Washington • Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned on Sunday amid the administration’s growing frustration and bitterness over the number of Central American families crossing the southern border, two people familiar with the decision said.

President Donald Trump thanked her for her work in a tweet and announced U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan would be taking over as acting head of the department. McAleenan is a longtime border official who is well-respected by members of Congress and within the administration. The decision to name an immigration officer to the post reflects Trump's priority for a sprawling department founded to combat terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks.

Though Trump aides were eyeing a staff shake-up at Homeland Security and had already withdrawn the nomination for another key immigration post, the development Sunday was unexpected.

Nielsen traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday with Trump to participate in a roundtable with border officers and local law enforcement. There she echoed Trump's comments on the situation at the border, though she ducked out of the room without explanation for some time while Trump spoke. As they toured a section of newly rebuilt barriers, Nielsen was at Trump's side, introducing him to local officials. She returned to Washington afterward on a Coast Guard Gulfstream, as Trump continued on a fundraising trip to California and Nevada.

But privately, she had grown increasingly frustrated by what she saw as a lack of support from other departments and increased meddling by Trump aides, the people said. She went into a meeting with Trump at the White House in Sunday not knowing whether she'd be fired or would resign, and she ended up resigning, they said.

There have been persistent tensions between the White House and Nielsen almost from the moment she became secretary, after her predecessor John Kelly became the White House chief of staff in 2017. Nielsen was viewed as resistant to some of the harshest immigration measures supported by the president and his aides, particularly senior adviser Stephen Miller, both around the border and on other matters like protected status for some refugees. Once Kelly left the White House last year, Nielsen's days appeared to be numbered. She had expected to be pushed out last November, but her exit never materialized. And during the government shutdown over Trump's push for funding for a border wall, Nielsen's stock inside the White House even appeared to rise.

But in recent weeks, as a new wave of migration has taxed resources along the border and as Trump sought to regain control of the issue for his 2020 re-election campaign, tensions flared anew.

Washington • It will be good for the country and the Democratic Party for Joe Biden to run for president. But it could be hell on him.

If Biden backed off from running, he would be cast as a martyr to "political correctness" and "the new multiculturalism" by many of the same conservatives who would do everything they could to defeat him if he won the nomination. Faux sympathy of this sort is starting to appear on the right. It's designed precisely to undercut further advances toward gender and racial equality.

Moreover, as a noncandidate, Biden would hang over the rest of the field like an absent giant who makes everyone else look small. The heart often longs for what it can’t have. Instead of being “too old to run,” Biden would become the missing and longed for “elder statesman.” Cries of “Where is Biden?” would rise up whenever a major candidate stumbled. And, God forbid, if Trump were reelected, we would again live through the “If only Joe had run” lamentations.

All of this would be disastrous for Democrats and progressives. The only way to know for certain if Biden is, in fact, the best candidate to beat Trump is for him to get in the race — to prove that he can appeal to young voters despite his age; to demonstrate that he can navigate a party that has changed dramatically since he first entered the Senate in 1973; and to show he can absorb all the blows that will come his way courtesy of opposition research into his astonishingly long career on the public stage.

If he can pass these tests, he will be more formidable for it. But, to put it gently, the experience will not be pleasant. And, yes, it's entirely fair to ask whether a 76-year-old can successfully navigate our changing mores and win over the younger voters Democrats need.

As Paul Starr, a professor at Princeton, argued shrewdly last week in The American Prospect, "norms and beliefs about race, gender and related issues have shifted dramatically among Democrats in recent decades." As a result, "the very means by which Democrats won elections in the past are now seen as disqualifying by many in the party, though not necessarily by the public at large."

Meaning, for example, that Biden's support for the 1994 crime bill, which he could once wave proudly as a banner of toughness, is now a liability. Most on the left (and many on the right) see overincarceration, especially of African Americans, as both a problem and an injustice.

And behavior patterns once seen by many as signs of Biden's warm humanity are now condemned as "handsiness," or much worse. These complaints are not new, but women are less willing than ever to stay silent about behavior most of them disliked in the first place. Last week, Biden released a video pledging to be "more mindful and respectful of people's personal space."

Affection for him is sufficiently widespread among Democrats that he seems to have weathered the latest challenge. But he didn't help himself by joking about the issue (twice) on Friday before a union crowd. And he will be further criticized about how he dealt with Anita Hill's accusations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, and about his support for a regressive bankruptcy bill.

These are real problems, but they will be stacked against Biden's authentic contributions. In June 2008, I made a case for Biden as Barack Obama's running mate. I argued he was a "happy warrior" who would reinforce Obama's upbeat appeal. As a Catholic from a blue-collar world, the son of Scranton, Pennsylvania, would strengthen Obama with constituencies where he needed help. Biden's background on foreign policy, I said then, would enhance Obama's ability to handle national security issues.

Since opinion writers often get things very wrong, I am grateful that subsequent events ratified my instincts: Biden was an asset in the campaign and throughout Obama's time in office. This still matters to a lot of Democrats.

The bottom line is that Biden belongs in this fight. He represents important components of the coalition that will have to come together to defeat the president. He could help Democrats solve a strategic dilemma: How to be tough as nails on Trump while still promising the more harmonious political future that middle-of-the-road voters long for. And if he fails, the ultimate nominee will be far better off for having faced down Biden and not be haunted by the ghost of a candidacy that never was.

E.J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post. He is a government professor at Georgetown University, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a frequent commentator on politics for National Public Radio and MSNBC. He is most recently a co-author of “One Nation After Trump.”

@EJDionne

Los Angeles • Utah’s winning streak being snapped at the hands of the Lakers seemed too improbable going into Sunday night’s game at Staples Center, considering L.A. was playing without rotation regulars LeBron James, Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart, Rajon Rondo, Lance Stephenson, Tyson Chandler, and Reggie Bullock.

Improbable, though obviously not impossible.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and L.A. made all the tough shots down the stretch that the Jazz could not, and pulled off a stunning 113-109 upset that ended the Jazz’s win streak at seven.

The loss was just Utah’s second in its past 14 games, but it was a costly one — dropping the team to 49-31 on the season, and dealing a serious blow to the Jazz’s chances of gaining the fourth seed in the Western Conference and hosting a first-round playoff series.

Coach Quin Snyder, asked afterward if perhaps his team overlooked an opponent stocked with G League call-ups that simply had nothing to lose, wasn’t having it.

“They’re NBA players — they played hard and they played well. They outplayed us,” he said. “They worked harder and got rewarded. That’s the way the game is, and that’s the way it should be.”

The tone for potential impending disaster was sounded from the outset, as a seemingly lethargic Jazz team struggled through an eye-opening opening period.

Utah’s lackadaisical perimeter defense contributed to L.A. racking up 22 points in the paint — due to JaVale McGee feasting down low — and racing out to a seven-point advantage.

Following that, though, Utah seemed to get things figured things out and managed to turn the tide.

In the second quarter, the Jazz made 55% of their shots overall, went 7 for 14 from deep (after a 1-for-9 effort in the first), and held the Lakers to 30.8% shooting — outscoring them 32-20 to take a five-point advantage into the break.

Once the lead reached 10 in the third, it seemed inevitable they would pull away.

Instead, the Jazz fell apart.

The entire lead was gone before the quarter was over, and Los Angeles was went up multiple buckets a few minutes into the quarter.

Time and again, the Jazz rallied, closed the distance, then surrendered another crucial big play — an offensive rebound allowed, leading to another possession; a too-clean look allowed at a trey; a failure to pull the trigger on a good shot and eventually clanking a worse one.

Asked if the Jazz played with a lack of urgency, Snyder concurred.

“I think we did tonight. We won some games, so sometimes that masks some things we need to work on. Fundamentally, the things that we need to do to win … if that’s not our focus, then we’re not gonna be as good as we wanna be. It’s that simple,” he said. “It’s not something we’re unfamiliar with — that’s been a tendency this year. We get ahead and we forget why we got ahead and why we’ve been successful. Those are things everybody’s got to hang on to really tight.”

Caldwell-Pope scored 18 of his 32 points in the final quarter — then sealed the deal for good by driving right to left across the lane, drawing Rudy Gobert out to close off his path, then lofting a perfectly placed alley-oop to McGee for a five-point lead with 15.6 seconds to play.

Gobert finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds; Donovan Mitchell added 19 points (on 5-for-17 shooting) and five assists; Georges Niang scored 16 points off the bench; Thabo Sefolosha had 13 points and five steals; and Joe Ingles totaled 12 points and eight assists.

In the end, though, the only numbers that mattered were the big ones from the crucial final period — with the game on the line, L.A. drilled 13 of 19 fourth-quarter shots (68.4%) while Utah went 8 for 24.

And so, Snyder wasn’t interested in talking about season records or playoff seeding — he simply wanted his players to realize that winning streak or not, depleted opponent or not, it doesn’t matter if you don’t continue to improve.

After back-to-back LDS General Conferences full of major changes and more than a year of revisions, reversals and reforms under President Russell M. Nelson, this weekend’s gathering may be remembered more for the words spoken than the actions taken.

The 94-year-old “prophet, seer and revelator” and other leaders referenced preparing the world for the Second Coming, warning those who have left Mormonism or never seriously considered joining the church that they’re running out of time.

No significant announcements came from the pulpit — outside of naming eight new temples to be built, virtually a conference staple in recent decades for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Thousands of church members at the giant Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City — and millions more watching on TV, the internet or in chapels around the globe — were “instructed and edified,” Nelson said in his concluding remarks. They heard sermons on God’s judgment, eternity, family bonds, repentance, seeking the light of Christ, and the importance of making lifelong commitments.

Nelson, who also addressed the faithful Sunday morning, spoke tenderly of his daughter, Wendy, who died three months ago of cancer at age 67.

“We miss our daughter greatly,” he said. “However, because of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, we do not worry about her. As we continue to honor our covenants with God, we live in anticipation of our being with her again.”

Everyone yearns to be with their loved ones after death, he said, and some “erroneously believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ provides a promise that all people will be with their loved ones after death.”

Not true, the Latter-day Saint leader said.

“The Savior himself has made it abundantly clear that while his resurrection assures that every person who ever lived will indeed be resurrected and live forever,” Nelson said, “much more is required if we want to have the high privilege of exaltation” and living as families in the afterlife.

He said he weeps for friends and relatives who, despite their contributions to the world, have chosen not to make covenants with God or receive the ordinances that would “bind their families together forever.”

As president of Christ’s church, Nelson said, “I plead with you who have distanced yourselves from the church and with you who have not yet really sought to know that the Savior’s church has been restored. Do the spiritual work to find out for yourselves, and please do it now. Time is running out."

Lighting the darkness

Other sermons focused on the redemptive power of mercy, the importance of love in missionary work and vicarious temple rites, and the ability for the faithful to activate heavenly blessings through faith, repentance and good works.

Sharon Eubank, first counselor in the women’s Relief Society, discussed the ways that Christ is a light to the world.

“One of the fundamental needs we have in order to grow is to stay connected to our source of light — Jesus Christ,” said Eubank, one of only two female speakers during the two-day gathering. “He is the source of our power, the light and life of the world. Without a strong connection to him, we begin to spiritually die.”

Eubank, director of LDS Charities, the faith’s global humanitarian organization, acknowledged that some believers feel overwhelmed by modern life, weighed down by grief, sorrow, obligations or exhaustion. They feel unaccepted, unworthy or outside of traditional society.

In every case, she said, Jesus reaches them and helps them pull their personal yoke. He heals wounds. He provides rest.

“Our mortal brains are made to seek understanding and meaning in tidy bundles,” she said. “I don’t know all the reasons why the veil over mortality is so thick. This is not the stage in our eternal development where we have all answers. It is the stage where we develop our assurance (or sometimes hope) in the evidence of things not seen. Assurance comes in ways that aren’t always easy to analyze, but there is light in our darkness.”

To those who feel their faith faltering, Eubank was reassuring. “Take courage. Keep your promises to God. Ask your questions. ... Turn to Jesus Christ, who loves you still.”

It can be tough to “get the lights back on by yourself,” she said. “We need friends. We need each other.”

Dallin H. Oaks, first counselor to Nelson and a former Utah Supreme Court justice, spoke of the difference between mortal judgments and divine judgments.

His was a message of hope to everyone, including “those who have lost their membership in the church by excommunication or name removal,” Oaks said. “We are all sinners who can be cleansed by repentance.”

In recent years, more and more Latter-day Saints have resigned from the faith, especially since the enactment of a hotly disputed 2015 LGBTQ policy, which the church discarded last week.

As part of the gospel plan, Oaks said, “we are accountable to God and to his chosen servants, and that accountability involves both mortal and divine judgments.”

In the church, leaders seek “divine direction” as to how to judge “members or prospective members,” he said. “It is their responsibility to judge persons who are seeking to come unto Christ to receive the power of his atonement on the covenant path to eternal life.”

They must decide if a person is worthy of a recommend to attend the temple. Has a person whose name has been removed from church records repented to be readmitted by baptism?

“The ultimate accountability, including the final cleansing effect of repentance,” Oaks said, “is between each of us and God.”

The Latter-day Saint apostle, next in line to lead the faith, reassured his listeners that Jesus “opens his arms to receive all men and women, on the loving conditions he has prescribed, to enjoy the greatest blessings God has for his children.”

Bracing for Christ’s return

Apostle D. Todd Christofferson addressed the need to get ready for Christ’s return.

The Utah-based faith is “uniquely empowered and commissioned to accomplish the necessary preparations for the Lord’s Second Coming,” Christofferson said. “Indeed, it was restored for that purpose.”

So what do modern-day Latter-day Saints need to do before the Christian Savior comes?

“We can prepare ourselves as a people; we can gather the Lord’s covenant people; and we can help redeem the promise of salvation ‘made to the fathers,’ our ancestors,” he said. “All of this must occur in some substantial degree before the Lord comes again.”

This last dispensation “is building steadily to its climax — Zion on earth, being joined with Zion from above at the Savior’s glorious return.,” Christofferson said. “The Savior’s return will fulfill all that his resurrection has promised for mankind. It is the ultimate assurance that all will be put right. Let us be about building up Zion to hasten that day.”

Gerrit W. Gong, the first and only Asian American apostle, explored the notion of Jesus as the “Good Shepherd” and “Lamb of God.”

Those two titles and symbols “are powerfully complementary,” Gong said. “Who better to succor each precious lamb than the Good Shepherd, and who better to be our Good Shepherd than the Lamb of God?”

As shepherd, Jesus “reaches to the one and to the 90 and nine, often at the same time,” the apostle said. “As we minister, we acknowledge the 90 and nine who are steadfast and immovable, even while we yearn after the one who has strayed.”

Shepherds must not “slumber, nor scatter or cause the sheep to go astray, nor look our own way for our own gain,” Gong said, but instead must “strengthen, heal, bind up that which is broken, bring again that which was driven away, seek that which was lost.”

Temple prep

Apostle David A. Bednar focused his remarks on recent changes to the church’s Sunday School curriculum — intended to supplement home-centered study and family gospel discussions — and the importance of members preparing at home to enter one of the faith’s temples and participate in the faith’s most sacred rites.

“Our personal responsibility is to learn what we should learn, to live as we know we should live, and to become who the Master would have us become,” he said. “And our homes are the ultimate setting for learning, living and becoming.”

Bednar encouraged members to make use of church-produced information on the faith’s temples, while offering guidelines on how, when, and whether information on holy ordinances can be discussed outside the temples.

Symbols or specific promises associated with covenants received in temple ceremonies are too sacred to describe or discuss outside of those edifices, Bednar said, but members can and should talk with family members, including children, about the basic purposes and principles associated with those covenants.

“A rich reservoir of resources exists in print, audio, video and other formats to help us learn about initiatory ordinances, endowments, marriages and other sealing ordinances,” Bednar said. “Information also is available about following the Savior by receiving and honoring covenants to keep the law of obedience, the law of sacrifice, the law of the gospel, the law of chastity, and the law of consecration.”

His comments come barely three months after the church changed its temple rituals to feature women more prominently and use more gender-inclusive language.

“Imagine,” he said, “that your son or daughter asks, ‘Someone at school told me that strange clothing is worn in the temple. Is that right?’ A short video is available on temples.churchofjesuschrist.org titled ‘Sacred Temple Clothing.’ This excellent resource explains how from ancient times men and women have embraced sacred music, different forms of prayer, symbolic religious clothing, gestures, and rituals to express their innermost feelings of devotion to God.”

Apostle Dale G. Renlund compared heavenly blessings to the building of a large fire, with kindling and wood chips covered by progressively larger logs.

The wood pile may be ready to burn, Renlund said, but it still requires a person to strike a match, light the kindling, and a constant supply of oxygen to grow and maintain the blaze.

“I invite you to faithfully activate heavenly power to receive specific blessings from God,” he said. “Exercise the faith to strike the match and light the fire. Supply the needed oxygen while you patiently wait on the Lord.”

He said God’s blessings are not received by collecting “good deed coupons” or by helplessly waiting to win a divine lottery.

“You do not earn a blessing; that notion is false, but you do have to qualify for it,” Renlund said. “Our salvation comes only through the merits and grace of Jesus Christ."

Apostle Quentin L. Cook urged parents to limit the use of distracting media in the home, and to make sure that the content their children encounter is wholesome, age-appropriate and consistent with a loving atmosphere.

“One adjustment that will benefit almost any family is to make the internet, social media, and television a servant instead of a distraction or, even worse, a master,” Cook said. “The war for the souls of all, but particularly children, is often in the home.”

Fellow apostle Ronald A. Rasband also warned that humankind is in a fight with the devil.

“Satan knows his days are numbered and that time is growing shorter,” he said. “As crafty and cunning as he is, he will not win. However, his battle for each one of our souls rages on.”

A testimony of the gospel, as well as family and church membership, Rasband said, can act as a fortress against “the power of the evil one.”

Juan Pablo Villar, a general authority Seventy, talked about his conversion.

When he was a teenager, Villar said, he visited his older brother, who had converted to Mormonism and was serving a mission at the time.

Unfamiliar with such service, Villar expected to spend the day at the beach but instead accompanied his brother and his brother’s missionary companion on their proselytizing lessons for the day.

A teary Villar said he witnessed people change as they were taught and how they “received spiritual light in their lives." He said he, too, learned even though he was never the direct recipient of his brother’s lessons.

“Looking back, I realize that my faith grew that day because my brother gave me the opportunity to put it in action,” Villar said. “I exercised it as we read from the scriptures, looked for people to teach, bore testimony [and] served others.”

Tampa, Fla. • Baylor recovered after blowing a 17-point lead and losing a star player, beating Notre Dame 82-81 for the NCAA women’s basketball championship Sunday night when 2018 tournament hero Arike Ogunbowale missed a foul shot in the final seconds.

Chloe Jackson made a layup to put Baylor ahead with 3.9 seconds left. Notre Dame called timeout and inbounded to Ogunbowale, whose buzzer-beating jumper in the championship game lifted Notre Dame to last year’s title. Ogunbowale was fouled trying for a layup, then missed the first of two free throws with 1.9 seconds remaining. She made the second, but the Irish never got the ball back.

“They just kept doing what we’ve been taught to do, and that’s guard people,” Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said. “We just beat the defending national champions. That team is so good, so talented. You’re going to see those guys play at the next level. Wow.”

The Lady Bears (37-1) won their first championship in seven years. Mulkey and Baylor have won titles in 2005, 2012 and 2019. The 2012 championship game also pitted the Lady Bears against Muffet McGraw’s Irish in the last meeting of two female coaches for the title.

Baylor was able to pull off the win without star forward Lauren Cox, who injured her knee in a frightening scene late in the third quarter. The Irish were able to rally from a 14-point deficit in the third quarter to tie it at 78 in the fourth. Jackson then scored a jumper from the foul line, and Jessica Shepard countered with two free throws to tie it, setting up the exciting finish.

“We had to do it for LC,” said Jackson, who was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. “She got us here. We had to finish the job for her.”

The Lady Bears were primed to run away with the game as Notre Dame struggled to score. But the Irish have a knack for big comebacks, doing it against UConn in this year’s semifinal and against Mississippi State in last season’s title game, when they rallied from 15 down in the third quarter.

Ogunbowale was instrumental in all those victories, forever becoming a part of the Final Four during last year’s title run. She made a shot with one second remaining to beat UConn in the semifinals, then hit a tiebreaking 3-pointer with one-tenth of a second left to top the Bulldogs in the title game.

Ogunbowale led the charge again Sunday, scoring 17 of her 31 points in the second half. That included a buzzer-beating 3 at the end of the third quarter, sparking an 11-0 Notre Dame run.

It helped the Irish that the Lady Bears had to play the last 11 minutes without Cox. She got tangled up with Kalani Brown on the defensive end and went down clutching her left knee with about a minute to go in the third quarter. The 6-foot-4 junior was crying in agony for a few minutes before they took her off the court in a wheelchair. Her mom was tearing up in the stands, and her dad had his hands over his face.

“I’m emotional for a lot of reasons, but mostly for Lauren Cox, and I’m so happy,” Mulkey said. “These are tears of joy, but they’re also tears of thinking about injuries.”

Cox came back to the bench in the fourth quarter on crutches, with a big brace on her left knee. She was the first one to hold the trophy after the game.

“I’m one of the leaders on the team, so just to have my voice there (on the bench) and tell them I’m still OK, they told me they were going to do this for me,” Cox said.

Mulkey was able to celebrate her third title with her family close by. Daughter Makenzie is on the coaching staff, and infant grandson Kannon Reid was sitting in the front row behind the bench. As the final second ticked off, she hugged her daughter and the rest of the staff at midcourt.

With the game tied at 80, Jackson drove with her right hand and hit a layup that bounced off the rim before dropping in.

Sunday’s game marked the eighth time in the past 20 years that there have been two women head coaches in the title game but only the second time since 2008. The last time was in 2012 with these same coaches. As of 2018, only 59.5 percent of head coaches in Division I women’s basketball are female.

The victory broke a tie for third all-time between Mulkey and McGraw for career NCAA titles. Mulkey has three, placing her behind Geno Auriemma (11) and Pat Summitt (8).

TIP-INS: The Irish remained at 999 victories in school history. McGraw has been the coach for 835 of them.

STRONG ATTENDANCE: Nearly 275,000 people attended the NCAAs, which ranked eighth all-time, including 20,127 for the title game. It was the highest attendance in over 15 years.

“We’ve had a really great championship. Our first and second round numbers is the best we’ve seen in 11 years,” NCAA vice president for women’s basketball Lynn Holzman said.

The regionals provided a strong boost. Portland, Oregon, a first-time site, averaged over 11,400 fans and will host again next year. The regional attendance was its highest since the NCAA switched to neutral sites after the 2014 season.

Las Vegas • Researchers are working to better measure how much water is lost to evaporation at the nation’s two largest reservoirs as part of effort they say could lead to new water management strategies.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Desert Research Institute have teamed up to study evaporation at Lake Powell, building upon ongoing research at Lake Mead, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported last week.

The researchers deployed floating platforms with remote sensors on the lake at the Arizona-Utah border to measure water temperature, weather conditions and other variables. From the data collected over next two to three years, they aim to produce a more accurate evaporation estimate that could be applied to measuring rates elsewhere.

“It’s a difficult number to measure,” said Chris Pearson, assistant research scientist of hydrology at the institute based in Reno, Nevada. “It’s not just a Lake Powell problem. It’s a science problem.”

The current way of estimating water losses from evaporation is “not considered very representative” of the actual amounts, said Jed Parker, a hydrologic engineer with the bureau. The estimates could be off by 20 or 30 percent, Pearson said.

“I’d say the current estimates have a lot of uncertainty in them,” Pearson said.

Under the current estimate system, Lake Powell lost about 386,000 acre-feet of water last year. Estimations for Lake Mead east of Las Vegas show it losing more than 600,000 acre-feet of water each year. One acre-foot of water is enough to supply two average Las Vegas homes for about a year.

Water managers cannot do much to stop evaporation, but more accurate measurements could lead to better water budgeting on the Colorado River, which supplies about 40 million people, Parker said.

“That’s why we’re spending the money and trying to refine the method,” Parker said.

The U.S. Geological Survey launched a similar study at Lake Mead in 2010, finding in the first year that observed evaporation was 4.5% higher than the estimate. In the second year, the observed evaporation was 5.3% lower than the estimate. The research also indicated that evaporation was overestimated in the summer and underestimated in the fall.

Parker and Pearson anticipate similar findings at Lake Powell.

Los Angeles • The Jazz’s revolving door of who’s in and who’s out continued Sunday against the Lakers, with Ricky Rubio back to the bench, but Jae Crowder back from a right quad contusion.

Utah has featured 10 different starting lineups this season — with Rudy Gobert, Thabo Sefolosha, Joe Ingles, Royce O’Neale, and Donovan Mitchell beginning the game together for just the second time this year.

The team’s recent spate of injuries has meant that the most often-deployed lineup of the year — Gobert-Derrick Favors-Ingles-Mitchell-Rubio, who’ve started together 55 times — has been a rarity of late.

And in spite of that, the Jazz have somehow managed to maintain some semblance of continuity in their level of play, if not in who’s doing the playing.

Several members of the team said before the game that the key to maintaining a high level of play amid the injury chaos is because the team doesn’t change anything in its preparation.

“We practice the same way we do things [in games] — everyone’s in certain spots, we have multiple ballhandlers, we have guys who are always flowing; so our chemistry is different than most squads,” Mitchell said. “So it allows us to go out there and run plays, and guys know where to be, guys know their spots to be.”

Forward Georges Niang, who’s seen an uptick in minutes of late with Favors missing games and Crowder being in and out, agreed. He also noted that, at this point, the Jazz ought to be familiar with who’s doing what.

“I don’t think it’s really difficult at all. All of us are on each other all the time,” he said. “It’s late in the season, and all of us know each other and what our tendencies are — we play with each other in practice and know where everybody’s gonna be, and where the chips may fall, and where we need to be.”

Caruso inspires Niang

The Lakers’ rotation has been even more devastated than Utah’s with LeBron James, Kyle Kuzma, Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, and Josh Hart are all out for the season; Reggie Bullock and Lance Stephenson sitting out due to short-term injuries; and Rajon Rondo and Tyson Chandler as DNP-CDs. So L.A. has been giving opportunities to guys who perhaps wouldn’t have gotten them otherwise, like, say, Alex Caruso.

The former G League player took advantage in L.A.’s previous game, against the Clippers, scoring a career-high 32 points and adding 10 rebounds and five assists. His performance certainly got the Jazz’s attention going into their matchup.

“Whether you’ve seen him in Summer League or watching him play [in the NBA], he’s a really good player,” said coach Quin Snyder. “… Sometimes for young players in the league, it’s as much having some opportunity [as anything].”

Niang said he counts the Lakers guard as “a good friend of mine.”

“I’m really happy for him. He’s done a great job, with his situation, of always being ready and coming in and making something happen,” he said. “You cheer for guys that have stories like that.”

A former G League product himself, Niang was subsequently asked when he might be dropping a 30-plus-point night of his own. With mock indignation, he replied, “Man, you ask a lot!”

Then, after a pause of a few seconds, and a sly grin on his face, he concluded, “But, tonight.”

Three thoughts on the Utah Jazz’s 112-107 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers from Salt Lake Tribune beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Jazz defense not good enough as Lakers get inside for win

Some ugly numbers from Sunday night’s loss:

The Lakers led the Jazz in points in the paint tonight by a margin of 64-48.

The Jazz allowed the Lakers to get 16 offensive rebounds — so soon after I wrote about their league-leading defensive rebounding, too. That’s not brilliant.

In the end, the Lakers got 55 of their shots within 14 feet, making 32 of them. The percentage is okayish there, but the number of shots isn’t, really.

It was just a lot of plays on which the Jazz were a beat or two late, a step or two slow. Like, this layup from early in the game:

I think it’s a miscommunication in transition for the Jazz: Royce O’Neale thinks he has to step out on Mike Muscala, but Jae Crowder’s getting there too. That leaves Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to slip to the rim for the easy basket.

Here, Ekpe Udoh defends the pick and roll, but doesn’t make sure the ball-handling threat is taken care of before taking a step away. That leaves Alex Caruso with an easy layup.

Grayson Allen thinks the high screen is coming, so he tries to make it harder on his man by going up top. Unfortunately, that leaves the cut to the rim wide open.

Finally, this is a weird play by Thabo Sefolosha and Donovan Mitchell: they switch the screen for some reason, then Sefolosha just gets beat because he’s not even standing in front of Caruso. Nor does Mitchell really stop Caruso on his way to the rim.

I don’t know how much to be worried about these kinds of plays. On the healthy Jazz, Allen and Udoh aren’t going to get minutes, and Sefolosha would only get a few. But on the other hand, it showed that the Jazz did get really sloppy tonight at times, and usually, that’s something that impacts the whole team, not just a few players. It’s something to watch in the last couple of games, anyway.

2. Shoot the ball, please!

These kinds of plays drive me a little bit crazy.

Sefolosha gets the ball in the corner with just a few seconds left on the shot clock. It’s a good closeout by Caruso, but it still seems like Sefolosha should take shot shot or attack the basket. Instead, he pumpfakes to no result, then has to kick it to Mitchell. Mitchell, too, has an opportunity to shoot, with only 3.5 seconds left on the shot clock. It’s even more imperative that he does something with it, and he doesn’t.

Or this one: Mitchell sets it up really well, finding Allen in the corner. Allen doesn’t have a man within 10 feet, but doesn’t even consider shooting, instead immediately swinging it to Joe Ingles. Then Ingles, also wide open, swings it to Crowder, who I think hits the backboard before the rim on this shot.

Those were two separate problems. Allen has to confidently take that shot on, realizing that he’s wide open and the corner three is usually the easier shot. And Ingles, also open, has to know an open shot for him is more valuable than an open shot for Crowder.

It’s hard, because you want the Jazz to be unselfish and pass the ball around for the best shot. But when the clock is running short, or you get a wide-open corner three or Ingles three, there’s not going to be a better shot in that possession. Let it fly.

3. The Portland/Denver debacle, and where the Jazz stand

It would have been so, so nice for the Jazz if Denver was able to head up to Portland and get a victory. After all, such a result would have pushed the Blazers to just a one-win margin, and had the Jazz been able to win in L.A., they could have controlled their own destiny regarding home-court advantage in the first round. Maybe even better, it would have nearly guaranteed a Portland matchup, which seems to be nicer for the Jazz than playing Houston in the first round. In many ways, the Blazers/Nuggets game was more important for the Jazz than the one they were playing in.

Unfortunately, Denver had done their own math: they are awful against the Rockets. They are 1-10 against them in the last three seasons. So they decided that they’re willing to do anything in order to try to get the Rockets on the other side of the bracket, including, it turns out, tanking a game against the Blazers.

So they rested Nikola Jokic, Paul Millsap, and Jamal Murray, starting a B lineup while Portland played their best. Remarkably, this wasn’t enough: the Denver backups had a 7-point lead with 4:33 to play. So then the C-lineup Nuggets gave up a 16-1 Blazers run and got killed in the final minutes as the Nuggets sat even their B-lineup guys on the bench.

This is somewhat of a crazy gambit by the Nuggets: they are willing to risk going down to the 3 seed, giving up home-court advantage in the second round, in order to keep open the possibility that the Rockets would end up No. 4. That scenario seems pretty likely: it’s that the Blazers win their final two games — against the Lakers and Kings — while the Rockets win only one of their last two — they play the Suns and the Thunder.

Meanwhile, the Jazz’s outcome is maddeningly out of their own hands. If the Blazers win one of their last two, the Jazz are locked out of fourth. On the other hand, they can only tank their way to 6th with significant help from the teams below them, and even that strategy would still rely on other results to make it possible.

I thought this tweet neatly illustrated the wackiness of the West:

7-seed Spurs own tiebreaker with
6-seed Thunder who own tiebreaker with
5-seed Jazz who own tiebreaker with
4-seed Trailblazers who own tiebreaker with
3-seed Rockets who own tiebreaker with
2-seed Nuggets.

The Western Conference is zany.

— Steve P (@stvnjazz) April 8, 2019

Update: This story has been updated to reflect that the U.S. Supreme Court recently denied a gun rights group request to keep their bump stocks, meaning Clark Aposhian is likely the only person in the country who now legally owns one of the shooting accessories.

Murray • Clark Aposhian is the only man in American who can now legally own a bump stock. If you had one, it would be a felony. If he lent you his, it would be a felony.

This controversial shooting accessory is now banned, a move made by the Trump administration that went into effect a few weeks ago.

Despite his unique status, the Utah gun lobbyist isn’t exactly in love with the attachment, which makes a semi-automatic weapon fire in quick bursts like a machine gun. He found his on a clearance rack years ago, and bought it on a whim.

“Of all the shooting accessories I own,” he said, “this is probably one of the lamest.”

He’s maybe used it once or twice outside of showing it to reporters who want to know more about the plastic accessory that came under intense scrutiny after a gunman used it in an October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the deadliest in modern U.S. history.

And this week it’s no different. At a shooting range, he explains how it is supposed to work, and before pulling the trigger, warns it’s difficult to control.

He takes aim and fires: Pop-pop-pop-pop. Pause. Pop-pop-pop-pop.

Aposhian turns and smiles, and announces the bump stock actually worked right. That happens about one out of every four tries.

This demonstration is only legal because Aposhian filed a lawsuit after Trump’s Justice Department reclassified the shooting accessory as a machine gun.

But Aposhian said his lawsuit is not simply an attempt to keep bump stocks available in the clearance aisle. It’s about who is writing the laws — and whether the government banned it in a way that’s constitutional.

“Some people are given to actively fight and some people are given to explain their passions on a keyboard on social media,” he said. “I chose to fight.”

‘Changing the metric’

When Aposhian fires his AKM-47 with the bump stock attachment, the rapid staccato sounds unlike anything else being fired at the range that day.

One booth over, there’s a pop-pause-pop-pause shooting rhythm.

But his gun fires four quick bursts, pops that ring out as metal shell casings clink on the cement floor.

The bump stock is a moveable plastic piece that rests against Aposhian’s shoulder and attaches to the back of the gun.

By holding the pistol grip with one hand and pushing forward on the barrel with the other, Aposhian’s finger hits the trigger. Then the recoil causes the gun to buck back and forth, repeatedly “bumping” the trigger against his finger. There’s no springs, levers or buttons on the plastic attachment.

The federal government approved it for sales in 2010 after the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) determined it was not the same as a machine gun and couldn’t be regulated as if it was.

But that all changed after a gunman outfitted several of his firearms with bump stocks and sprayed bullets into a crowd at a country music concert in Las Vegas — leaving 58 dead and almost 100 injured.

In response, the president said he thought the devices should be banned, and many in Congress, including members from Utah, agreed. And a Salt Lake Tribune-Hinckley Institute poll at the time showed that 69 percent of Utah’s registered voters were on board with the ban. But Congress didn’t act.

In December, the ATF did, reclassifying bump stocks as machine guns. Anyone in possession of one after March 26 was committing a felony.

Aposhian filed a lawsuit in federal court, arguing the ban was unconstitutional because it amounts to the executive branch rewriting laws, a job reserved for Congress.

“The Trump administration is changing the metric for how things are done,” he said. “We have relied on checks and balances and different duties of the executive, the legislative and the judiciary branches since the founding of this country. You don’t bypass these things to get your way. The problem is, we have what I would consider a friendly executive now. But that may change.”

It’s a slippery slope, Aposhian says. If this bump stock ban stays in place, he worries any future president could ban anything they disagree with.

‘It’s been tied to a tragedy’

Aposhian’s lawsuit is backed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonprofit organization that says it seeks to challenge “the administrative state.”

His attorney, Caleb Kruckenberg, said in a video recently released by the organization that the lawsuit isn’t about whether bump stocks should or shouldn’t be regulated — it’s about how the ATF took action.

“This case is a perfect example, unfortunately, of what we call the administrative state,” he said. “And what I mean by that is, this is a situation where we have an administrative agency, rather than Congress, trying to rewrite the law.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in Utah argued as part of Aposhian’s lawsuit that the Department of Justice acted reasonably in how it went about banning the shooting accessory, saying it only clarified that a bump stock was, indeed, a machine gun. This is consistent, they argued, with Congress’ actions in limiting private possession of machine guns.

“In short,” Eric Souskin, an attorney with the U.S. attorney’s office wrote, “because a bump stock enables most shooters to fire much faster by providing a mechanism that self-regulates the bump-fire process, a semi-automatic affixed with a bump stock is a machine gun.”

Aposhian also asked in his lawsuit that he be able to keep his bump stock until the suit is resolved. Being forced to give it up, his attorney argued in court papers, would cause him irreparable harm if the ban is overturned and the only bump stock he owned had already been destroyed.

The request was denied by a federal judge earlier in March, but the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals granted him a temporary stay just days before bump stocks were outlawed.

But the exception only applied to him.

The ATF has encouraged every other gun owner to crush, melt or shred their bump stocks, and also provided a guide that detailed what cuts needed to be made on individual bump stock models to comply with the law.

Another gun rights group in Washington, D.C. filed a similar suit, but their request to keep their bump stocks was denied Friday. This leaves Aposhian as the only person who can legally own the shooting accessory, according to the New Civil Liberties Alliance.

Aposhian is careful about how he uses it, making sure he doesn’t violate the court’s order. While on the shooting range, he messaged his attorney asking whether a reporter could try it out — the answer was no.

But he still brags a little bit. After shooting it, he mentioned to the front desk with a laugh that this was probably the only shooting range in America where someone legally shot with a bump stock that day.

Aposhian, however, is in the vocal minority when it comes to whether bump stocks should stay. A Republican president pushed for the ban, and none of Utah’s gun-friendly Republican lawmakers came out in defense of the shooting accessory.

“It’s awkward,” Aposhian acknowledges. “It’s because it’s been tied to a tragedy. People are equating a bump stock with the tragedy, when they should be equating the tragedy with a person with mental deficiency.”

So, what if Congress had passed a law banning bump stocks? Would Aposhian give up the now-rare gun attachment?

He says he would. He’d follow the law, if the process was right.

“I’m not going to stand and die on my bump stock,” he said. “Or spend 10 years in prison for this stupid thing.”

A recent Pew Research poll found that 69 percent of white evangelicals approve of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president of the United States. This number is slightly lower than previous polls, some of which had white evangelical support for Trump as high as 78 percent.

We can speculate as to why there has been a slight dip in white evangelical support for the president, and it bears watching to see if this decline is the beginning of a trend. But one thing is certain for now: Trump's evangelical support remains sky-high overall.

That supports requires some explanation, because Trump is a far cry from the sort of leader white evangelicals say they admire. His personal life is well out of step with Christian teachings on fidelity, honesty, humility and charity. This rough fit indicates that the major driver for this support stems not from the teachings of the church so much as a political movement that has weaponized them over the last 40 years, promising a path to return to a Christian golden age that never actually existed.

The Pew survey revealed that Trump is more popular among white evangelicals who regularly attend church and less popular among those who do not. Why the divergence? Because many white evangelicals who attend church regularly came of age politically and spiritually in the 1980s, precisely when the Christian right was born.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, evangelicals became anxious about perceived threats to white Christian culture in America. In 1962 and 1963, the Supreme Court removed prayer and mandatory Bible reading from public schools. The Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 increased diversity in the country by opening it to large numbers of non-western immigrants, who brought their diverse religious beliefs with them.

In 1971, the Supreme Court, in Green v. Connolly, stripped the tax-exempt status from institutions that discriminated in their admissions policies based on race. This affected a host of Southern Christian schools and academies, many of which saw the decision in terms of "big government" threatening their religious liberty - the liberty to discriminate based upon their reading of the Bible.

And, of course, in 1973 the Court supported a women's right to an abortion in Roe v. Wade.

It appeared that the world white evangelicals once knew was disappearing. Some of the leaders of the movement, buoyed by a renewed interest in American identity during the nation's bicentennial celebration in 1976, came to believe that the best way of fighting these social, cultural and demographic changes was to organize politically.

Jerry Falwell, a Baptist minister from Lynchburg, Virginia, formed the Moral Majority to "train, mobilize, and electrify the Religious Right" in preparation to fight a "holy war" for the moral soul of America. Falwell's organization played a major role in electing Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 and shaped a vision for white conservative evangelical political activity that remains strong today.

Falwell and Pat Robertson, a televangelist and 1988 candidate for president, taught white evangelicals that the only way to "win back America" and stem the rising tide of secularization and diversity was by electing Republicans.

From the perspective of these conservative white evangelicals, the Democratic Party was moving away from the traditional or family values that they understood to have defined the United States as a Christian nation. By contrast, Republicans had seized on the opportunity to welcome these fearful evangelicals into the fold by adopting their preferred positions on the crucial cultural issues causing so much angst in the evangelical community. Soon, these white evangelicals would control the party.

While it has failed to "win back" the culture, the political strength of the resultant movement cannot be underestimated. It has shaped much of white evangelical political activity in the 21st century. The result has been that, even as the GOP has achieved remarkably little for the Christian right over the past four decades, the ironclad relationship between white evangelical churchgoers and Republicans has, if anything, grown stronger.

The Christian right's ability to convince white evangelicals that only political power can bring about meaningful change makes it one of the most important political movements in post-World War II America. It has convinced millions of Christians to reject the teachings of Jesus about the dangers of worldly power and put their trust in political saviors to advance God's work in the nation and around the globe.

Today, the Christian right remains focused on the Supreme Court, which many evangelicals see as the chief impediment to their agenda on issues ranging from school prayer to LGBTQ rights to abortion. Their political playbook requires evangelicals to elect an attentive president who, in turn, will appoint socially conservative federal judges. Once these judges are in place, evangelicals believe they will be better positioned to win the battles over these key issues; saving the nation would avoid divine punishment for its sins.

That idea has remained so potent over the decades because it is embedded in evangelical churches. Pastors use their pulpits to speak about these cultural issues. Adult education classes in churches often focus on such topics. Members of small-group Bible studies discuss them. Some church leaders consistently stoke fear in their congregations by pointing to threats to religious liberty, both real and imagined.

Many white evangelical churchgoers now see the fight to overturn Roe v. Wade as equivalent to their call to share the Gospel with unbelievers. They subscribe to the message that the only way to live out evangelical faith in public is to vote for the candidates who will most effectively execute the 40-year-old Christian right playbook.

The movement's message is so strong that even when pastors oppose the politicization of their religion, the message is not likely to persuade congregants. Indeed, many white evangelical pastors do not preach politics from their pulpit. Some speak boldly against the idolatrous propensity of their congregations to seek political saviors.

But these pastors cannot control the messaging their flocks imbibe after they leave church on Sunday. And a massive Christian right messaging machine targets these Americans with precision. Ministries and nonprofit organizations, driven by conservative political agendas, bombard the mailboxes, inboxes and social media feeds of ordinary evangelicals. Many of these organizations appeal to long-standing evangelical fears about cultural decline or provide selective historical evidence that the United States was founded as, and continues to be, a "Christian nation," even though this never was true.

Evangelicals filter what they hear during weekly sermons through Fox News and conservative talk radio, producing an approach to political engagement that looks more like the Republican Party than the Kingdom of God.

None of this is new. People in the pews (or in the case of evangelical megachurches, the chairs), have always been selective in how they apply their pastor's sermons in everyday life. Evangelical Christians, from the Puritans to the present, have always mixed traditional Christian teachings with more non-Christian sources as they cultivate their religious lives. Today, however, cable television and social media expose white evangelicals to ideas that come from outside the church but that claim to be driven by Christianity at an unprecedented rate.

This strange but long-standing mix of biblical Christianity and conservative talking points empowers an incompetent and immoral president. It will likely have disastrous consequences for the future mission of born-again Christianity in the United States, as the redemptive message of the Gospel becomes little more than a political agenda that turns off those who otherwise might be longing for the spiritual solace it provides.

As long as the Christian right continues to hold sway in white evangelical churches, and as long as parachurch organizations encourage its agenda, the support for Trump among these Christians who attend church regularly will remain steady.

John Fea teaches history at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Penn., and is the author of “Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump.”

Utah House Bill 141, Aggravated Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, failed to pass through the Senate after the House voted in favor. If this bill had passed, the penalty for sexual exploitation of a minor would have increased from a second to a first degree felony under certain circumstances; specifically, when the exploitation was done by a family member or when the victim was under 5 years of age.

This bill should have passed through both the House and the Senate. The penalty for using your own kids for child pornography, or for using infants and toddlers to create heinous images, should absolutely be increased.

This bill would’ve empowered young children and given them the closure needed to recover. Instead, these children will continue to be exploited and revictimized as their perpetrators, if caught, receive minimal sentencing.

Haley Ashby, Draper

Submit a letter to the editor

I wonder how many Utah Republicans fail to see the irony that our current commander in chief, in charge of our military, is a draft dodger.

I also wonder how anyone in service to our country can respect his “boss.”

Kermit Heid, Salt Lake City

Submit a letter to the editor

Responding to Michelle Quist’s April 4 column, “A feminist’s hope for LDS General Conference”:

Feminism is not waiting for committees of men, even men regarded as leaders, to decide what kind of relationship you are “allowed” to have with your Heavenly Parents.

Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have no history of connection to Heavenly Mother. They’ve never expressed a desire to understand or connect to Her. They rarely acknowledge and never worship Her. They don’t include her in the creation story or in any curriculum.

Mother has been revealing Herself to people around the world for a very long time. She is available to all simply for the asking. There are many people who acknowledge, honor, worship and have a close relationship to Her because they were open to receiving it.

What matters is what is in your heart and mind regarding Her. I, too, am LDS, and I have a lovely relationship with Heavenly Mother because I followed the righteous desires of my heart and mind.

“Ask, and ye shall receive.” (Shall, not may.)

Beth Young, Bountiful

Submit a letter to the editor

It’s all fun and games until someone gets compared to Jar Jar Binks.

Yes, we all had a lot of fun reacting to the speech Utah’s Mike Lee gave on the floor of the U.S. Senate almost two weeks ago. He deserved every punch line and exasperated expression.

Well, almost.

In his vain effort to discredit the Green New Deal offered by congressional Democrats, Lee charged, falsely, that the plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would mean no airplanes and no modern ocean-going ships.

So, with appropriate visual aids, Lee posited a future where Hawaiians would have to ride giant seahorses (like 1960s Aquaman) and Alaskans would only be able to get around on Tauntauns (a la Luke Skywalker in “The Empire Strikes Back").

The reaction of the late night TV hosts was a modern version of what was supposedly said by Thomas Henry Huxley when, in an Oxford debate over Charles Darwin’s new “On the Origin of Species,” Bishop Samuel Wilberforce said something so dumb that made it easier for Huxley to defend evolution.

“The lord hath delivered him into my hands.”

Stephen Colbert went deep. He described Lee as a “driver’s ed teacher” and “your new stepfather.” And, to echo Lee’s use of Star Wars iconography, described Utah’s senior senator as “the Jar Jar Binks of the Senate.”

OK. That’s going too far.

Jar Jar may be the most hated character in the history of blockbuster films, compared to a blackface version of African Americans or Jamaicans.

I always thought that was a little harsh. Jar Jar was annoying, yes, but he served a dramatic purpose. While the Jedi Knight heroes remained totally cool in the face of invading robot armies and ginormous sea monsters, some on-screen character had to let the audience know when it was time to be scared. That was Jar Jar’s job, and he carried it off admirably.

But the Gungan fell from comic relief grace to evil pawn infamy when he was tricked — the Force can have a strong influence on the weak minded — into making the motion in the Galactic Senate to give the secretly evil chancellor dictatorial powers.

Things really went downhill after that.

Lee may have really goofy things to say about climate change, health care and how it makes sense to shut down the government for light and transient reasons. But there is no reason to expect that he would ever, ever propose giving unchecked executive power to anyone.

When he isn’t being wrong about so many other things, Lee’s big cause is the defense of congressional authority and prerogatives against more than a century of executive usurpation of same. Kind of retro, perhaps, but principled and useful.

That’s his motivation for reaching waaaaay across the aisle to join with Sen. Bernie Sanders to get Congress to invoke the moribund War Powers Act and order the administration to cease its assistance of the president’s biggest creditors, the royal family of Saudi Arabia, in their nearly genocidal war in Yemen. Of the rest of the Utah delegation, only Rep. Ben McAdams, the sole Democrat, sided with Lee and against presidential supremacy.

The president will veto that resolution, so it won’t matter much. Just like it won’t matter much that Lee, McAdams and Sen. Mitt Romney voted against the president’s bogus declaration of an emergency at the Mexican border, because that measure was likewise vetoed. Still, Lee tried, and in opposition to a president of his own party.

Lee richly deserves much of the ridicule he has received. But Jar Jar Binks?

Meesa don’t think so.

gpyle@sltrib.com

As we approach the 2020 presidential campaign, no Democratic candidate is a climate change denier, and even many independents and Republicans thinking about running against President Donald Trump believe in the science of climate change and avoid discussing the tough decisions this will require.

Even many Republicans in the House and Senate who disagree with Trump’s position avoid challenging him because of his political power. They also hate to admit that they may have fallen for the anti-climate change propaganda.

Trump has backed himself and many Republicans into a corner. Admitting that human-caused global warming is real will show that they have been either wrong or have knowingly misled their constituents.

For more than 60 years, evidence has been accumulating that shows that climate change is real and caused by burning fossil fuels. In a few years from now when we look back on this time we must each ask ourselves, “Were we part of the problem or part of the solution?”

David Hart, Torrey

Submit a letter to the editor

Heather Buchanan’s recent Public Forum letter “We need more housing assistance in the U.S., not less” is correct.

Utah has an affordable housing crisis for a very simple reason: There are more households than available housing units. And those units are costing more and more to rent and buy, making them unaffordable to an ever-increasing number of Utahns.

Because of the way incentives currently align, more than 125,000 Utah households spend 50 percent of their income on rent, leaving little remaining for food, vehicles or children. This is simply untenable where one unexpected expense will send one of these families into a tailspin and potentially homelessness. We can and should change incentives so that more affordable units will be available.

First, at the local level, states can encourage smarter zoning and make a smarter tax policy that makes affordable housing part of the housing market. The Legislature actually passed a good bill on this, but stripped out all funding, while the budget and tax reform debate spills over into a special session.

Second, on a national level, affordable housing programs should be expanded, not curtailed. Landlords should be federally barred from rejecting housing vouchers, and the federal government should create tax incentives to help fill the gap between what developers would make at a market rate, to create more housing that low-income families can actually afford.

Join me in calling our elected officials to make affordable housing a priority.

David P. Billings, Salt Lake City

Submit a letter to the editor

From Stephen Colbert to Twitter postings to letters and commentaries in The Salt Lake Tribune, Sen. Mike Lee created quite a buzz when he claimed that “babies” are the solution to climate change.

Was he serious? As he has put forth no other solutions, I’m inclined to take him at his word.

Fortuitously, five days before Lee’s speech, Paul Hawken delivered the keynote address for the Sustainability Summit at Weber State University.

Hawken is renowned for editing The New York Times best-selling book, “Drawdown: The most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.” In this assembly of the best solutions from 270 world experts, “fall in love, get married and have some kids” is nowhere to be found. In fact, their seventh-most impactful solution is family planning.

Rather than mock the Green New Deal, why doesn’t our senior senator make climate change a bridge issue in Congress? He has successfully worked across the aisle on issues such as prison reform and immigration. I want to hear an Earth Day Senate speech in which Lee outlines a conservative, science-based policy that addresses climate change. In doing so, he will build healthier, more vibrant and stronger communities.

David S. Folland, Sandy

Submit a letter to the editor

Pick a musical style — bluegrass, rock, funk, reggae, soul, folk, blues, R&B, country, jazz — and one of the headlining acts at the 2019 Utah Arts Festival probably mixes at least two of them.

The annual summer festival, spotlighting visual and performance art of all varieties for all ages, is set for June 20-23 at Library Square and Washington Square in downtown Salt Lake City.

Here are the headliners, in order of appearance:

The Slackers • Self-billed as “Jamaican rock ’n’ roll,” this band has been touring for more than 28 years with its blend of ska, reggae and soul. Thursday, June 20, 9:45 p.m., Amphitheater Stage.

The Steel Woods • This Nashville-based double-guitar band performs southern blues-rock with hints of R&B, country, bluegrass, gospel, blues, folk and metal. Friday, June 21, 9:30 p.m., Festival Stage.

Caroline Rose • This indie-pop singer, guitarist, keyboardist and songwriter shatters genres with serious songs and a wicked sense of humor. Friday, June 21, 9:45 p.m., Amphitheater Stage.

Christine Lavin • A New York-based singer-songwriter, Lavin has performed and promoted contemporary folk for nearly four decades. Saturday, June 22, 8 p.m., Festival Stage.

Head for the Hills • Hailing from Fort Collins, Colo., this string band plays bluegrass with strains of modern genres, including Americana, jazz, indie-rock and hip-hop. Saturday, June 22, 8 p.m., Amphitheater Stage.

Hot Buttered Rum • Bay Area progressive bluegrass quintet, weaving in folk, jazz and soul. Saturday, June 22, 9:45 p.m., Amphitheater Stage.

MarchFourth • Based in Portland, Ore., this funk/rock/jazz group (formerly known as MarchFourth Marching Band) is famed for its raucous, circuslike stage show. Sunday, June 23, 9:45 p.m., Amphitheater Stage.

Two ticket deals are available for the event. One, the “Grab Your Friends and Go” package, offers tickets for $11.25 (a 25% discount from the individual $15 ticket) if you buy four or more. The other, the “Get ‘em Outta the House Pack,” offers two individual tickets for $27, plus four soft-drink vouchers and unlimited free tickets for kids 12 and younger. Those ticket deals are available online at uaf.org/2019tixpromo.

The dam broke this week and horror stories flooded out about Brigham Young University’s Honor Code Office and the critical need for reform.

In the process, the wave that has swept across campus has opened an opportunity for a constructive discussion regarding student expectations and, just maybe, an atmosphere that more appropriately balances the desire to maintain standards with a sense of mercy and forgiveness.

BYU is a private institution, to be sure. Moreover, it’s a religious institution and therefore has standards of conduct — embodied in the Honor Code — and nobody should expect any different. It prohibits alcohol and coffee, regulates interactions between male and female students, restricts same-sex romantic expressions and regulates other really dishonorable things, like growing a beard.

Students know that’s part of what they sign up for when they enroll at BYU and, as defenders of the Honor Code rightly say, if they don’t like it, don’t go.

Yet times change and so does the Honor Code and this flurry of stories has prompted serious discussion about how the school can enforce its standards without it feeling like a campus version of the Spanish Inquisition.

In recent years, as my colleagues at The Salt Lake Tribune have detailed, women who reported sexual assaults at BYU said the Honor Code Office punished them for violating school policy. A BYU police lieutenant accessed supposedly confidential police reports from other departments and shared them — including at least one case involving an alleged rape — with university officials and the Honor Code Office.

Last month, several former BYU athletes spoke out on social media, urging changes in the way the university enforces the Honor Code. One of them was former BYU linebacker Derik Stevenson who said he got addicted to pain pills to treat football-related injuries, then hid his addiction out of fear of reprisal from Honor Code investigators.

Sidney Draughon was prompted to create an Instagram account where students could share their Honor Code Office encounters — and she has her own. After a young man reported to school officials that he had engaged in sexual touching with Draughon, an Honor Code investigator called and interrogated her about who touched whom and where and what kind of underwear she wore. In another instance, she was called into the office, accused of immodest dress and presented with a printout of a tweet that she had liked, while still in high school, that included an inappropriate term.

Her Instagram account — @honorcodestories — has blown up and students are also flooding Twitter with the hashtags #ThatsNotHonor and #ReformTheCode complaining of a toxic system used to settle scores.

Some are stories from students whose roommates once reported them for watching an R-rated movie. Others are more serious.

One male student posted text messages he had received from a man he had dated threatening to report him to the Honor Code Office if he didn’t engage in sexual activity. “You go to BYU right?” the message read. “It would be a shame if they found out about you.”

In one post, a female student tells about being interrogated and disciplined after she was sexually assaulted on campus. There is a story of a student who was punished for sexual misconduct after she told her story of falling victim to a sexual predator. Another post tells of a sibling who took his life after an ex-girlfriend gave his name to the Honor Code Office and he got expelled.

The consequences these students face can be severe, including potential expulsion from school, and they come at a time when these young people are still learning who they are. Some will, inevitably, make mistakes and it shouldn’t cost them their apartment or their degree.

It is Old Testament justice untempered by New Testament mercy.

The entire movement for Honor Code reform takes a tremendous amount of courage, both for students willing to share their stories as well as students organizing a protest on April 12, who have to recognize they could be targeted and punished by the university.

The demands of the student protesters, however, seem entirely reasonable. They want student or faculty witnesses to be able to sit in on Honor Code hearings and to not require students to waive their right to legal counsel.

To keep students from using the Honor Code Office as a vindictive weapon, they want to prohibit anonymous reporting except in cases of assault or risk to the student. And they want an attitude and approach to the Honor Code focused on repentance rather than retribution.

And they’re encouraging students to demand to see their own file at the Honor Code Office so they can find out what tabs the university is keeping on them.

More than 20,000 people have signed an online petition asking for an update to the Honor Code.

On Thursday, BYU administrators responded on Twitter that, “We’ve seen the conversations this week about the Honor Code Office. We love our students and alums and how much they care about BYU. These messages are leading to constructive dialogue between students and the leadership of the Honor Code Office.”

That is a tremendously encouraging sign. The BYU Honor Code won’t go away and no one should expect it to, but that doesn’t mean the school shouldn’t identify concrete ways to maintain honor while acting more honorably toward its students.

It’ll be T-shirt weather on Monday in Salt Lake City, with highs near 70, but don’t pack away the parkas yet. Believe it or not, the National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning.

According to the NWS, a “cold, late-season winter storm will bring accumulating snow to much of northern and central Utah” on Tuesday, with snow levels falling to the valley floors.

How much snow? The NWS warns local residents to expect up to 3 inches on the valley floors; 4-9 inches along the benches; and 1-2 feet in the mountains.

The forecast calls for “intense snow showers” as a cold front moves through Utah on Tuesday, which will be followed by a “prolonged period of steady snow” in the mountains. The heaviest snowfall is expected across the central and southern Wasatch Mountains and central Utah mountains.

And it warns of “occasional winter driving conditions” from Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning across all of northern and central Utah. Travel may be "very difficult through the mountain passes.”

The storm could result in damage to trees, particularly those that already have leaves, and falling trees or branches “may cause property damage and/or power outages.”

In addition, high winds are expected from the Salt Lake City west to the Nevada border from Tuesday evening through Wednesday morning. Gusts in excess of 58 miles per hour are possible. The winds may impact high-profile and light vehicles, and blowing salt and dust may reduce visibility.

Temperatures will reach the upper 50s on Tuesday before the cold front moves in, with overnight lows in the low- to mid-30s. The highs on Wednesday and Thursday are forecast in the mid-40s.

The storm is expected to end by Friday, with temperatures rising into the low 50s.