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It was part news conference, part pep rally.

BYU’s newest men’s basketball coach, Mark Pope, was introduced to the media and everyone else Wednesday afternoon at a made-for-BYUtv event at the BYU Broadcasting Building, and the former Utah Valley coach made a lot of lofty promises and received a lot of applause.

Whether the exuberant and ever-enthusiastic 6-foot-10 Pope can deliver more than what retired coach Dave Rose was able to accomplish remains to be seen. Anything less will be viewed as a disappointment, but Pope takes the job knowing it is a more difficult job than the one Rose accepted 14 years ago.

Pope won the news conference, as people like to say, but have you ever read reports of a coach losing one?

“This place is like nowhere else,” Pope said after receiving a big ovation when athletic director Tom Holmoe introduced him. “It is a beacon on a hill. … There is a standard of excellence here in everything that happens on this campus.”

Folks ate it up.

Credit Pope for knowing that expectations are high at BYU, perhaps too high given the Cougars’ current lot in the college sports landscape. He mentioned several times that he wouldn’t want it any other way. He said he doesn’t like to deal with reality, which is why he is involved in sports.

“Certainly there is a standard of excellence that has been set with this basketball program, and incredibly high expectations, and that is one of the most enticing things to me about taking over this position, are those high expectations and the way we will be able to embrace them,” he said.

Pope said he will “schedule really, really aggressively” and “we will be fearless in everything we do. We will take our lumps and we will jump back off the mat and with confidence go on to the next battle.”

So he talks a big game. That was to be expected, after watching him operate at UVU the past four years. He famously scheduled back-to-back games at Kentucky and Duke one year, after all.

“We will be wholehearted — that’s an important word — we will be wholehearted in everything we do,” he said. “We will be relentless every minute, every day, 24-7, chasing excellence on this team. Relentless. And we will be together. In all those ways, it will be our goal to represent this university and this community in a way that all of us are going to be extraordinarily proud of. My deal is, think about what you think we can’t do as a program. Think about it, let me know. And that’s what we are going to go do. That’s what we are going to get done.”

Here’s my report from the news conference, while Tribune columnist Gordon Monson weighed in on Pope as well.

I caught up with the three recruits that Rose signed last November, and all three seem to be on board with Pope getting the job.

Football wrap-ups

Spring football wrapped up a few weeks ago, but there are always plenty of storylines to explore with coach Kalani Sitake’s crew. Here’s a look at the competition to be the starting place-kicker — a duel between sophomores Skyler Southam and Jake Oldroyd — and here’s more on the situation at linebacker as the Cougars hope and pray that starters Zayne Anderson and Isaiah Kaufusi return healthy after offseason surgeries.

Quotable

There’s always a lot of talk about BYU having limited choices for its head coaches because those coaches who lead programs must be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But athletic director Tom Holmoe was pleased with the quality of the candidates who were interested in the men’s basketball opening.

“There were some super candidates,” Holmoe said. “They had qualities that were superb. [Mark Pope] had the most and the best. I really think that he just stood out as the one that was the right coach for this job. Then I went to President [Worthen] and he took it from there. I don’t go to Salt Lake [to get LDS Church headquarters approval]. He does all that.”

Pope at the podium pic.twitter.com/oukBOBNpuS

— Jay Drew (@drewjay) April 10, 2019

Around campus

• BYU’s extremely successful women’s volleyball program was honored twice at the Governor’s State of Sport Awards on Wednesday night as senior outside hitter Roni Jones-Perry received Utah’s Collegiate Female Athlete of the Year award while head coach Heather Olmstead was given the Female Head Coach of the Year award. Jones-Perry was a first-team All-American, a national player of the year finalist, and the AVCA South Pacific Player of the Year. Olmstead, in her fourth season last year, led the Cougars to a No. 1 national ranking for 11 straight weeks and an appearance in the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four.

• Seven senior BYU football players were honored by the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame earlier this week with induction into the NFF Hampshire Honor Society. The players maintained a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or better in their careers. BYU and Vanderbilt tied for the most honorees in the FBS. BYU’s honorees included running backs Brayden El-Bakri and Matt Hadley, linebackers Adam Pulsipher and Riggs Powell, defensive back/holder Gavin Fowler, punter Rhett Almond and offensive lineman Austin Hoyt. Pulsipher was also a semifinalist for the 2018 William V. Campbell Trophy.

• The BYU baseball team’s chance for revenge over Utah was cancelled on Tuesday as rainy, snowy weather forced the postponement of the Utah-BYU game at Miller Park in Provo. The Cougars (8-4, 22-8) will host Pepperdine at 6 p.m. Thursday, 6 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday at Miller Park. Meanwhile, BYU senior right fielder Brock Hale is one of 10 finalists for the 2019 Senior CLASS Award in collegiate baseball.

• BYU’s men’s volleyball team lost a tough five-set match at Grand Canyon last Saturday and will have to travel for the MPSF tournament. The fifth-seeded Cougars (12-11, 6-6 MPSF) play at fourth-seeded Stanford (15-10, 6-6) on Saturday night because the Cardinal own the tiebreaker, having won five sets to BYU’s four in head-to-head matches. BYU will have to win three consecutive matches to get back to the NCAA Tournament.

Utah basketball coach Larry Krystkowiak will have a full-time coaching staff vacancy for the first time since taking the job and hiring his three assistants in 2011.

DeMarlo Slocum is moving from Utah to UNLV as an assistant to newly hired coach T.J. Otzelberger, according to multiple reports.

Slocum, 41, is a Las Vegas native and a former coach of an AAU team in his hometown. He spent four years on the Colorado State staff before coming to Utah.

Slocum is known to have played an important role in the Utah program's dynamics, acting as a bridge between the players and Krystkowiak. He also has been a key recruiter, involved in the Utes' current pursuit of junior college guard Tazjel Sherman, who recently made an official visit to Utah. Sherman is scheduled to visit West Virginia this weekend and then make his decision.

Andy Hill and Tommy Connor remain from Krystkowiak’s original staff. Chris Jones became Utah’s director of basketball operations in 2016. In that role, according to NCAA rules, Jones is not allowed to have direct contact with players during practices or games.

This story will be updated.

Washington • President Donald Trump, who repeatedly praised WikiLeaks for releasing damaging material on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race, on Thursday sought to disavow his past enthusiasm following the arrest of the organization’s founder, Julian Assange.

"I know nothing about WikiLeaks," Trump told reporters. "It's not my thing. I know there is something to do with Julian Assange. I've been seeing what's happened with Assange. And that will be a determination, I imagine, mostly by the attorney general."

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump said he didn't "really have an opinion" about Assange's arrest by British authorities in response to a U.S. extradition request. He said the matter was being handled by Attorney General William Barr.

In an indictment unsealed earlier Thursday, Assange was accused of conspiring in 2010 with Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst then known as Bradley Manning, and others to illegally obtain secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents.

It was WikiLeaks’ later publication of hacked emails damaging to Clinton, Trump’s 2016 Democratic opponent, that drew his repeated praise.

NBC News tallied that Trump had cited WikiLeaks 141 times at 56 events in the last month of the campaign.

"WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks," he said at one such event.

"This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove," he said at another.

"I love reading those WikiLeaks," he said at yet another event, relaying that he had been delayed in arriving because he had been reading the latest batch of emails that WikiLeaks had released.

WikiLeaks began releasing hacked emails from Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, on the same day in October 2016 as the surfacing of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged about inappropriately grabbing women.

Utahns will soon have the ability to take a test ride in the state’s first fully autonomous vehicle as part of a pilot program featuring an automated street shuttle. Brought to the state by the Utah Department of Transportation in partnership with the Utah Transit Authority, the shuttle had its first public test run Thursday.

The vehicle is now legally able to operate on Utah roads after state lawmakers passed a bill allowing testing of the shuttle to move from a closed track to sidewalks and state roads.

“We want the public to experience it and start to see how this could fit into the future of our transportation system,” Carlos Braceras, UDOT executive director, told members of the media prior to the demonstration.

Utah is one of the fastest growing states in the nation and Braceras believes the technology will help mitigate some of the highway deaths that increased traffic would cause.

“Over 37,000 people die on our roads every year and 94% of all crashes are due to human error. What we hope and what we believe is that with the autonomous vehicle we are going to see technology help take over some of those driver functions and make driving safer,” he said.

The shuttle, which can seat eight people and has handholds to allow another seven or eight people to ride while standing will initially have a safety operator accompany riders. But Braceras predicted that after the technology has time to develop, this precaution will no longer be a necessary.

Part of Thursday’s demonstration was a show of the technology’s ability to detect and avoid obstacles or pedestrians in the way.

The UDOT executive likened the vehicle to the space shuttle from the 1960s animated sitcom “The Jetsons,” noting however that it’s “an incremental step” that likely “won’t appear very exciting because it is operating at a slower speed [15 miles per hour] but this is a safe way to step into this future technology.”

“I’m not ready to predict how fast this is going to happen but I would anticipate that by 2025 these type of technologies will be common,” said Braceras.

The shuttle is able to follow predetermined routes, which Braceras said would make it ideal for places like the airport, or to fill gaps in the home-to-work commute.

“We have a real challenge in closing the last mile in where people live or work and to destination locations,” UTA Chairman Carlton Christensen said, acknowledging the solution might be be provided by autonomous vehicles.

Utah Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox also spoke at the event praising the state for championing the new technology.

“We are a state that cares deeply about entrepreneurism, about finding new and better ways to solve problems and do things better,” he said. Such vehicles could help mitigate some of the negative effects of Utah’s fast growth such as air quality and traffic.

Cox noted his own reliance on a personal car, with his daily commute between his home in Fairview and Salt Lake City.

“I drive 200 miles round trip every day, I’ve driven about 340,000 miles as lieutenant governor in the last five years and I can’t wait to have a vehicle that drives me where I need to go,” he said.

Washington • Former oil and gas lobbyist David Bernhardt was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday to lead the Interior Department, an agency that controls nearly half a billion acres of public land and the vast amount of oil and gas mineral resources resting beneath it.

The 56-41 vote Thursday promoted Bernhardt from the department's acting secretary, a job he assumed after his predecessor Ryan Zinke resigned amid numerous investigations into his behavior and management of the agency. Bernhardt had served as Zinke's deputy until his departure in December.

Bernhardt's extensive experience at the Interior Department, where he served as solicitor during President George W. Bush's administration, was cited by his supporters who said he is more than qualified to lead the agency.

But his work as a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry in the West, as well as large water utilities, led to concerns about conflicts of interest. The Interior Department oversees 700 million acres of public lands and 1.7 billion acres offshore, and it works closely with some of Bernhardt's former clients.

Bernhardt has so many potential conflicts of interest that he carries an index card listing companies and people he should avoid. Concerns over ethics led to a heated confrontation between a Democrat who opposed Bernhardt's nomination and a Republican who opposed it at his confirmation hearing.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Bernhardt came to his office and assured him that he would follow ethics rules. Shortly after the meeting, Wyden said, he was startled to see that Bernhardt was the subject of a newspaper article that said he intervened on behalf of the oil industry and others to stop a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service analysis that said certain toxic pesticides used by such businesses threatened endangered animals.

"Why would you come to my office and lie?" Wyden asked. The actions "make you sound like just another corrupt official," the lawmaker said.

Wyden's statement was immediately countered by Bernhardt's friend and fellow Coloradan, Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican who said Democrats exhibited a double standard by supporting former Interior Secretary and petroleum engineer Sally Jewell but not Bernhardt.

In the end, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved Bernhardt's nomination by a 14-6 vote. Several Democrats joined Gardner and Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, in supporting the nominee.

“I will work closely with Chairman Murkowski and my colleagues to ensure Mr. Bernhardt commits to the highest standards of ethics, not just in the letter of the law but truly the spirit of the law,” said Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.

Shortly before the Senate vote, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., explained his support of Bernhardt.

"I need to be able to pick up the phone and talk to the secretary of interior on a regular, regular basis because these things have direct impacts on New Mexico," Heinrich said Wednesday. "We didn't win the election in 2016, so I'm not going to get my choice for secretary of interior. In the meantime, I have to be able to work with these folks."

Heinrich expressed particular concern about potential oil and gas drilling in the Chaco Canyon area near massive stone ruins considered sacred to the descendants of the ancient Pueblo civilization: "I'm going to put my state, and the protection of public lands in my state, ahead of the sort of political battle that happens in Washington, D.C."

On the day of the Senate vote, Gardner again denounced Bernhardt's opponents and said the "Washington, D.C., political smear machine has been working overtime" to bring down a good man.

Democrats and conservation groups in turn say Bernhardt has worked overtime to roll back key regulations protecting public lands and wildlife.

With Bernhardt acting as an influential deputy under Zinke, the Interior Department held oil and gas lease sales that resulted in more than a billion dollars in revenue for the national treasury.

But the agency also weakened enforcement of the 100-year-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act, allowing individuals and companies to kill scores of protected birds so long as investigators determine it was not intentional, reversing a longstanding rule.

The pair also oversaw a rollback of National Park Service rules on federal land in Alaska. Now, hunters can kill mother bears and their cubs sleeping in dens; hunters may shooting animals from boats as game swims.

Sen. Amy Klobachur, D-Minn., said Thursday that she opposed Bernhardt's nomination for several reasons, including his role in weakening enforcement of the law to protect birds and "stacking the deck in favor of the fossil fuel industry."

Like other Democrats, Klobachur decried his actions to limit opportunities for the public to comment on the department's policy decisions and Bernhardt's directive to agency employees to not factor climate and environmental effects into guidance.

Under Bernhardt, she said, the Interior Department has downplayed climate science and has made decisions and rules "that will accelerate its effect. The question is not is it happening . . . the question is what will we do about it," she said.

The Washington Post’s Dino Grandoni contributed to this report

We have written about the serious and widening gap between rural and urban America. The red/blue divide is largely a rural/urban divide — even within states. As urban areas prosper, rural areas are depopulating, coping with an aging population and suffering from more health problems (including opioid addiction). If rural America was as rich, healthy and vital as the urban centers and their thriving suburbs, President Donald Trump might not have been able to exploit this population with fear-mongering, racism and xenophobia.

If rural America recovers, could we get sustained growth above 3 percent? Increase the average lifespan? Diminish the audience for right-wing populism? Possibly, but in any event, fellow Americans are suffering and neither party is coming up with constructive solutions.

Fortunately, the indispensable Niskanen Center wants to look at this problem. "According to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, over half of total U.S. [gross domestic product] is produced by only 20 metropolitan areas," Niskanen reports. "The New York metropolitan area alone accounts for over 10 percent of the nation's output in any given year, and with only 6 percent of its population. America may remain the land of opportunity, but in way that has become increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer locations." There are few winning zip codes and many losing ones. "Once-vibrant regions across the United States are struggling with population decline, the collapse of industries, and shrinking tax bases."

Niskanen's new initiative rests on the hypothesis that "regionally concentrated distress is fundamentally a problem of arrested economic development." Niskanen looks upon bidding wars between states for major employers as accelerating regional inequality (the richest zip codes get most of the new, major employers) and geared toward specific, one-off arrangements rather than endemic problems. A Moody economist argues that it is critical to "help struggling places get more economic development, help big firms find other places to invest other than megacities, and help stop crony capitalism."

Likewise, an "Office of Struggling Regions" could "coordinate federal research and development dollars to second-tier universities in depressed parts of the country, and provide analysis of where non-cash marketing, financing and logistical support for local industries would be most useful."

Other ideas include "opportunity zones" that allow "investors to defer and ultimately waive taxation on capital gains for new investments made within qualified distressed communities"; and making occupational licenses portable (or better yet, removing ones not necessitated by health and safety). There are other creative programs that can build on existing initiatives. For example, "Subsidized employment programs could target job-placements in regions with labor shortages. Self-Employment Assistance programs could link those moving-off of unemployment insurance into [Small Business Administration] mentorship programs. Regions suffering from an economic shock could become automatically eligible for reduced capital costs, and so forth."

This largely unaddressed problem exemplifies the real-life consequences of partisan polarization.

Republicans who represent these distressed areas have gone protectionist (which actually hurts farmers), and have tried to mollify voters by playing to racial fears. In addition, while Trump ran as a populist, he's governing like a oligarch, giving tax breaks to the rich and cutting discretionary programs that help the less wealthy. Republicans have utterly failed these voters, as we saw from their health-care proposals, each one inflicting more harm on rural, aging Americans than the one before. The ideas Trump does have - such as reviving coal - are economically illiterate, fruitless and aggravate climate change (which, by the way, is taking a big toll on many of these same rural, depressed areas).

Before Trump, Democrats weren't always blamed for ignoring concerns specific to the Rust Belt. Now, they've learned the political price of ignoring this part of the country. However, mega-proposals such as the single-payer health plan of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., don't address the regional divide or the underlying economic stagnation.

Who would be best suited to focus on this? Democrats from red states who know all too well the concerns of rural voters. It's an ideal issue for South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former representative Beto O'Rourke of Texas and, yes, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. They also happen to be three of the more creative and least ideologically dogmatic Democrats around.

Whoever decides to champion the issue would soon recognize that good policy and good politics (highlighting how Trump has failed his most loyal voters) sometimes go together. They could also benefit from the policy work the Niskanen Center has begun.

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post.

@JRubinBlogger

Provo • Who will new BYU coach Mark Pope hire as his assistant coaches?

That was the first question the former Utah Valley University coach was asked at his introductory news conference on Wednesday afternoon, and surprisingly Pope didn’t shrug off the pointed query as most coaches likely would have done.

“I am already actually pretty far down the road with assistants,” Pope said, perhaps an indication that he was planning to take the BYU job all along, contrary to some media reports that he was dragging his feet a bit in hopes of getting a better offer.

Pope didn’t mention anyone specifically, but after outlining four characteristics that he looks for in an assistant coach, he added: “I have been blessed to work with a great staff at UVU and I think we have some really good ideas about where we are going with that.”

That probably means Pope is going to bring one UVU assistant, perhaps two or three, with him to BYU. His top choice is believed to be his second assistant at UVU, former Duke and University of Utah player Chris Burgess, who was with Pope all four years at the neighboring Orem school.

“Coach Burgess is here with his wife, Lisa, and you talk about a guy who can develop bigs, it is extraordinary, what he has done at our place,” Pope said later in the news conference after being asked about the importance of player development. “And it is by relentlessly being there every single day, looking at film every single day, being on the court every single day, teaching really simple principles over and over again.”

A lot hinges on who replaces Pope at Utah Valley.

Burgess will seemingly be a candidate for that job, but it is telling that Pope’s first assistant there, Cody Fueger, was named UVU interim coach Wednesday afternoon by interim athletic director Jared Sumsion, vice president for finance and administration Val Peterson and school president Astrid Tuminez.

A 16-year coaching veteran, Fueger followed Pope to UVU from BYU in 2015. Pope would like Fueger to replace him as UVU’s head coach, according to sources close to the situation, and has asked some well-heeled boosters and friends to get behind that effort.

Pope believes Burgess would have a brighter future at BYU (in relation to becoming head coach some day) than Fueger because Burgess is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Fueger is not. Burgess joked Wednesday that his former Utah teammates would give him a hard time if he donned BYU blue, but never ruled out the possibility.

Meanwhile, Utah Valley is in a difficult spot because five-year athletic director Vince Otoupal resigned in February and now works for the University of Utah. Will Sumsion, Peterson or Tuminez — it is unclear who is ultimately making the decision — move quickly, or wait for the new AD to make the call? It might be Sumsion.

What about retired BYU coach Dave Rose’s former assistants? Second assistant Tim LaComb resigned when Rose did, while first assistant Quincy Lewis was a strong candidate for the job that went to Pope and made it known to BYU administrators during the hiring process that he wasn’t interested in any other coaching position at BYU than head coach.

Third assistant Lee Cummard and director of basketball operations Andrew May would like to stay on the staff if Pope will have them.

BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe said Pope will have total autonomy to choose his assistants, and doesn’t have to keep anyone on staff for continuity’s sake.

Sources close to Lewis say he is very interested in the UVU job — he was an assistant there from 1997-2002 when it was known as Utah Valley State College. Lewis could also be a candidate for the vacant Idaho State job after the Pocatello school fired former SUU coach Bill Evans, 71, after seven seasons.

Wasatch Academy coach David Evans might catch Pope’s eye, especially considering BYU is heavily involved in recruiting several of Evans’ players, including highly touted LDS prospect Caleb Lohner.

Wasatch Academy assistant Paul Peterson, a former player and coach at BYU-Hawaii, has received some endorsements for an assistants job at BYU on social media by former players such as Brandon Davies and Kyle Collinsworth. Former players Luke Worthington and Nate Austin were slated to be graduate assistants in 2019-20 and are now also playing the waiting game, presumably.

Just like everyone else.

Everybody’s bummed.

Don’t be.

Through a remarkable set of circumstances that were somehow realized on the last night of the regular season, the Jazz were shoved into facing the Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, starting Sunday night in Houston.

It’s a good thing, a great thing, a useful thing, something to celebrate, and nothing to dread.

Jazz fans — and probably the Jazz themselves — wanted Portland, on account of the fact they thought that would be easier. The Blazers also thought the Jazz, who they split games with during the season, would be easier than the Thunder, against whom they were 0-4. But they went ahead and won on Wednesday night, despite falling behind Sacramento by 500 miles in the first half, before hitting the throttle hard to win. Now they’ll get OKC.

And — suh-weet — I like it.

Just like everybody else around here — including Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors and Ricky Rubio and Joe Ingles — should be stoked the Jazz are playing the Rockets instead of the Blazers. It’s what, in the spirit of Texas, y’all should want.

No need to be a bunch of namby-pambies. No reason to be avoiding the tough road. No cause to freak out or shrink away from an outfit that was the best team in the league after the All-Star break, a group that won better than four games for every one it lost over the back half, a side that ousted the Jazz, fittingly enough, by winning four games against one loss in last year’s playoffs.

Get that lame frame of mind, that loser’s attitude, that weak shiz out of here, man.

Buck up and charge on.

There’s no purpose in delaying what everyone wants and needs to know: How much have the Jazz improved?

With the Jazz promptly matching up against the Rockets, the multitudes — including Jazz players, coaches, and management — can find out what this team is made of, what it’s capable of, what heights it can reach, without further delay.

Playing the Blazers would have postponed some of that for a couple of weeks. And without Jusuf Nurkic, the Blazers likely would have fallen to the Jazz. Don’t know it for a fact, but that would have been a rocksteady guess. And a first-round victory like that might have been faintly encouraging, might have provided a few more games from which the Jazz could have profited in ticket sales, might have emboldened those who are looking to feel good about the progress the Jazz have purportedly made over the past year.

But it would not have proved much. Not really.

Vivint Arena would have been full. The clamor inside the building during games would have sounded like a hundred Freightliners rolling through the hallways and out onto the court, rumbles reverberating off of every wall, every crevice, every fan’s eardrums. It would have added a little extra fun.

And it would have done nothing but set up an authentic showdown against the Warriors in the second round.

As is, the Jazz get that showdown now.

Funny thing, the Rockets and their fans look at the Jazz like some around here looked at the Blazers — as an easier path. They, too, will get the Warriors, at least in their minds, in the second round. For them, there is still a score to reverse from last postseason’s business with Golden State. The Jazz are merely an onramp to that revenge.

But opportunity is as fine a motivator as vengeance.

That’s all the more reason to embrace playing the Rockets. They’ll say all the right things about the Jazz going in, but the body language from last season and parts of this season, as well, screams, “You poor pitiful souls are beneath us. We will send you packing. We will crush you.”

Last postseason, the Rockets — and some others — were disrespecting the Jazz’s stars, saying that Mitchell’s name — cute as his game was — shouldn’t even be spoken in the same paragraph with James Harden’s, and that Gobert was inferior to Clint Capela. Remember that?

Mitchell was just a pup then. Gobert had to learn a few things.

Now, when the games matter most, we’ll immediately get to see how much growth has occurred. And since most predict the Jazz to lose, an opportunity exists.

There’s no arguing that the Rockets were better than the Jazz last time — by a substantial margin. By how much, if at all, has that margin been reduced? We’ll see if Quin Snyder can find a way for his players to conquer Houston’s switching defense. We’ll see if the combo-pack of Harden and Chris Paul can be slowed, if the Jazz’s perimeter defense can put up enough resistance to give Gobert a chance to effectively roam without getting punished by drives and dimes to the Rockets’ bigs.

More than that, without further adieu, we’ll see rather plainly how much ground the Jazz have to make up before they can stand on contention’s doorstep, how great a need there is for management to no longer sit still, calling for individual players to improve while only minor moves are made, but instead to get busy, make some deals, take a risk, expend and exchange some financial flexibility for additional talent that can slam the gap shut.

That’s what this Jazz-Rockets series is really about.

It’s a clear path to the truth.

And who isn’t eager for that?

GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Jake Scott weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.

Lehi resident Tony Finau made a late bogey, but shot under par Thursday in the first round of the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club.

Finau’s 1-under-par 71 almost was matched by 48-year Mike Weir of Sandy. Making his 20th consecutive Masters appearance, Weir rallied with three birdies and eight pars over the last 11 holes to post a 72. Weir, who regularly plays the Web.com Tour in preparation for a PGA Tour Champions career when he turns 50 in May 2020, is in excellent position to make the 36-hole cut at Augusta National for the first time since 2014.

Finau bogeyed the par-3 No. 4, but made three birdies on par-5 holes and stood 2 under through 16 holes. But he bogeyed No. 17, falling into a tie for 12th place as of mid-afternoon Thursday.

Finau opened last April’s tournament with a 68 and eventually tied for 10th place; Weir posted a 76 and didn’t come close to making the cut.

This story will be updated.

The NBA’s final regular-season standings and playoff seedings may say the Houston Rockets are the fourth-best team in the Western Conference, but not many people seem to actually believe that.

Sure, the Rockets’ 53-29 final record was a 14-game drop-off from a season ago, but there were myriad factors that played into that.

First off, there was a brutally lethargic 11-14 start over the first two months, born out of not yet having gotten over last season’s conference finals meltdown vs. the Warriors; the struggles in reconstructing the defense after losing Trevor Ariza to free agency, and assistant coach Jeff Bzdelik — widely considered the architect of their successful scheme — to temporary retirement; plus the subtraction-by-addition Carmelo Anthony experiment that quickly went wrong.

Beyond that, Houston wound up playing without future first-ballot Hall of Famer Chris Paul for 24 games this year, and was missing emerging center Clint Capela for 15 more.

So, given that the Rockets closed the season on a 42-15 run (including a league-best 20-5 after the All-Star break), which featured a transcendent offensive performance from reigning MVP James Harden, it’s no stretch to suggest that the opponent the Utah Jazz are getting in their 4-vs.-5 seed first-round playoff matchup may legitimately be considered the second-best group in the West behind two-time defending champion Golden State.

“They played better than anybody in the league the second half of the season. They fought through some injuries. What can you say? They’re a terrific team,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said. “We know how difficult the series will be, and we’ll prepare and compete, and that’s all we can do.”

Yeah, Utah knows all too well how good Houston is. The Rockets, after all, did boot the Jazz from the 2018 postseason, winning their second-round series 4-1.

The teams split four games this season, and each won once on the other’s home court, suggesting they might be more evenly matched this time around.

There are caveats, asterisks, whatever you want to call them, to that, if you’re willing to look for them, however. In their Oct. 24 matchup, the Jazz won in Houston, 100-89, but the Rockets were without Paul, and Harden exited late with an injury. Meanwhile, the Rockets wound up winning the final two meetings, and the last of them — a 125-98 demolition at Vivint Smart Home Arena — came without both Paul and Capela.

No one is suggesting that means Utah has no chance. But there are also plenty who are not shy in pointing out that the Jazz’s two victories this season came when the Rockets were not optimally configured just yet.

So, can they hang with a rolling Rockets squad now?

In the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s regular-season-closing overtime loss to the Clippers, in which the Jazz rested most of their rotation regulars, no one was yet ready to dive into the X’s and O’s of their upcoming postseason matchup.

Snyder, asked if he’d yet given any thought on how to reverse him team’s postseason fortunes against the Rockets, quipped, “The whole game I was sitting on the bench tonight, I was thinking about that! We’re gonna try to win, how’s that?”

Still, Houston couldn’t help but be on some players’ minds.

“We’re excited — whenever you get an opportunity to play postseason basketball, you’re excited. But obviously, we’re even more excited ’cause they knocked us out of the playoffs last year,” said forward Georges Niang. “It’s gonna be a fun series for sure.”

But will it be a successful one?

While it’s true that, to ultimately be successful, you eventually have to play the best teams, that doesn’t mean it’s ideal to face such a strong contender in the first round.

Many Jazz fans were openly rooting for a series with Portland, considering the Blazers are without physical center and most-improved candidate Jusuf Nurkic, have only recently seen high-scoring guard CJ McCollum return form injury, and, of course, the fact that, as the No. 3 seed in the playoffs a year ago, they were shockingly swept in the opening round by the Pelicans.

Still, none of the myriad results over the season’s final two days that could have resulted in such a pairing — a Rockets victory over the Thunder, a Lakers win against the Blazers, a Wolves win vs. the Nuggets, or the Kings prevailing against Portland (despite the Blazers seemingly doing all they could to tank the game) — wound up coming to fruition.

The Jazz themselves probably could have helped avoid a Rockets matchup if they’d simply allowed themselves to lose to the Nuggets in their second-to-last game. They decided not to. They weren’t going to duck anyone or chase any particular matchup. And so they’re willing to live with the consequences.

Many pundits, in assessing Utah’s playoff potential before the field was officially set, noted that the Jazz would be a “tough out” for the true contenders. If the Jazz want to be more than that against the Rockets, they know they must do more.

“We know what to expect, and they know what to expect from us,” Snyder said. “But we’re always looking for ways to be better and do better, and we’ll take a look at that, and prepare, and our guys will do the same thing. Whatever adjustments we can make.”

Reno • Computer scientist Chris Schmandt doesn’t visit Nevada for the casinos, but he does appreciate the state’s nightlife.

Schmandt of Boston prefers to go beyond the glowing reach of lights in Las Vegas and Reno to relax in the most remote corners of the state.

"I'm one of those people who thinks about what the world was like before electricity," said Schmandt, who noticed Nevada's dark night skies while poring over satellite images depicting the spread of light pollution across North America.

"I was looking for places to go and NASA has a nice composition image of the Earth at night from space," Schmandt said. "I figured the dark places were places where there weren't a lot of people. And there is a lot of dark in Nevada."

Soon, people won't have to search satellite photos to learn about Nevada's position among the best places for night sky enthusiasts to escape light pollution.

That's because a remote area in the northwest corner of the state is poised to become just the seventh spot on the planet to be designated a Dark Sky Sanctuary.

The designation for the Massacre Rim area about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Reno will be just the fourth sanctuary of its kind in the United States and the first in Nevada.

"I figured the dark places were places where there weren't a lot of people. And there is a lot of dark in Nevada"

Other U.S. dark sky sanctuaries include Cosmic Campground in New Mexico, Rainbow Bridge National Monument in Utah and Devils River-State Natural Area Del Norte in Texas. There are also sanctuaries outside the U.S. in New Zealand and Chile.

"This designation literally puts Washoe County on the Dark Sky map," said Shaaron Netherton, executive director of Friends of Nevada Wilderness, a group that led the charge for the designation. "We are just thrilled that this special place has been recognized for its natural values."

Friends of Nevada Wilderness announced the designation last weekend.

The designation shows the International Dark Sky Association, founded in 1988 in Tucson, Ariz., considers the area to have "exceptional or distinguished quality of starry nights and a nocturnal environment" and should remain protected for scientific, ecological and cultural benefit.

Research shows artificial light can disrupt wildlife which depend on natural cycles of light and darkness for everything from hunting to sleeping to migration.

Skies unpolluted by artificial light, which are rare throughout much of the world, also provide a glimpse at the way the sky and landscape would have looked to people throughout the majority of humans' time on the planet.

"The sky ruled more of your life than it does now," Schmandt said.

It won't change any access rules or regulations for Massacre Rim, a designated wilderness study area of 101,000 acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management about 160 miles (257 kilometers) east of Redding, California near the Nevada and Oregon state lines.

But it will elevate its profile as a destination for people who want to experience solitude and starlight the way humans would have experienced it before electricity and industrialization.

"The sanctuary designation is for places that have extremely dark skies," said Adam Dalton, the association's Dark Sky Places program manager. "Sanctuaries not only are dark but are really remote."

BLM spokesman Jeff Fontana said the agency wrote a letter of support for the designation in 2016.

To achieve the designation, workers from Friends of Nevada Wilderness had to document the darkness of the sky using objective measurements.

The group, which advocates on behalf of wilderness designations in the state, sent workers into the field on several nights in April and July of 2018.

They drove around the fringe of the area and hiked into the interior and used light-measuring instruments to capture readings to show how the look of the sky rated on the Bortle Scale, a nine-point system that measures the visibility of stars and other natural light in the night sky.

"It is something magical to drive around the WSA at night," said Kurt Kuznicki, associate director of Friends who helped take readings. "You start drinking coffee at 10 o'clock at night and drive around listening to the radio."

They documented qualities such as the ability to see distinct features of the Milky Way, entities such as the M33 galaxy and natural starlight bright enough to cause objects to cast shadows.

Their findings showed the area ranked at the top of the Bortle Scale and worthy of the Dark Sky Sanctuary designation.

Kuznicki said visiting Massacre Rim at night reminded him of hiking into the Golden Trout Wilderness in the Eastern Sierra with his dad in the early 1970s.

It was on those trips from Long Beach, where Kuznicki was raised, that he gained an appreciation for escaping light pollution that prevents people in urbanized areas from the primeval experience of a pure night sky.

“I would like to see folks appreciate the resource they have in northern Washoe,” Kuznicki said. “Right in our backyard we have these special places and we have the opportunity to protect it right now.”

An Instagram account sharing anonymous stories renews conversation about Brigham Young University’s Honor Code. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman Jr. explores a return to Utah politics. And Utah sex-ed standards get an update, while preserving a focus on abstinence.

At 9 a.m. on Friday, Salt Lake Tribune government and politics editor Dan Harrie, reporter Courtney Tanner, and columnist Robert Gehrke join KCPW guest host Marcie Young Cancio to talk about the week’s top stories. Every Friday at 9 a.m., stream “Behind the Headlines” at kcpw.org, or tune in to KCPW 88.3 FM or Utah Public Radio for the broadcast. Join the live conversation by calling (801) 355-TALK.

Washington • The Senate on Thursday confirmed David Bernhardt as the new secretary of the Interior Department, handing him the top role in overseeing America’s public lands — including vast stretches in Utah — even as environmentalists charge that he is too beholden to the oil and gas industry he previously called a client.

Bernhardt, who has been serving as acting secretary since the resignation of scandal-plagued Ryan Zinke, will officially take over the department that manages more than a half billion acres of federal land, including national parks, and natural resources onshore and off.

The Senate voted 56-41 to confirm Bernhardt, who previously served as deputy secretary under Zinke. Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, both Utah Republicans, supported Bernhardt.

Romney, who met with the nominee before the vote, said Bernhardt sees a need for greater state and local involvement in public lands decisions.

“Based on our discussion and his years of experience managing federal lands," Romney said, “I believe he has a solid understanding of issues affecting Utah and Western states.”

Environmental advocates agree that Bernhardt has a solid understanding, though they argue it comes from a lengthy career representing the oil and gas industry and that the fox has now been hired to guard the public’s chicken coop.

“We are gravely concerned that the Senate has confirmed an oil and gas lobbyist with a troubling record of favoring special interests to be the chief steward of our nation’s public lands, parks and waters,” said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society. “David Bernhardt has too often favored special interests at the expense of our shared public resources and the health of our communities. His record and deep conflicts of interest should have made him unfit to be Interior secretary.”

Bernhardt has worked off and on at the Interior Department during his career, including a stint as solicitor general during George W. Bush’s presidency. He’s also lobbied for oil and gas companies that are now seeking Interior’s blessing for more mineral extraction.

The new secretary has so many potential conflicts, he carries an index card of his former clients to avoid any issues, The Washington Post reported.

His confirmation vote Thursday was the closest ever for an Interior secretary, with nearly all Democrats opposing the nominee, who has said he doesn’t plan to recuse himself from issues pertaining to his former clients.

“By refusing to recuse himself, Bernhardt has shown a potential willingness [to] put his former clients’ needs before the public good,” said Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif.

Bernhardt, as deputy secretary, played a key role in reviewing national monument designations during the past 20 years, which led to President Donald Trump shrinking the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by 2 million acres.

The new secretary already faces a request to appear before the House Natural Resources Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., has questioned the legality of Trump slashing the southern Utah monuments’ boundaries.

On the other side, Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, the top Republican on that committee, lavished praise on Bernhardt and said he will be able to restore order at the Interior Department.

“After decades of mismanagement and regulatory abuse, the Department of the Interior and the communities impacted by its decisions will greatly benefit with David Bernhardt at the top,” Bishop said. “He is uniquely qualified to lead the department and continue important regulatory reforms to improve land management, limit prior executive abuse, expand conservation, and advance greater public access to our public lands.”

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Bernhardt is the right leader at the right time.

“He has what it takes to lead this department — coming from the West," Murkowski said. “He understands our public lands, has more experience at the department than all but one of his predecessors, and has extensive knowledge of the issues that will come before him.”

Still, critics warn that Bernhardt’s litany of potential conflicts will raise questions about every action the Interior Department takes.

“Today, the Senate voted to put a former oil industry lobbyist in charge of the Interior Department,” said Christy Goldfuss, senior vice president of energy and environmental policy at the Center for American Progress and a former environmental adviser to President Barack Obama.

“As the most conflicted nominee of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet, David Bernhardt is a far cry from the leader the Interior Department needs to break free of the culture of corruption and political favoritism that have come to define it,” Goldfuss added. “Now, it is even more critical for Congress to fulfill its oversight of the department when it comes to breaches of scientific integrity, ethics, and public trust.”

Western Values Project Executive Director Chris Saeger charged that Bernhardt brings with him more scandals than those that brought down Zinke, who faced multiple ethics probes, some of which he was cleared in and others that are still pending.

“Rushing to move forward with Bernhardt’s nomination without clarification on his numerous ethical lapses and investigative requests is not only a disservice to the American people, but it also means that Interior will again be led by a secretary shrouded in scandal,” Saeger said. “Make no mistake: A vote to confirm David Bernhardt for Interior secretary was a vote against our American birthright and the viability of our public lands for future generations.”

This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Friday, April 12, 2019. You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below:

• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/10/bagley-cartoon-fer-hecks/" target=_blank><u>Fer Heck’s Sake — Get Out!</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/09/bagley-cartoon-name/"><u>The Name Caller</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/08/bagley-cartoon-radical/"><u>Radical Extremists </u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/05/bagley-cartoon-official/"><u>Official Mugging</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/04/bagley-cartoon-church/"><u>Church Approved</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/03/bagley-cartoon-brexit/"><u>The Brexit Knight</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/02/bagley-cartoon-national/"><u>National Security Crisis</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/01/bagley-cartoon-troubling/"><u>Troubling Downturn</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/03/29/bagley-cartoon-gop-health/"><u>GOP Health Care to Die For</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/03/28/bagley-cartoon-medicaid/"><u>Medicaid Expansion of Our Own Design</u></a>

Want more Bagley? Become a fan on Facebook.

Washington • President Donald Trump seemed gratified Thursday that his attorney general has endorsed a key talking point of the president’s supporters: that there was spying on Trump’s 2016 campaign. But Trump went a step beyond Attorney General William Barr, accusing the government of committing an illegal, unprecedented act.

The president's comments came a day after Barr testified at a congressional hearing that he believes "spying did occur" on Trump's 2016 campaign, suggesting the origins of the Russia investigation that shadowed Trump's presidency for nearly two years may have been mishandled.

Barr provided no details about what "spying" may have taken place but appeared to be alluding to a surveillance warrant the FBI obtained on a former Trump associate. He later said during the hearing that he wasn't sure there had been improper surveillance and wants to ensure all proper procedures were followed.

"I think what he said was absolutely true. There was absolutely spying into my campaign," Trump said Thursday. "I'll go a step further. It was my opinion it was illegal spying, unprecedented spying, and something that should never be allowed to happen in our country again."

During Wednesday's hearing before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Barr said he was "not saying improper surveillance occurred" and was looking into the matter.

Barr may have been referring to a surveillance warrant the FBI obtained in the fall of 2016 to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing. The warrant was obtained after Page had left the campaign and was renewed several times. Critics of the Russia investigation have seized on the fact that the warrant application cited Democratic-funded opposition research, done by a former British spy, into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

Barr’s comments aligned him with the president and his supporters who insist his 2016 campaign was unfairly targeted by the FBI. They come at a time when Barr’s independence is under scrutiny from congressional Democrats as he prepares a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation. Mueller concluded his investigation last month and submitted a nearly 400-page confidential report to Barr.

The attorney general then sent Congress a four-page letter that detailed Mueller's "principal conclusions." Democrats have questioned how Barr could boil down Mueller's full report so quickly and allege that it may have been written in a favorable way for the president.

In his letter, Barr said the special counsel did not find a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump associates during the campaign, but Mueller did not reach a definitive conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice. Instead, Mueller presented evidence on both sides of the obstruction question, but Barr said he did not believe the evidence was sufficient to prove that Trump had obstructed justice.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she doesn't trust Barr and suggested his statements at the hearing undermined his credibility as America's chief law enforcement officer. The Senate's top Democrat, Sen. Chuck Schumer, said Barr's remarks "just destroyed the scintilla of credibility he had left."

Barr has said he expects to release a redacted version of Mueller's report next week.

The Justice Department's inspector general has been investigating the early days of the FBI's Russia probe, but Barr has said he wants to pull together the different reviews underway and see if there are remaining questions that need to be addressed.

Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Eric Tucker and Alan Fram contributed to this report.

Washington • The House Energy and Commerce Committee launched an investigation Thursday into whether the Environmental Protection Agency’s air policy chief and his deputy have improperly aided their former industry clients since joining the administration.

Three of the panel’s top Democrats — Chairman Frank Pallone of New Jersey and two subcommittee chairs, Paul Tonko of New York and Diana DeGette of Colorado sent nine separate letters to businesses affiliated with Bill Wehrum, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation and the office’s senior counsel, David Harlow. Both men worked at the law firm Hunton & Williams, now Hunton Andrews Kurth, and represented several power plant operators that EPA regulates.

Citing news reports in The Washington Post and other outlets, the lawmakers are demanding new details about the Utility Air Regulatory Group, an umbrella organization Wehrum had represented that is funded by several companies opposed to stricter limits on pollutants from coal-fired plants. Under Wehrum's tenure, EPA has sought to loosen federal restrictions on coal plants' emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

Noting that the committee is responsible for overseeing EPA's implementation of the Clean Air Act, the lawmakers wrote to Hunton's managing partner, "As such, we are deeply troubled by several reports of unethical behavior by EPA officials, particularly in the Office of Air and Radiation."

In letters to the firm as well as eight power companies that belong to the Utility Air Regulatory Group, the lawmakers say that the agenda of Wehrum's office "appears remarkably similar to the substantive agenda advanced" by the organization that the EPA assistant administrator used to represent in private practice.

In an email, EPA spokesman James Hewitt said, "EPA has not received a similar letter from Congress today," adding that Wehrum and Harlow had both taken steps to avoid any conflict of interest with DTE Energy, a client of their former firm. "Since Bill Wehrum and David Harlow started at EPA they have both been recused from all particular matters where DTE is a party," Hewitt said.

Wehrum, who at times has interpreted federal ethics rules himself rather than relying solely on advice from EPA ethics staff, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in connection with his former firm and clients. He has described the agency's effort to scale back Obama-era limits on greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants as in line with the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda.

In February, The Post reported that on at least two occasions Wehrum's activities at EPA raised serious questions about his compliance with the Trump ethics pledge, which requires political appointees to recuse themselves from specific matters involving their former employers and clients for two years. If an appointee does meet with a former client, the pledge dictates that the gathering should be open to all interested parties - a requirement that has been interpreted to mean four other participants who were not clients.

In one instance, Wehrum weighed in on an EPA directive that had direct legal implications for a major utility, DTE Energy, which was represented by his former firm in a case against the agency. Harlow, who had represented DTE Energy just before joining EPA, also participated in conversations about the policy directive. Wehrum acknowledges that he provided input for the memo, which was timed to come out just before the Supreme Court decided whether to hear DTE's appeal, but said staffers redacted portions of it that posed a potential conflict.

Wehrum also met on Dec. 7, 2017, with the Utility Air Regulatory Group, along with Duke Energy, another former client, and three other utilities at his old firm. That gathering appears to violate the pledge's requirement that such meetings must be open to all interested parties.

In late February, Pallone, along with Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Thomas Carper of Delaware, asked the EPA’s Office of Inspector General to investigate Wehrum’s and Harlow’s conduct.

More broadly, the panel is investigating whether Wehrum and Harlow improperly advanced the objectives of the utility group and its members. In May 2017, just six months before Wehrum joined the agency, he invited then-EPA official Mandy Gunasekara to brief the group at his law firm "on any Clean Air Act regulatory issue that you are willing and able to address," according to emails released under a Freedom of Information Act request. And a month later, according to a document first obtained by Politico, Wehrum convened the Utility Air Regulatory Group for a meeting at which he and his colleagues at Hunton requested $8.2 million for work related to the EPA.

In addition to asking Wehrum and Harlow’s former firm to provide material, lawmakers sent letters requesting documents to American Electric Power; Ameren Corporation; DTE Energy; First Energy; Southern Company Services; Tennessee Valley Authority; Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association; and Vistra Energy. All eight utilities belong to the Utility Air Regulatory Group.

In late June of last year, Rick Ortenburger sat in the same chair getting his haircut as he’d been doing for the previous 10 years. On that Monday, however, his longtime hairstylist noticed something different about an age spot on his face.

The hairstylist mentioned it to him, and within two hours, Ortenburger was seeing a dermatologist. The doctor told him it appeared his age spot had been scraped, but they’d take a sample just to be certain there was nothing more seriously wrong.

Ortengurger, 70, and his wife, Elfi, 66, were scheduled to fly to Germany that weekend. But on Friday, June 29, his doctor called and said getting on an airplane would be hazardous to his health.

The reason: Ortenburger had melanoma, a form of skin cancer, which had spread to one of his lymph nodes. Melanoma accounts for only about 1% of all skin cancers, but it causes the vast majority of skin cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society.

Had Ortenburger’s stylist not noticed the change in his face, there’s no telling when, if ever, someone would have spotted the cancer.

“I owe her my life,” Ortenburber told The Salt Lake Tribune.

The melanoma has not spread to his distant organs, Ortenburger said. That means the prognosis is good, and the timing couldn’t have been better. A runner for 40 years and a frequent participant in marathons and half-marathons, Ortenburger will race in the 10K race Saturday at the Salt Lake City Marathon.

The marathon starts at 7 a.m. at Olympic Legacy Bridge and finishes at the Public Safety Building at 475 S. 300 E. This year, the number of participants will be about 7,000.

To this point, Ortenburger has received eight of 12 monthly infusions of an immunotherapy drug and had three surgeries. He started walking again in mid-August of last year, and once a skin graft took and healed, he started running. He signed up for the 10K event in early October because he at least wanted to try.

“If I have to walk it, I’ll do it,” Ortenburger said.

Ortenburger’s return to running has special meaning for him and his wife. The couple are both involved with the Huntsman Heroes, which is a group of runners, bikers and hikers who hold events to raise money for research at the Huntsman Cancer Center, where Ortenburger receives his treatment.

Elfi Ortenburger is a running coach for the group, and also one if its co-founders. She said she got involved because she was looking for something to do after retiring. Since its founding in 2014, the group has raised $6 million through various events, including the Salt Lake City Marathon.

Elfi Ortenburger said she and her husband never thought they’d have to face a cancer diagnosis, noting that "you always think it happens to other people.'’ But it happened to them and they are rolling with it. Elfi Ortenburger is impressed that her husband is participating in a race event at all.

“This year, we’re down to the 10K,” Elfi Ortenburger said. “But to us, it’s a big, huge deal.”

Elfi Ortenburger said this year’s marathon was extra special to her because through her husband’s treatment, she has seen firsthand what all the fundraising efforts produce. The research gave her husband a better chance to live and a better quality of life, she said.

“Because of that, my husband is still running, he has a great attitude,” Elfi Ortenburger said.

Ortenburger has not thought about whether he will advance to running longer distances in the future. But in the back of his mind, he knows he’d like to run another half-marathon, he said.

He has noticed recently that his running feels different — probably because of the treatment, he said — but he still feels good enough to run and support a cause near and dear to his life.

“I’m one lucky guy,” Ortenburger said.

Pope Benedict XVI has ventured out of retirement to publish an essay blaming the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal on the sexual revolution of the 1960s and church laws that protected priests.

His analysis was immediately criticized as “catastrophically irresponsible” — a conflict with efforts by his successor, Pope Francis, to lead the church out of its crisis.

“Why did pedophilia reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God,” Benedict wrote, in the 6,000-word essay published Thursday in the German monthly Klerusblatt, the Catholic News Agency and other conservative media.

Benedict traced the start of the crisis to the ’60s, citing the appearance of sex in films in his native Bavaria and the formation of “homosexual cliques” in seminaries “which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate.” He also attributed it to failures in moral theology in that era.

“Perhaps it is worth mentioning that in not a few seminaries, students caught reading my books were considered unsuitable for the priesthood,” the conservative theologian wrote. “My books were hidden away, like bad literature, and only read under the desk.”

Benedict also faulted church laws that gave undue protection to accused priests. During the 1980s and 1990s, he wrote, “the right to a defense [for priests] was so broad as to make a conviction nearly impossible.”

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict spearheaded reforms of those laws in 2001 to make it easier to remove priests who abused children. Benedict took a hard line against clerical sex abuse as the Vatican’s conservative doctrine chief, and later as pope, defrocking hundreds of priests accused of raping and molesting children.

Francis has blamed the scandal on a clerical culture in the church that raises priests above the laity.

At his retirement in 2013, Benedict had said he would devote his remaining life to penance and prayer, leaving Francis to guide the church. He said in the introduction to the essay that Francis and the Vatican secretary of state had given him permission to publish. The Vatican confirmed it was written by Benedict.

Church historian Christopher Bellitto questioned if Benedict, who turns 92 next week, was being manipulated by others. He said the essay omitted the critical conclusions that arose from the pope’s February sex abuse summit in Rome, including that “abusers were priests along the ideological spectrum, that the abuse predated the 1960s, that it is a global and not simply Western problem, that homosexuality is not the issue in pedophilia.”

“It is catastrophically irresponsible, because it creates a counternarrative to how Francis is trying to move ahead based on the 2019 summit,” he told The Associated Press in an email. “The essay essentially ignores what we learned there.”

The essay was applauded by some on the right. Writing in The Catholic Herald, Chat Pecknold praised the intervention as a necessary word from “the voice of a father” that accurately identified an absence of God as the reason for the crisis.

“I suspect that after all the studies are done, after the review boards are formed, cases heard, after new protocols and safeguards are in place, Benedict’s answer will be the one which endures,” he wrote. “What will be remembered as the seed of renewal, as the root of restoration, is precisely Benedict’s counsel that we turn our faces back to Christ who is the perfect image of the Father’s love.”

But other U.S. church analysts said the essay was both flawed in content and problematic on universal church level, exacerbating existing divisions in the church that have emerged between supporters of Francis and Catholics nostalgic for Benedict’s doctrine-minded papacy.

Villanova University theologian Massimo Faggioli said the essay was thin in its analysis, effectively attributing the scandal to the sexual revolution. He said it omitted key cases, such as the Legion of Christ founder’s pedophilia, which began well before then and involved abuse in one of the most rigorously orthodox, conservative religious orders.

“If a pope emeritus decides to stay silent, it’s one thing and can be defended. But speaking and telling a tiny part and a very personal version of the story, it’s hard to defend,” he said on Twitter.

“Everything we know in the global history of the Catholic abuse crisis makes Benedict XVI’s take published yesterday very thin or worse: a caricature of what happened during in the Catholic Church during the post-Vatican II period — with all its ingenuities and some tragic mistakes,” he tweeted.

David Gibson at Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture agreed with that assessment.

“For a retired pope to try to undo the critical work of a sitting pope and on such a crucial issue seems,” he said, “ ... bad.”

When Veronica Pome’e was 13, she’d sit in front of her bathroom mirror and rub bleach into the brown skin on her arms.

She wanted to look lighter, less Polynesian and more like the women she saw in magazines. She thought she was too dark and too tall and too exotic and too heavy to ever join them.

The kids at school in her Southern California suburb would put their white arms next to hers at recess and giggle about how different she was. Her friends would joke about her curly brown hair with ringlets that bounced back like springs. During summer visits to Tonga, where her parents were born, her aunts would whisper, “She’s pretty, but she’s so big.”

So she tried to look how people thought she should. She started wearing girdles, bound so tight it was hard to breathe, and when the bleach didn’t work, she coated her skin in makeup. She straightened her hair. She tried to stay in the background. She stooped down.

“I hated taking up space,” Pome’e said. “I didn’t feel beautiful. I didn’t feel worthy.”

Sitting in the lobby of a West Valley City hotel Thursday, a day before she was set to speak at a conference for Pacific Islanders in Utah, she looked up and added: “Then I used it as ammo.”

Pome’e, now 29, is a model with a lucrative contract in New York. Next month, she’ll be the first Polynesian woman to be featured in Sports Illustrated’s popular swimsuit edition. And she’ll be the only plus-size figure out of six finalists who competed for a spot in the pages, down from 10,000 who sent in audition tapes.

“It’s not just about women being beautiful in bikinis on the beach. It’s so much more than that,” she said. “With Sports Illustrated, this platform has allowed me to change the dynamics of the conversation about representation. This is going to open the doors for other Polynesian women. It’s going to make them dream bigger.”

She wants little girls growing up to see her in the magazine where she never saw women like her. “I’m going to be the girl I needed when I was younger.”

For Pome’e, the discussion of identity and diversity she wants to spur — and the perception of herself that she’s grown to embrace — intersects with weight, color, culture and femininity. But she also wants people to know about her upbringing and how it was shaped by domestic violence that touched all of those dimensions.

Growing up in California, Pome’e said, she saw her mother and other women in her family appear at dinner with red handprints on their faces and bruises on their arms. If she broke curfew, Pome’e added, she would be slapped around, too. She saw signs of domestic violence, too, when she visited cousins in Utah for reunions and weddings.

“I thought it was normal,” Pome’e said. “It doesn’t fully process until you get older. I overcame a lot of abuse.”

In college, she took a class that explained relationship violence and how it can continue in a cycle. She realized she treated her five siblings the same way her parents treated each other. She decided to address it.

She talked to her family about communicating rather than getting physical. They’ve started to be more supportive, Pome’e said, but she acknowledged change is going to take time. She’s worked with nonprofit organizations since then — and created one of her own, Teach and Be Taught — to address it. It’s why she agreed to speak at the sixth annual National Pacific Island Violence Prevention Conference in West Valley City this weekend. (In Utah, nearly 40,000 residents identify as Pacific Islander.)

“Those things stay with you forever. There’s a real psychological impact,” she said. “But we don’t have to do the same things that our parents did.”

Her motivation for talking openly about her experience is the same reason she wants to appear in magazines, with what she calls “my belly and my stretch marks.” She wants to be real and transparent and embrace all that she is and where she came from. She’s not embarrassed. She doesn’t consider those things to be flaws.

She draws on her Tongan culture, which is strongly matriarchal, to feel empowered as a woman and talk about healthy relationships. She’s celebrating being the first Polynesian model to appear in the swimsuit edition because it makes her feel “like a badass.”

She looks up to her mom, who had a long career as a police officer. She’s started an environmental charity in the Pacific Islands to give back. In fact, she was recruited to be a model while volunteering at a fashion show to raise money for a homeless shelter.

Pome’e encourages other models who look like her to understand they should be on stage or featured on glossy pages — just the way they are.

“If you don’t see yourself in the media and you don’t see yourself represented, you feel invisible,” she said. “But I am here. And I am very multidimensional.”

Now when she looks in the mirror at her brown skin, she smiles and is glad the bleach didn’t make it lighter. She thinks: “Why did it take so long to get here?”

We as a group of Utah maternal fetal medicine physicians have been made aware of a lawsuit filed against House Bill 136 and would like to make a statement in support of the legal action against this medically harmful legislation that prohibits most abortions after 18 weeks gestation.

Women who end a pregnancy after 18 weeks gestation in our community most often do so because of unexpected severe complications in a planned, desired pregnancy. We have counseled many families who are devastated to find out that their unborn baby has severe abnormalities during the routine prenatal ultrasound.

The optimal timing for fetal ultrasound for the best assessment of fetal development is at 19-20 weeks gestation. After extensive counseling, some women choose to end their pregnancies out of compassion to prevent suffering for their unborn child. With certain types of fetal abnormalities, continuing the pregnancy can pose significant risks to the mother as well.

If women are not allowed the option to end complex pregnancies with a grave fetal prognosis after 18 weeks, we will see some women forced to undergo cesarean delivery in late pregnancy, which will increase maternal risk and the risk to their future children. With certain fetal abnormalities, women who carry beyond the second trimester will require a high-risk type of cesarean, known as a classical cesarean. After a classical cesarean, she will be at high risk of uterine rupture during any future pregnancy if she labors – a life-threatening event for both the mother and child. Women with a prior classical cesarean section must therefore undergo an early repeat cesarean birth of a premature baby in every subsequent pregnancy. Therefore, ending a high-risk pregnancy with a grave fetal prognosis can sometimes be important to preserve future childbearing.

Some Utah women, faced with this decision in pregnancies with grave fetal anomalies, have chosen to continue their pregnancies after counseling and ultimately had classical cesarean deliveries for babies that died very shortly of birth. Those same women have then gone on to have one, two or three repeat cesarean deliveries of premature babies as a consequence. Some have experienced uterine rupture with serious consequences to the mother and what would have likely been a full-term, healthy child.

Those women made an informed choice for themselves and their families to continue their complex pregnancies knowing the risks. We support those women in their choice as strongly as we support those who choose to end their complex pregnancies early based on the principle of autonomy. However, HB 136 will force women and their babies into these high-risk medical situations against their will.

This bill may also negatively impact the accuracy of the prenatal diagnosis upon which families make these important decisions because we are often unable to fully evaluate a fetus and provide informed counseling for a family prior to 18 weeks gestation, which we will be forced to do in order to maintain a woman’s reproductive choice options. We fear that women facing an uncertain fetal diagnosis earlier in pregnancy may make the decision to end their pregnancies before we can fully evaluate the baby and understand the prognosis out of fear that they will lose this option if they wait beyond 18 weeks.

In these ways, HB 136 will lead to preventable medical harm for women and for babies in Utah and may inadvertently increase second-trimester termination of desired pregnancies. We support the recently announced legal action to protect the medical decision-making and autonomy of this vulnerable group of patients.

Alexandra G. Eller, M.D., and Cara C. Heuser, M.D., are both maternal fetal medicine specialists with Intermountain Healthcare, affiliated with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine. They do not speak on behalf of IHC. Their submission has been co-signed by these other maternal fetal specialists:

Nancy C. Rose, M.D.; M. Sean Esplin, M.D.; D. Ware Branch, M.D.; G. Marc Jackson, M.D.; Douglas Richards, M.D.; T. Flint Porter, M.D.; Michelle Debbink, M.D.; Shannon Son, M.D.; Ashley Benson, M.D.; Jessica Page, M.D.; Ibrahim Hammad, M.D.; Martha Monson, M.D.; Julie Gainer, M.D.; Erin A. Clark, M.D.; Lauren Theilen, M.D.; Janice Byrne, M.D.; Heather Campbell, M.D.; Marcela Smid, M.D.; Torri Metz, M.D.; Brett Einerson, M.D.; Amy Sullivan, M.D.; Nathan Blue, M.D.; Glenn Schemmer, M.D.; Kurt Hales, M.D.; Robert Andres, M.D.; Rita Sharshiner, M.D.; Katherine Gesteland, M.D.; Andrew Spencer, M.D.