies down a mineshaft,” Sessions said.

The teens disappeared just before the New Year near the rural mining community of Eureka. Their bodies were found months later. Prosecutors have charged 41-year-old Jerod Baum in their deaths.

Baum, who court records show has a lengthy criminal history, was released from prison in July 2016, after successfully arguing his previous convictions for rioting and aggravated assault didn’t qualify under the amended career criminal act.

Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber, who spoke with The Tribune about the issue in July, also identified Baum’s case as a consequence of the Supreme Court decision and called for Congress to fix the law so he can keep “the worst of the worst” incarcerated.

Abe Martinez, who escaped an Arizona halfway house in mid-June and came to Utah, where he killed his grandmother, Rose, and injured his step-grandfather before being fatally shot by police, also had his sentenced lessened because of the ruling, Huber said.

Melodie Rydalch, Huber’s spokeswoman, said Utah’s U.S. attorney has been working with the Justice Department to address the issue and has spoken to Sessions about it.

“We think any attention that can be focused on a legislative fix to the Armed Career Criminal Act is a good thing for Utah and the country,” Rydalch said.

Hatch’s proposed legislation would replace the part of the act that references applicable violent felonies and serious drug offenses with a single category: serious felony.

A serious felony would be any crime punishable by 10 or more years behind bars, which the senators believe would address the court’s vagueness issue.

Former U.S. Attorney (and Huber’s old boss) Brett Tolman, previously told The Tribune that he doesn’t think longer sentences is the right way to stop career criminals, arguing that both Baum and Martinez spent more than a decade in prison, despite the amended law, and still went on to re-offend.

Instead, Tolman said prosecutors should focus on criminal justice reform and enacting programs aimed at reducing recidivism and rehabilitating felons.

When asked about Republican Sen. Mike Lee’s opinion on legislation to address the issue with the career criminal act, his spokesman said the senator agrees it is a problem and is working on a “a workable solution.” He declined to elaborate.

Requests for comment to the rest of Utah’s federal delegation were not immediately returned.

Salt Lake City International Airport Director Bill Wyatt says most Utahns don’t seem to realize that an entirely new airport is rising next door to the existing one — which will be torn down in a few years.

“It’s sort of a well-kept secret,” he says. “People know something’s going on because when you drive out here, you see the cranes and the weird roadways” around construction, but many think it is just remodeling or renovation.

“This is the largest construction project in the history of the state,” he says, something becoming more visible now that construction on the first phase of the $3.6 billion project is hitting the halfway mark — and large new buildings and elevated roadways are going up.

The city’s Airport Advisory Board toured the complex Wednesday, and saw the mostly completed exterior of a new concourse for aircraft gates, the enclosed new terminal, the steel skeleton of a new “gateway” building, a new five-story parking garage and under-construction elevated roadways. A second concourse is also starting to rise.

Some motorized walkways are in (but covered to protect them from other construction), and much of the six miles of baggage-moving systems are installed.

Construction “is in the 50 percent range overall” of completion, said project manager Mike Williams. The first phase is scheduled to open in about two years in late 2020. At that time, a second phase will begin to tear down the existing airport to extend the new concourses, although some existing gates will continue in use initially.

Williams said many people do not realize how vast the project is because, so far, most of the construction has been out of public view.

“One of the primary goals is not to impact the operation of the existing airport. We try not to interfere with the traveling public,” he said. That meant locating away from and largely out of sight of where passengers are now.

“I don’t think local people have a sense about the scale of what’s happening here. It’s absolutely extraordinary,” Wyatt said, adding it will be much more spacious and have far more concessions than existing facilities.

When completed, the new south concourse will be 12 football fields long. At the end of the first phase, it will be seven football fields long. A similar second, parallel concourse is being built to the north and initially will be half as long — but may expand in the future.

About 1,750 construction workers are on the project now, and the airport is spending between $50 million and $70 million a month, Williams said.

Williams said the new airport “is going to be fantastic.”

He added, “The airport really listened to all of the feedback that we received early on, so the project that is being delivered incorporates a lot of what people have asked for: the beauty of Utah, the colors of Utah.... It’s going to have rental cars right out front just like today. It will have a lot more space and concessions.”

It will even have an extra large space to accommodate the crowds that often welcome returning Mormon missionaries. That lounge area now has a big cozy fireplace roughed in.

“I have worked on international airports before, but there’s nothing like the meeter-greeter population here in Salt Lake City,” Williams said. “It’s fantastic. The enthusiasm is just unbelievable.”

This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday, Aug. 2, 2018. You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below:

• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/31/bagley-cartoon-smoke-gets/" target=_blank>Smoke Gets in Your Eyes</a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/31/bagley-cartoon-wilderness/">Wilderness Trafficking</a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/27/bagley-cartoon-physics/">Physics for Dummies</a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/26/bagley-cartoon-toting/">2A Toting Tots</a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/25/bagley-cartoon-monumental/">Monumental Bull</a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/23/bagley-cartoon-pioneer/">Pioneer Parade is for the Birds</a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/21/bagley-cartoon-spy-who/">The Spy Who Did(n’t) Love Me</a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/18/bagley-cartoon-gumby/">Gumby Government</a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/19/bagley-cartoon-inland/">Inland Port Parlay</a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2018/07/17/bagley-cartoon-ultimate/">The Ultimate Protest</a>

Want more Bagley? Become a fan on Facebook.

Maybe you remember when Mexico was going to pay for the wall.

You should. It was as recently as May. Donald Trump went to Nashville for one of those creepy rallies of his and renewed the vow he made ceaselessly during the 2016 campaign. Mexico, he promised, is "going to pay for the wall" along the U.S. southern border, "and they're going to enjoy it." The crowd cheered.

It is probably useless to wonder what those cheering people might make of recent tweets wherein the selfsame Donald Trump threatened to shut down the federal government if Congress does not build said wall. You'd like to think they'd pause to ask themselves why Congress needs to take action on something Mexico is going to happily build.

But experience suggests they will do nothing of the sort. No, they will digest this gristle of cognitive dissonance without flinching. Trump's approval ratings among them will remain high, and they will stand in long lines for his next rally. There will be no consequences.

Granted, every president makes promises he fails to keep. But it is impossible to recall another president so blithely ignoring so central a promise and paying so negligible a price.

Once upon a time, a president's words carried weight. But Trump is a president whose words are weightless, who can say something in May, blithely undercut it in July and nobody, not his adorers and not thinking people either, even gives it a second thought — the former because he is the Dear Leader whose wisdom is not to be questioned, the latter because, well, what's the use? This is just The Way Things Are now.

Words from the leader of the mightiest nation on Earth no longer anchor ideals, promises and righteous causes — much less, truth. No, they float off like helium-filled balloons. Up, up and away.

So when he said North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat, you realized it was just a matter of time before U.S. intelligence agencies reported that that hermit kingdom was building new missiles. When he claimed to know nothing about his son's meeting with Russians, you were unsurprised to hear his ex-lawyer say he actually knew of it before it happened. When he boasted of higher poll numbers among Republicans than Abraham Lincoln, you waited for someone to note that scientific polling did not exist in Lincoln's lifetime.

And so it goes. From matters of international threat to national scandal to his own overweening ego, it feels like a waste of time to even listen to what he says because by tomorrow, the story will have changed.

Trump thinks the problem is news media. "What you're seeing and what you're reading," he told a veterans group last week, "is not what's happening,"

It was a chilling echo of “1984,” George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece. Trump could have been speaking for Orwell’s totalitarian “Big Brother,” who manipulated language, information and objective reality itself as a way of manipulating people — and holding power. Like Big Brother, Trump believes there are no permanent facts, just permanent self-interest.

And many are complicit in their own bamboozling. Mexico is going to build the wall and enjoy it? Really? How dumb do you have to be to believe that? To cheer for it? Those cheers enable and empower a man with presidential powers and no guardrails, no fealty to truth, no interest higher than self. In other words, a dangerous man.

But we're supposed to believe media are the problem. "What you're seeing and what you're reading," he says, "is not what's happening,"

Don't you wish?

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald. lpitts@miamiherald.com

It's begun. We are having a debate over socialism.

Not over whether it's fair to call Democrats socialists. Not over whether socialism has been good for Venezuela or some other faraway, unfortunate country. But no-kidding socialist policies right here in the United States.

The press attention to a new study of the costs of "Medicare-for-all," or universal health coverage paid for by the government that goes much further than Obamacare, is a sign that it is a live issue.

Popularized by the socialist Bernie Sanders, Medicare-for-all is not just a fringy left-wing talking point anymore. It's a fringy plank of a growing element of the Democratic Party. A raft of prospective Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed the policy, while about a third of the Democratic members of the House have joined a caucus devoted to it.

The good news for Sanders and Co. is that, in the wake of the failure of an attempted GOP repeal of Obamacare, the health care debate is clearly moving left. The bad news is that Medicare-for-all is still a completely batty, politically unserious idea.

The new study of its costs, from the conservative Mercatus Center, concludes that Medicare-for-all would increase federal spending by almost $33 trillion during the first 10 years. To put it in nontechnical terms: that's a lot. The study notes that "it would be less expensive to the federal government to triple all projected appropriations," and that "doubling all currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan."

Supporters of the idea impeached the credibility of the findings based on their source, yet a study by the centrist Urban Institute in 2016 found exactly the same thing.

The costs aren't merely a theoretical matter. Vermont, the home of Bernie Sanders, abandoned a single-payer proposal after the Democratic governor concluded that it wasn't fiscally sustainable. Despite its Democratic supermajorities, California gave up on a single-payer proposal last year for the same reason — the projected cost was twice as much as the state budget.

The upside is that Medicare-for-all purports to save on overall health care spending by ratcheting down payments to health care providers. Medicare does indeed pay less to hospitals than private insurers, but it's not clear that this would be sustainable if hospitals could only count on Medicare-level payments. Regardless, hospitals are politically powerful and well-positioned to resist threats to their bottom line in Congress.

Since Medicare-for-all would eliminate insurance premiums and provide health care free of charge, it would create an incentive for more usage, and more health care expenditures.

All of this is why the natural gravity in a single-payer system is toward brute-force price controls and rationing to control costs.

This wouldn't be popular, nor would the radical change that Medicare-for-all would entail. President Barack Obama had to promise that if you like your health care you can keep it because any change to private insurance is so toxic. Medicare-for-all would replace the employer-based system entirely for more than 150 million people. It wouldn't matter how much they liked their insurance — it would be gone as a matter of definition.

It’s hard to see Medicare-for-all as a plausible health care agenda even if Democrats swept all elected branches of government in Washington in 2020. But the first step toward achieving any policy goal is creating a national debate over it and swinging one of the major political parties behind it. Bernie Sanders has had considerable success in that effort, and the allure of “free” health care — like free anything — can’t be discounted.

Republicans need to continue to develop and push their own ideas to reduce health care costs, and adjust to the new reality where socialism doesn't simply represent a laugh line, but a battle that needs to be won.

Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. comments.lowry@nationalreview.com

Washington • The White House is slamming the Department of Justice for dropping litigation that would have prevented the posting of instructions on how to make 3D-printed guns.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that DOJ "made a deal without the president's approval."

She said the president was "glad this efforts was delayed" so he can review the material. Sanders added that the administration supports the longstanding law against owning plastic guns.

The Justice Department's initial action triggered an onslaught of criticism about the possible proliferation of potentially lethal 3D-printed weapons.

A federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday to stop the release of blueprints to make untraceable and undetectable 3D-printed plastic guns.

Fewer adults are attending religious services in the United States but not necessarily because they don’t believe.

Many cite practical or personal reasons for skipping weekly services, according to new Pew Research Center data released Wednesday.

Most notably, nearly 4 in 10 say they simply practice their faith in other ways and remain “fairly religious by a number of measures,” according to Pew Associate Director of Research Gregory A. Smith.

For nearly 3 in 10 Americans, the reason they don’t attend religious services is because they do not share religious beliefs.

But more people say it’s because they find another outlet for their faith (37 percent) or dislike certain things about services (37 percent): They haven’t found a place of worship that they like, they don’t like the sermons at their place of worship, or they don’t feel welcome.

Of those believers who rarely or never attend services, 6 in 10 identify as Christian, and 44 percent say they pray every day.

It’s unclear from the survey results how those respondents practice their faith instead. Smith said those who rarely or never attend services don’t seem to be joining community organizations instead. In fact, regular attendees still are more likely to join groups like a club or charity.

The new data follow previous surveys suggesting that the number of Americans attending religious services at least once a week is dropping. According to Pew’s 2014 Religious Landscape Survey, those who say they go to church or another house of worship at least once a week fell from 39 percent in 2007 to 35 percent in 2014.

In that same period, the number who say they “seldom or never” go to church, mosque, synagogue or another service inched up, from 27 percent to 30 percent.

The recent survey shows nonetheless that many of those who don’t regularly attend services remain “at least moderately religious,” Smith noted. Nearly all (94 percent) of those who attend services at least once a month and well over half (61 percent) who rarely or never attend for reasons other than nonbelief say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives.

Of those who attend services at least once a month, most (81 percent) say they do so to grow closer to God, but they also cite giving children a moral foundation (69 percent), becoming a better person (68 percent) and receiving comfort in times of trouble or sorrow (66 percent). Ninety-one percent are Christian and 71 percent pray every day.

Pew surveyed more than 4,700 people on its American Trends Panel, recruited from telephone surveys. Panelists participated in a self-administered web survey between Dec. 4 and 18, 2017. The margin of error for all respondents is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.

In its second year, the LoveLoud Festival saw a larger crowd packed into a larger venue for its event celebrating and supporting LGBTQ youth.

But LoveLoud’s growth also came with growing pains. Some LGBTQ support organizations left the event early, or issued critical statements, over the festival’s treatment of transgender individuals.

The disappointment felt by many stood in stark contrast to LoveLoud’s celebratory and inclusive theme. But will the controversy damage the reach of future LoveLoud events?

On this week’s “Trib Talk” podcast, Provo Pride spokeswoman Brianna Cluck, Utah Pride Center executive director Rob Moolman, and Jordan Sgro, chief program officer of Encircle, join reporter Benjamin Wood to discuss LoveLoud’s impact, successes, missteps, and future.

“Trib Talk” is produced by Sara Weber, with additional editing by Dan Harrie. Comments and feedback can be sent to tribtalk@sltrib.com, or to @bjaminwood or @tribtalk on Twitter.

Listeners can subscribe to “Trib Talk” for free on SoundCloud, iTunes and Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and other major podcast platforms.

Urban Meyer's job appears to be in jeopardy.

Ohio State placed Meyer, one of the most successful coaches in college football history, on paid administrative leave Wednesday while it investigates claims that his wife knew about allegations of domestic violence against an assistant coach years before the staff member was fired last week.

Courtney Smith, the ex-wife of fired Buckeyes assitant Zach Smith, gave an interview to Stadium and provided text messages to former ESPN reporter Brett McMurphy between her and Shelley Meyer in 2015 about Zach Smith' behavior. Courtney Smith also provided threatening texts she said came from her ex-husband, and text messages between her and other wives of Buckeyes assistant coaches, discussing Zach Smith.

"Shelley said she was going to have to tell Urban," Courtney Smith told Stadium. "I said: 'That's fine, you should tell Urban.'"

Zach Smith, who has never been convicted of any crimes, was fired last week after an Ohio court granted a domestic violence protective order to Courtney Smith. A message left by the AP for Zach Smith's attorney, Brad Koffel, requesting comment was not immediately returned.

Meyer is heading into his seventh season at Ohio State, where he is 73-8 with a national title in 2014 and two Big Ten Conference championships. Shelley Meyer is a registered nurse and is employed as an instructor at Ohio State. Both Meyer and his wife could be in violation of Ohio State's Title IX sexual misconduct policy on reporting allegations of domestic violence against university employees.

Violation of university's policy could result in Meyer being fired with cause by the university, according to provisions placed in his contract when it was extended by two years in April. The new deal runs through 2022 and increases Meyer's salary to $7.6 million in 2018, with annual six percent raises for the bulk of his compensation.

Hours after Courtney Smith's interview was posted online Wednesday, Ohio State announced in a short news release it was conducting an investigation into the allegations and Meyer was being placed on leave.

Offensive coordinator Ryan Day will serve as acting head coach for the Buckeyes, expected to be one of the top teams in the nation again this season. Ohio State's first preseason practice is scheduled for Friday. The season starts Sept. 1 with a game against Oregon State in Columbus, Ohio.

Meyer said in a statement he and athletic director Gene Smith agreed that his being on leave was best for the investigation.

"This allows the team to conduct training camp with minimal distraction. I eagerly look forward to the resolution of this matter." Meyer said.

Zach Smith was charged in May with misdemeanor criminal trespass. At the time of the charge, Koffel said Courtney Smith had accused Zach Smith of driving to her apartment after she told him they would meet elsewhere so he could drop off their son. Zach Smith pleaded not guilty last month. A hearing has been scheduled for Friday.

Zach Smith was also accused of aggravated battery on his then-pregnant wife in 2009 while he was a graduate assistant on Meyer's staff at Florida. The charge was dropped because of insufficient evidence. Meyer brought Smith, the grandson of late Buckeyes coach Earle Bruce, to Ohio State in 2012. Meyer worked for Bruce and considers him a mentor.

Two police reports filed in 2015 in Ohio's Powell County, after the Smiths separated in June of that year, accused Zach Smith of abuse. Charges were never filed.

At Big Ten media days, Meyer said he knew of the incident in 2009 and that he and Shelley Meyer addressed it with the Smiths. He was also asked about the 2015 incident alleged by Courtney Smith.

"I can't say it didn't happen because I wasn't there," he replied. "I was never told about anything and nothing ever came to light. I've never had a conversation about it. I know nothing about it. First I heard about that was last night. No, and I asked some people back at the office to call and say what happened and they came back and said they know nothing about it."

The Smiths divorced in 2016.

Meyer is on the short list of most accomplished coaches in college football history, with three national championships and an .851 winning percentage in 16 seasons at Bowling Green, Utah, Florida and now Ohio State, the team he grew up rooting for in Northeast Ohio.

Meyer won national championships with Florida in 2006 and '08, but his teams also had more than two dozen players get into trouble with the law. He resigned twice at Florida, citing health reasons. First in 2009 season after the Gators lost the Southeastern Conference championship game while trying to repeat as national champs. He changed his mind soon after and coached another season. The Gators went 8-5 and this time he stepped down for good.

Meyer was out of coaching for a season, but was hired by Ohio State in November 2011 to replace Jim Tressel, who was fired before that season for lying to the NCAA and university of about rules violation committed by some of his players.

Since returning to coaching, Meyer's program has been one of the most dominant in college football and his players and coaches have mostly stayed out of major trouble.

Meyer did face some criticism in 2013 for allowing running back Carlos Hyde to return to the team after he was charged with striking a woman in a bar. The case was dropped by police when the woman chose not to pursue charges, but Hyde was suspended three games by Meyer.

Washington • Under the gun to increase the size of the force, the Army is issuing more waivers for past drug use or bad conduct by recruits, and pouring an extra $200 million into bonuses this year to attract and retain soldiers.

According to data obtained by The Associated Press, nearly one-third of all the waivers granted by the Army in the first six months of this fiscal year were for conduct and drug problems, mainly involving marijuana use. That number is significantly higher than the other three military services, and represents a steady increase over the past three years.

At the same time, the Army increased bonuses by more than 30 percent this year, with enlistment money going to recruits for high-tech jobs such as satellite communications and cryptologists. Recruits in those jobs can get up to an additional $30,000 for a five-year enlistment.

The enlistment bonuses grew by $115 million this year over last year, while money to entice soldiers already in the service to stay grew by almost $100 million, according to the Army.

Army leaders said there has been no move to reduce enlistment standards in order to meet recruitment goals. They said there are more waivers in part because of the increased competition for recruits as they try to add another 8,000 soldiers to the force this year.

Waivers have long been used to enlist young people who might otherwise be unqualified for military service due to a wide array of medical, conduct or other reasons. Historically, the bulk of the waivers approved by all four military services involve a broad range of medical issues.

The Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force provided their waiver data upon request in April, but Army officials refused to do so. Ultimately the Defense Department provided totals to The Associated Press for all the services.

The data shows that the Army has increasingly brought in recruits that need conduct or drug waivers. In 2016, nearly 19 percent of the waivers were for drug use and conduct, In 2017 that grew to almost 25 percent, and for the first half of 2018 it exceeded 30 percent.

Those totals far exceed the other three services. According to the Pentagon data, the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force did not approve any waivers for drug use in the last three years. And their use of conduct waivers is significantly less than the Army - hovering between 2-13 percent of all the waivers they approve, depending on the service.

Army officials defend the conduct waivers, saying that while a small number may be for major crimes, most involve recruits who faced misdemeanor charges or were ultimately were found guilty of lesser charges or never convicted at all. A waiver is required, for example, even if the recruit was a juvenile and the charge was dismissed after restitution, community service or other conditions were met.

Recruits who get waivers are then required to pass all other military standards for their job.

The Army's annual recruiting mission is 76,500 this year, an increase of 8,000, said Maj. Gen. Joe Calloway, director of military personnel management. The overall size of the Army, now about 992,000, is being increased to more than 1.03 million by late next year.

"It is an exceedingly competitive environment," said Calloway, adding that the Army will not lower standards to meet the goal. "We will miss a number before we will do that." He said the Army has met about 90 percent of its recruitment goal so far this year.

The Marine Corps has faced the same battle for recruits.

"It is definitely more challenging now than it has been in the last five years. As unemployment approaches 5 percent, we are in direct competition with the private sector for the same talent," said Marine Maj. Gen. Paul Kennedy, who until recently headed Marine recruiting command.

The Marines, however, have maintained about the same level of waivers for bad conduct since 2016, which has been roughly 8 percent of approved waivers. And the Marine Corps, the smallest military service, has also cut back on enlistment bonuses - from about $8.2 million in 2017 to $8 million this year.

"If you enlist for money, it's harder for them to remain committed when the chips are down," said Kennedy. "We sell intangibles. Our signing bonuses are so small, and it's spread out over the four year enlistment, so they're only getting a few hundred dollars extra."

The Navy slightly increased its waivers for bad conduct over the past three years, but it still equals less than 13 percent of the total. Meanwhile, the Navy also is tripling the amount of enlistment bonuses this year, to about $100 million. The largest incentives are for sailors going to jobs in the nuclear or cryptology fields or for SEALs and other special operations forces.

Just 7 percent of the Air Force waivers have been for bad conduct this year, also a small increase. And the Air Force has cut back on enlistment bonuses, from about $19 million to almost $14 million. Instead, bonuses are given more to encourage airmen to stay in the service. Retention bonuses increased a bit this year to $280 million.

Medical hurdles make up the majority of enlistment waivers across the military. They range from issues as routine as asthma, eyesight, or skin problems to more complex health conditions, such as previous sports injuries that may have healed, but still must be evaluated. For example, if someone received medication for attention deficit disorder in their youth, they need a waiver. Anyone still on the medication would not be allowed to enlist.

Army leaders this week tightened some waiver restrictions, adding several crimes to the list of offenses that disqualify a person from enlisting, and requiring higher ranking officers to review waivers for certain medical and psychological conditions.

Four-time champion Kelsey Chugg advanced to the semifinals of the 112th Women's State Amateur, winning two matches Wednesday at Bonneville Golf Course.

Three other top top-four seeds from this week’s stroke-play qualifying will join her in Thursday morning’s semifinals. Chugg, a former Weber State golfer who works for the Utah Golf Association, will meet Colorado State’s Jessica Sloot. Bingham High School senior Tess Blair, the stroke-play medalist, will face Xena Motes, a former Ogden High and Weber State golfer. The 18-hole final match will follow in the afternoon.

Wednesday's theme was convincing victories for three of the semifinalists, with only Motes having to play more than 16 holes in either round. Motes went 21 holes to beat Anna Lesa in the round of 16, then outlasted Kerstin Fotu in 21 holes in the quarterfinals.

Chugg, who will play in next week’s U.S. Women’s Amateur in Tennessee, is the reigning U.S. Women’s Mid-Amarteur champion. Her first State Am victory came in 2012.

Much has been made of the course the Houston Rockets have plotted this summer. Coming off a season in which the Rockets lead the NBA with 65 victories and pushed the Golden State Warriors to seven games in the Western Conference finals, Houston was expected to bring back largely the same team for another shot at the now two-time defending champions.

Things haven’t quite gone that way.

Yes, Chris Paul and Clint Capela were re-signed, as Houston locked up its top two free agents to long-term deals. But Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute left in free agency, signing with the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Clippers, respectively. The players Houston signed to replace them — Michael Carter-Williams, James Ennis and, once he clears waivers Wednesday afternoon, Carmelo Anthony — feel like either awkward fits for how the Rockets play, or simply not the same caliber of talent as Ariza and Mbah a Moute. That Carter-Williams, Ennis and Anthony together have a salary cap hit of about $4.5 million makes it hard to ignore the likelihood they weren’t retained because of luxury tax concerns alone.

But when the question of whether Houston has taken a step back was posed to James Harden, the NBA’s reigning most valuable player, he didn’t hesitate.

“No. You can go back to articles and conversations and people said, ‘Me and Chris can’t play together.’ [Then] we were the number one [team] in the NBA,” Harden said with a laugh after Team USA practice last week. “Obviously, you can look at a roster and look at different players and say that. But you have to be on that court and you’ve got to be in the trenches and be in the war.

“Eventually we will figure it out. We have enough leadership in that locker room and a great coaching staff to figure that out.”

Whether the Rockets have taken a step back or not, it is obvious that if Houston is going to come anywhere near replicating the success it had last year, it’s going to have to do so in a different way. From the first day of training camp last season, the Rockets built their team around a switching defense that emphasized its ability to have anyone on the court guard anyone else at any time.

It was a defense specifically wired to try to stop the Warriors — and, if Paul hadn’t blown out his hamstring in the final minute of Game 5 of the Western Conference finals, or if the Rockets hadn’t missed 27 straight 3-pointers in Game 7, it might have accomplished its goal.

But even if one could argue Ariza, now 33, has lost a step, or that Mbah a Moute could be a risk moving forward after dislocating his shoulder twice last season, replacing them won’t be easy. Ennis is the kind of piece of raw clay that Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni has molded into an impact player in the past, but he’s never come close to providing the kind of impact at either end as Ariza and Mbah a Moute have.

Anthony, on the other hand, is coming off a season with the Oklahoma City Thunder in which he struggled to be a third option behind Russell Westbrook and Paul George. And, for all of his offensive gifts, Anthony has never been known as a defensive stopper.

There is a method to Houston’s madness in the eyes of Eric Gordon, the other Rocket who was part of Team USA’s camp last week. It all goes back to that Game 7, and specifically Houston’s inability to make anything from deep over the final three quarters of that game.

If Houston had more of an offensive spark, things could have been a lot different.

“I still think we’re going to be a championship-caliber team, for sure,” Gordon said. “We did lose two dynamic guys that are really good defenders for us [Ariza and Mbah a Moute], really versatile guys. [But we] brought in guys that are also versatile, but more on the offensive side.

“We’re still going to be really good. When you look at that Warriors series, we just needed a little bit more scoring a little bit. We just hit a couple more 3s, it would’ve been different even with guys injured. So we’re still in good position.”

The counterpoint to that is when Houston did try to deploy an offensive-first player in that Game 7 by playing Ryan Anderson in the third quarter, the Warriors promptly attacked him repeatedly, went on a quick 14-2 run and swung the game decisively in their favor.

One thing Houston won’t be lacking in, however, is motivation. After the way the West finals played out, Harden said he hasn’t been able to let it go.

“That was a good feeling,” Harden said of winning the league’s MVP award, “but that feeling that I had in that Western Conference finals, with basically one half to go ... I need that feeling back. I’ll try to work my butt off, and mentally lock in as much as I can to get back to that feeling.

“Like, you are right there. You’re a half away, and then something, just a roadblock hits you and you have to find a way to get past that roadblock. We couldn’t get past that roadblock. It was just too tough. We’ve got to get back there.”

For the next nine months or so, the focus will be on whether the moves the Rockets made this summer will allow them to, or whether Houston let its best chance at a title slip away this past season, done in by Paul’s balky hamstring and all those wayward 3-pointers.

Just don’t expect Harden to agree with that assessment.

“What we have right now is for sure good enough,” he said. “We have to realize nothing changes for us. You’ve got to realize: that was me and Chris’ first year together. Guys were asking, ‘Can they play together? How is that going to work?’ We made it work, and it was easy.

“Once training camp hits, we’ll work our butts off, and every single day we’ll just continue to get better and keep chopping away.”

Fresh off signing Naz Mitrou-Long to a two-way contract in mid-July, the Jazz found their second two-way player in former Atlanta forward Tyler Cavanaugh.

Cavanaugh was signed to a two-way contract on Wednesday that will see him split time with the Jazz and the G-League Salt Lake City Stars. The 6-foot-9, 239-pound forward played 39 games with the Hawks in the 2017-18 season, taking advantage of a shallow big man rotation to average 4.7 points in 13 minutes per contest.

Ankle injuries prevented Cavanaugh from playing for much of the 2017-18 season, but the Hawks' big man needs led to his contract being guaranteed for the entirety of the season. Atlanta chose to waive Cavanaugh before the draft lottery in order to avoid paying him $450K he would have been guaranteed if they kept him beyond that date.

The 24-year old Cavanaugh is a stretch big who took 58 percent of his shots from beyond the 3-point arc last season, making 36 percent of his attempts. In college, he enrolled at Wake Forest before transferring to George Washington as a junior, averaging 17.5 points per game at his time there. The Jazz worked Cavanuagh out early in the pre-draft process in 2017.

NBA two-way contracts were established in 2017 as a mechanism for franchises to sign players who are able to move up and down from the NBA and the G-League. Teams are allowed to have two two-way players at a time beyond the 15-man roster limit. Two-way players can spend a maximum of 45 days on the NBA roster before they must be given a standard contract or released. While the player is with the NBA squad, he makes a prorated minimum NBA salary, and receives a prorated salary of $77,250 for each day he is in the G-League.

Pioneer Park is getting a facelift, thanks to help from Salt Lake City and a group of developers that’s working to make the downtown park more of an attraction.

The park will soon be home to a new, lighted grass field slightly bigger than a soccer pitch that takes up about a third of Pioneer Park at its southern end.

The park, which is less than a half-mile from the city’s emergency shelter, has been a focal point for homeless residents for years. City leaders contend drug use and crime has also kept the park from being used by all residents.

“Downtown Salt Lake City is one of the fastest growing areas of our city,” Mayor Jackie Biskupski said. “It is important that we adapt our city resources to meet the needs of our new community members.”

The field is estimated to cost just short of $1 million, with about a third coming from a group called the Pioneer Park Coalition. Gail Miller gave much of the money behind the private donation.

The new field will include lights, a 10-foot concrete path around the perimeter and lights along the path. The city will remove the existing bathrooms, which have been long out of commission. It will also take out the existing trees within the project area, which a city spokesman said were in poor health and were a species that’s susceptible to disease. Two-dozen sycamore trees will be planted to ring the new field.

“We will soon be able to host youth sports, after-work leagues, weekend ultimate Frisbee games, and, hopefully, a Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl,” Biskupski said.

Matthew Rojas, a spokesman for Biskupski, said the field would be free to use. The city has already fenced off the area but said construction won’t impact the two weekly farmers markets that are held in the park through the fall.