Patty Henetz, a reporter who covered everything from the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City to environmental issues for both of Salt Lake City’s major daily newspapers and The Associated Press, has died at 69.

Henetz died March 23, after suffering for several years from corticobasal degeneration, a neurological disease that attacks the cerebral cortex.

Henetz’s reporting revealed a deep command of facts, and a sharp wit.

“She was a feisty thing, and very, very hardworking,” said Judy Voye, a retired film instructor and longtime friend.

A former Tribune colleague, Derek Jensen, wrote in a Facebook post over the weekend, “Patty had grit. And soul, for miles. … She cared. She worked stories longer and harder than anyone. Young journalists learned from her once they overcame their fear.”

An example of Henetz’s deep knowledge and lucid writing is the opening paragraph of a story filed Dec. 19, 2008, when activist Tim DeChristopher disrupted a Bureau of Land Management sale of oil and gas leases:

“He didn't pour sugar into a bulldozer's gas tank. He didn't spike a tree or set a billboard on fire. But wielding only a bidder's paddle, a University of Utah student just as surely monkey-wrenched a federal oil- and gas-lease sale Friday, ensuring that thousands of acres near two southern Utah national parks won't be opened to drilling anytime soon.”

Another story Henetz covered extensively involved the 2009 investigation that netted more than two dozen people, most from Blanding, Utah, accused of trafficking in illegal antiquities. Her work included interviews over several months with an undercover FBI informant, Ted Gardiner, who helped the feds bust the trafficking ring. Gardiner, fearing reprisal, died by suicide in 2010.

Patricia Lee Henetz was born Feb. 25, 1950, in San Diego County, Calif., the daughter of Virginia Fowler Henetz and U.S. Marine Capt. Michael Henetz. She grew up in Southern California, attending high school at Oceanside High School. She received a bachelor’s degree from San Diego State University and a master’s degree from University of California-San Diego, both in history. Her specialty was the American West in the 20th century.

“She really loved the West, and the history of the West,” Voye said.

Voye and Henetz met as employees at Alta in the early 1970s. “She had a college roommate who had come to Utah to ski, and she called Patty [saying], ‘You have to get out here,’” Voye recalled.

Henetz loved the outdoors, Voye said, and for a while split her time between the Utah slopes and the California beaches.

Henetz’s first jobs as a reporter, Voye said, were in northern California in the late 1970s, first at a small-town paper near Sacramento, then at the Sacramento Bee. She moved around a lot in the 1970s and ‘80s, back to southern California and briefly to Telluride, Colo., but she always came back to Utah.

“She just loved it here,” Voye said.

Henetz wrote at the Deseret News in the early 1990s, then worked a stint at the Salt Lake City bureau of The Associated Press from 1993 to 1994. She reported for The Salt Lake Tribune from 1994 to 1999, covering government and health care issues, as well as the preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympics.

After graduate studies in Maryland, Henetz returned to The Associated Press in Salt Lake City, from 2001 to 2004, and was involved in AP’s Olympics coverage. She jumped back to The Tribune in 2004, staying until a staff layoff in 2012. She moved to Bend, Ore., for a stretch, then returned to Salt Lake City to work as a freelancer.

Henetz joined other ex-Tribune staffers to work on a lawsuit against The Tribune’s then-owners, the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, and the Deseret News over the joint operating agreement that governs the business operations of both papers.

“Patty was really there for the fight,” said Joan O’Brien, daughter of former Tribune publisher Jerry O’Brien, and one of the founders of the nonprofit Save the Salt Lake Tribune Foundation, which filed the lawsuit. “She was definitely adamant about the cause.”

The lawsuit accused Alden and the Deseret News of changing the revenue split between the papers in a way that threatened the Tribune’s existence and violating the federal law that governs joint agreements between newspapers. The case ultimately was settled when Alden sold The Tribune to the Huntsman family.

In 2003, Henetz married Vern Anderson, who was AP’s Salt Lake City bureau chief from 1980 to 1999 and worked at the Tribune from 1999 to 2013, taking the job of editorial page editor in 2002. They divorced in 2011.

Henetz is survived by a brother, Michael Henetz of Alturas, Calif., and two nieces.

No funeral services are planned. Following her wishes, her body was donated to the University of Utah. Donations are suggested to organizations researching brain disease, such as CurePSP (psp.org) or the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (theaftd.org).

The Utah Department of Public Safety says it has arrested 38 people under Utah’s .05 DUI law, FOX 13 reports.

In January, the first month the new law was implemented, 844 were arrested statewide; of those, 38 were arrested for driving with a blood alcohol level between 0.05 and 0.079.

• 7 were under 21 years old, on par with previous data.
• 24 were restricted alcohol drivers, meaning they previously have been arrested for driving under the influence.
• 2 had prescription or illegal drugs in their system, in addition to the alcohol.
• 1 refused a field sobriety test or chemical draw, and officers had to issue a warrant that came back positive.

Sgt. Nicholas Street of the Utah Highway Patrol told FOX 13 that the numbers showed troopers made arrests based on impairment, which is the legal standard for pulling someone over.

“We’re happy to see troopers still making arrests based on impairment,” he said.

Utah has the toughest anti-drunken driving law in the nation — most other states put the limit at 0.08 percent blood alcohol content, compared to Utah’s 0.05.

“It was never about the arrests. I’m far more interested in the reduction in crashes, injuries and deaths,” said Rep. Norm Thurston, who sponsored the 0.05 DUI law.

Editor’s note: The Salt Lake Tribune and FOX 13 are content-sharing partners.

Washington • Aides to Joe Biden struck a more aggressive tone on Monday as the former vice president faced scrutiny over his past behavior toward women.

In a statement, Biden spokesman Bill Russo blasted “right wing trolls” from “the dark recesses of the internet” for conflating images of Biden embracing acquaintances, colleagues and friends in his official capacity during swearing-in ceremonies with uninvited touching.

The move came on a day in which a second woman said Biden had acted inappropriately, touching her face with both hands and rubbing noses with her in 2009. The allegation by Amy Lappos, a former aide to Democratic Rep. Jim Hines of Connecticut, followed a magazine essay by former Nevada politician Lucy Flores, who wrote that Biden kissed her on the back of the head in 2014.

The developments underscored the challenge facing Biden should he decide to seek the White House. Following historic wins in the 2018 midterms, Democratic politics is dominated by energy from women. The allegations could leave the 76-year-old Biden, long known for his affectionate mannerisms, appearing out of touch with the party as the Democratic presidential primary begins.

Lappos told The Associated Press that she and other Himes aides were helping out at a fundraiser in a private home in Hartford, Connecticut, in October 2009 when Biden entered the kitchen to thank the group for pitching in.

“After he finished speaking, he stopped to talk to us about how important a congressional staff is, which I thought was awesome,” Lappos said.

She said she was stunned as Biden moved toward her.

“He wrapped both his hands around my face and pulled me in,” said Lappos, who is now 43. “I thought, ‘Oh, God, he’s going to kiss me.’ Instead, he rubbed noses with me.” Biden said nothing, she said, then moved off. She said the experience left her feeling “weird and uncomfortable” and was “absolutely disrespectful of my personal boundaries.”

The Hartford Courant first reported Lappos’ assertion.

Russo didn’t directly respond to Lappos, instead referring to a Sunday statement in which Biden said he doesn’t believe he has acted inappropriately during his long public life. The former vice president said in that statement: “We have arrived at an important time when women feel they can and should relate their experiences, and men should pay attention. And I will.”

Statement from @JoeBiden this morning. pic.twitter.com/EbCchX2npU

— Bill Russo (@BillR) March 31, 2019

Biden hasn’t made a final decision on whether to run for the White House. But aides who weren’t authorized to discuss internal conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity said there were no signs that his team was slowing its preparations for a campaign.

Biden’s potential Democratic rivals haven’t rushed to back him up. Over the weekend, presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand came closest to calling out the former vice president. Warren said Biden “needs to give an answer” about what occurred. Gillibrand said, “If Vice President Biden becomes a candidate, this is a topic he’ll have to engage on further.”

Ultraviolet, a women’s advocacy group, tweeted: “Joe Biden cannot paint himself as a champion of women and then refuse to listen and learn from a woman who says his actions demeaned her. ‘Good intentions’ don’t matter if the actions are inappropriate. Do better, Joe.”

Joe Biden cannot paint himself as a champion of women and then refuse to listen and learn from a woman who says his actions demeaned her.

"Good intentions" don't matter if the actions are inappropriate.

Do better, Joe. And thank you @LucyFlores for coming forward.

— UltraViolet (@UltraViolet) April 1, 2019

“Sure overpopulation is a problem. That’s why people should have lots of babies. Because one day, one of those babies is going to grow up and solve that problem.”

— Ted Baxter

In geometry, any two points make a line. In professional punditry, any three points constitute a meaningful trend.

• Point 1: Utah’s Sen. Mike Lee made a total fool of himself by standing up on the floor of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body to claim that the answer to problems caused in large part by the overpopulation of the world was for people to have more babies.

• Point 2: Republicans are trying to have the whole of the Affordable Care Act declared unconstitutional, attempting to toss upwards of 20 million Americans off the already-too-small roll of people who have health insurance.

• Point 3: The latest edition of the General Social Survey indicates that the number of people who had no sexual relations with another person over the preceding year has reached an all-time high. Nearly a quarter of U.S. adults self-reportedly came up empty in that department in 2018. (One presumes that the number of people who had sex and denied it is balanced by the number of people who didn’t have sex claimed they did.)

• Meaning: We are well beyond the era where people have lots of babies out of fear that only a few of them will survive to adulthood — or even long enough to pull a plow — and have entered a time when many people, quite logically, are having fewer babies out of fear that they won’t be properly taken care of. That, in fact, their arrival will only accelerate the demise of human civilization as we know it.

Lee’s argument is exactly the one referenced above, made by the dimwitted anchorman who was the bane of Mary Richards’ existence on the classic “Mary Tyler Moore Show” more than — gasp — 40 years ago.

Not that there is never wisdom in the words of fools.

In a slightly more sentient essay on his Senate web page, Lee correctly points out that past predictions of global catastrophe have not come to pass because human ingenuity stepped in. Increased population did not cause millions to starve to death, because agriculture made great strides even as the birth rate soared.

Lee might well also have noted that aerosol sprays didn’t destroy the atmosphere, the turning of the calendar to the year 2000 didn’t play havoc with every computer on earth and the American bald eagle did not go extinct. In each case, humans became aware of what the future was going to be like if we did not act. So we figured it out and, individually, culturally and through our government institutions, invented new technologies and changed our behavior, thereby avoiding what could well have been a dreadful future.

Of course, the senator also included a sorry No-I-didn’t-see-"Chinatown"-why-do-you-ask? example of how city of Los Angeles was able to grow to its current megalopolis size with major water projects. Projects built with a massive grab of water rights from farmers and Indian tribes described in Mark Reisner’s 1993 "Cadillac Desert“ as “chicanery, subterfuge ... and a strategy of lies.”

People are having less sex, and fewer babies, for reasons both good and worrisome. Women have other things to do. A knowledge economy that places no value on upper-body strength should be, and increasingly is, a way for women to realize, like Ted’s friend Mary, that they can make it after all with no husband and no children.

Meanwhile, the social safety net that might make people feel more secure bringing new lives into the world is under active and sustained attack — by Lee and his fellow Republicans. The deliberate transfer of wealth from the rest of us to the 1 percent, increasing numbers of men with no jobs and no prospects, Third World rates of maternal and infant mortality in the U.S. and political leaders whose response to climate change is, “Don’t worry your pretty little heads about it,” do nothing to inspire confidence in our future as an ideal place to raise a family.

We could well, as Lee says, think our way out of this. We could invent sustainable, clean sources of energy and build a future where the population can increase in ways that don’t destroy the planet.

But you can’t avoid a calamity if you refuse to see it coming.

George Pyle, editorial page editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, notes that we have made it well into the 21st century with neither Martian colonies nor World War III. gpyle@sltrib.com

With a Democratic House majority in place, we see more clearly than ever how Republican docility enabled President Donald Trump’s lawlessness for the first two years of his presidency. When “normal” congressional behavior appears to check the executive branch — e.g. oversight hearings, subpoenas, use of the bully pulpit — we see the degree to which congressional Republicans have been tied at the hip to Trump and his attacks on the rule of law.

We learn, for example, just how irrational, reckless and politicized the security clearance process became. The Washington Post reported April 1:

"Tricia Newbold, a longtime White House security adviser, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee that she and her colleagues issued 'dozens' of denials for security clearance applications that were later approved despite their concerns about blackmail, foreign influence or other red flags, according to panel documents released Monday.

"Newbold, an 18-year veteran of the security clearance process who has served under both Republican and Democratic presidents, said she warned her superiors that clearances 'were not always adjudicated in the best interest of national security' - and was retaliated against for doing so."

All of this should have come out a long time ago, but Republicans had no interest in overseeing whether Trump was putting national security at risk.

Not that this news is surprising. We already knew about Rob Porter, the now-former White House staff secretary who was allowed to keep his clearance despite allegations of spousal abuse. We've seen how Trump puts personal, familial and financial interests above those of the nation's, be it self-enrichment during his presidency from his properties, his excessive deference to the Saudis or the pursuit of riches in Moscow during the campaign.

We also know that he has since his campaign surrounded himself with future convicts (e.g. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen) and empowered advisers who were ethically compromised (e.g. Scott Pruitt, Tom Price, Brock Long, Ryan Zinke) and incompetent (e.g. his children). The result is erratic and highly personalized governance conducted at the whim of an ignorant narcissist. This is precisely how authoritarian regimes around the world operate.

The mechanism for stopping such conduct generally rests with Congress. But with former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell all in on partisan loyalty, Trump's whims went unchecked.

The same pattern is evident in Attorney General William Barr's handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's report. As House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., writes: "The entire reason for appointing the special counsel was to protect the investigation from political influence. By offering us his version of events in lieu of the report, the attorney general, a recent political appointee, undermines the work and the integrity of his department. He also denies the public the transparency it deserves. We require the full report - the special counsel's words, not the attorney general's summary or a redacted version."

Nadler continues: "We require the report, first, because Congress, not the attorney general, has a duty under the Constitution to determine whether wrongdoing has occurred. The special counsel declined to make a 'traditional prosecutorial judgment' on the question of obstruction, but it is not the attorney general's job to step in and substitute his judgment for the special counsel's.

"That responsibility falls to Congress - and specifically to the House Judiciary Committee - as it has in every similar investigation in modern history. The attorney general's recent proposal to redact the special counsel's report before we receive it is unprecedented. We require the evidence, not whatever remains after the report has been filtered by the president's political appointee."

Nadler might have added that it is also Congress's duty to see whether legislation is needed to remedy existing flaws in our counterintelligence system or gaps in our laws, which confer no affirmative duty on campaigns to report foreign meddling.

Instead of acting on behalf of the American people, Barr abets disinformation and public confusion, delaying a proper reckoning of the president's conduct.

If Republicans still held the majority in the House, it's likely we would never see the Mueller report. As things are now, Nadler and his committee might have to resort to subpoenas and the courts to get the full, unredacted report. The report is the work product for the American people, not for Trump or Barr. To be blunt, we taxpayers paid for it and have every right to see it.

Whether it is security clearances, Russian meddling, foreign emoluments, nepotism mixed with conflicts of interest, politicization of the Justice Department, constant lying to the American public or use of the presidency to enrich the current Oval Office occupant, the administration is a study in corruption, the practice of bending public powers to private uses and engaging others to disregard their public obligations.

The first step is to remove the party that fails to uphold our democratic norms. That means throwing Republicans out of the majority in both houses and the White House. The second step is to reevaluate what laws and procedural rules must be changed (just as we did after Watergate). And the third step is a public reckoning for the enablers of this reign of lawlessness — including the Congress, right-wing think tanks, right-wing media and right-wing organizations that sacrificed intellectual and moral integrity for a lousy tax cut and some judges.

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post.

@JRubinBlogger

With Derrick Favors (back spasms) and Kyle Korver (sore right knee) both unavailable for Wednesday night’s game, the Jazz sometimes had to resort to a second-unit lineup of Ekpe Udoh-Georges Niang-Jae Crowder-Joe Ingles-Raul Neto that was, to put it charitably, offense-deficient.

The Charlotte Hornets’ making just 1 of their first 21 attempts from 3-point range, however, made whatever occasional inadequacies Utah had scoring the ball virtually irrelevant.

Needless to say, the Jazz were efficient enough the rest of the time and had plenty points in the end to dispatch Charlotte (in spite of a second-half explosion from All-Star guard Kemba Walker), prevailing 111-102 for their fifth straight win overall and their 10th in 11 games.

Utah is now 47-30 on the season.

While coach Quin Snyder likes to note that the Jazz’s stingy defense usually facilitates their best offense, he suggested this particular affair may have flipped things around for once.

“As much as anything, us executing on the offensive end — when we were able to do that, we were able to set our defense and be better,” he said.

Quin: "As much as anything, us executing on the offensive end — when we were able to do that, we were able to set our defense and be better." pic.twitter.com/nWJeaLWTyS

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) April 2, 2019

That was the case for most of the evening, anyway.

Donovan Mitchell scored a team-high 23 points (adding five assists and four steals), and the Jazz got double-doubles from Rudy Gobert (18 points, 18 rebounds) and Ricky Rubio (20 points, 13 assists).

Joe Ingles added 15 points (making 5 of 8 from deep), five rebounds, and four assists, while Thabo Sefolosha, who got almost 23 minutes off the short-handed bench, hit 5 of 6 shots — including 4 of 5 from deep — for a season-high 14 points.

As a result, Charlotte scored just 23, 16, and 25 points in each of the first three quarters, respectively, and trailed by as many as 20 points.

“It’s one thing to keep running back in transition, but it’s different when we keep making shots and they gotta play against our halfcourt defense,” Mitchell said.

To that effect, Utah converted its field-goal attempts at a 48.1% clip, had 30 assists on 38 made baskets, and drained 15 shots from deep (making 42.9%).

The Hornets, on the other hand, were shooting just 37.5% after the first quarter, 29.8% at halftime, and 33.8% after three.

The reason it wound up being not quite that ugly is because of Walker.

The point guard recovered from a nine-point first-half start to pour in 38 of his 47 points after the break for the Hornets, who wound up converting 13 of 22 shots in the final 12 minutes for a 38-point period.

Still, in the end, Charlotte made just 40% of its shots overall, and finished 7 of 30 from deep, and whatever scoring histrionics Walker racked up, they were never enough to put the game in jeopardy late.

“We limited their shots and they got hot late, and fortunately we had a big enough lead to withstand that,” Mitchell said. “It’s gonna happen, so you continue just to guard and do your thing.”

Donovan Mitchell, on the defensive effort: "I think we did a good job. At one point they were 1 for 21 [on 3s]. We limited their shots and they got hot late, and fortunately we had a big enough lead to withstand that. It’s gonna happen, so you continue just to guard." pic.twitter.com/UgSxTviwA2

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) April 2, 2019

It remains to be seen, meanwhile, if Utah’s depth can withstand further depletion. Crowder suffered a quad injury late in the third quarter and did not return.

His teammates said it’s incumbent upon everyone still capable of playing to pick up the slack.

“We’re getting connected, and that’s great — even with guys out,” said Rubio. “Everybody’s stepping in and doing their job and raising the level even more.”

hat’s a great accomplishment.”

Charles Jones Jr. is transferring from the Utah basketball program with one year of eligibility remaining, 247Sports reported Monday.

Jones’ entering the NCAA transfer portal is not a surprising move, even though the graduation of guards Sedrick Barefield and Parker Van Dyke may have created more playing time for him as a senior. Jones averaged 2.6 points as a Utah junior in 2018-19, after transferring from the College of Southern Idaho as the NJCAA Player of the Year.

Jones shot 35.2 percent from the field for Utah, failing to show the long-range ability the Utes will need in the absence of Barefield and Van Dyke. The coaching staff is in the market for a shooter who can help immediately. The Utes have received a commitment from Brandon Haddock, a 6-foot-2 guard from Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas. Tajzmel Sherman, a guard from Collin College in Texas, visited Utah last week and is expected to make his choice after a trip to West Virginia in mid-April.

Chapter 2... #GoUtes 🔴⚪️⚫️ pic.twitter.com/yI6ftpF3oG

— Brandon Haddock (@Brandonhaddock7) April 2, 2019

The Utes will return part-time starting guard Both Gach in 2019-20. Naseem Gaskin will be a freshman after redshirting and Olympus High School’s Rylan Jones also will join the guard rotation.

Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak often praised Charles Jones’ effort, but usually in the context of his needing to learn more defensive concepts to stay on the court. Jones appeared in 27 of the Utes’ 31 games for an average of 11.6 minutes.

He started two games in November and scored 12 points in a rout of Mississippi Valley State, but didn’t have a consistent role in the rotation in Pac-12 play. Jones did score 11 points against Washington State at home January and hit a key 3-pointer to stem a WSU rally in a road win in late February, when Timmy Allen’s injury altered Utah’s playing rotation.

Jones later played a total of six minutes in wins over USC and UCLA to close the regular season and didn’t get off the bench in a loss to Oregon in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 tournament.

In the wake of the recent tragedy in New Zealand, I feel it is my duty to express my love for the Muslim community and those affected by this tragedy. As someone who comes from a country that has experienced so many injustices of a hateful nature, I sympathize with these people and their pain feels close to home.

I am reminded in times like these that it is our duty as humans to express our love for those affected and realize that this extends beyond the lines of religious factions. It is more than just about supporting those of our own religion, or even of those of different religions, it is about supporting our fellow human beings and their right to live freely.

We all may worship different Gods or no god at all but it is our human ability to love that should unite us.

Seth Whiting, Provo

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Dramatic bodycam footage shows a group of West Valley City police officers rescuing a man who was trapped on the second floor of an apartment building during a fire Monday morning.

“Come on! Jump! Jump!” officers can be heard shouting to the man, who is seen standing in a second-floor window, the fire burning behind him at the Decker Lake Apartment complex, 2184 W. 3100 South in West Valley City.

Officers drove a cruiser under the window and climbed on top of it, allowing them to reach the man as he dropped into their arms.

Officer Joshua Cook was the first responder at the fire, according to a department news release. Cook banged on doors to notify residents of the fire and tell them to evacuate; he then used his cruiser to knock down a fence and positioned the car next to the building so other officers could stand on it to reach the man.

“I was in the right place at the right time,” Cook told FOX 13.

Footage from another officer, Oscar DeLeon, shows a group of officers urging the man to jump and grabbing him as he puts his legs over the window sill.

“I gotcha! Jump, jump!” DeLeon can be heard shouting to the man. DeLeon told FOX 13 that the man was “older” and was struggling to jump out of the building.

“There are extraordinary and heroic actions on the part of several officers and a WVCPD supervisor,” wrote Roxeanne Vainuku, spokeswoman for the police department.

Five apartments were destroyed in the fire, FOX 13 reported.

Editor’s note: The Salt Lake Tribune and FOX 13 are content-sharing partners.

Washington • Colluding with Russia? The special counsel says no. Cheating at golf? Well, that’s something else.

From pulling a fast one on Tiger Woods to exaggerating his handicap, Donald Trump's alleged misdeeds on and around the golf course are the subject of a new book by former Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly, "Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump." Reilly documents dozens of examples of underhanded golf behavior by the president, transgressions talked about by pro golfers and duffers alike.

"In golf, he's definitely not exonerated," Reilly told The Associated Press. "There's been dozens and dozens of people that can declare him guilty of cheating."

One infamous instance came in a 2017 round with Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson, who is the current No. 1 player in the world. The president's playing partner, Fox Sports golf analyst Brad Faxon, reported that Trump's offenses included putting down a score that didn't account for two balls he hit into the water on one hole.

"You've heard so much about it, it's almost like you want to witness it so you can tell the stories," Faxon is quoted as saying.

No big deal, many would say. It's only a game.

But outside of formal tournaments, golf is a game of honor in which individual players act as their own referees, keep their own scores and assess themselves penalties for rule violations. Trump's cheating, Reilly said, motivated him to write the book.

Says Reilly: "I don't know much about politics, but I know golf and it really offended me, not as a voter or as a citizen — just as a golfer."

Reilly quotes players who accuse Trump, his caddie and Secret Service agents of regularly moving his golf balls out of difficult lies. At Winged Foot Golf Club in New York, the only non-Trump property where the president is a member, Reilly writes, "The caddies got so used to seeing him kick his ball back onto the fairway they came up with a nickname for him: 'Pele.'" That's the world soccer star from Brazil.

Sports announcer Mike Tirico says Trump once threw Tirico's golf ball off the green into a nearby bunker when they played together.

Some of the allegations aren't new. Boxer Oscar De La Hoya told The AP in 2016 that Trump cheated against him twice in the space of two holes. "Yes, I caught him," De La Hoya said. "It was unbelievable. But I guess it was his course, so it was his rules."

Trump, by all accounts, is a good golfer, especially for his age, Reilly writes. But the 2.8-stroke handicap he claims is the product of manipulation. A handicap is based on a golfer's most recent 20 scores and allows players of different skill levels to compete fairly against each other. Someone with Trump's handicap typically would shoot scores about three over par. Despite making more than 150 visits to his golf courses since taking office, Trump has logged only one round in the online USGA Handicap Index — and a 96 at that.

Trump's love of playing belies his past criticism of President Barack Obama's regular play and his own campaign declaration that he'd be so busy in the White House, "I'm not going to have time to go play golf."

"It helps to know golf, because golf explains Trump," Reilly says. The president peppers his public statements with golf metaphors, tweeting in December about the Federal Reserve, "The Fed is like a powerful golfer who can't score because he has no touch - he can't putt!"

And Reilly contends Trump's early days on the course provide a window into his zero-sum world-view.

Trump honed his game at Cobbs Creek, a public course outside of Philadelphia, which he later described as full of "hustlers" and where he "learned about everything." Reilly describes it as the sort of course where "everybody is trying to grift you," and where Trump learned "I got to cheat them before they cheat me."

Bryan Marsal, the chair of the 2020 U.S. Open to be played at Winged Foot, told Reilly that Trump began one game with him as a partner by warning: "You see those two guys? They cheat. See me? I cheat. And I expect you to cheat because we're going to beat those two guys today."

Trump is hardly the first president accused of bending the rules at golf. Bill Clinton was infamous for his "Billigans" — taking do-over shots openly and without remorse. But Reilly, who's known Trump for decades and played with him for his book "Who's Your Caddy?" recounts Trump's score-altering and other schemes as "so brazen you almost admire it."

Reilly, clearly no fan of the president, said he undertook the project because of Trump's "whopper" — repeated over the course of the campaign and in the White House — that he won 18 club championships.

Reilly could not corroborate a single Trump victory in a club championship, and found the president's tally includes at least one in which Trump never played on the course that day, another in which he counted the inaugural round at a yet-to-be-opened club, and 12 that were "actually senior or super senior club championships."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Reilly said he’s issuing Trump a challenge to defend his reputation in a match on a course that he doesn’t own refereed by officials — offering $100,000 to the charity of the president’s choice. Reilly, whose handicap is a 4.8, says he’s confident Trump “can’t cover that 2.8. No way.”

Milan • A 26-foot sperm whale was found dead off Sardinia with 48.5 pounds of plastic in its belly, prompting the World Wildlife Foundation to sound an alarm Monday over the dangers of plastic waste in the Mediterranean Sea.

The environmental group said the garbage recovered from the sperm whale's stomach included a corrugated tube for electrical works, plastic plates, shopping bags, tangled fishing lines and a washing detergent package with its bar code still legible.

The female whale beached off the northern coast of Sardinia last week, within the vast Pelagos marine sanctuary that was created as a haven for dolphins, whales and other sea life.

"It is the first time we have been confronted with an animal with such a huge quantity of garbage," Cinzia Centelegghe, a biologist with the University of Padova, told the Turin daily La Stampa.

The exam also determined that the whale was carrying a fetus that had died and was in an advance state of decomposition. Experts said the mother whale had been unable to digest calamari due to the huge amount of plastic it had ingested, filling two-thirds of its stomach.

WWF said plastic is one of the greatest threats to marine life and has killed at least five other whales that had ingested large amounts of it over the last two years from Europe to Asia.

Another sperm whale died off the Italian island of Ischia, near Naples, last December with plastic bags and a thick nylon thread in its stomach, but plastic was not the cause of death.

The World Wildlife Foundation said between 150,000 and 500,000 tons of plastic objects and 70,000 to 130,000 tons of micro-plastics wind up in Europe's seas each year.

To combat the phenomenon, the European Parliament last week approved a new law banning a wide range of single-use plastic products, including plates and straws, starting in 2021.

Italy's environment minister, Sergio Costa, lamented the whale's death and said he planned to propose a new law this week to limit the use of plastics.

The law will permit fishermen to bring plastics recovered at sea to land for proper disposal, which they currently are barred from doing. Costa also pledged Italy would be one of the first countries to enact the European single-use plastics ban and appealed to the mayors of Italian cities and coastal towns to adopt the ordinances in advance of the 2021 law.

“We have been using disposable plastics in a carefree way in these years, and now we are paying the price,” he said. “The war on disposable plastics has started. And we won’t stop here.”

A Provo man is accused of collecting nude pictures from underage girls as young as 12, from multiple states, and sending messages discussing raping and kidnapping them.

The man, 31, also is accused of urging one girl to kill herself and encouraging others to molest other children.

The man, 31, was charged last month with 43 felony counts in connection with Facebook messages he allegedly exchanged with six girls since 2017.

In the messages he solicited and received, he repeatedly referred to himself as “daddy,” according to charging documents. When he asked one girl, 15, to molest her young nephew, she replied, “I will daddy,” prosecutors wrote.

He allegedly told one 14-year-old he wanted to choke her and asked another girl, “You want to be raped and hurt?” charging documents state.

According to prosecutors, he also told one girl to “molest the kids you watch,” apparently referring to children she babysits. When the girl said she could get caught, the man allegedly asked her: “What’s more important my happiness or yours?”

The man wrote to one of the girls that he lived close enough to visit her and told her to delete their message history to avoid being caught, court documents state.

He also sent sexuallly explicit photos of prepubescent children, according to jail documents.

Investigators are trying to identify the juvenile victims in the case and believe one lives in or around Ogden, one in Oklahoma, one in Iowa and one in West Virginia.

The man was charged with 34 second-degree felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and six second- and third-degree felony counts of enticing a minor. He also was charged with third-degree felony counts of dealing in harmful material to a minor and obstructing justice.

Three thoughts on the Jazz’s 111-102 win over the Charlotte Hornets from Salt Lake Tribune beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Ricky Rubio creating offense

When Ricky Rubio was on the court for the Jazz tonight, they had a 128 offensive rating. When he was off the court, that offensive rating fell to 75.

It felt that way, too. Rubio just manipulated the Hornets defense to make guys open, whether it be with dribbles or his eyes. The Hornets defense wanted to switch often, a strategy that worked very well with the Jazz’s bench in. But with the starters, Rubio could give the Hornets that split second of indecision that caused players to be open.

Here’s his full highlight video from tonight:

📹| @rickyrubio9 ⤵️

20p | 13a | 2r | 9-9 ft pic.twitter.com/Rc1XDOgye7

— x - Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) April 2, 2019

There’s no doubt that a lot of these are mistakes by the Hornets defense: they can’t fail to communicate this many times. But when they’re not sure if Rubio is passing or driving, or they think he’s passing to the perimeter when he’s really going inside, or vice versa, the result is a lot of wide open baskets.

I also like the way he’s been attacking the rim more frequently. Sure, that meant he went 1-for-3 at the rim tonight, not a pretty percentage. But when you take into account the free-throws he drew (nine of them), that’s still a very efficient play.

The overall numbers still aren’t great as to his effectiveness on drives: according to the NBA’s tracking data, Rubio only scores 4.6 points on his 12.2 drives per game even when taking into account fouls drawn, one of the lowest such ratios in the NBA. But tonight, he found a healthy balance of driving and finding his teammates in other ways.

2. Kemba Walker is really, really good

I mean, this isn’t really a surprise, by any means: Kemba Walker first impressed in his college career at UConn before being drafted ninth overall by Charlotte. He did have somewhat of a slow start in his first couple of seasons, but he’s one of those guys that has just improved every single season and has now become a no-doubter All-Star.

He’s taking a higher percentage of possessions on this season, which has impacted his shooting percentages. But he’s not turning the ball over any more, his assists have gone up, and his defense and rebounding is still improved from last year. The Hornets absolutely crater when he’s not out there for the third straight season.

Walker had 47 points tonight, and obviously, that’s a big number. The 22 points he scored in the last five minutes were wildly impressive, true, but also it was definitely garbage time by then. The threes were pretty impressive.

But as much as I liked what he did with his shot, I was more impressed with his ability to draw fouls. That’s not always his skillset, actually: he takes only about 0.2 more free throws per 36 minutes than Donovan Mitchell. But tonight, when he realized that the Hornets couldn’t make a basket — at one point, they were 1-21 from beyond the 3-point line — he took it upon himself to score in some other way. That he did, going 13-15 from the charity stripe.

Oh, and he’s a free agent in the summer. I honestly have no idea if the Jazz signing Kemba is a realistic possibility or a pipe dream. The Jazz have no history whatsoever with signing a free agent with as good as a track record of production as Walker: Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur were young up-and-comers, and Joe Johnson was, well, the opposite. They notably failed to re-sign Gordon Hayward.

But there are those in the Jazz organization that swear that they’re going to get a notable free agent one of these offseasons, maybe this one, a player that eclipses what the team has done before. They’ve had the interest, they say — the notable example of Kyle Lowry, who they allegedly had to turn down in order to chase Hayward. Walker would be such a player: he’s a 3-time All-Star, a fantastic shooter, someone who could take pressure off Mitchell and vice versa, but still can run a team.

It sounds like Walker’s unlikely to stay in Charlotte: the performance of his teammates tonight is just another example as to the lack of help he’s consistently had throughout his entire eight-year tenure. I think it’s far more likely that Walker signs with another team; maybe joining other stars in L.A. or New York, but there’s a world in which those salary slots are filled and Utah’s a reasonable option.

3. “They are both us.”

Quin Snyder was asked about how he got the Charlotte’s 3-point attack to shoot just 1-21 to begin the game, and whether or not he was disappointed with the 6-9 3-point stretch that followed. I thought the next answer was revealing:

“It’s kind of like the questions I get about the first half of our season and the second half of our season. They are both us,” Snyder said. “Shooting over time, they aren’t going to stay cold that long.”

There are things that the Jazz can do to defend the 3-point line, sure. But you could defend the line with five Kawhi Leonards and they’re still just going to make way more than 4.8% on average. In fact, there’s a lot of good research that defending the 3-ball is much more about limiting attempts than it is percentage; whether or not the shots go in isn’t really highly correlated from year-to-year, for example.

The same is true with the Jazz’s schedule. Early in the year, they had a disappointing record. Some of that was due to a difficult schedule, and some of that was them legitimately playing poorly. Now, they’ve won 10 of their last 11 games against an easy schedule. Which team is the real Jazz? “They are both us.” The Jazz are both their strengths and their weaknesses, a lot of which quite frankly haven’t changed much at all over the course of 82 games.

I do feel like the living embodiment of this XKCD comic. I fall in this trap all of the time, even when I try very hard not to:

Tonight, the randomness favored the Jazz. Recently, in both schedule and playoff performance, it’s been doing that a lot. But I don’t feel substantially different about this team than I did 10 games ago, either. They’re good! Probably not great. But pretty good.

Equal Pay Day — the day that symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year — falls on April 2 this year. To mark the milestone, the National Partnership for Women and Families released an analysis of the pay gaps in individual states.

Utah continues to have one of the largest gender gaps in the country, based on the most recent data available from the U.S. Census.

The new analysis says Utah in 2017 had the nation’s second-highest pay gap for women, of $14,997, behind Louisiana’s gap of $15,737.

In 2016, after foundering near the lowest rung of states for its pay gap between men and women — Utah had hit rock bottom, or at least was in a tie for it that year with Louisiana.

A study using 2016 data, released last year by the American Association of University Women, said women who worked full time and year-round in both states on average earned only 70 cents on the dollar compared with men.

Economists say Utah’s gap is wide for many reasons: Its women have more children than average, likely causing absences that hurt their tenure and experience. They also tend to work in lower-paying careers, have lower college graduation rates and suffer widespread gender discrimination in pay.

Another study last year found wages for Utah women have actually declined in recent years.

A battle plan released by the Salt Lake Chamber and the Women’s Leadership Institute urges Utah businesses to start with evaluating their gaps and publishing salary information for various roles and levels within a firm. Other strategies include flexible schedules and paid leave.

Additional coverage by The Salt Lake Tribune of Utah’s gender pay gap:

Rolly: Why won’t the Legislature even study the gender pay gap?

Report: Utah’s culture — and a belief that salaries aren’t influenced by gender — contributes to women earning less

Utah is the second-most sexist state, researchers say — and women’s internalized sexism appears to play a unique role here

Happy Tuesday!

Another push to return to the moon — this time by the Trump administration — has critics wondering if such on-and-off again plans in recent years it is akin the the Peanuts cartoon where Lucy keep pulling away the football as Charlie Brown tries to kick it.

Vice President Mike Pence announced the goal last week to return to the moon by 2024, and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Monday the agency will need additional funding to meet it. He told a NASA town hall meeting he is also aware that past administrations set goals to reach the moon or Mars, only to pull them back as Congress failed to fund them or a new administrations canceled plans.

For example, during the presidency of George W. Bush, NASA was directed to go to the moon. Under Barack Obama, reaching an asteroid and Mars were the missions. Now, under President Trump, it’s the moon again.

“I hear the comment all the time about Lucy and the football,” Bridenstine said. “This is not Lucy and the football. In the executive branch, people are very serious, we are going to the moon and going fast.” [WaPost]

Topping the news: Utah’s Medicaid expansion program is now open for enrollment but health care advocates say that the limited expansion program, brought forth as a substitute for the voter approved full expansion, will leave thousands without coverage and may lead to a lawsuit. [Trib][Fox13][DNews]

-> A report spurred by former Sen. Orrin Hatch says the country’s 85,000 skilled worker visas are not sufficient to fill the needs of STEM related industries, which would require at least twice that amount. [Trib][DNews]

-> The so-called great cattle-gate case ends with a Colorado environmental activist pleading no contest and pointing fingers at southern Utah power brokers. [Trib]

Tweets of the day: From @JeremyBRoberts “Are we all just going to ignore @SpencerJCox just admitted to owning a Milli Vanilii tape? Because Spencer Cox just admitted that.”

-> From @CiciBird “I believe an important step toward ethical elections in Utah will be getting #RankedChoiceVoting established! I'm still holding out a smidgen of hope for our non-partisan 2019 SLC Mayoral election #utpol.”

-> From @MikeLMower “Between the @utahhousegop; the @utahhousedems; and the @utahsenate; There were 543 bills passed during the Utah Leg Session for @GovHerbert to review and sign. We are smiling because we will be done next week. #utpol.”

Happy Birthday: to former state Reps. Dana Layton and Julie Fisher and to state auditor John Dougall.

In other news: LuAnn Adams, Utah’s first woman to head the Department of Agriculture and Food is set to retire later this month, temporarily leaving the position to Deputy Commissioner Scott Ericson until a replacement is appointed by the governor. [Trib][DNews]

-> In the first month that Utah implemented a strict .05 limit DUI law, the state saw 38 arrests for driving under the influence. [Fox13]

-> Online April Fool’s pranks include the Utah National Guard claiming Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchell was enlisting in an artillery unit because of his love of shooting and teamwork. [Trib]

-> A transgender woman says her stay at Weber County jail, while not all negative, may highlight practices that have disproportionately negative effects on non-binary individuals. [Trib]

-> Tribune columnist George Pyle pens a criticism of Utah Senator Mike Lee’s approach to climate change. [Trib]

-> Tribune columnist, Robert Gehrke, highlights what he views as hypocrisy on the part of Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes in his support for undoing the Affordable Care Act. [Trib]

-> Pat Bagley illustrates a dry spell. [Trib]

-> Utah Sen. Mitt Romney has confirmed that he is involved in preliminary talks on health care reform amidst attempts by the feds to repeal the current Affordable Care Act. [DNews]

Nationally: President Donald Trump spoke out strongly Monday in favor of a contentious citizenship question that his administration is trying to add to the 2020 Census, saying the survey would be “meaningless” without it. [WaPost]

-> A White House whistleblower says state secrets are at risk after two dozen security clearance denials were reversed by the Trump Administration. [WaPost][NYTimes]

-> A second accusation of inappropriate physical contact has come against former Vice President Joe Biden who was expected to announce candidacy for the Democratic primary to the 2020 presidential election. [WaPost]

-> President Trump seems inclined to close the border with Mexico despite the chaos that could create [CNN]

-> Although the long battle over how to exit the European Union continues to plague politics in the UK, the split has already happened for many of the nation’s businesses. [NYTimes]

-> The longtime ruling party in Turkey is showing signs of weakness after municipality voting results returned in favor of the opposition. [NYTimes]

-> A disaster aid package failed to pass the Senate after U.S. President Donald Trump complained that too much aid was directed towards relief funds to Puerto Rico. [Politico]

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/Ninetta89

The charge of the special counsel’s investigation was to investigate the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. That’s what I want to read about, directly, from Robert Mueller’s full report. And it is what all Americans should want to read, and digest, for themselves.

We know that a dozen Russian nationals were indicted, though they won't be able to be prosecuted.

The collusion theme was a sideshow. The president should not crow about total exoneration, and those who trumpeted collusion should be chastened.

The television coverage, across the political spectrum, has been abominable, focusing on collusion and not on the purpose of the investigation — Russian interference in our 2016 election.

Let's stop the worthless conjecture. Let's work to protect our electoral system from foreign interference. Let's learn what Mueller found out, from his report, not from cursory summaries, so we are not victims of Russian meddling in our elections going forward.

Rochelle Kaplan, Cottonwood Heights

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The quiet south end of a massive warehouse in west Salt Lake City may one day ring with gunfire.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plans to build a new training center for its in-house security forces in an otherwise unremarkable church storehouse, complete with two shooting ranges and facilities for teaching about defensive tactics and the use of force.

Tentatively called the Church Security Department Training Center, the 67,600-square-foot facility would be remodeled from part of an existing bishops’ storehouse at 390 S. 5200 West in Salt Lake City, according to Feb. 8 architectural drawings leaked online and obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.

Church spokesman Eric Hawkins confirmed the new training center was under consideration but said that no final construction plans had been approved.

He said the longstanding mission of the Church Security Department — protecting church leaders, employees and the millions of worshippers visiting downtown Salt Lake City’s Temple Square and other church venues worldwide — “requires frequent training,” calling for specialized space and equipment.

“Growing demand on these types of facilities by all security and law enforcement services has required that church security find or construct new space for their training,” Hawkins told The Tribune in a statement.

He said the center did not reflect any proposed increases in security staffing levels for the global faith nor any shift in approach to existing training, deployment or use of firearms.

Hawkins said church security officers, in their traditional support role to police, fire and other emergency personnel, would continue to be trained and certified “in many facets of security and emergency response, including medical care, verbal communication skills, explosives detection, firearms proficiency and light-touch approaches to de-escalate situations.”

Word of the planned facility comes just days before the faith convenes its semiannual General Conference, drawing tens of thousands to downtown Salt Lake City’s Conference Center amid increased security for sessions Saturday and Sunday.

No timetable for construction of the church security training center is included in the 149-page computer-rendered blueprints, which were produced by FFKR Architects, a leading Salt Lake City firm that has also designed several temples and other church facilities.

Plans show the center would be built into the south end of what the church calls its Bishops’ Central Storehouse First Park Building, a structure that property records say was constructed in 2009. The storehouse is located just east of Deseret Transportation, a trucking subsidiary that serves the church’s philanthropic operations, and south of an R.C. Willey Home Furnishings warehouse at 256 S. 5500 West.

Blueprints indicate the training center would have at least two classrooms, along with several rooms and facilities dedicated to specialized security instruction.

One large hall and at least 10 smaller adjoining rooms are labeled for use in “force on force training,” plans indicate. Another large room would be used for “defensive tactics and physical training.” One area would feature a “use of force simulator,” according to blueprints.

Two shooting ranges — one 35 yards in length, the other 100 yards long, presumably for handguns and rifles, respectively — would occupy most of the new center’s north end, plans show. Designs call for 12 firing lanes on each range, along with ballistic ceilings, bullet traps and a complex system of suspended baffles to dampen noise.

The training center would be coed, judging from designs for locker rooms and other areas for men and women.

The rest of the 469,440-square-foot storehouse would remain in use, though separated from the training center by fortified walls and doors requiring keycard access, plans say.

Links to the blueprints were posted March 15 in an online discussion board called LDS Freedom Forum by someone identified as a subcontractor on the project. The link was redacted a week later, the original poster wrote, after the project’s general contractor told subcontractors the church had requested confidentiality.

FFKR and other Utah-based contractors involved in reviewing and certifying aspects of the plans declined to comment, citing privacy policies for their clients.

Until being contacted last week by The Tribune, top city officials were unaware the new facility was being contemplated within city limits, including Mayor Jackie Biskupski, key members of her executive staff and the city’s top planner.

“The city has no knowledge of this,” said Biskupski’s spokesman Matthew Rojas, who noted that no formal applications had been filed as yet at City Hall.

Hawkins said the lack of information reflected the fact the church’s plans were still being considered.

As proposed, the center would fall within the boundaries of the Utah Inland Port, carved out of Salt Lake City’s northwest quadrant by state lawmakers in 2018 as the future site of an advanced logistics and shipping hub. Under laws creating the trade zone, the Utah Inland Port Authority would have final say over approval of the church’s new training center after the city’s planning and zoning review process.

The site is on one of several large swaths held by the church inside the inland port.

Hawkins said officials chose the training center location because the church already owned the property in question and that the decision had no connection to the port.

The Salt Lake City-based faith has a longstanding policy of not commenting on the operations of its security department, which is housed in the downtown Church Office Building.

Hawkins said church security forces include about 200 trained professional officers worldwide, supplemented by some volunteers, including missionaries who staff security check-in desks at events or for church buildings.

The church spokesman said security forces trained at the new Salt Lake City facility would not be deployed overseas.

Church security officers are generally drawn from the ranks of former law enforcement officials, several sources said. Their existing training is reportedly supplemented with courses through the state Department of Public Safety’s Peace Officer Standards and Training program.

Hawkins said all but a few of the church’s full-time security officers are trained in the use of firearms, though he added that such personnel would carry weapons only as their assignments require or allow. Those who do must undergo background and mental-fitness checks, he said.

Church policy, meanwhile, advises worshippers not to carry firearms on church property.

Section 21.2.4 of the church’s Handbook 2 says that “churches are dedicated for the worship of God and as havens from the cares and concerns of the world. The carrying of lethal weapons, concealed or otherwise, within their walls is inappropriate except as required by officers of the law.”

Under Utah law, the church has officially notified the state’s Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) of its intention to prohibit firearms in its houses of worship. The church also issued a public notice to that effect as recently as Jan. 9, according to BCI, with ads in Salt Lake City’s two largest daily newspapers.

Documents from the private technical contractor RLS indicate the church has a state-of-the-art Global Security Operation Center inside its Salt Lake City headquarters, allowing its security officers to monitor sites in more than 35 countries via video link and “respond in real time to emergencies and security threats to their missionary and ministry staff.”

The church’s Global Security Operation Center reportedly also includes a dispatch center and some training facilities, according to San Francisco-based RLS, and connects to a “secondary crisis room” in the Church Office Building, where the offices of regional church security officers are also located.

Jobs posted on the church website, lds.org, for employment in the security department suggest its primary duty is “to promote a safe and peaceful environment in which the mission of the church may be accomplished.” This includes ensuring “a tranquil environment for the general authorities, employees, visitors and patrons.”

Officers, according to job listings, are asked to maintain “a calm and professional manner while responding to a variety of security-related situations such as fire, intrusion and panic alarms, disruptive or problem individuals, unauthorized entry, bomb threats, violence in the workplace issues, dealing with mental subjects or unruly individuals, natural disasters, etc.”

Job requirements also include “temple worthiness,” meaning compliance with church tenets as verified by an interview with local lay leaders.

Hawkins, in his statement to The Tribune, said the role of church security “has always been very different from that of law enforcement,” focused on what he called “de-escalation and light-touch training.”

“In the event of an emergency,” Hawkins said, "church security contacts fire, police and other emergency response agencies and supports them in their role.”

In reading your March 26 story about the new University of Utah law school dean, I was pleased to also learn that Erika George has been named as the new director of the Tanner Humanities Center, succeeding outgoing director Robert Goldberg, who has led the center for 13 years.

However, I was surprised to read further that George “is the first person of color to hold the post, a university spokeswoman said.”

I wonder where the spokeswoman got that information, as I was the director of the center for several years immediately before Goldberg. If Asians and Asian Americans are not considered persons of color now, it’s news to me. And would be news to lots of people, from Maxine Hong Kingston and Jackie Chan to Kal Penn and Kamala Harris.

Vincent J. Cheng, Salt Lake City

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This is the last installment on alternate means of transportation after the Feb. 20 sale of my old truck. Since then, I’ve tried getting around by every means from walking to public transit.

Do I miss Old Red? Of course. We were inseparable since the day we hooked up 17 years ago. But after 247,891 miles, we were both beat up, cantankerous and illegal.

We smelled like gunpowder and pork rinds, had a mutual tendency to wander aimlessly, and were covered with scars from things that seemed fun at the time but the lasting consequences of which prevented additional fun.

When it came time to let Old Red go, it was emotionally tough. My longtime ride was filled with memories — bullets, knives, assorted medical supplies, handcuff keys, bottle caps, car wash tokens, and a couple of arrowheads Sonny found and left in the ashtray.

But the dings and dents pained me the most, the indelible signs of our mutual association. There was the big dent in the side caused by rolled-up magazines fired out of a cannon.

There was the wrinkle in the hood from an elk I didn’t hit but got mad at me anyway, a mummified mouse in one of the storage compartments, a 9 mm bullet hole patched with wood glue in a back seat floorboard, and a dog-mauled foam headrest.

My wife’s cellphone number was still visible where I wrote it on a sun visor with a Sharpie in 2007. There were half a dozen other numbers and addresses, the reasons for which they were there I’d long since forgotten.

Driving away from Old Red the last time was hard. Humans are creatures of lasting memory. The spaces we occupy leave their marks on us, whether it’s a favorite ride, a garage, a beloved house or even a locker.

Most often it isn’t the place itself but rather the things that happened to us in or near them that establish our connection to them — love, divorce, loss, accomplishment, sudden epiphanies.

The house where my wife and I lived for so many years belongs to someone else now, but one of the rooms will always be where I finished writing my first novel. To the current owners, it’s probably just a room. To me, it’s a place of teeth-grinding frustration and … liberation.

The old Redwood Drive-In Theatre in West Valley City may just be a place for huge swap meets now, but for me it will always be the place where I first kissed my wife during a James Bond movie the night of April 23, 1975.

Note: It wasn’t much of a kiss. I wasn’t sure if she’d punch me, so I leaned in with all the romance of a shoplifter.

It was the follow-up kiss that caused the most damage. When she kissed me back, I lost my heart. Been chasing after it ever since.

Leaving Old Red isn’t the end of my transportation, but it got me thinking about all the memories that traveling brings.

I’m without wheels now. But no matter what you’re driving, the most important mode of transportation is the same for you as it is for me — Earth.

Life’s mileage is racked up by days — roughly 23,725 of them for me so far, or 65 trips around the sun. But that isn’t the sneaky part.

We tell ourselves the sun is setting when the truth is that we’re traveling. Every evening, the Earth temporarily turns its shoulder from the stationary light. When it returns, we’ll all be 12 hours further down the road.

The mileage adds up faster than we think, probably because we’re unconscious for half of it. The trick to this ride is to make good memories while we can. Catching the final bus happens sooner than we think.

Robert Kirby is The Salt Lake Tribune’s humor columnist. Follow Kirby on Facebook.

Utah is about to throw a big celebration for the 150th anniversary of the May 10, 1869, completion of the transcontinental railroad. Many realize it was built largely by Chinese immigrants for the Central Pacific and Irish for the Union Pacific.

But a third group provided key workers for both railroads: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The companies waged a bidding war for their labor in remote mountains and deserts as they tried to lay more miles of track than their competitor to claim more land grants and incentive money.

Grenville Dodge, chief engineer for the Union Pacific, “took one look, and from then on he couldn’t have enough Mormons working for the UP,” wrote historian Stephen Ambrose in his book, “Nothing Like It in the World.”

Unlike other rowdier U.P. workers — whose camps were called hell on wheels — Dodge said Mormons were “teetotalers to the last man, tolerated no gambling, were quiet and law-abiding, said grace devoutly at meals, and concluded each day’s labor with communal prayers and songs.”

Historian Clarence Reeder wrote in his doctoral dissertation that the Mormon workers were “a people working together in harmony under their religious leaders to accomplish a temporal task which they treated as though it were divinely inspired.”

The railroad would speed construction of their Salt Lake Temple, greatly ease immigration by foreign converts, aid missionary work, begin tourism to Utah and provide contact with others — helping the church address distorted reports about it.

Mormons sought the railroad

Historians note that a myth grew that Latter-day Saints had opposed the railroad, fearing it would end the isolation they sought to escape persecution and bring outsiders who did not share their faith or lifestyle.

“That was the opposite of the truth,” Ambrose wrote, among others.

As apostle George Q. Cannon said in an 1873 speech, quoting church President Brigham Young, “It was a very poor religion that would not stand one railroad.”

Young himself said that from the moment his church fled to the West, it immediately started pushing for a railroad and seeking routes for it.

“I do not suppose that we traveled but one day from the Missouri River here, but what we looked for a track where the rails could be laid with success for a railroad through this territory to go to the Pacific,” Young said in an 1868 speech.

A year earlier, the Mormon pioneer-prophet said in another discourse about the coming railroad, “Hurry up, hasten the work! We want to hear the iron horse puffing through this valley.

“What for? To bring our brethren and sisters here. It opens to us the market, and we are at the door of New York, right at the threshold of the emporium of the United States. We can send our butter, eggs, cheese and fruits, and receive in return oysters, clams, cod fish, mackerel, oranges and lemons.”

In 1867, Young predicted the railroad would not overrun church members with outsiders, and said it more likely would “take every apostate and corrupt-hearted man and woman from you” in trains out of the area.

After years of petitioning for a transcontinental railroad, Young became one of the original shareholders in the Union Pacific when it formed.

Union Pacific overtures to church

In 1863, amid the Civil War, Union Pacific leaders wrote to Young seeking advice about the best route through the territory. He was so eager for the railroad to come that he sent his son, Joseph A. Young, with a group of fellow Latter-day Saints to start surveying possibilities — and personally paid the cost.

The group suggested a route up Weber and Echo canyons, a path Union Pacific followed.

In 1868, when the Union Pacific was in Wyoming and the Central Pacific was in Nevada, both saw the need to hire Latter-day Saints to start grading far in advance of their rail layers to possibly help them claim more miles.

That soon would have Mormon crews working for competing lines doing grade work in sight of and passing each other. Of course, some of those parallel grades were never used — and still sit in the desert — after Congress and the companies reached compromises on where the two railroads finally would meet.

On May 6, 1868, the Union Pacific sent a telegram to Young essentially allowing him to set his own price — and it would supply the tools and materials — if he would accept a contract to install the rail from Echo Canyon to the Great Salt Lake. Young answered yes within an hour.

The U.P. eventually promised to pay more than $2 million — but collecting it would lead to a yearslong fight.

That year, grasshoppers had destroyed many of the Mormons’ crops, leaving farmers in extra need of jobs to make ends meet. So thousands responded to Young’s call to work on the railroad for Latter-day Saint subcontractors, including firms led by three of his sons.

Historian Richard Cowan, a Brigham Young University professor, wrote that local church congregations formed construction companies and became railroad subcontractors.

They worked dawn to dusk. “It was acknowledged by all railroad men that nowhere on the line could the grading compare in completeness and finish with the work done by the people of Utah,” historian Hubert Howe Bancroft wrote in 1890.

Central Pacific a bit late to the game

Meanwhile, the Central Pacific also wanted Latter-day Saint workers and hoped church workers could speed up the labor so that the two railroads would meet near the Wyoming border.

Leland Stanford, one of the four chiefs of the Pacific line, came to Salt Lake City to see Young — but the Union Pacific had beat him to the punch. Young told him it was all he could do to complete contracts he already had made with the U.P.

Stanford kept pleading with Young over the coming months. As the U.P. had trouble delivering supplies and making promised payments, Young finally agreed to a contract with the C.P. initially to build rail between Ogden and the northern tip of the Great Salt Lake (and later farther west toward Nevada). Young had a quarter-interest in the subcontractor for that.

Historian Ambrose said a bidding war began as Latter-day Saint subcontractors tried to hire away laborers from one another.

“This drove the wages up drastically," he wrote, “but the competitors kept at it.”

With Latter-day Saints then working for both lines, historian Cowan wrote, they “played a key role in constructing final portions of both the Central Pacific and Union Pacific.”

Workers faced tough conditions. Milando Pratt, a Mormon farmer near Ogden, worked on the railroad in the desert west of the Great Salt Lake. Pratt wrote that workers battled hordes of grasshoppers and gnats all day, and the stench of millions of dead insects forced them to cover their noses with handkerchiefs.

Engineer James Maxwell said he lost a dog, which could not be seen through the swarm of grasshoppers 50 yards away. He said chickens in camp would take refuge from the grasshoppers in men’s tents. A cow pestered by the bugs “would run away whenever an opportunity was afforded.”

Crews often worked through the night using sagebrush bonfires for light.

In Echo Canyon, crews had to dig several long tunnels. They spent the days drilling holes, packing them with explosives, igniting them and hauling away debris.

Railroads balk at paying

Young was bedeviled by railroads that would not pay, and ended up using his funds and church money to pay men. He sent a blistering parade of telegrams seeking money, even warning that men would walk away if not paid soon. But he wanted quick completion of the rails even more, so no one left for lack of pay.

Young tried hard to persuade both railroads to run through Salt Lake City. But both figured it was cheaper and shorter to go north.

Historians say that because of that disappointment — plus the millions of dollars Latter-day Saints were owed — Young chose not to attend the ceremony where the Golden Spike finished the railroad, and instead went on a trip to southern Utah.

About 500 to 600 people were at the remote Promontory Summit for that final ceremony. But 7,000 Latter-day Saints crowded into the Tabernacle in downtown Salt Lake City for speeches and celebrations as they awaited telegraphic word of the railroad’s completion.

Even bigger celebrations occurred elsewhere. The Liberty Bell was rung in Philadelphia. Cannons fired in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Chicago had its largest parade of the century. Businesses closed for celebrations in places from New Orleans to Atlanta.

The money owed to Young soon turned into a hidden blessing. Because of persistent pushing for that money on Young’s behalf by Bishop John Sharp — who would show up at U.P. offices in Boston daily seeking payment — officials made a partial settlement that instead of cash included vast materials such as rails, spikes and rolling stock.

Using that, Mormons broke ground a week after the Golden Spike on what was then called the Utah Central Railroad. Within a year, it connected Ogden and Salt Lake City — and 15,000 people (far more than saw the Golden Spike ceremony) came to festivities to drive its last Iron Spike, with the words “Holiness to the Lord” inscribed on it.

Branches of that railroad soon would go all over Utah, including up Little Cottonwood Canyon to quarries providing stone for the Salt Lake Temple, quickening what had been slow construction. That line went all the way to mines at Alta, which might solve some modern-day ski resort traffic congestion if it still remained.

Amazing changes for pioneer generation

Ambrose ended his book on the transcontinental railroad by recounting a talk by apostle John Taylor, who would succeed Brigham Young as church president, at the Tabernacle Golden Spike celebration. It showed how much had changed in the lives of a generation that had traveled most quickly by horse, as had people before them for thousands of years.

Taylor was from England, and old enough that “I can very well remember the time when there was no such thing as a railroad in existence.”

What he said next was almost beyond belief of his 1869 audience, especially the youths there. “I rode on the first train that was ever made, soon after its completion; that was between Manchester and Liverpool in England.”

Taylor also talked about when there was no telegraph, “when the idea of conveying thought from one city to another, and from one continent to another by the aid of electricity, instantly, would have been considered magic.”

Ambrose concluded by saying, “But nothing could match the experience of having ridden on the first train ever in operation, then being in Salt Lake City to celebrate completion of the railroad that linked together the North American continent.”