Washington • Overreach and overkill are two of the most common errors in politics. A week after the release of Attorney General William Barr’s gloss on Robert Mueller’s report, it’s clear that President Trump’s characteristic response — to lash out at enemies and entangle his party in his obsessions — has prevented Republicans from using the end of the special counsel’s investigation as a pivot point.

It’s also obvious that Democratic presidential hopefuls, like the party’s House candidates in 2018, are largely ignoring the noise around the Russia scandal. Instead they’re piling up rafts of proposals on subjects close-to-home: education, child care, infrastructure and economics. They are talking to the voters who will decide the 2020 election in a way Trump isn’t.

By now, no one ever expects Trump to be gracious. But his inability just to declare victory and move on after Barr's favorable summary of Mueller's findings has frozen public opinion where it was before the latest news. This is not good for the GOP.

After the attorney general issued his letter, Trump escalated his long-running war against Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House intelligence committee. On Thursday, all its Republican members decided to join his campaign, signing a letter asking Schiff to step down. It was a big mistake. They afforded the California Democrat the opportunity to broadcast his epic rebuttal, recounting the connections between the president, his campaign and Russia.

Schiff invoked the Republican committee members' unanimity to tie them all into an across-the-board apologia for Trump. Over and over, Schiff deployed the formulation "You might think it's OK" to suggest that the GOP was indifferent to a long list of Trump's Russia-linked transgressions. He concluded: "But I don't think it's OK. I think it's immoral. I think it's unethical. I think it's unpatriotic. And yes, I think it's corrupt."

Schiff’s profile, along with the reach of his devastating denunciation, was further enhanced that evening when Trump unleashed a vicious, profane attack on his adversary at a campaign-style rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Trump belittled Schiff’s appearance — appearances being everything to Trump — and claimed “complete vindication” on the “collusion delusion.”

Of course, even Barr's pro-Trump account of Mueller's report conceded that the special counsel went out of his way to say that his inquiry "does not exonerate" Trump on obstruction of justice. But the larger problem is that Trump's inability to let go of the Russia controversy kicks away the opportunity he and his party might have exploited to reset the public conversation.

At least some Republicans know how foolish this is. Karl Rove, George W. Bush's political maestro, offered an almost plaintive Wall Street Journal column under the headline "Move on from Robert Mueller, Mr. President." Trump recklessly went exactly the other way in Michigan. Rove urged Trump "to pivot to issues, like the economy and the opioid crisis, that matter to swing voters" and cited a Fox News poll underscoring that the energy in politics is still on the side of Trump's opponents: Only 27 percent of voters strongly approve of Trump, while 42 percent strongly disapprove.

Rove's instincts about the need for a new narrative were confirmed Friday morning with the release of a March 25-27 NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll finding 54 percent of Americans saying they definitely plan to vote against Trump in 2020, while only 35 percent saying they would definitely vote for him. The survey also found that 75 percent back the core Democratic demand that the full Mueller report be made public, a warning to Barr that excessive redactions could incite public discontent. Only 36 percent said the report cleared Trump of any wrongdoing. This is not a man who should still be playing to his base by stoking the Russia story.

If anyone is listening to Rove's counsel, it's Democratic presidential candidates. Last week, while Washington was consumed by Mueller news, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., rolled out a detailed plan on infrastructure — the quintessential middle-of-the-road concern. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., added to her impressive compendium of policy innovations with an approach to agriculture stressing the interests of small farmers over those of agribusiness. For her part, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., offered a Washington Post opinion piece highlighting her proposal to raise teacher pay across the country.

In other words, the Democrats who would be president are paying far more attention to questions that resonate in Iowa, New Hampshire, and the industrial Midwest than to what transpired in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Trump's biggest problem may be his difficulty in doing the same.

E.J. Dionne is on Twitter: @EJDionne.

On Saturday, 24 cars of a 165-car Union Pacific freight train derailed while traveling southwest through an area of Juab County called Jericho, about 12 miles north and east of the town of Lynndyl in Millard County. Two people were on the train at the time of the crash, and neither were injured.

Nine of the cars that derailed were tankers. While an earlier story reported that one car was on its side and leaking propane, the Environmental Protection Agency stated Sunday that “at least one of the diesel cars and several of the propane cars have breached and are leaking.” A car carrying phosphoric acid appears intact, the EPA stated.

Several emergency response agencies responded to the derailment to stabilize the scene.

Having teamed with his wife to finance athletic and academic scholarships at the University of Utah, Steve Smith Sr. enjoys receiving letters of thanks from students each year.

In 2022 or some year afterward, Smith hopes to receive a phone call that would be meaningful to him in a different way. The former receiver is in line to become the second Ute player inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Smith this month joined the Pac-12 Hall of Honor, in an annual ceremony that recognizes an athlete from each school — in Utah’s case, usually predating Pac-12 membership. He’s also the featured speaker in Saturday’s Utah Football Coaches Clinic.

Smith views his Hall of Fame candidacy in the same context as his failed attempt to win a Super Bowl during his 16-year NFL tenure with Carolina and Baltimore: It is not necessary to complete a satisfying career, but it would be nice. Larry Wilson, a St. Louis Cardinals defensive back from 1960-72, is the only ex-Ute enshrined in Canton, Ohio.

“God willing, hopefully, it’ll happen,” Smith said during the Pac-12 event in Las Vegas. “As the old saying goes, ‘Man’s time is now, but God’s time is when he says it.’ … So when it happens, it happens. But it’s always been a goal of mine since February 2002, when I hired a sport psychologist to really help me hone in and start to focus on my craft. … So If it happens, it’s great. It it doesn’t, it doesn’t take away from all the great experiences that I got.”

Pac-12 Hall of Honor inductee Steve Smith Sr., on key influences during his Ute days. pic.twitter.com/g2khUtkEWJ

— Kurt Kragthorpe (@tribkurt) March 16, 2019

Smith’s Hall of Fame eligibility begins in 2022, five years after his retirement. Statistically, with Smith having caught 1,031 passes for 14,731 yards and 81 touchdowns, Pro Football Reference ranks him comparably to Hall of Fame receivers Andre Reed, James Lofton, Cris Carter and Art Monk. His numbers are somewhat inflated by this century’s passing emphasis. Some observers have suggested that voters will scrutinize Smith’s demonstrative nature on the field as well as some off-field issues early in his career. With only five modern-era players inducted each year, receivers recently have had to wait for induction beyond the initial five-year mark.

Smith is revered at Utah, where coach Kyle Whittingham labels him “a great ambassador for the university, all during his NFL career … just a great supporter and tremendous alum.”

Former Ute safety Eric Weddle respected Smith as a longtime opponent and appreciated him even more as a teammate in Baltimore in 2016, Smith's farewell season.

Smiling as he discussed Smith’s habit of verbally engaging with opponents, Weddle said, “We always knew — or I knew — not to poke the bear.”

Weddle, who spoke to Utah’s Pro Day participants this week, will always remember “just seeing his personality and his competitiveness and how animated he is, and what a talented player he was,” he said. “And then, luckily enough, I was able to be his teammate for a year, which was a dream come true, of looking up to the guy — not just the player, but the man.”

As for Smith's Hall of Fame possibilities, Weddle said, “One hundred percent. ... I think it's a no-doubt. His stats speak for themselves, but the way he affected games was second to none.”

The receiver and return specialist was drafted by Carolina in the third round in 2001. He became a star almost immediately, helping Carolina reach the Super Bowl in his third season and catching four passes for 80 yards vs. New England — only to have a young Tom Brady lead the Patriots’ drive to the winning field goal.

Smith, who will turn 40 in May, marvels about where his Utah experience propelled him, in football and now in business ventures that have been influenced by his major in family and consumer studies. He's also an NFL Network analyst. Having come to Utah from Santa Monica (Calif.) Community College, Smith said, “When you sign to a school, it's a hope and a dream that it'll work out. You don't even know how it'll work, but you just hope you get an opportunity, and that's what I got.”

That’s why Smith and his wife, Angie, endowed an athletic scholarship for a Ute receiver and an academic grant for a first-generation college student. “Now, I get to pay for other people going to college,” he said. “I may not give off that impression because of football or because of TV, but deep inside, that’s what it’s about.”

Los Angeles • Grammy-nominated and widely respected West Coast rapper Nipsey Hussle was killed outside his Los Angeles clothing store, Mayor Eric Garcetti tweeted Sunday.

Police confirmed three men were shot Sunday and one of them killed outside Marathon Clothing, the store Hussle owns. All three men were taken to hospitals, where one of them was declared dead.

Police didn’t say that 33-year-old Hussle was the person who died. Representatives for the rapper didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking confirmation.

Police said the other two men were in stable condition. The gunman fled, and no arrests have been made.

Garcetti tweeted, “Our hearts are with the loved ones of Nipsey Hussle.”

Hussle released successful mixtapes and earned a Grammy nomination for his 2018 major-label debut album.

Several Utah Jazz players tweeted about the rapper’s death, with Derrick Favors saying Hussle was the first concert he went to.

RIP NIPSEYMAN GONE TOO SOON! TRYNNA DO GOOD IN HIS COMMUNITY🙏🏾🙏🏾 @NipseyHussle

— Donovan Mitchell (@spidadmitchell) April 1, 2019

Damn man, @NipseyHussle was the first concert I ever went too and my favorite artist RIP # legend

— Derrick Favors (@dfavors14) April 1, 2019

The Salt Lake Tribune contributed to this report.

Oregon defeated Utah 6-3 in a Pac-12 baseball game at Smith’s Ballpark on Sunday, completing a three-game series sweep.

The Ducks led 4-0 before Utah shortstop Matt Richardson hit a three-run double in the seventh inning.

Oregon (16-10, 5-4 Pac-12) added two runs in the ninth.

Utah starter Riley Pierce (1-4) got tagged with the loss, giving up two runs on three hits in one inning.

Oliver Dunn went 2 for 4 at the plate for the Utes (7-15, 1-8).

Men’s lacrosse

No. 7 Virginia 17, Utah 6 • In Charlottesville, Va., Utah’s Jimmy Perkins scored three goals for his second hat trick of the season, and Josh Stout scored twice to raise his season total to a team-high 31 goals, but the Utes fell to the Cavaliers. Virginia got out to a quick start with a 6-0 lead after the first quarter and led 9-0 before Perkins got the Utes (4-7) on the board with a goal with 2:35 remaining in the first half.

Softball

Oklahoma 11-13, Utah 2-3 • Oklahoma swept a doubleheader against the host Utes, with the Sooners’ Caleigh Clifton hitting two-run home runs in each game. The first game ended after six innings, and the second game after five. Hailey Hilburn hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning of the opener for Utah, and Katie Faulk had an RBI single. Julia Noskin had an RBI triple for Utah (13-20) in the second game.

At the national level, support is dropping. More than half of French people now say they want the gilets jaunes — the yellow-jacketed protesters with a record of violence — to stop their demonstrations. An even bigger majority - more than two-thirds - agree that the protesters who still block traffic circles and march through Paris every weekend are not the same people, with the same motivations, who began the protests last fall.

To many, it looks as though the movement that began as a provincial revolt against gasoline taxes has become a home for political extremists of the far left and the far right, some of whom have used the demonstrations as an excuse to battle one another.

The gilets jaunes have also become known, especially in Paris, for attacks on shops, small businesses and even kiosks, targets that hardly seem to merit the “anti-elite” rhetoric of the protests. It may be that the movement has peaked, at least temporarily: Some 40,000 people demonstrating, across France, last weekend do not imply vast support. But in its wake, the gilets jaunes have created a major dilemma for anyone who believes that politics should be about policies — taxes, spending, health care, roads — and not emotions.

From the beginning, the movement found it hard to articulate what, exactly, it opposed. At first it was the gasoline tax, but protests continued after that was lifted. Later, protesters told journalists, or anyone who asked, that they felt discriminated against because they paid taxes but, because they lived in the provinces, received no social services.

Yet that could not have been true. As James McCauley pointed out in the New York Review of Books, France's welfare system extends well beyond the cities: Anyone in France "who has ever received housing assistance, a free prescription, or sixteen weeks of paid maternity leave has benefited from the social protection system."

The Economist also noted, in response to protesters' complaints that they pay high taxes and receive nothing in return, that "France has excellent infrastructure, (mostly) free education and first-rate health care that comes at little direct cost to patients." Somehow, it seems that all these things have come to be taken for granted. Americans may look on with envy, but free health care, in France, is so humdrum that no one counts it as a benefit at all.

The puzzle doesn’t end there. Like many other places, France does have big gaps between the rich and the poor. But unlike the United States or Britain, the French system makes major efforts to address inequality. In fact, France already has the most redistributive welfare system in Europe. To put it differently, more money flows from rich to poor in France than it does even in Sweden. Yet this fact is also either unknown or unappreciated. This could be because the French president, Emmanuel Macron, started his term by lifting a “wealth tax” on the very rich, on the grounds that it was driving entrepreneurs out of the country — a decision that drew attention to the top 1 percent and caused a great deal of resentment. It could be because the flows are still insufficient. But it could also reflect a deeper problem, one that is not peculiar to France.

A recent survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a kind of rich countries’ club, showed that many people in the world’s wealthiest countries share a similar type of dissatisfaction. On average, the 21 OECD governments surveyed spend more than 20 percent of their gross domestic product on social policies — and, at least by historical standards, these policies work. To quote the report, many Europeans in particular are “living safer, healthier, and longer lives, and are better educated than ever before.” And yet the people affected don’t perceive it that way. Instead, even those who have better access to doctors and teachers than their parents complain much more vociferously than did their parents about the inadequacy of public services. Two-thirds say that “other people” get more services, in exchange for taxes, than themselves. The wealthy think the poor benefit, and vice versa.

The saga of the gilets jaunes suggests that perceptions of policy are sometimes more important than policy — or, perhaps, that perceptions are nowadays molded by other things. Macron’s perceived contempt for the poor may be a more important source of discontent than high taxes. The low status of nurses and teachers might make people feel, legitimately, that these professions are not valued. The images of wealth and privilege that bombard all of us on Instagram and Facebook might be as important a source of social resentment as the realities of inequality, even in places where it is shrinking.

But the discontent with the state and with benefits, wherever it is coming from, is real — and until it is better understood it will remain a political problem, in France and beyond.

Anne Applebaum is a Washington Post columnist, covering national politics and foreign policy, with a special focus on Europe and Russia. She is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and a professor of practice at the London School of Economics. She is a former member of The Washington Post’s editorial board.

@anneapplebaum

California is spending $154 million on ads and education to persuade all its residents to participate in the upcoming census because of the high stakes involved — millions in federal grants and congressional seats.

“California is not leaving its fate to the federal government,” said Dita Katague, head of California’s Complete Count Committee. “I believe other states should not either.”

So how much is Utah spending to make sure it is not shortchanged in the once-every-decade count?

Zero.

Instead, it will depend on volunteers for help, and will rely on the Census Bureau’s own preparation work.

“Without funding, we kind of have to move to a plan B,” said Evan Curtis, a planning coordinator in the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget who is serving as co-chairman of Utah’s Complete Count Committee. “We’re definitely going to have to rely more on getting the message out through our partners.”

His committee recruited more than 50 organizations to help reach and build trust with communities that are hard to count, whether it is because they are difficult to find, distrust the government or are just wary of providing personal information. They range from people experiencing homelessness to immigrants, refugees, American Indian tribes and fast-growing areas with plenty of new addresses.

The upcoming census comes with new hurdles. It will be the first time the Census Bureau will ask most people to respond via the internet after a postcard notice. “And an estimated 73,000 residents in the state are without internet, so that creates a challenge,” Curtis said.

Also, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on April 23 — and should decide by June — about whether the Trump administration will be allowed to ask respondents if they are U.S. citizens. Many undocumented immigrants fear this information could be used to deport them despite assurances by the Census Bureau that responses are confidential.

Census officials have testified in court that the citizenship question may decrease initial response rates by 5 percent nationally — and the damage of scaring groups enough that they will avoid the count may have already been done whether or not the question is ever asked.

No state funding

So why didn’t the Utah Legislature approve some extra funds for the state’s Census efforts?

Gov. Gary Herbert requested $70,000 for some targeted online ads for hard-to-count groups, and Rep. Karen Kwan, D-Murray, pushed for an additional $500,000. Neither got a dime.

“In 2010, every county reported an undercount” in post-census studies, Kwan said, adding it likely cost the state in lost federal aid. Data show that only 75 percent of Utahns responded to that census initially, meaning counters were sent to a quarter of the population, increasing costs and forcing some “imputation” — inputting missing information by inferring what it might be — to estimate how many people lived in homes where no one ever responded.

She worries lawmakers are penny-wise and pound-foolish by not funding efforts to encourage participation now and believes the importance of an accurate count "was lost in all the discussions this year about tax reform and the budget.”

Kwan hopes the state will add some money next year, but that could come when census counts are already underway. They begin March 12.

Why the census matters

State and federal officials plan to stress in ads and outreach efforts the benefits that residents could win — or lose — by answering (or ignoring) the census.

“Money, power and planning are kind of the big three reasons to participate,” Curtis said.

Kaile Bower, a communications coordinator for the Census Bureau, said $675 billion in federal funding is divided annually based on formulas that use census population numbers.

In Utah, “Over $5.7 billion of our $18.5 billion [state government] budget is federal funds. That is over 27 percent, and a lot of those funding streams depend on census numbers,” Curtis said.

That comes out to $1,086 per Utahn, said Shannon Simonsen, a governor’s office employee who is co-chairwoman of the state’s Complete Count Committee. She adds that a 1 percent undercount in the census would cost the state an estimated $14 million a year.

The federal money goes for programs from highways to school lunches; from Head Start and transit to public housing; and from business loans to children’s health insurance.

Census numbers also determine how many seats each state receives in the U.S. House of Representatives. This time, Washington, Colorado, Texas, North Carolina and Florida are expected to gain seats, and Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York are expected to lose them.

In the 2000 census, Utah just missed an extra U.S. House of Representatives seat by 80 people (which instead went to North Carolina). It was another decade before the Beehive State gained its fourth House seat.

These numbers also are used to draw voting maps for legislative districts and school boards. "It really has a lot of impact on how we govern ourselves as a state,” Curtis said, and how much power each neighborhood receives.

Finally, the numbers guide public and private planning. “It guides how we plan everything from our roads and other public projects, but also our business are going to use this to determine where they locate,” Curtis said.

Internet advantages, hurdles

Census officials say that using the internet as the primary response method next year has benefits and problems. People in most of Utah will receive a postcard next March telling them how and when they can log in and complete the questionnaire.

Bower said collecting information by internet will be cheaper. The method also allows people to respond anywhere at any time on such devices as smartphones. She envisions crowds at sports arenas or church gatherings even being asked to all pull out their smartphones and answer the census at the same time.

However, many people have limited access to the internet. So much of rural Utah, for example, won’t receive an invitation to use the internet. Instead, they will be initially sent a traditional by-mail questionnaire.

Also, Bower said some people — such as older folk — may not feel comfortable with the internet. So for the first time, people will be offered the option to do questionnaires over the phone. Postcards will list numbers people can call for 12 main languages nationally.

Some American Indian reservations, where residences may lack street addresses, will have counters sent directly to homes. Bower said the census has worked with individual tribes about whether they feel address lists are adequate for mailings, or whether they prefer local counters to be deployed.

The citizenship question

Census officials acknowledge that proposals to ask about U.S. citizenship concerns undocumented immigrants and others — and could generate undercounts.

In a test of census methods in Providence, R.I., last year, “We saw growing concerns about data privacy. What was new this time, though, is we’ve got fear of repercussions for participating,” such as deportation, Bower said.

Actually, something like that happened once.

Margo Anderson, an emeritus University of Wisconsin professor who has written histories about the census, said it occurred during World War II — when Congress opened up census address data used in part to put people of Japanese descent into concentration camps.

But after the war, the law was changed back to keep all responses confidential by law for 72 years — and she said no other breaches occurred during later wars or even after 9/11. “It’s been pretty impregnable since then,” she said.

Bower stressed that federal law prevents the census from providing personal data to anyone or any other agency, and that its employees sign lifetime vows not to share it.

Michael C. Cook, chief public information officer for the Census Bureau, said it hopes to get that message out by having it delivered by trusted voices inside immigrant or other groups that may not trust the government. “We would really like somebody to first hear about the census from a trusted voice,” he said.

Curtis added that is why Utah’s Complete Count Committee is seeking help with immigrant and other groups to find trusted people to deliver that message, and to help figure out what messages would be most effective.

Other challenges

The upcoming census has several other potentially challenging aspects that could affect Utah and its count, including:

• Officials say one of the groups suffering the biggest undercounts each census are children under 5 years old — and Utah is known for its many children. Bower said officials are unsure why that is. Theories include that young parents are so overwhelmed they forget to respond, or children sometimes are split between grandparents or divorced parents who think someone else is supposed to include them in responses.

• This will be the first census to count same-sex married couples, since they are now legal nationwide. Officials say it will likely end what they think were too-high estimates of that population in the past, in part because unmarried, same-sex couples were likely included.

• This will be the first Census to exclude the word “negro” and instead use “black.”

• LDS missionaries living abroad are not included in the census, thanks in part to decisions from lawsuits Utah waged when it just missed getting an extra U.S. House seat in 2000. Missionaries serving in other states are counted there. Military and federal officials who are deployed abroad, however, are counted in their home home base.

• Also because of rulings from Utah lawsuits after the 2000 census, officials are able to “impute” data at homes where no one responds. That means they can copy data from what they believe are similar homes nearby, or use administrative records such as from Medicare or Social Security to fill in data. Still, law bans using statistical sampling for the census.

People looking for a part-time or temporary job should keep an eye on the website 2020Census.gov/jobs. The Census is already hiring, and plans by this fall to hire 400,000 to 450,000 people nationwide — most at $17 to $21 an hour — to help count people door-to-door who do not respond initially.

All things considered, Ella Mae Vail said her stay at the Weber County jail was probably the best interaction she’s had with law enforcement. Most of the correctional officers used her preferred name and pronouns and seemed to care about her well-being.

But for all the good, there was some bad.

Like how Vail, a transgender woman, was so scared of being housed among men in the general jail population that she hurt herself to be placed in a mental health ward.

Or how before she was assigned to the mental health ward, male inmates would come to the window of her cell and say obscene things to her or catcall, she said. Or how the men housed in the mental health ward had a line of sight into the communal shower and watched her.

The jailers "did their best, but there were really some failings,” Vail said.

Vail’s situation highlights how Utah jails are being forced to confront changing societal norms regarding diversity and inclusivity, and parallels the arrest last July of Lesley Ann Shaw — who identifies as transgender and agender and uses the pronouns they and them.

Shaw was arrested during a protest at the headquarters of the Management and Training Center, which operates detention centers for undocumented immigrants. Shaw said they were repeatedly misgendered in Davis County jail and underwent a so-called breast sweep despite not having breasts. They were also forced to accept a bra.

A Salt Lake Tribune analysis of jail policies at the time found that a transgender inmate’s housing situation varied depending on where they were booked.

And had Vail been arrested in Salt Lake County, she likely would have been housed with women, and some of the concerns she had about showering would have been erased.

“I don’t feel threatened when I’m showering next to women,” she said, “because I’m a woman.”

But Lt. Joshua Marigoni, the Weber County jail spokesman, said jailers must also consider the safety of the other female inmates.

He said that while his jail hasn’t crafted a formal policy on transgender inmates, the housing decision is typically made based on the gender designation on their state-issued ID or their anatomy, specifically whether they’ve had sex reassignment surgery, commonly called bottom surgery.

He also said that the jail took steps to make sure Vail felt safe and made sure she was never outside her cell alone with male inmates. Marigoni said he couldn’t confirm that men in the mental health ward watched Vail shower, but said based on the shower’s location, it’s possible.

Regardless, the situation had Vail’s attorney, Jonathan Jemming, wondering: If jail officials are making an effort to sequester Vail within a male population, why not do the same for her in a female population, where she would feel more comfortable and face fewer risks?

He also said having correctional officers present when Vail was around men didn’t guarantee she would be safe.

Vail’s stint in the Weber County jail began March 2, when she and her partner Svetlana Lowrey were passing through Utah as they relocated to Virginia.

It was early and overcast. Vail’s girlfriend slept in the back seat as the two traveled a nondescript section of Interstate 84, just outside Riverdale in Weber County.

Vail got behind a slow semi-truck and signaled to pass it. While she said the light blinked a few times, a Utah Highway Patrol trooper pulled her over for not signaling for the required two seconds.

As Trooper Jared Hayes talked to Vail, he smelled marijuana inside the car, he later wrote in a probable cause statement. When he questioned Vail about it, she said she had smoked six or seven hours earlier, when she was still in Oregon, where recreational marijuana is legal. Hayes found a pipe, marijuana and rolling papers in the car.

He arrested Vail on suspicion of drug possession and driving with a measurable amount of marijuana in her system, a less serious DUI offense. She was booked into jail according to her anatomy and the information on her driver’s license, which identifies her as a man.

Dash camera video of Vail’s arrest, released to The Tribune through an open-records request, shows she was worried about her well-being early on.

On the drive to the jail, Vail cleared her throat and asked Hayes, “Am I going to be safe in the jail? Do you have transgender people ever in there?”

Hayes responded before she finished the question, “Yeah, you’ll be safe.” It’s the jail’s job to keep her safe, he said, although he added that he wasn’t sure how they would house Vail among the other inmates if she couldn’t make bail.

Vail was released from custody March 12. Data shows fears about Vail’s safety while incarcerated were based in the experiences of other transgender inmates.

Statistics from the Department of Justice from 2011-12 indicate that about 40 percent of transgender inmates in state or federal prison have reported some kind of sexual victimization. An estimated 27 percent of transgender inmates in local jails reported sexual abuse.

Those numbers are considerably higher than the estimates for inmates in general. In that same time period, the DOJ said 4 percent of state and federal inmates and just more than 3 percent of local jail inmates reported sexual victimization.

As early as 1994 the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the dangers of housing a transgender woman among male inmates.

In Farmer v. Brennan, justices ruled in favor of Dee Farmer, a transgender woman who had been housed among men and repeatedly sexually abused because of the jail’s “deliberate indifference” to the jeopardy Farmer was in, violating her Eighth Amendment rights to not undergo cruel and unusual punishment.

The 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act, passed unanimously by Congress, recognized the risk and called for correctional facilities to consider how to house transgender inmates on a “case-by-case basis,” meaning jailers were to weigh factors such as the inmate’s concerns about safety.

While many jails say they house inmates this way, Shawn Thomas Meerkamper, senior staff attorney at the California-based Transgender Law Center, said there’s a difference between policy and practice.

“Unfortunately, in the vast majority of jurisdictions, they have a case-by-case basis on paper, and then it just so happens in every single case trans people get assigned based on their genitals and not based on their gender identity,” said Meerkamper, who uses the gender neutral pronouns they and them.

In May 2018, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons revised its guidelines, shifting considerations to focus more on the sex a person was assigned at birth than their gender identity. Not all transgender people want or will ever have gender reassignment surgery as part of their transition.

“At a very basic level, these systems do not recognize trans women as women, for example,” Meerkamper said.

While Meerkamper said transgender people have been raising safety concerns for “longer than decades,” jails have only started to respond. Meerkamper said best practice would be that jails and prisons house inmates based on that inmate’s gender identity, if that is that inmate’s preference.

Marigoni, with Weber County, said his jail is working on a formal policy.

Right now, Marigoni said inmates are booked according to the designation on their state ID. He said jailers take into account an inmate’s safety concerns, and will house them accordingly, such as in a single cell, like they did for Vail.

“Basically our big thing is we don’t want to treat them in any way that they’re punished because of the process they’re going through,” Marigoni said.

It’s a hard line to walk, as jails and prisons are holding facilities that separate inmates by gender and a number of other factors to keep people safe. Thus, it can be difficult for jails to accommodate individuals who don’t fit within the gender binary.

But sending a transgender inmate to a solitary cell can seem like punishment, Meerkamper said, exactly what Marigoni said his jail staff strives not to do.

The issues could also become more complicated after a 2018 court order paved the way for Utahns to lose the “male” or “female” designation on their driver license and birth certificates in exchange for a gender neutral “X.”

Vail ultimately spent 10 days in jail before she appeared in court on March 11 and Riverdale Justice Court Judge Reuben J. Renstrom lowered her bail from $2,200 cash to $200 cash.

She posted bond, and Vail and Lowery continued on their move to Virginia. Renstrom hasn’t waived Vail’s scheduled court appearance in April, but Jemming said he plans to ask for that change so Vail doesn’t have to find a way back west.

The day after Vail was released, she and Lowery stopped at a gas station along the road. Vail went inside, and Lowrey reflected on the couple’s unexpected stay in Utah.

Lowrey said she was worried sick for Vail. While her partner was in custody, Lowrey passed time sitting in her car. She spent nights there, too, or on strangers’ couches. She said her mind churned over anxious thoughts.

Turns out, she said, Vail was treated better than they expected.

And yet.

“At the end of the day,” Lowery said, “What happened happened. We did what we did, but it’s so messed up in this country that we get literally punished more than anybody else does. Anybody else comes through [jail] ... they get put with their people, and for us, we get a higher punishment.”

Orem • Hot dogs are in crisis.

Away from the ballpark and next to the hamburger — their flashier fast-food cousin — the frankfurter seems boring and unhealthy.

What the link sausage needs now is a real-life Don Draper who can make the wiener a winner again.

A team of advertising majors from Brigham Young University has accepted the challenge.

And just like the fictional Sterling Cooper agency from the popular “Mad Men” television series — minus the booze and smokes — they have created a multimillion-dollar campaign to help make the hot dog top dog.

The 12-member Provo team is among nearly 200 student groups nationwide that will present campaigns to judges as part of the 2019 National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC).

The contest, sponsored by the American Advertising Federation, gives college students a chance to participate in a real-world case study that will help them find jobs after graduation.

For this year’s contest, the world’s largest hot dog chain, Wienerschnitzel, challenged students to change public perception of the hot dog.

Students conducted consumer focus groups and surveys. They used their research to develop an ad strategy and then put it into action through a yearlong campaign that includes a mix of television and radio spots, billboards and social media.

The students even had an imaginary $25 million budget to work with, said Kevin Kelly, the BYU advertising professor who is overseeing Utah team.

Kelly, along with team members, met with The Salt Lake Tribune at the Orem Wienerschnitzel to talk about the contest while wolfing down hot dogs with various toppings from sauerkraut to bacon.

In previous years, students have helped promote products for large national brands, including Pizza Hut, Kellogg’s, Coca-Cola, Nissan, Yahoo and The New York Times.

But changing perceptions is much more difficult than product promotion, said Kelly. “It’s a strategy that some companies use when they are the leader,” he said. “Lifting the whole category elevates them, too.”

The students had their work cut out for them. Most Americans think hot dogs are made with slimy, low-budget meat trimmings and filled with sodium, fat and nitrates — which, if eaten often, cause health problems.

"They think it’s a processed, mystery meat thing,” explained BYU team member Mitch Horne. "It’s not.”

Unlike the hot dogs of yesterday, he said, many varieties today are made from quality cuts of meat, including 100 percent beef or poultry. They also have lower sodium content.

In some cases, “the hot dog is the same healthwise as a turkey sandwich,” added Nate Blakely.

Nutrition experts may debate that fact.

Wienerschnitzel’s original deluxe dog in a steamed bun — and topped with tomato slices, chopped white onions and a pickle spear — has 290 calories, 14 grams of fat and 11 grams of protein, according to the company’s online nutrition facts.

Subway’s nutritional information shows its six-inch turkey sandwich on wheat bread has 250 calories, 3 grams of fat and 18 grams of protein.

Not surprisingly, the BYU students had the negative image of the hot dog before the NSAC project.

“We had the same perception,” said team member Amy Wilson. After spending hundreds of hours — and consuming dozens of hot dogs, “now we are raving about hot dogs.”

The students wouldn’t divulge details about their campaign. They did say that, in post-testing, people found their ads agreeable and their perceptions changed.

“The competition shows how you can change the culture,” said Izzie Nelson.

That was the case for teammate Sierra Breshears. “After eating that hot dog,” she said, wiping the mustard from her lips, “I really believe in our campaign.”

The teams had to submit their campaign books by the end of March. In April, they will travel to one of 15 regional competitions to sell their plan to judges. BYU will compete in Boulder, Colo., on April 27 against teams from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.

If the Cougars win, they will move on to the semifinals in May and, if successful, possibly the finals in June.

They have a shot. BYU is known for preparing students for the advertising world. Each year, the school’s AdLab, an agency housed within the College of Fine Arts and Communications, produces campaigns for national clients from Amazon to Nike and brings home numerous college-level awards.

“We’re very successful placing students [in jobs] all over the country,” Kelly said.

BYU’s highest NSAC finish was fifth, but it has won the regional competition several times, said Kelly, including last year, when students created campaigns for Ocean Spray.

All 12 members of BYU’s NSAC troupe are juniors and had to compete against other AdLab students to make the squad.

Philip Lamb, the general manager at the Orem Wienerschnitzel, hopes the students succeed, especially if the attention attracts a younger generation to his restaurant, which is frequented by older adults.

“It’s great to have the exposure and for them to come up with new ideas,” he said, noting that hot dogs aren’t made like they use to be.

“They’re healthy,” he said. “I have one almost every day.”

Happy Monday!

This is not an April Fool’s joke: A comedian leads after the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political upstart who had never run for public office before, finished first with about 30 percent of the vote on Sunday, followed by incumbent Petro Poroshenko with 18 percent, according to exit polls. The rest of the vote was split among more than a dozen other candidates.

Zelenskiy and Porosheko now will compete in a run-off in three weeks.

Zelenskiy's only brush with Ukranian politics has been to play the president in a television show called “Servant of the People,” a popular satire about a teacher who wins the county's highest office.

During the campaign, he avoided giving interviews to journalists, preferring instead to stage rally-like performances for which he charged an entrance fee. He refused to participate in a television debate.

Billionaire incumbent Poroshenko has struggled to end the country’s war with Russian-backed separatists and to make good on the promise of reform that vaulted him to power. [Politico][NYTimes]

Topping the news: Monday is exactly one year before the 2020 census counts where Americans live on April 1, 2020. Utah lawmakers chose not to spend any local money to help ensure that all its citizens are counted while others are spending plenty — including $154 million by California. How much will that hurt as the census decides how to split up $675 billion a year in grants, and divide U.S. House seats? [Trib]

-> More low-income Utahns may apply for Medicaid coverage today as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved Utah’s partial Medicaid expansion plan. It allowed the state to extend healthcare to 70,000-90,000 Utahns who earn up to 100 percent of the federal poverty limit. [Trib][Fox13][DNews]

-> Replacing Utah’s outdated emergency radio systems has sparked a war between two companies, Harris Corp., who won bids for the work, and Utah’s current emergency technology supplier, Motorola who as filed three protests alleging bid-rigging. [Trib]

Tweets of the day: From @JessieMandle “Thousands still left out of #medicaid coverage. All Utahns deserve access to affordable coverage- without caps, unnecessary barriers #utpol.”

-> From @tonyposnanski “Those three countries are...El Mexico, Los Mexico, No Way San Jose.”

-> From @GovHerbert “I appreciate the great work of the legislature on SB103, which will serve as a powerful tool in providing critical protections to Utah residents. I look forward to it landing on my desk and signing it into law. #utpol @SenThatcher.”

Happy Birthday: to State Rep. Jim Dunnigan and ABC’s Meredith Nettles

In other news: Sidestepping the usual approval for transportation projects that would generally go through the Utah Transportation Commission, Utah lawmakers approved $800,000 to be spent on a sound wall in front of property owned by a prominent homebuilder and former legislator. [Trib]

-> Documents show that Grantsville Mayor Brent Marshall admitted to investigators that he once zip tied the hands of the city’s zoning and planning administrator and put his arms on a resident during a conversation in his office but said these were not aggressive actions, and that they had been misinterpreted. [Trib]

-> A bill to increase regulation on secretly placing a GPS tracker on a vehicle was passed by Utah lawmakers after heavy debate between the state’s two chambers. The final version included provisions that would still allow private investigators to use such devices. [Trib]

-> Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a bill aimed at improving the response of campus police to cases of sexual assault and relationship violence. The measure was brought to the Legislature after a University of Utah student was slain on campus by her ex-boyfriend. [Trib]

-> Utah lawmakers have set aside $110 million for improvement projects on Utah’s Capitol Hill, including increased parking, repairs to outdated structures and adequate storage space to house ancient artifacts. [Trib]

-> A Tooele family is asking the Salt Lake City Council to buy all of its properties that it says have become uninhabitable due to low flying planes from the city-owned Tooele Valley Airport. [Trib]

-> A number of Sandy residents are frustrated after their efforts to lobby the city council against a large residential development project in their neighborhood failed. [DNews]

->Pat Bagley illustrates a GOP health care plan. [Trib]

Nationally: President Donald Trump is not backing down on his threat to close the U.S. border with Mexico despite industry warnings that this action would hamper supply chains with the nation’s third-largest trading partner. [WaPost]

-> Trump plans to cut off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras for allowing mass migration to the United States. [NYTimes][Politico][WaPost]

-> Russia has gradually been expanding military presence across Africa, a move which is indicative of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s desire to return Russia to the position it held before the collapse of the Soviet Union. [NYTimes]

-> Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is expected to announce candidacy for the democratic primary to the 2020 presidential election, has come under scrutiny after an internet article by a Democratic politician described an encounter in which she said Biden had been inappropriately physically affectionate with her. [WaPost]

-> The British Parliament is set to try again today to find an alternative to Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan for withdrawing the country from the European Union, which lawmakers rejected for a third time last week. [NYTimes]

Got a tip? A birthday, wedding or anniversary to announce? Send us a note to cornflakes@sltrib.com.

Lee Davidson and Christina Giardinelli

twitter.com/LeeDavi82636879; twitter.com/C_Giardinelli

Collusion or not, President Donald Trump and the Russians are thick as thieves.

What I mean is that for more than three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to the Russian Mafia held the deeds to, lived in or ran criminal operations out of Trump Tower in New York or other Trump properties. I mean that many of them used Trump-branded real estate to launder vast amounts of money by buying multimillion-dollar condos through anonymous shell companies. I mean that the Bayrock Group, a real estate development company that was based in Trump Tower and had ties to the Kremlin, came up with a new business model to franchise Trump condos after he lost billions of dollars in his Atlantic City casino developments, and helped make him rich again.

Yet Trump's relationship with the Russian underworld, a de facto state actor, has barely surfaced in the uproar surrounding Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign. That oversight may be explained in part by journalist Michael Kinsley's long-held maxim: The real scandal isn't what's illegal; it's what is legal.

Robert Mueller, of course, is a prosecutor. His job as special counsel, now complete, was to decide whether to indict. But what if some of the most egregious and corrupt offenses are not illegal? Russian President Vladimir Putin has long insisted that American democracy itself is corrupt. Under his aegis, the Russians have methodically studied various components of the American body politic — campaign finance, our legal system, social media and perhaps especially the real estate industry — and exploited every loophole they could find.

As Oleg Kalugin, a former head of counterintelligence for the KGB, told me in an interview for my book "House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia," the Mafia amounts to "one of the branches of the Russian government today." Where Americans cracked down on the Italian American Mafia, Putin dealt with the Russian mob very differently. He co-opted it. He made it an integral part of his Mafia state. Russian gangsters became, in effect, Putin's enforcers. They had long and deep relationships. According to a tape recording made by former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko a year before he was fatally poisoned in London, Putin had close ties to Semion Mogilevich, a top mobster, that dated to the early 1990s.

That criminals with ties to Russia bought Trump condos, partnered with Trump and were based at Trump Tower — his home, his place of work, the crown jewel of his empire — should be deeply concerning. It’s not hard to conclude that, as a result, the president, wittingly or not, has long been compromised by a hostile foreign power, even if Mueller did not conclude that Trump colluded or conspired with the Russians.

Let's go back to 1984, when David Bogatin, an alleged Russian gangster who arrived in the United States a few years earlier with $3 in his pocket, sat down with Trump and bought not one but five condos, for a total of $6 million - about $15 million in today's dollars. What was most striking about the transaction was that at the time, according to David Cay Johnston's "The Making of Donald Trump," Trump Tower was one of only two major buildings in New York City that sold condos to buyers who used shell companies that allowed them to purchase real estate while concealing their identities. Thus, according to the New York state attorney general's office, when Trump closed the deal with Bogatin, whether he knew it or not, he had just helped launder money for the Russian Mafia.

And so began a 35-year relationship between Trump and Russian organized crime. Mind you, this was a period during which the disintegration of the Soviet Union had opened a fire-hose-like torrent of hundreds of billions of dollars in flight capital from oligarchs, wealthy apparatchiks and mobsters in Russia and its satellites. And who better to launder so much money for the Russians than Trump - selling them multimillion-dollar condos at top dollar, with little or no apparent scrutiny of whom they were selling to.

Over the next three decades, dozens of lawyers, accountants, real estate agents, mortgage brokers and other white-collar professionals came together to facilitate such transactions on a massive scale. According to a BuzzFeed investigation, more than 1,300 condos, one-fifth of all Trump-branded condos sold in the United States since the 1980s, were shifted "in secretive, all-cash transactions that enable buyers to avoid legal scrutiny by shielding their finances and identities."

The Trump Organization has dismissed money laundering charges as unsubstantiated, and because it is so difficult to penetrate the shell companies that purchased these condos, it is almost impossible for reporters — or, for that matter, anyone without subpoena power - to determine how much money laundering by Russians went through Trump-branded properties. But Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist, put it this way to me: “Early on, Trump came to the conclusion that it is better to do business with crooks than with honest people. Crooks have two big advantages. First, they’re prepared to pay more money than honest people. And second, they will always lose if you sue them because they are known to be crooks.”

After Trump World Tower opened in 2001, Trump began looking for buyers in Russia through Sotheby's International Realty, which teamed up with a Russian real estate outfit. "I had contacts in Moscow looking to invest in the United States," real estate broker Dolly Lenz told USA Today. "They all wanted to meet Donald." In the end, she said, she sold 65 units to Russians in Trump World Tower alone.

The condo sales were just a part of it. In 2002, after Trump had racked up $4 billion in debt from his disastrous ventures in Atlantic City, the Russians again came to his rescue, by way of the Bayrock Group. At a time when Trump found it almost impossible to get loans from Western banks, Bayrock offered him enormous fees — 18 to 25 percent of the profits — simply to use his name on its developments.

So how did all this go unchallenged? According to Jonathan Winer, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement in the Clinton administration, one answer may be lax regulations. "If you are doing a transaction with no mortgage, there is no financial institution that needs to know where the money came from, particularly if it's a wire transfer from overseas," Winer told me in an interview for my book. "The customer obligations that are imposed on all kinds of financial institutions are not imposed on people selling real estate. They should have been, but they weren't."

And without such regulations, prosecutors' hands are tied.

All of which made it easier for the Russian Mafia to expand throughout the United States. As it did so, it grew closer to Trump. Even though Mogilevich had no known direct contacts with Trump, several of his associates did. Among them was Bogatin, who took part in a massive gasoline tax scam, and whose brother, Jacob (Yacov) Bogatin, was indicted with Mogilevich in 2003 on 45 felony counts of stock fraud. (Because there is no extradition treaty between the United States and Russia, they were never brought to trial in the United States.)

Another Mogilevich associate in Trump’s orbit was the late Vyacheslav Ivankov, a ruthless extortionist who became renowned as one of the most brutal killers in the annals of Russian crime.Mogilevich had sent him to New York in 1992 with a mandate to consolidate the Russian Mafia in the United States and to form alliances with the Cosa Nostra and other Mafias.Once he arrived, Ivankov became a regular at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, and was widely thought to be based in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn, where many Russian mobsters lived. But when the FBI came looking for him, it discovered that the head of the Russian Mafia in New York owned a luxury condo in the glitziest part of Manhattan - at 721 Fifth Avenue, in fact — Trump Tower. There is no evidence of personal interaction between Trump and Ivankov.

Yet another Mogilevich associate with ties to Trump was Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, better known as Taiwanchik, whose relationship with Mogilevich dates back more than three decades. Indicted in 2002 for bribing Olympic figure skating judges, Tokhtakhounov was awarded the No. 5 position on the FBI's Most Wanted List, two slots behind Mogilevich. In April 2013, two gambling rings that he allegedly ran were busted by the FBI on the 63rd floor of Trump Tower, resulting in the indictments of 34 members and associates of Russian organized crime. Among them was Tokhtakhounov, who fled the country to avoid prosecution, and appeared later that year at Trump's 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow.

These were just some of the Russian mobsters who gravitated toward Trump as they laundered money and cultivated politicians. Over time, they learned how to work the system. They paid large sums for the most powerful legal talent in the land - enough, at times, to woo the very men who had once been charged with pursuing them. In 1997, former FBI director William Sessions traveled to Moscow and alerted the world to the horrifying dangers of the brutal Russian Mafia. But 10 years later, he took on as a client the Ukrainian-born Mogilevich. At the time, the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating racketeering charges against Mogilevich over questionable energy deals between Russia and Ukraine. Sessions's successor as FBI director, Louis Freeh, also later represented Russian clients. All perfectly legal. In Freeh's case, the client was Denis Katsyv's Cyprus-based Prevezon Holdings. Freeh helped Prevezon settle a money laundering probe by the U.S. government after the company was accused of laundering more than $200 million in a Russian tax fraud scheme in which an American hedge fund manager and his firm, Hermitage Capital, were said to have been framed by the Russians. The ensuing scandal culminated in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, Hermitage's accountant, and led to the passage of the Magnitsky Act, which sanctioned high-level Russian officials. Natalia Veselnitskaya, Prevezon's defense lawyer, attended the much-discussed June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.; Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Manafort has been convicted of bank fraud, tax fraud and failure to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act by not reporting foreign income.

The special counsel's report has not been released, only Attorney General William P. Barr's summary with its finding of no collusion. But it's clear that it was profoundly naive to think that a prosecutor would save the day and cure our diseased democracy of all that ails it. That's because the problem behind this assault on the nation's sovereignty far transcends the criminal arena. I'm no fan of Putin's, but he was right about one thing: Swaths of American society are corrupt. If we want to protect our most precious institutions, we should examine new regulations in a wide range of sectors. The House Intelligence Committee, the House Oversight Committee and the House Judiciary Committee have geared up for hearings and investigations. They had better move fast. We have a president who has a long, tangled history with figures connected to Russian organized crime - all of it, apparently, perfectly legal.

Craig Unger is the author of “House of Trump, House of Putin” and a contributing editor of Vanity Fair.

Having read the comments regarding the new Utah school science standards, does “giving equal time” mean I have to find room in my curriculum to include astrology, alchemy and the flat-earthers?

Science is not a democracy. We do not vote on which facts we want to recognize. Until creationists publish in a peer-reviewed journal, or a hominid fossil is found in strata older than 30 million years, I will stick to teaching science.

Mark Bromley, Sandy

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A few days ago, Sen. Mike Lee said: “The solution to climate change is not this unserious resolution … The solution to so many of our problems at all times and in all places is to fall in love, get married and have some kids. ... Problems of human imagination are not solved by more laws, they’re solved by more humans.”

Lee equated his statements to the more babies we have the more innovative ideas we will have in the future when they grow up.

I have to agree with the senator, as there is no chance he will come up with any idea that will benefit us today. However, the best response to his rambling statement on the Senate floor with pictorial displays was given by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“If this guy can be a senator, you can be anything.”

Leonard W. Burningham, Salt Lake City

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In his March 27 letter to The Public Forum, Ken Roach states, “When gun ownership restrictions have been enacted in other countries, the citizens complied.”

He then asks, “Why couldn’t we do the same for ourselves and our children?”

The likely answer is that the compliant citizens of those other countries don’t have the same rights that American citizens are guaranteed under our Bill of Rights.

Fred Fairclough Jr., Salt Lake City

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After reading in The Salt Lake Tribune that most of the parents attending a Utah State Board of Education meeting believe that the science of evolution and climate change is a hoax, and teaching these fact-based disciplines is “scaremongering,” I have a proposal for a new state song for Utah.

It would seem that “What a Kind of Fool Am I” would be most appropriate.

Kendra Houser, Millcreek

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The U.S. Senate has been transformed into a theater of the absurd. Sen. Mike Lee’s appalling performance on the Senate floor prior to a vote on the Green New Deal was not only an embarrassment — for him and for the people of Utah — but also reflects the Republican Party’s frivolous views on climate change.

In addressing the most serious, and urgent, challenge the world faces at the moment, Lee put forth this simplistic solution:

“[It] is not this unserious resolution that we’re considering this week in the Senate but rather the serious business of human flourishing.” In other words, his solution is “to fall in love, get married and have some kids.”

Oh dear, Sen. Lee, you could not be more wrong. More people obviously add more consumption, more pollution, more environmental destruction and more greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere, ultimately wreaking havoc on global ecosystems.

Within the next 50 years, it is estimated that the global population will increase from the current 6.1 billion to more than 9 billion. Due to unbridled population growth, species of plants and animals are already disappearing at an alarming rate. And we are already witnessing the destruction that the changing climate can cause: an increase in droughts, floods, hurricanes and forest fires, among other catastrophes.

So, Sen. Lee, where does this leave the upcoming generations — that is, all those adorable yet-to-be-born kids to which you were referring? Answer: It leaves them wondering why in hell today’s leaders left it to them to save life on Planet Earth.

Linda Marion, Millcreek

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Thank you Pat Bagley for clearly identifying the winners and losers of the 2019 Utah legislative session.

Thank you to The Salt Lake Tribune for pointing out the cowardly way that Gov. Gary Herbert allowed House Bill 220 to become law and Utah to become our nation’s dump for its most dangerous garbage, depleted uranium.

Thank you to the hundreds of young people who left classes March 15 in solidarity with thousands all over the world to protest for our planet’s future.

Thank you to Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel from the Union of Concerned Scientists who came to speak at the Salt Lake Public Library about solutions and hope in fighting the fossil fuel industry working so greedily to destroy our planet.

Thank you to each and every person doing their best to create and maintain a sustainable world in the face of such ignorant and anti-science morons.

I desperately want to feel gratitude and hope for those of us fighting against nature and humanity being blindly herded into oblivion.

Monica Hilding, Salt Lake City

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Investigations happen all the time, and many people are either declared to remain innocent or proven guilty. This president should be grateful to the process that it was exhaustive and thorough.

This president should quit acting as though he is the only person who ever was investigated for something that he was close enough to, that it warranted a look. Remember that across America many investigations are not as thorough, and many innocent people litter our jail cells and prisons.

President Trump constantly talks about “witch hunts,” but does he remember where that term comes from? Remember all the innocent people actually hanged for being “witches”?

We’re lucky we have moved forward (mostly) from those times. Remember Rubin Carter? Remember Sacco and Vanzetti? Remember the West Memphis Three? Let’s move on.

Holly Rio, Draper

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After hearing from nearly 7,000 returned Latter-day Saint missionaries — with their reports of hasty baptisms, uncooperative members and cultural barriers — researcher Matt Martinich came to a strong conclusion: The church’s global proselytizing system needs “urgent reform.”

The Colorado Springs demographer recently summarized the problems he sees with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ missionary system, which sends tens of thousands of young people across the globe seeking converts.

In the document, posted at ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com, Martinich also spelled out proposals to improve the program.

“The main reason the church does not have more rapid ‘real growth’ is due to self-inflicted problems with policies and procedures,” the researcher wrote in an email. “I totally support the church — and by no means am I making this some type of means to stir dissension — but frankly there is too much inefficiency and bureaucratic mess with church employees and church leaders.”

Religion News Service senior columnist Jana Riess, author “The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church,” applauded Martinich’s work.

“I’m grateful for the data his research has provided about LDS missionary work around the world,” said the writer, “because small-scale anecdotal evidence can only take us so far.”

A mountain of data

From 2012 to 2018, Martinich posted a survey aimed at both proselytizers and church members on social media sites, primarily Facebook, Reddit and his blog.

He asked about where they served, average church attendance, reasons members stopped attending, member-missionary activity, travel time to meetinghouses, cultural conditions and other factors.

He got more than 3,400 responses to his returned missionary survey in English, French and Spanish, and another 3,400 to the member survey in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Survey participants were not randomly selected but rather self-selected, Martinich said, but he believes it still represents the largest independent research on Latter-day Saint missionaries to date.

The responses provided “invaluable data in regards to the convert retention, member activity, proselytism, cultural conditions, leadership development, and factors that have hampered or accelerated growth in nearly every country where the church has an official presence,” Martinich wrote in the introduction to his analysis.

Though mission approaches and emphases varied from place to place, he said, “there are significant problems with the success of the missionary program [as a whole] despite repeated efforts to make it more effective.”

That is most evident, Martinich said, in the 16 million-member faith’s declining growth rates.

In 2017, the membership growth rate fell to its lowest level since 1937, and the number of convert baptisms reached a 30-year low. Congregational growth rates consistently lag behind membership growth rates, Martinich reported, and the ratio of converts baptized per missionary has dropped from six to eight a year in the 1970s and ’80s to 3.5.

Gary Crittenden, managing director of the church’s missionary department, is well aware of the Utah-based faith’s sliding growth rate — a trend plaguing many denominations — and has read Martinich’s critique and suggestions with interest.

“I want to make sure that I’m consuming ideas that people have for us,” Crittenden told The Salt Lake Tribune. “I don't think there’s anybody here that thinks we’ve got every great idea. We can learn from others and the experience of others. And we have tried to react to what we’re hearing from people, to listen and learn and try and be better as a result of that.”

But, he added, “that doesn’t mean we’re there yet.”

Here are some of Martinich’s concerns and suggestions for reform:

Pressure to baptize

Latter-day Saint history is filled with tales of missionaries who baptized scores of would-be members on a single day, or at least in a short time. Such seemingly miraculous success stories are shared with these young emissaries as they set out to preach and with their mission presidents tasked with overseeing these proselytizing armies. To some, the sheer number of baptisms is seen as an indicator of the faith’s continued appeal.

But tactics to boost the numbers, including “rushing poorly prepared converts into baptism,” Martinich noted, deserve “serious criticism by mission leaders and full-time missionaries.”

This practice “not only does violence to the sacred nature of the ordinance and lessens the significance of the long-term commitment to follow Christ and remain active in the church,” he wrote, “but results in the church achieving only a small portion of its potential growth.”

In recent years, the church has worked to “retool its missionary program through efforts such as the ‘Preach My Gospel’ [manual] ... [which] states that an investigator should attend church at least ‘several times,’” Martinich said, but “these efforts have generally yielded mixed results on a global scale.” He recommends eliminating missionwide “baptism goals,” and focusing on “other metrics such as church attendance for both hours of church, daily scripture study and prayer, and the number of friends/family who attend a lesson.”

Crittenden noted that the church attendance guideline of “several times” is intentionally vague.

“There are differences in preparation among people, depending on their predisposition,” he said, “and what’s happened to them in their life.”

Latter-day Saint leaders trust their young charges “to exercise judgment” about how much church participation is enough, Crittenden said. “We still rely on missionaries when they sit across the table from someone and talk about the gospel to feel impressed about what they should ask them to do.”

There’s “always a balance,” he said, between moving toward commitment too quickly and too slowly.

Challenging every person on the street to be baptized “is not our intent,” he said. “Our hope is that they’ll follow the spirit.”

Frayed ties with members

In the survey, returned missionaries in many areas of the world complained of “a distrusting, negative relationship between full-time missionaries and local members,” Martinich reported, saying that members are often skeptical of missionary motivations, had negative experiences with previous “elders” or “sisters,” or that finding new members is up to the missionaries, not to them. Many respondents also pointed to “a disconnect between mission leadership and local church leadership.”

Martinich suggests having bishops or branch presidents, who oversee congregations, conduct baptism interviews of prospective converts, rather than missionaries.

“One of the biggest challenges with the missionary program is that there are two organizational systems that are at least partially focused on the same goal (missionary work),” the independent demographer wrote, “but these systems struggle to communicate and collaborate with one another.”

He further proposed that bishops and branch presidents in some areas be responsible for full-time missionaries instead of, or in addition to, mission presidents “to help reduce this disconnect and better empower local leaders.”

Crittenden had a different take on the two groups of leaders — seeing them as partners, not competitors.

One or the other might view “the candidate as ready or not,” he said. “Having that balance [between the two] is probably good.”

Down with dinners

Replacing missionary dinner appointments with informal, small group discussions, known as “cottage meetings,” that are organized by the members (not the missionaries), Martinich said, “would be an effective approach to engaging local members in missionary work.”

Cottage meetings “are not a substitute for investigators attending church,” David Stewart wrote in his book, “Law of the Harvest: Practical Principles of Effective Missionary Work,” “but they represent a valuable supplement that facilitates the consistent achievement of vital teaching and fellowshipping tasks ... and have also played an essential role in laying the foundation for the church in some new areas and nations.”

The church “would never discourage cottage meetings,” Crittenden said, “if we thought they could do more.”

But it’s not going to be an edict from headquarters, he said. “It’s really a local question... a decision made between the stake president and the mission president, and whatever they think is right is totally fine with us.”

Creating a structure

For years, the church has managed its growth through a program known as “centers of strength,” beginning from an urban center and then adding more congregations on that base.

Almost invariably, “returned missionaries report good receptivity and significant growth, when new branches or member groups are opened in lesser-reached neighborhoods or cities where no previous church presence operated,” Martinich noted, yet “the incidence of the church opening additional cities and towns [beyond the center] is surprisingly rare.”

That’s because the centers of strength model “makes a lot of sense,” Crittenden countered. It has served the church’s growth needs well.

“There’s obviously lots of places in Africa where missionaries could go out in the backcountry and people could accept the gospel there,” he said. “But there’s virtually no infrastructure there to provide support to them. Whereas if you have a center of strength, then you build up and you get capacity.”

The church “occasionally makes mistakes” following this approach, but there are no plans to change it, he said — not even if a lot of returned missionaries think a different strategy would work.

Cultural preparedness

It is overwhelmingly difficult to create a uniform teaching program that would work in vastly different cultures worldwide, Martinich noted, especially not in missions “where most do not have a background in Western Christianity.”

He urges longer stays in Missionary Training Centers to better prepare these young evangelizers to tailor their messages to various backgrounds, including non-Western Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs and the nonreligious, .

Crittenden balks at the idea of longer MTC time. His experience and observance are that young missionaries “learn a ton more about the culture the minute [they] show up” in their assigned country, he said, not in the MTC.

His department is addressing one question: Should the way the lessons are taught in different places in the world be distinct?

“The answer to that is, undoubtedly, yes,” he said. “And, again, that’s what we ask the missionaries to be wise and thoughtful about.”

The church is working on “helping the missionaries be more thoughtful about their approach,” Crittenden said, for example, “which lessons they cover and in which order.”

His department also is exploring whether technology of the future might help provide some of this cultural awareness.

Church planting

According to Martinich, the LDS Church has experimented with asking married couples to move to a particular country to set up small groups of Latter-day Saints. It’s a common technique among other Christian faiths, and he believes Mormonism should look into doing more of that.

Crittenden doesn’t know of any Latter-day Saint cases of such planting — though he has heard of members “who’ve called themselves to do it” — and said the faith has no plans to do it right now.

Riess, the RNS columnist, likes Martinich’s ideas about “altering the ‘centers of strength’ approach to be more flexible and nimble at the grass-roots level and adapting some of the church-planting strategies other denominations have used successfully.”

Latter-day Saints “only have to look into our own past,” she said, “for successful models of how this can be done in new areas.”

Martinich’s research pointed to aspects of missionary work, Crittenden said, that headquarters “is actively working on now,” but he declined to offer any specifics.

When asked if church authorities were considering extending female missionaries’ service from 18 months to 24 months, parallel with their male counterparts, the managing director looked surprised.

Crittenden said, “I’ve never had a conversation with any of our senior leaders about it.”

Today is a historic day for the state.

Uninsured low-income Utahns across the state can begin signing up to receive health coverage under Medicaid starting April 1 — an achievement that was years in the making and promises an opportunity for as many as 90,000 residents to lead a healthier, longer and more prosperous life.

The landmark, however, may be short-lived.

Last week, the Trump administration filed a brief in federal court supporting a Texas judge’s ruling that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional and should be struck down.

“The Department of Justice has determined that the district court’s judgment should be affirmed,” three political appointees wrote in the 5th Circuit filing.

Utah is among the 20 Republican-led states suing to have the law invalidated which, seeing how Utah is now embracing big parts of the Affordable Care Act, puts Attorney General Sean Reyes in kind of a mess.

Even as Utah proceeds to expand Medicaid, Reyes’ office and his colleagues are trying to undo the entire Affordable Care Act. If they are successful, we would be back at square one, with Congress and the states having to rebuild a health care law.

“Because the final outcome of Utah’s ACA challenge is uncertain, it is probably not inappropriate for the Utah Legislature to move forward [with expansion] under the current law,” said Reyes’ chief of staff, Ric Cantrell.

The ACA lawsuit predated passage of Proposition 3, Cantrell said, and, in Reyes’ view, “States should always challenge federal overreach. That is our job.”

In the past, however, Reyes has seen his job somewhat differently: Defend Utah’s laws, no matter what, not to pick and choose.

“Once laws have been passed, in my mind, the die has been cast. The people have spoken,” Reyes said during his first re-election campaign in 2014.

That statement was in the context of his defense of Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage. But I pressed him on it at the time. Hypothetically, if the Legislature passed a law that was unconstitutional on its face and morally repugnant to him personally, would he absolutely defend that law all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary?

“Yes, or until the people change the law.”

Well, guess what? The people of Utah, Reyes’ 3.1 million bosses, have done just that. They changed the law by passing Proposition 3.

Not only that, the Utah Legislature added its own stamp of approval when it passed a law watering down Proposition 3, but still expanding Medicaid to the 90,000 low-income Utahns. The Legislature also decided to enable another 30,000 or so Utahns to continue purchasing subsidized health plans through the ACA marketplace.

And Gov. Gary Herbert literally added his name to that policy decision when he signed that bill into law.

That leaves Reyes on his own now, fighting to undo the will of Utah voters, the Legislature and the governor by overturning the Affordable Care Act. And make no mistake, if the lawsuit is successful, all of it would go away.

The protections for 391,000 Utahns with pre-existing conditions, gone.

The provisions allowing young people to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26, vanished.

The Medicaid expansion that will enable as many as 90,000 of Utah’s poorest individuals to get health care, poof.

And the coverage for nearly 195,000 Utahns through the health exchange, a thing of the past.

“On one hand, Reyes and the state are suing to eliminate all aspects of the ACA, including expansion. On the other hand, they’re counting on an administration that supports Utah in that position to approve ACA-based Medicaid expansion,” said Matt Slonaker, executive director of the Utah Health Policy Project. “It doesn’t seem like good planning or strategy to seek the very thing you are trying to eliminate. Politics is getting in the way of good sense.”

Indeed, in Reyes’ own philosophy, it’s not his duty or even his right to use the office to put his own policy or political beliefs ahead of the will of voters and the Legislature.

“If you want to make policy … you run for the Legislature. If you want a veto power, you run for governor,” Reyes said during a 2014 debate. “If you’re running for attorney general, you better be ready to defend all of the laws whether you agree with them or not, or whether they’re politically convenient or not.”

There is, of course, a simple way to resolve this tension, and that is for Reyes to mark today’s historic enactment by withdrawing Utah from the ill-conceived Texas lawsuit. That way, Reyes can honor both his own view of the proper role of an attorney general and the will of the Utah voters who he is elected to represent and who have spoken loudly and clearly on this issue.