I read with interest the April 10 Salt Lake Tribune article about Utah’s teacher shortage. It was interesting that the article was all about teacher's pay being too low.

I'm sure that low pay is part of the equation in getting and retaining teachers. I feel that there are other things that are at least as important as pay to wooing and retaining teachers.

Respect is a big one. Parents don’t respect teachers. Students don’t respect them. School administration doesn’t and certainly the legislators don’t.

As my mother used to say, the legislators give you a raise with one hand and slap you with rules and regulations with the other hand.

Parents attack them for not doing the job with students that the parents are supposed to do. Students talk back and harass teachers in class, and teachers have no power to discipline. Administrators over scrutinize and control every moment of the teacher’s day. Legislators require teachers to maintain their license by taking classes at the underpaid teachers’ own expense. Schools are graded and shut down because the teachers have failed. (Actually, the system failed and they paid big bucks to find this out).

Teachers’ pay may be part of the problem, but there are bigger issues at work here.

Phillips W. Nelson, West Valley City

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The LDS Church’s 2015 policy for same-sex couples is now history. But for LGBTQ members, even in this more helpful and hopeful present, the pain is hardly in the past.

After all, they were the ones labeled “apostates,” even though many of them still loved and lived their faith. They were the ones who were told their kids wouldn’t be able to be blessed or baptized, although some of them may have desired that chance.

So when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rescinded that policy earlier this month, anger accompanied their elation, hurt tempered their happiness, bruises scarred any healing.

This “exclusion policy” triggered a huge uproar, historian Greg Prince says on The Salt Lake Tribune’s latest “Mormon Land” podcast, particularly because it also targeted innocent children.

Instead of “lashing out [only] at LGBTQ people, it was lashing out at their kids,” explains Prince, author of the newly released “Gay Rights and the Mormon Church: Intended Actions, Unintended Consequences.”

While not all gay member couples were disciplined or their children denied rituals — in fact, Prince says, most lay leaders seemed to ignore that instruction — some were.

Still, the policy’s deeper harm may have been an unspoken message behind the written words.

Their church, as these members viewed it, didn’t want them. Or their children. They felt rejected by God, prompting personal agony, soul-searching and disappointment, even depression, not just among LGBTQ members but also among their families, their friends and their allies.

“The biggest impact of the policy seems undeniably the way it hurt people's hearts,” says Kendall Wilcox, a gay Latter-day Saint and co-founder of Mormons Building Bridges, which aims to connect members and the LGBTQ community.

“This is one of myriad reasons why the institutional church and its leaders need to actually apologize for the previous ‘revelation/policy’ and stop gaslighting its membership,” Wilcox says. “Their actions have life-and-death consequences.”

The following four vignettes reveal some of those consequences as LGBTQ Latter-day Saints struggle to stay true to themselves and their faith.

‘I texted the bishop’

In some ways, Taylor and Adam Cash are a typical Latter-day Saint millennial couple.

They met on Tinder in March 2018, dined at Guru’s in Provo on their first date, spent hours comparing notes on their Mormon missions (Oregon and Kentucky, respectively), discussed their devotion to Jesus, and their hopes and dreams for a future family.

Except they’re gay.

So they hiked, ate Crumbl cookies, watched movies and talked about their shared values for the next seven months but did not get sexually involved.

“Even though the church doesn’t treat ours like a marriage,” Taylor says, “we wanted to be married before getting intimate — just like any LDS couple.”

On Nov. 16, the couple wed on the grounds of the Sleepy Ridge Golf Course in Orem in the “most Mormon wedding ever,” says Jody England Hansen, who was there.

Their moms walked them down the aisle, their dads toasted them, Hansen says, siblings were excited, and folks from both sides of the family celebrated with them.

“It was so great,” she says. “Wonderful.”

Then came a whirlwind two-day honeymoon in Salt Lake City. The shortness of their bliss was due to the fact that Taylor Cash (the young men took the same last name) had a teenage foster son, who is autistic, and didn’t want to leave him alone for long.

They were not a couple in 2015, when the LGBTQ policy took hold, but it made them sad individually.

“I hadn’t come out or dated men,” Taylor says, “but I had a lot of hidden emotion about it.”

After they married, the couple took in a second foster son and moved into a new ward in Lehi.

“I texted the bishop to say were were a gay couple and were planning to come to church,” he says. “He was very welcoming and told us if anyone was not kind to let him know, and he would have a conversation with them.”

God placed them “in a unique ward,” Adam says. “We see the blessing of how it was all meant to be that way.”

In January, the stake president, who oversaw a number of Latter-day Saint congregations in the area, came to them and said that he needed to hold a church disciplinary council.

He talked to them about the process in a gentle, loving way, Adam says. “He was just following rules and regulations.”

Taylor adds, the stake president “did everything well.”

The spouses decided not to go to the council but to write a letter with their “testimonies,” Adam says, “and that we were going to stay married.”

They continued going to church with their sons after being excommunicated and “were still accepted and felt a part of things,” Taylor says. “Nothing for us changed.”

Because both of their sons come from the foster system, any decisions about baptism or priesthood would come from their biological parents. The church’s policy would not have affected that.

The day before the recent reversal, however, Adam, who is studying social work, and Taylor, who teaches kindergarten, found out they matched with a birth mother willing to allow them to adopt her newborn.

In the past, Adam had wondered why the church would blame kids for adult choices, barring them from baby blessings and baptism.

The happy couple no longer worry about it, he says. The church’s policy reversal “gave us a lighter load.”

The next baby blessing they attend could be for their own child.

Feeling forsaken

Kathy Carlston thought Berta Marquez might be too cool for her.

Kathy, a lesbian Mormon (“I knew I loved women when I was 6”), was drawn immediately to another Latter-day Saint, a petite woman she heard on a podcast discussing LGBTQ causes in the church with a fair and evenhanded approach.

The California graphic animator was infatuated with the soft-spoken Spanish speaker before they even talked.

In February 2014, the pair met up in real life, while Berta was working at Equality Utah.

“She was the most brilliant soul I have ever encountered,” Kathy says, “but not so good at organization.”

That’s what Kathy excels at, so Berta asked her new friend to take that on as a volunteer between jobs.

Their first date was to the Broadway Centre Cinemas in downtown Salt Lake City to see “12 Years a Slave.”

Afterward, they talked for hours.

Both had attended Brigham Young University. Both had been reared in conservative but loving Latter-day Saint families. Both were believers.

Before long, Kathy says, the two were “going steady.”

In July of that year, they moved in together, often taking in lost and lonely souls, trying to balance their faith and activism.

Then, soon after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals removed a roadblock to same-sex marriage, the excited lovers darted down to the courthouse to get hitched.

They married Oct. 13, 2014.

“It was very impromptu,” Kathy says, and after the brief ceremony, they all went to Olive Garden.

About six months later, in April 2015, Kathy and Berta were at the Conference Center downtown when the late Latter-day Saint apostle L. Tom Perry warned about “counterfeit lifestyles.”

They were devastated. “We drove over to the Salt Lake Cemetery and walked around a long time,” Kathy recalls. “We made it to [former church] President [Gordon B.] Hinckley’s grave and Berta was sobbing.”

The two prayed together, hoping “folks on the other side would keep our LGBTQ community safe.”

By late June, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in favor of same-sex marriage for the whole country. Then came the church’s November 2015 policy, and Berta’s anxiety exploded.

Kathy, who had been at Columbine High School in Colorado during the 1999 massacre, sensed a different kind of peril. “I knew I wasn’t in physical danger,” she says, “but it was a similar kind of trauma.”

They started attending funerals for their friends, some of whom died by suicide.

Berta did not “feel safe going back to church with me,” Kathy says. “She believed there was no way she could have done that and kept her membership.”

So the policy, in essence, “blocked her from her church community,” Kathy says, “which was the deepest wound it could inflict.”

In the summer of 2017, Berta got a painful diagnosis, and her emotions spiraled.

“When she needed the church’s support,” Kathy says, “she was on the outside looking in.”

“One of the major concerns weighing on her heart was the fear that she and Kathy had forsaken God and become apostate by marrying one another,” says Kendall Wilcox, their friend. “This was not just a passing fear for her. It was a constant, pressing and painful cause of anxiety.”

In a “sick irony,” Wilcox says, Berta’s worry “was so real that it actually caused her to hang on to life a little longer because she genuinely feared that God would reject her on the other side.”

In the end, though, it was not enough.

Berta died last year.

She hoped God, Wilcox says, would not be “as condemning as the policy led her and so many others to believe.”

Berta herself attributed her death to emotional exhaustion and a “darkness” that she no longer had the energy to fight.

In a note to her friends, Berta graciously pleaded with others “not to use my story or my life as fuel for cultural warfare and personal vendettas against either the LDS Church or the LGBT community. Please leave your weapons of war at the door if you have been part of my story.”

Kathy believes strongly that the church reversed itself on the policy because of her beloved wife.

“Berta was working with [church founder] Joseph Smith and Brigham Young to make it happen,” the widow says, “telling them to protect our people.”

Promises, promises

In a special July 2015 church meeting after the high court decision legalizing gay marriage, Nick Einbender and Spencer Mickelson told their Honolulu ward family how they had fought their same-sex feelings and how they had prayed to get rid of such attractions, but had come to realize, through prayer and personal revelation, that being gay is part of their earthly mission.

Many in the room quietly wept and nodded. Afterward, they queued up to greet and hug the couple, Nick quips, as if they were in “a wedding lineup.”

That same month, the two married in Hawaii.

They were not excommunicated but agreed to forgo the weekly sacrament (or communion), hold callings, or wear their temple garments.

The gay men were encouraged, however, to attend services, to pray, and to speak up in classes, in testimony meetings, and over the pulpit.

All in all, they felt loved and mostly accepted.

After three years in Hawaii, the two moved in August 2016 to Washington, D.C., where Nick was stationed as a major in the Air Force and worked as a dentist.

Visiting apostle Russell M. Nelson, who later would become church president, had dedicated the Capitol Hill chapel, where they would be attending.

Ward members told the couple, Spencer says, that “half the choir members were wearing rainbow pins on that day.”

Because so many congregants supported LGBTQ rights (“We could not have asked for better ward members, people who would go to bat for us, to succor and mourn with us”), the bishop felt he needed to make an example of Nick and Spencer for not “living the standards.”

He asked them if they would be willing to divorce “in order to be OK with the church,” Spencer recalls, to which he replied, “I didn’t think the church was in the business of breaking up families.”

The bishop was just trying to unify a ward, Nick adds, “but at the expense of what? Half the ward members just wanted to go along with the policy and the other half were barely hanging on.”

The lay leader repeatedly called the two into his office, under the guise of getting to know them while urging them to follow the “law and policy of the church.” He said they should meet with the stake president.

After months and months of such exchanges, Nick and Spencer had had enough. They stopped going to church.

But they miss it.

Now they have been transferred again — this time to Panama City, Fla. And, for the first time, they soon will be living in a place without a Latter-day Saint community to call their own.

“That frightens me,” Spencer says. “It’s always been a built-in community and people to socialize with.”

They don’t drink or party. They still pray together every night.

“I feel most validated by deep discussions with other people,” Spencer says. “When you sit down once a week with others and talk about goodness, morality and high concepts of humanity, you develop rich friendships.”

They’ve tried other churches, but it’s not as easy to plug into as a Latter-day Saint ward, Nick says, or to feel spiritual connections to God as they did before.

All their gay Mormon married friends have been excommunicated, but Nick doesn’t want his name off the membership rolls (“I made commitments to God, not to the church”).

Spencer doesn’t care either way.

“It’s laughable,” he says, “that church leaders believe they can dissolve a person’s promises to God.”

Or to each other.

‘Holy cow, I’m gay’

Laura Root didn’t acknowledge she was lesbian — even to herself — until five years ago, when she was 44.

The longtime single woman in a mostly married Latter-day Saint congregation in Boise had been focused intensely on gospel living and beliefs, often serving in leadership positions, including president of the all-female Relief Society.

Finally saying out loud, “holy cow, I’m gay,” allowed Root to see pieces of her personality coming together as never before.

It did, however, thrust her into a year of profound depression and agony about how she could live with the contradictions of her church’s teachings and her sexual orientation.

After much prayer and pondering, Root felt a divine prompting that she should date women with the goal of marriage.

Much like anyone with no romantic experience, Root quips, within 18 months she married the first woman she fell for.

“My whole life I wanted a family where we all learn Christlike qualities,” she says. “When this opportunity came along, I still believed I would learn all the things that married people learn.”

During the courtship, Root says, she attended church and met often with her bishop. She didn’t want him to think that she took these steps lightly or impetuously.

“I told him I was following answers to prayers,” she says.

Before the wedding, the bishop held a church disciplinary council. She was disfellowshipped — one step short of excommunication — and barred from church callings, taking the sacrament and speaking in church. Her name, though, remained on membership rolls.

The bishop, she recalls, “never felt like he needed to do anything more.”

About a year ago, that man was released as a lay leader and a new man stepped into the role.

The new bishop began excommunication proceedings immediately, heeding what he believed the policy required. She didn’t attend the council but wrote a strong letter, sharing her faith in church teachings, the spiritual experiences that guided her choices, and the role God and Jesus Christ play in her life.

“Two different bishops with two different feelings about how to respond to exactly the same thing,” Root notes. “The first council felt loving, and I left feeling loved.”

Before the second hearing, the new man told Root if she would stop attending Latter-day Saint services, he wouldn’t pursue discipline.

“He seemed to think he needed to make an example,” she says. “It felt like I was being punished for continuing to come to church.”

Today, Root — even as an ousted member — still finds herself in the pews.

“I want to worship with a group of Saints,” Root says, “and, even though I’ve been kicked out, it still feels more comfortable for me than to go somewhere else.”

The Idaho woman, who is going through a divorce, was angry when first she learned about the policy being reversed.

“I have personally experienced a lot of pain, and so have my family and friends who have gone through this with me,” she says. “So many horrible, heartbreaking things."

It didn’t, she says, have to happen.

Tribune editor David Noyce contributed to this story.

Help is available

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts is asked to call the 24-Hour National Suicide Prevention Hotline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Utah also has crisis lines statewide, and the SafeUT app offers immediate crisis intervention services for youths and a confidential tip program.

Climate change — not migrant caravans — is the true national emergency.

Indeed, climate change is not merely a threat to our national security, it threatens our very survival as a species. Unfortunately, the answer to this crisis is not as simple as falling in love and breeding away the problem as Sen. Mike Lee suggests.

Without immediate, dramatic change, much of the livable land will flood with sea water. There will be considerably less fresh water for consumption and farming. Large swaths of currently arable land will be either under sea or so hot and dry that nothing will be able to live there. Diseases currently confined to the tropics will move north with their vector hosts.

As national political and economic systems break down refugees will flee floods and drought. More frequent and violent disasters like hurricanes, floods and wildfires will destroy towns and cities. As the population collapses. a new political, social and economic order, more medieval in nature, will replace the present order. Charismatic leaders will use brute force like gangsters to maintain control. Gone will be anything like civil rights. Freedom of speech and religion and the protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, torture, unreasonable bail or cruel punishment will all fall by the wayside in exchange for protection from roving bands of thieves and refugees as resources become ever scarcer.

Finally, once the global climate warms sufficiently, a number of cascading effects, such as the release of frozen tundra methane, will launch temperatures to new even more deadly heights, which no amount of human intervention will change.

This is the fate our children, and their children, face unless we act now. The first steps are personal, although having babies is not the answer. Buy only the amount of food you can consume. Eat less beef. Walk, ride a bike, take public transit, even if it is inconvenient. Consume less electric energy. Use personal solar power to add to the grid.

That however, will not be enough. What we need is a Green New Deal. Some politicians have derided it as “socialism” and too expensive, saddling our kids with enormous debt. Lee says that the Green New Deal is a fantasy and will do nothing to address the problem. With regards to “socialism,” naked laze-faire capitalism is not the answer to every problem. Capitalism is amazing in its efficiency when markets are free and open and no barriers exist to entry. In some ways its efficiency replicates natural selection in the way it creates opportunity for the strong and dispassionately allows for the predation of the weak.

Free market forces harness near-term greed for the greater good. However, as markets become expensive to enter, such as aircraft production, or require expensive and wasteful duplication of infrastructure, like electric power delivery, a transparent authority, government, must impose regulation to insure fairness as a buttress to pure freedom. Without that regulation, capitalism unrestrained, leads to concentration of wealth in a few individuals that slowly strangles the whole system. Like a backyard pond once filled with clean water, fish and plants, without nurturing and forced aeration, will become a foul fetid green pool of warm green slime and nothing else.

Regarding the second complaint, unless we spend (and tax) now there will be nothing left of this world for our children to have. Debt will be the least of their worries.

Eliminating greenhouse gas emission is an enormous and multifaceted exercise. Accordingly, the Green New Deal is not limited to pollution control. At its core, the Green New Deal calls for the complete transformation of the means of power generation. But it also demands restructuring of the economy to provide training and the workforce necessary to convert to clean power production.

The Green New Deal not only turns away from dirty energy but also turns away from beef and milk production. Though beef and milk taste great and provide nutrition, ruminants like cattle create a tremendous amount of methane, a greenhouse gas. Because of their sheer numbers, cattle are a significant and growing contributor to climate change. A Green New Deal must reduce cattle contribution to climate change through different husbandry techniques and reducing their number while offsetting the food loss.

The Green New Deal does not create a centralized economy but must insure wealth continues to circulate in the economy like oxygen in the healthy pond to pay for the necessary changes like clean cars and clean energy. Thus, the Green New Deal emphasizes trade union protections.

The Green New Deal also emphasizes physical health. The economy functions more efficiently when not encumbered by sick workers and workers who are trying to care for a sick family member. Further, those workers cannot be at their most productive when being crushed by medical care debt. Transforming the economy and infrastructure will require education opportunities. Education debt or the threat of education debt is a drag on efficiency like running a race with a ball and chain locked to your ankle.

There are difficult choices ahead. As a veteran, I know how important it is to have a strong military. I am not so naïve as to think we just have to hold hands and say “no more war!” But history is littered with nations crashed on the shoals of military spending oblivion — Spain, pre-revolutionary France and the USSR, to name just a few. Thoughtful but dramatic cuts in military spending are necessary and are part of the Green New Deal.

Not spelled out is a careful analysis of our national security plan for the next 30, 50, 100 years. Regardless of the Green New Deal we cannot defend against every possible risk. We need bright imaginative leaders who will look at the risks that “we the people” face and assess the risk and construct a plan for the future that will address those risks. The foremost of these risks is climate change. We need leaders now, both young and old, to face that threat, to hammer into existence the actual structures of, and give life to, the Green New Deal — so that we can give life to subsequent generations of Americans.

Protecting our planet is not simply a scientific imperative based on data and laboratory studies. If you are a believer, a person who takes seriously a faith tradition in which God has given humankind possession of God’s creation, then you ought to take a keen interest in how to take care of that creation. If we do nothing and it all burns down around us how will we face our Creator and explain that when we realized there was a problem threatening creation we did nothing.

Byron Burmester, Millcreek, is a deputy district attorney for Salt Lake County. The thoughts expressed here are his own and not necessarily those of his employer.

There’s a couch, a refurbished flat-screen TV, a dining room table with two chairs and a bench inside Michelle Densley’s apartment. A bunk bed in one bedroom; a bed in hers.

The 34-year-old mother of three, who recently left secure housing at YWCA Utah in Salt Lake City, doesn’t have much stuff.

But in a third bedroom, there’s a menagerie of My Little Pony horses, dinosaurs, Ninja Turtles action figures, baby dolls and dress-up clothes. Toys were one purchase that didn’t lead to fights between her and her husband, she said, so looking into that room in her Salt Lake County apartment, one might think she and her children have lived a normal life.

“It’s an optical illusion of wellness,” she said.

Her children spend hours in therapy each week, Densley said, working to overcome the impact of witnessing domestic violence.

Such trauma can leave children withdrawn and nonverbal or prone to lash out, and it can slow their development compared to other children, said Utah Domestic Violence Coalition Executive Director Jenn Oxborrow.

The coalition estimates 80 Utah children witness the attempted murder or murder of their mothers in a year, a number influenced by Utah’s high rate of domestic violence and the state’s high birthrate, Oxborrow said. The statistic is based on a study of law enforcement and health data about Utah by Johns Hopkins School of Nursing professor Jacquelyn Campbell. She calculates that for every woman killed by domestic violence, another eight or nine women are almost killed.

In one recent case, West Valley City police said a 5-year-old boy witnessed the February death of his mom, Belinda Thomas, at the hands of her boyfriend, Darren Fitzgerald Byrd, 50. The boy told police that after Byrd killed his mom, the man chased him with a knife, trying to kill him, too.

Children exposed to trauma are more prone to experience homelessness, chronic health problems, teen pregnancy, substance abuse, family violence and suicide risk, said Oxborrow, who also is a licensed clinical therapist. Those who witness domestic violence also are more likely to commit crimes or experience a violent crime themselves, she said.

Densley’s 6-year-old son Edison, at one point, stopped speaking. He had difficulty interacting with classmates, felt anxious and was hypervigilant, a behavioral evaluation said. On this morning, he’s hanging out by himself in the bedroom with the bunkbed. Winston, now 5, was having outbursts when he struggled with his emotions. Now he and Eva, 2, were bopping around the toy room, pulling out treasures to show off and then discarding them for new finds.

‘This stuff is damaging the children’

Densley would later tell police her husband became progressively violent, but he never physically hurt their children, she said. So she thought, with patience and time, they could be the normal family she felt they were pretending to be in the happy photos she took with a camera he gave her.

She felt isolated in her marriage, she said, as she lost her job, accrued thousands of dollars in debt and was unable to pay to fix her malfunctioning car. If she purchased anything over $20, she said, their bank alerted her husband.

By 2016, she said, she could see Edison didn’t act like other children his age. She signed him up for soccer, hoping to show her husband how Edison’s capabilities compared to other children.

When her husband came home to take Edison to soccer on Feb. 16, 2016, Densley was about 30 weeks pregnant. She recorded about four minutes of what happened that day, beginning with her husband’s frustration that she was still getting Edison ready.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he says on the recording, recently played in court. “I am done. I am out of here. You figure it out.”

He went to the garage and got a gun, and she tried to use her phone to take a photo of him with it through a window. He came back in, demanding her phone, and she asked him to leave.

But as she shrieked for help, he threw her on the floor and strangled her, later charges against him said. “Do you want to die in front of your f---ing kids?” he says on the recording. “Tell me where it is!”

One of the children can be heard babbling nearby; Densley said it was Winston. Her husband eventually left. She didn’t immediately report to police, fearing that might spur another assault, the later charges said.

But after that day, Densley said, her two sons, who witnessed the assault, began regressing and Edison stopped talking. It wasn’t until she arranged an assessment for him five months later, in July, that she understood the connection, she said.

Doctors said in addition to Edison being on the autism spectrum, witnessing abuse was having a profound effect on him, she said. It was then that she decided to get therapy for her children, she said, and during their care that fall, she reported her allegations of abuse in February and June to police. She moved into housing at the YWCA after her husband was arrested.

“It just didn’t occur to me — which I think is the case with most people, it doesn’t occur to them — that this stuff is damaging the children’s brains, rewiring their brains,” Densley said.

Her husband was initially charged with eight counts for two alleged assaults; he pleaded guilty to a third-degree felony count of aggravated assault and a third-degree felony count of committing domestic violence in the presence of a child. His pleas were held in abeyance as he was placed on probation and underwent counseling.

But he was sentenced last week to 180 days in jail, with credit for 29 days served, for violating a protective order by emailing Densley while he was on probation. His attorney, Nathaniel Shafer, declined to comment, but at the sentencing, Shafer said his client regrets what he did and the harm to Densley and his children, and he is working to better himself.

Densley’s husband told the judge he knew his actions were “totally out of line,” adding, “I lost family, career, life. I just want to make it right.”

‘How much young children pick up’

Trauma in children can manifest in different ways, but often it can just seem like a child is misbehaving, said McCall Lyon, who has a doctorate in psychology and is the clinical director at The Children’s Center in Kearns.

The center offers counseling and a therapeutic preschool, and it’s where Densley took her children. Approximately 140 students at a time attend the preschool, and Lyon estimated more than half have experienced some kind of trauma.

Sometimes families come to the nonprofit because of their child’s behavior, such as difficulty bonding with other children or emotional outbursts, only to learn that the child is likely suffering because of witnessing something traumatic.

“Often parents might underreport the impact that that exposure might have, thinking, ‘Oh well, yeah, there was domestic violence, but my child was an infant so they couldn't possibly remember,’” Lyon said, “But what we actually know from research is that those experiences do impact even newborns.”

That is because children are “emotional thinkers,” Oxborrow said. The center of the brain’s emotional response, the amygdala, is fully developed by age 5. When children are exposed to stress and trauma so young, that part of their brain is triggered, releasing stress hormones through the body, and they have few mental tools to help them process it. Those don’t develop until children are older, around age 8.

“So when something’s happening around them, they think that it’s their fault, or they think it’s related to them directly,” Oxborrow said.

One exposure to a traumatic event is enough for behavioral and emotional issues to appear, but it is hardest for children to recover if they’ve witnessed multiple traumatic events, Lyon said. Trauma has a “strong and a cumulative effect” on children’s brains, and it can cause severe anxiety, temper tantrums and developmental regression or delays, Lyon said.

Lyon said parents she works with are sometimes shocked to learn the impact witnessing domestic violence can have on children. Those who are “so active trying to make sure I’m not going to let my kiddos see this, I’m going to try not to let them hear this, they might not realize how much young children pick up on,” she said.

The best way to avoid the negative outcomes of abuse is to get children away from it and into a stable home, Oxborrow said.

The Utah Domestic Violence Coalition was given $300,000 in ongoing funding by the 2019 Utah Legislature for Home Safe, which provides victims a safe place to live as they navigate leaving an abusive situation. The program means families don’t have to “bounce” from shelters to transitional housing to traditional housing, and that stability helps them become more resilient, she said.

She said research on similar programs has shown that after a year or 18 months in safe housing, most families recover and no longer need public assistance. And the risk of recurrence of domestic violence decreases by more than half, she said.

A new chapter

Today, Densley estimates she spends dozens of hours a week trying to help her children recover, driving them to and from therapy appointments and doing assessments. Edison is speaking a little, able to make his needs known, and was accepted into a specialty school for children with autism. Winston is curious and gets along with other children. He is dealing better with frustration and anger.

They all just moved into their new home, after two years in transitional housing through YWCA Utah. Now when they go home, there aren’t multiple locked doors to pass through. They can invite people to visit. They can have their own furniture.

After breakfast, Winston collected discarded yellow straws from Capri Sun pouches and shoved them into the grasp of his Ninja Turtle action figures as makeshift Bōjutsu staffs, then let them ride vicious-looking dinosaurs. Eva found each of her My Little Pony dolls and lined them up across the toy box, and then changed into a princess gown. Edison joined in, too, hopping in and out of the room.

Densley said starting this new chapter will be tough, but she’s up for the challenge.

“I’m so in love with my children, and I’m so dedicated to my children,” she said, “there is literally no amount of work, there is nothing that I won’t do for them.”

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Editor’s note: Those who are experiencing intimate partner violence, or know someone who is, are urged to call the Utah Domestic Violence Link Line, 1-800-897-LINK (5465), or the Utah Rape and Sexual Assault Crisis Line, 1-888-421-1100.

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11:58 a.m. • An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the severity of the offenses Michelle Densley’s husband pleaded in abeyance to. They are both felonies.

Dan Thompson knows the acreage and owner of every parcel of land in the area near his home in northern Salt Lake City, where planes fly overhead and herds of deer run through the long, dry grass.

What he doesn’t know is what will become of the relatively rural neighborhood he’s lived in for more than 20 years once development begins on the inland port, a massive distribution hub planned for the city’s northwest side.

“This was nothing but fields, cows, that was it” when he moved here, he said. But “things are changing.”

Thompson and his wife, Natalie, live near an isolated and relatively minuscule sliver of the port that sits immediately west of I-15 on 2200 West and just north of I-80 on 2100 North. But they and other members of their neighborhood, which is located less than three miles from that future development, share concerns community members have raised about the port at large: that it will increase traffic, hurt wildlife and worsen air quality.

Dorothy Owen, chairwoman of the Westpointe Community Council, said that although she and other residents in this area are somewhat removed from the largest chunk of the port, she believes they’ll see impacts from the development first.

"Like the canary in the coal mine, if they’re harmed, they know that’s what’s going to happen to everybody else,” Owen said.

“We’re right here on the edge, she said, noting that she can walk from her front door into this slice of the port within five minutes. “We really know the land. People know the land there. And they know the water table. They know what’s going on out here, you know? They’ve ridden it on horseback.”

Without a business plan, which is currently in the works, Inland Port Authority Board Interim Director Chris Conabee said he couldn’t say exactly how this area, which he’s heard called “aerospace alley,” will develop.

“I don’t know that we know the plan for it,” he told The Salt Lake Tribune in a recent interview. “I know there were some recruitment opportunities around some aerospace companies that go back in our history over a decade that I think was part of the logic in that. I think the other part of the logic in that was if we’re going to have a port, it’s going to have access to air. We wanted that area to be looked at for that, as well.”

But Conabee said he imagines the area will primarily be used for the export of high-tech, lightweight goods and could therefore have less of an impact on traffic and emissions than residents have worried.

“We’ll look at the numbers when they come out, but I would imagine the airport expansion has more to do with emissions than anything the port will do," he said.

As Conabee alluded to, the port isn’t the only project accelerating development in this neighborhood located a short distance from Salt Lake City’s expanding international airport and Legacy Parkway, a highway near wildlife that currently bans trucks but will soon allow them. Ivory Development is also pursuing a project nearby that residents worry will exacerbate traffic and change the face of their community.

“I’m very grateful for having this wide-open space and sad to see it go away because I don’t think the thoughtfulness is part of the project,” Natalie Thompson told The Salt Lake Tribune. “We did have a 26-year master plan for this area prior to the inland port legislation, and I just wish they would have kind of stuck to that.”

Even before the state’s takeover of the inland port land in the city’s northwest quadrant, Salt Lake City had planned and zoned for an inland port — a development that was a cornerstone of Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski’s economic development strategy in 2017.

Community members have raised concerns that the city would have prioritized environmental concerns in the development more than the state will. But members of the Inland Port Authority Board in charge of overseeing development in the project area have argued that development under Salt Lake City’s base zoning could actually be worse for the community.

“The base scenario of doing nothing doesn’t help; it’s worse,” Conabee said. “The base scenario is just warehouses, trucks and no collaboration and no minimization of the facts and the pressures that are mounting from society.”

Denise Payne has lived in this rural slice of Salt Lake City for more than 30 years and said she’s never seen such rapid growth in the area. She’s worried about air quality and the impacts of traffic in her neighborhood once the Legacy Highway truck ban is lifted.

“This little two lane road that we live on, it’s just farmers and horse people that live on this road. There’s no cable out here, you know, so if we want anything other than antenna TV, you have to get satellite. We’re on a septic system and we’re only five minutes from downtown. But at least it’s still rural. Well, it was. I don’t think it will be anymore after this, unfortunately.”

Nichole Solt, Thompson’s next door neighbor, came to this rural slice of Salt Lake City four years ago, after she had “stalked” the area for around 10 years in the hopes of moving here. Now she, her husband, their two children and horses live on three acres of property that’s both rural and close to downtown.

But Solt said she’s already seeing changes in the community she’d dreamed of joining — and worries more is to come.

“The state is just pushing [the inland port] forward so much thinking that it’s going to benefit us economically," she said. "But I mean, I don’t think they’re looking at how it’s going to affect us environmentally in the future and just as a whole how it’s going to affect our city.”

And while she and her husband have no plans of moving, she’s also worried that this last vestige of agricultural life will soon disappear.

“Because of this inland port and because of the push [to develop], that is pretty much going to be extinct,” she said. “It’s just that lifestyle — you would think people would want to preserve it.”

As impossible as it might seem, some religious faiths have no hierarchy whatsoever. Many mystic faiths, and a few truly mental ones, have a very loose structure.

Case in point, the Loving Church of the Wandering Jedi, a member of which I discovered rummaging through a Dumpster one night while on patrol.

Near as I could determine, the guy in the Dumpster was the only member of the LCWJ, but he seemed harmless enough. Following a token blessing on my police car with a half-eaten hamburger, I let him go.

The LCWJ was a beauty of simplicity. Go where you want. Do what you want. Believe what you want. I might have been converted but for the fact that we would no doubt differ over what constituted “refreshments” or a “pot luck dinner.”

Some churches are more hierarchal in nature than others. The Catholic church comes immediately to mind, but so does The Church of Jesus Christ of Extra Latter-day Saints.

Note: I put the word “Extra” in there myself, meaning that after nearly 200 years I agree that it’s time Mormons were more precise about who and what we are.

The difference between these two heavily hierarchal faiths is that one (the Catholic church) almost never has to take into account a leader’s sudden switch from church to job. The parish priest is always the parish priest.

Religious hierarchy was a big part of my early life. Being Mormon, I had countless people (men) to which I owed some degree of homage — prophet, apostle, Seventy, stake president, bishop, Scoutmaster, etc.

Further complications were inserted into this spiritual chain of command by the fact that I was an Army brat. Bouncing from one military post to another, it wasn’t unusual for someone who was outranked militarily to outrank the other person spiritually.

For example, at one particularly horrible duty post, my Sunday school teacher in the LDS branch was a colonel while the branch president — his church boss — was a master sergeant.

I’m not sure how branch leadership meetings went, or at what point “Brother Brass” became “Colonel Brass, sir” again. I just recall that things seemed to run more or less smoothly so as long as the unspoken rules were followed.

The Old Man was a warrant officer, which meant that he was outranked by my Sunday school teacher but not by the branch president. I could sometimes get away with smart-mouthing President Corcoran, but never Brother Brass.

This isn’t just a military thing. Suppose you’re the bishop of an LDS ward that includes in the congregation the CEO of the company you depend upon to feed your family and pay tithing. Would this change bishop interviews?

Elsewhere in the world there are tribal and caste issues. What about royal blood? Is it a problem for a bishop bricklayer to counsel a prince on the evils of self-abuse, or a truck driving stake president telling a queen that she isn’t worthy to enter the temple?

The human need for a religious line of authority largely depends on the human. Being so contrary, I don’t see the need to insert a whole bunch of other people between me and whatever else comes next.

And you being you, it should probably be of supreme importance that one of those people isn’t me.

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

St. George • I moved here last year admiring the pluck of grass-roots Utahns for securing statewide votes on expanding Medicaid and legalizing medical marijuana.

They dared. I voted with them. And I’ve quickly realized that Utah legislators engage with their citizens the way a jumping cactus regards a curious dog’s nose. Stray from tradition’s path and they’ll stick you — repeatedly.

Gov. Gary Herbert and the conservative Republican Legislature smacked us around first with the special legislative session to successfully restrict Proposition 2 (what became the Medical Cannabis Act). Then, during the regular 2019 session, they curtailed the Medicaid openings in Proposition 3.

Having mollified the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other critics, lawmakers devised a raft of “we know what’s best” legislation to devalue future initiatives.

Herbert stenciled his name onto several knots of red tape – delaying implementation of initiatives until after a subsequent general legislative session, changing the signature threshold and prohibiting the introduction of initiatives with similar content in back-to-back elections.

Another new thumb-screw — that “active voters” be counted in qualifying signatures rather that the simple number of voters who participated in the last presidential election. This hamstrings unaffiliated voters who may be attracted by a single controversial initiative but otherwise might not regularly vote.

Utah can be as paternalistically overbearing and dismissive of an involved citizenry as the other side of the political mirror – California. There, I spent nearly 40 years navigating a so-called professional legislature in which the Democratic Party is sovereign, ballasted by near-endless union dollars and wish lists.

One example of Golden State imperiousness. My Fresno-based hospital system was one of several troubled by people loitering in lobbies or trying to access maternity units to abduct newborns or young children. We secured passage in 2003 of AB 936, creating the crime of “infant stalking.”

But its gravity was diminished. California prisons were overcrowded, and Democratic leaders insisted they’d only consider adding misdemeanors – no new felonies – to state law. Don’t add a crime if there’s no space to do the time, was their reasoning, like the lyrics from the theme song of “Baretta,” the 1970s detective show.

Californians use initiatives so often you’d think they were Miracle-Gro, creating a separate legislative environment. That’s as bad as the quashing of a handful of initiatives in small-government states.

Initiatives are a necessary and appropriate response when the legislative process is too slow or politicized. At some point, attempts to aggregate and maintain political power, as done in the last Utah legislative session, will be seen as an anti-democratic strategy to diminish voter engagement and broad-based election turnout.

I’ve grown tired of the whipsaw between “mainstream party” extremists. I ended my lifelong Democratic Party affiliation and have joined United Utah Party, a refreshing group of moderates from all stripes seeking open and civil discourse and policymaking. A Gallup Poll of ideology shows that 40% of Utahns identify themselves not as conservatives or liberals, but as moderates.

In coming decades, growth and diversity will compel a transformation in Utah’s current part-time “people’s” legislative format. Like California, Utah must curb air and water pollution, invest in affordable housing, improve educational funding and refresh tax policies.

I’d like to think current legislators would revisit their hostility to the initiative process, choosing instead to welcome participants as well-intentioned, complementary efforts of committed public servants and confirmation of an educated, resourceful and motivated citizenry.

They show spine in the face of clubby politics.

John G. Taylor, a former journalist and retired California hospital system executive, lives in St. George, Utah.

In our society, video games and video game players have been stigmatized in a way that, in my experience as a high school gamer, is almost entirely false.

Certainly, video games aren’t perfect. Franchises such as Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty create a bad name for the industry due to their explicit content. Other games such as League of Legends are notorious for their hostile communities. If that is your sole frame of reference, I can understand why, as a parent or a non-gamer, it might be hard to find value in video games.

Perhaps you’ve never interacted with today’s video game technology. Perhaps your exposure to today’s video games is through media coverage that is overrun by negative accounts of high schoolers turning violent and becoming addicted to their screens. But the reality is, the video game industry is here to stay, so here’s what you should understand about video games from someone who plays them.

The first key to understanding video games is to change your perception of the people who play them. While society seems to believe that video gamers are either uncontrollable middle schoolers or college dropouts living in basements, the vast majority of players are drastically more casual than their public perceptions. Video game producers create a diverse catalog of games and therefore attract a wide range of audiences. While the first-person-shooter archetype of games is extremely popular in mainstream culture, other archetypes such as strategy, sports and particularly indie games attract large casual audiences that are often underrepresented in the spotlight cast on the industry today.

At their core, gamers play video games as a form of entertainment, and I suggest viewing video games in the same light we view other forms of entertainment. While a teenager might be seen as intellectual for spending all of their time reading “The Lord of the Rings,” playing Zelda on the weekends with their friends is viewed as a sign of immaturity. Yet video games provide something that a book or a movie never could — a sense of exploration, a sense of agency, and I believe nobody should be criticized for playing a game that incentivizes independence.

Today’s video game technology has taken us well past Pac-Man, the video game of choice of so many of our parents’ generation. Since the mid-90s, game developers have gone from moving a pixel across a screen to recreating perfect, realistic copies of Manhattan Island, and that should be acknowledged. Nobody can live in the wild West but, thanks to game developers, you can walk through a surprisingly beautiful version of it from the comfort of your couch. At a base level, video games are an art form that you can interact with, that you can impact, and should be recognized as such.

One of the biggest draws of video games is competition. What differentiates video games from other forms of entertainment is that you can’t sit and watch. Video games can be extremely difficult, and thus can attract very dedicated communities. While a basketball player can’t compete at a global level on a daily basis, video-game players can, which allows each and every player a chance to develop into a world-class player.

People don’t play video games so that they can kill digital things, they play video games because killing that digital thing is hard, and competition attracts all of us in one way or another. According to IGN, a recent new video game titled Apex Legends “hit 50million players worldwide” within its first month on the market; that’s more players than people who live in South Korea.

It’s no secret that video games are here to stay and, as this modern-day obsession continues to expand, it’s important to remember that behind isolated accounts of addiction and violence there are tens of millions of players who have been positively impacted by video games. I, even as an admittedly average player, have overcome complex challenges, made friendships thousands of miles away, and enjoyed myself in the process, and I can attest that my experience is shared with most players, too.

Jack Smith, Salt Lake City, is a high school senior at Rowland Hall. He is participating in a writing project with Alliance for a Better Utah.

Reports indicate that refugees at the U.S. southern border could reach the 1 million mark this year, and the Trump administration has no plan to address this crisis. No plan at all.

Other than to tell Mexico to solve the problem by intercepting these fearful, exhausted and impoverished people, and to close the door to any asylum seekers without respect to American law, this president has done nothing but rant about his own failures both privately and publicly.

Now most recently, he has fired Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen because she wouldn’t break the law any further while continuing to carry out policies contrary to anyone’s standard of decency. It is not hyperbole to say that the nation, through its top executive, has cast aside law and order in favor of despotism. The problem is that this president is not even a good despot.

Trump’s remaining leadership team, including Stephen Miller (who bears the title of “senior advisor to the president”) has no plan to assist him with these crises. By ceasing aid to the northern triangle nations, countries such as Venezuela and El Salvador will continue to fail their citizenry and internal crime will prevail, even following those who flee to El Norte. To what extent that will continue to erupt or expand within America by its own festering citizenry, is as yet undetermined.

Recently from Politico:

"Last week, as Trump threatened once again to shut down the border … Miller held a conference call with immigration activists to explain the administration’s position and answer questions.

“He has told allies that the administration is out of ideas about how to stem the migrant tide at the border, according to an internal source involved with these conversations.”

Thinking people should understand this as a threshold moment for this presidency and the nation. Even though many would turn away and resume their convenient, middle-class lives and say, “I understand that they’re tired and they’re poor, they’re running from war lords and very well-organized crime, but the U.S. economy is doing pretty well under Donald Trump and an uncontrolled flood of immigration could ruin that,” seeming to indicate that if the door is shut, the problem will go away.

Except that it won’t.

As the president stimulates and endorses internal and international unrest, he is simultaneously destabilizing his own government by side-stepping a Congress meant to provide checks and balances to his reign. Many of the senior posts within his administration remain unfilled, or when his act requires another contestant to administer his whims and take the blame for more failures, he appoints an “acting” chair, absolved of any public oversight via Senate confirmation.

These indicators of a failed and noxious presidency are there for all to see in the numerous, careening accounts that reach our subsequent awareness and conversations. The nation’s White House reality show now approaches a political primary season and ultimately a ballot to be cast for the future of a once-great nation. Could America’s political parties offer up an antidote to this writhing agony? Will the courts be able to provide further relief to a nation stricken by the conspicuous consumption of political venom and heinous misdeed? More importantly, how or will the nation emerge from all of this social pathology?

At this point, it may be far too easy and even flippant to suggest that time will tell. Because at a certain point, the damage sustained by systems vital to what America has known as democracy may become irreversible, allowing other, external pathogens to finish the job.

Without some rapid triage and effective interventions, the agony is sure to continue within the greatest test of democracy and capitalism the world has ever known.

Michael Orton is an independent writer and producer who lives in central Utah.

It may be spring, but there's a good chance that many Americans won't get to appreciate it this weekend. All too many of us are likely putting the finishing touches on our federal and state income taxes, gathering all the paperwork pertaining to our charitable contributions, IRA distributions and employment income so that we can file our returns by April 15.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., whose office estimates that the average American spends 11 hours and about $200 on tax preparation, would like you to know it doesn't need to be this way. She's now reintroducing her Tax Filing Simplification Act, which she first introduced in 2016. The legislation, should it ever come to pass, would essentially free many Americans from the time-consuming and costly ritual, while making it less costly for others. And that's not all. On Thursday, Warren debuted another proposal, the Real Corporate Profits Tax, which would make it harder for the largest corporations to avoid paying their fair share.

Under current law, corporations can report large sums of annual profit to Wall Street and investors, while still using loopholes to pay no taxes to the feds. According to a study released Thursday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, at least 60 Fortune 500 companies paid nothing to the federal government in taxes in 2018, continuing a decline in corporate tax revenue since President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans lowered the corporate tax rate. The companies include Amazon (founded by The Post's owner, Jeff Bezos), which is paying nothing despite earning more than $230 billion worldwide.

Warren's effort would make that dance impossible. Her bill would set a 7 percent tax rate on all reported profits in excess of $100 million. In other words, if a mega corporation can report those sorts of earnings to Wall Street, it needs to pay a minimum tax, no matter how many loopholes it takes advantage of.

What the two ideas share — besides Warren as their author — is that the problems they address are both products of business lobbies’ influence in Washington. Much in the way corporations frantically lobbied for a tax cut, you can thank the tax prep industry’s influence for the unnecessary time and money spent in the run-up to Tax Day. We saw a demonstration of how this works on Tuesday, when the House — with a Democratic majority — voted to advance a bill that (among other things) keeps the tax prep industry in the online tax return business while keeping the IRS out. Consumer advocates — including the well-regarded National Consumer Law Center — say the bill’s language prevents the IRS from offering up rival services that would compete with the offerings of the private, for-profit sector. (The bill’s sponsors deny this.) According to ProPublica, Intuit and H&R Block spent upward of $6.6 million on lobbying last year.

If Warren gets her way, the IRS would be required to offer an online service at no cost, one that would permit filers to do their taxes without the involvement of outside tax prep businesses. At the same time, those with basic returns could request the government send them a tax return already filled out with the information that the government receives from employers, financial services firms and others, the way it is done in other developed countries such as Britain, Germany and Sweden. If you agree with the government's figures, you sign off and either pay up or wait for your refund. If you disagree and/or don't trust the government to do your taxes, you still have the freedom to do them yourself.

And it should be noted that the $11 billion (and growing) tax prep industry isn’t simply making its money from simple filing. As a Government Accountability Office study requested by Warren shows, there are all sorts of ways for players in the business to profit that go beyond tax prep fees. Take refund advances, when tax prep companies offer up the tax refund to the consumer immediately, instead of forcing him or her to wait several weeks for the government to pay up. While those advances are almost always free of charge, the transferring of an advance - be it to a temporary account set up at a bank or onto a prepaid debit card - is not, and typically runs consumers between $40 and $50. There are also ways to steer tax preparers toward recommending a higher-cost transfer service by kicking back a portion of the fee — to the professional, not the customer. Then there are services where customers are not charged for an advance — up to a point, with the additional amount subject to interest rate charges that can go as high as 35.9 percent. It should go without saying that low-income and minority households are more likely to turn to these costly financial services.

That an entire industry can make millions by complicating a civic duty is infuriating — doubly so if you think about it while putting the finishing touches on your returns. Good for Warren for continuing to call out these interests — and shame on all the members of Congress who allow this situation to fester.

Every kid deserves recess every single day.

Recess is an extension of the classroom, which offers valuable learning time. It’s not only a time for students to take a break from difficult cognitive tasks and expel energy, it’s an opportunity for them to develop valuable skills such as, teamwork, conflict resolution, empathy and leadership.

These skills become fundamental tools that shape our kids into more successful adults. Ultimately, withholding recess robs our kids of the childhood they deserve.

According to a 2018 Utah Action for Healthy Kids survey, more than 50 percent of public Utah elementary schools reported withholding recess as a form of punishment or remediation, i.e. catching students up on other subjects, or completing missed or late work. The majority of the schools that reported barring their students from recess were low-income schools.

According to its policy statement, “The Crucial Role of Recess in School,” the American Academy of Pediatrics believes that recess is a crucial and necessary component of a child’s development and, as such, it should not be withheld for punitive or academic reasons.

While playing during recess, students are learning to problem-solve, follow rules, and play fairly with each other. Encouraging the development of these valuable skills during playtime can carry into the way students interact with each other in the classroom, leading to an overall more positive school climate. A 2009 study found that children ages eight and nine who had at least one 15 minute recess within the school day had better classroom behavior.

While recess may seem like a viable time to complete late work, not allowing the time for a brain break may in fact be setting students back further. A 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a positive correlation between recess and academic performance. The report noted, “There is substantial evidence that physical activity can help improve academic achievement, including grades and standardized test scores.”

We need to make sure that recess is a right, not an extra, for every Utah student. They deserve to benefit from this valuable time that can foster better relationships with their peers, while propelling them forward academically, socially and emotionally. Learn more about what’s happening on your child’s playground by taking the Recess Checkup at www.recesslab.org.

Chris Conard is the executive director of Playworks Utah, Murray, a nonprofit organization that promotes recess and play among young children.

Augusta, Ga. • Fallen hero, crippled star, and now a Masters champion again.

Tiger Woods rallied to win the Masters for the fifth time Sunday, a comeback that goes well beyond the two-shot deficit he erased before a delirious audience at Augusta National that watched memories turn into reality.

Woods had gone nearly 11 years since he won his last major, 14 years since that green jacket was slipped over his Sunday red shirt. He made it worth the wait, closing with a 2-under 70 for a one-shot victory, and setting off a scene of raw emotion.

He scooped up 10-year-old Charlie, born a year after Woods won his 14th major at Torrey Pines in the 2008 U.S Open. He hugged his mother and then his 11-year-old daughter Sam, and everyone else in his camp that stood by him through a public divorce, an embarrassing DUI arrest from a concoction of painkillers and surgeries.

"WOOOOOOO!!!" Woods screamed as he headed for the scoring room with chants of "Tiger! Tiger! Tiger" echoing as loud as any of the roars on the back nine at Augusta National.

Woods lost his impeccable image to a sex scandal. He lost his health to four back surgeries that left him unable to get out of bed, much less swing a club, and he went two years without even playing a major. It was two years ago at the Masters when Woods said he needed a nerve block just to walk to the Champions Dinner. At that time, he thought his career is over.

Now the comeback is truly complete.

Woods won his 15th major, leaving three short of the standard set by Jack Nicklaus. It was his 81st victory on the PGA Tour, one title away from the career record held by Sam Snead.

"A big 'well done' from me to Tiger," Nicklaus tweeted. "I am so happy for him and for the game of golf. This is just fantastic!!!"

Utah’s Tony Finau, who faltered midway through the round, rallied down the stretch to finish tied for fifth, his best-ever finish at Augusta National.

It was the first time Woods won a major when trailing going into the final round, and he needed some help from Francesco Molinari, the 54-hole leader who still was up two shots heading into the heart of Amen Corner.

And that's when all hell broke loose at Augusta.

Molinari's tee shot on the par-3 12th never had a chance, hitting the bank and tumbling into Rae's Creek for double bogey. Until then, Molinari had never trailed in a round that began early in threesomes to finish ahead of storms.

And then it seemed as though practically everyone had a chance.

Six players had a share of the lead at some point on the back. With the final group still in the 15th fairway, there was a five-way tie for the lead. And that's when Woods seized control, again with plenty of help.

Molinari’s third shot clipped a tree and plopped straight down in the water for another double bogey. Woods hit onto the green, setting up a two-putt birdie for his first lead of the final round. Woods followed with a tee shot on the par-3 16th that rode down the slope next to the cup and settled two feet away for his final birdie.

This story will be updated.

Before her floor routine, Utah senior gymnast MaKenna Merrell-Giles will look for teammate Sydney Soloski. They make eye contact and flex their muscles at each other, a ritual that Merrell-Giles said is the final touch in her preparation.

“She is always talking to me and encouraging me,” Merrell-Giles said. “She is such a positive person, she helps me so much.”

In the last half of the season, Soloski’s support has moved more from the mental kind to the physical one as she has become not just a key participant in the floor lineup but also the balance beam.

The sophomore from Calgary, Alberta, competed in just give meets last year and was far down the beam lineup at the beginning of the 2019 season. But now as the Utes prepare for the NCAA Championships, Soloski is not only in the beam lineup, but excelling.

She is earning consistent 9.825s or higher on the apparatus and is coming off a 9.875 performance on the final night of regionals.

None could be happier for Soloski than her coach, Megan Marsden, who has noted Soloski’s efforts as well as that of Alexia Burch have improved.

“They’ve figured out their roles are important and necessary on the beam,” she said. “We have always known Sydney was a beamer, she has the pedigree, but for whatever reason she has struggled with consistency at Utah.”

Soloski was given an opportunity to prove herself under pressure when injuries to Cristal Isa and Missy Reinstadtler took them out of the lineup and another beam worker, Shannon McNatt, struggled.

As a member of the Canadian National Team for four years, Soloski has competed in plenty of pressure events on the 4-inch wide apparatus and done well.

In 2016 she took third on the beam at the World Cup Challenge and was first on the apparatus at the 2015 Provincial Championships. She was also the 2013 Canadian Junior National beam champion.

She was finally able to find that kind of success after joining the beam lineup against Cal on Feb. 9 and scored a 9.8. Her scores have steadily improved along with her confidence.

“I’ve tried to be consistent and do my job,” she said. “The last meet [regionals] was definitely a highlight for me on beam.”

Marsden called that routine a ‘breakthrough moment,’ for Soloski.

“She has kept her beam routines smooth enough to earn in the 9.8 range, but that routine, she was so smooth. She has continued to address her weaknesses and has kept getting better.”

On floor Soloski has had three 9.925s and scored a 9.875 at the Pac-12 Championships and a 9.825 on the final night of regionals. Her routine is one of the more upbeat and infectious routines the team has, a vibe that fits Soloski’s personality, Marsden said.

“She is upbeat and fun loving and I don’t see her have any kind of routine other than the one she has now,” Marsden said. “that is always her personality, but it is fun to see how beam is coming around for her now too.”

Soloski said floor remains her favorite event because it is less stressful for her. However, beam is becoming a “close second,” she said.

“We had so many strong beam workers to start, but when other girls went down with injuries I had to step up into that role and embrace it,” she said.

She has done just that, flexing her skills as well as her smile.

Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach Mark Madsen will become a head men’s basketball coach in Utah County after all.

Just not at BYU.

Madsen, 43, will replace Mark Pope as the head coach at Utah Valley University, The Salt Lake Tribune has confirmed. The hiring was first reported by ESPN.com.

Pope was chosen as BYU’s new head coach last Wednesday, beating out Madsen, Portland State coach Barret Peery and BYU interim head coach Quincy Lewis for the job to replace Dave Rose.

Madsen let it be known during that process that he would be interested in replacing Pope if he didn’t get the BYU job, and that pursuit was surely sped up when head coach Luke Walton and the Lakers parted company on Friday, leaving Madsen without a job.

Madsen grew up in Walnut Creek, Calif., but his parents now live in Utah County, as do his in-laws.

He played college basketball at Stanford from 1996-2000 and was a two-time All-American.

He was selected in the first round of the 2000 NBA draft (No. 29 overall) by the Lakers and spent nine seasons in the NBA. He was part of the Lakers’ NBA championship teams in 2001 and 2002 and played his final six NBA seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

He earned an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in 2012 and was an assistant coach at Stanford for one year under head coach Johnny Dawkins in 2011-12.

Madsen became a full-fledged Lakers assistant in 2013 and has had that position until Walton was dismissed on Friday.

Sources told The Tribune that Washington assistant Dave Rice was close to being named UVU’s coach on Saturday, but the money wasn’t right for the former BYU assistant and UNLV head coach to leave Seattle for Orem.

Pope’s two top assistants at Utah Valley, Chris Burgess and Cody Fueger, were also interviewed for the UVU job. Both will likely join Pope at BYU, according to sources with knowledge of Pope’s search for his staff.

Former Southern Utah University coach Nick Robinson (2012-2016) could also be in line to join Pope’s staff at BYU, along with his director of basketball operations at UVU, Bobby Horodyski.

Madsen is from a family of 10 children and served a mission to Spain for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He married Orem native Hannah Harkness in September of 2016 and the couple has a son, William.

Houston • Jazz head coach Quin Snyder has done the research.

“When you analyze, of the 42 people that I’ve been able to find that have picked someone in this series, that there’s one that’s picked us, that tells you you’ve got to do a lot of analysis. Or you’ve got to ignore the analysis,” Snyder said after the Jazz held shootaround in preparation for Sunday night’s Game 1 against the Houston Rockets.

Snyder’s right: the Jazz are heavy underdogs. Of ESPN’s group of 20 analysts, only one picked the Jazz. The Tribune picked the Rockets in six games. Betting $100 on a Jazz series win will earn you $270 at some sportsbooks, according to BetOnline.

“We love it. We don’t really care what anyone thinks, to be honest. We know we’re a good team, we’ve played our way obviously to the 5 seed again, but yeah, it is what it is," Joe Ingles said. “We take the seeding [and what] comes with it, obviously, we start on the road, and our goal is to win a game or two.”

Road upsets have not proven uncommon in the NBA playoffs’ first weekend. Three of the four series played on Saturday night included surprising defeats for the home teams, including the Spurs beating the Nuggets, Magic defeating the Raptors, and Nets getting Game 1 over the Sixers.

“We’ll see what happens,” Ingles said. "We’ll be ready to compete, we’ll be ready to play, and we don’t really care what little stories you guys write.”

Joe Ingles, on the Jazz's growth: "Over the three years, we’ve grown a lot as a team — from that first playoff series against the Clippers to now, we’ve learned a lot. … We can go in confident that we’ve been here before, we know what to expect, and we’ll be ready to compete." pic.twitter.com/r2N0rhji1D

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) April 14, 2019

Can Jazz get rebounding edge?

Looking at the statistical tale of the tape between these two teams, perhaps the Jazz’s most notable advantage comes at the glass. Perhaps thanks to their switching defense, the Rockets are only the 28th ranked team in the NBA at getting defensive rebounds.

And whether or not the Rockets get the rebound turns out to be a huge indicator of whether or not they’ll win the game. According to CleaningTheGlass, the Rockets were 26-3 when opponents had an offensive rebound rate below 25%, but just 20-21 when opponents grabbed over 30% of their misses.

That’s an opportunity for the Jazz, who were the 13th ranked offensive rebounding team. That’s nearly entirely due to the efforts of Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors when he plays the center position, as typically, the Jazz commit everyone else to transition defense just as soon as they put up a shot.

“The challenge is if you over commit to the offensive glass, they’re getting out in transition, they’re getting those threes and Capela’s getting rim runs," Snyder said. “We’ve got to go, we’ve got to go hard, and we also have to be really urgent getting back so it doesn’t hurt us going the other way.”

But after Houston switches, they’ll likely have a smaller player guarding the Jazz’s centers. That’s when the Jazz can take advantage.

“That’s what we’ve been talking about, that’s part of the game plan. Obviously, these guys switch one through five, and they may have Chris Paul or Austin Rivers on our five man at times,” Jae Crowder said. “We just want to take full advantage of that situation, and make sure our fives go every time to crash and try to get second chance points.”

The rebounding situation isn’t a huge weakness for the Rockets: as Snyder points out, the were a top-five defense since the All-Star break either way. But it does represent a way that the Jazz can get an advantage over Houston: “Obviously, any time you can get extra possessions, it’s something you want to try to do,” Snyder said.

Jazz shootaround Sunday at Toyota Center pic.twitter.com/ziDPlMg780

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) April 14, 2019

South Bend, Ind. • Pete Buttigieg, the little-known Indiana mayor who has risen to prominence in the early stages of the 2020 Democratic presidential race, made his official campaign entrance Sunday by claiming the mantle of youthful generation ready to reshape the country.

"I recognize the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern millennial mayor. More than a little bold, at age 37, to seek the highest office in the land," he said to cheers of "Pete, Pete, Pete" from an audience assembled in a former Studebaker auto plant.

The South Bend mayor, a Rhodes Scholar and Afghanistan War veteran who has been exploring a White House run since January, has now joined a field of a dozen-plus rivals vying to take on President Donald Trump.

"The forces of change in our country today are tectonic," he said. "Forces that help to explain what made this current presidency even possible. That's why, this time, it's not just about winning an election — it's about winning an era."

Buttigieg will return this week to Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the nation's first nominating contests, to campaign as a full-fledged candidate now being taken more seriously.

Over the past few months, Buttigieg has appeared frequently on national TV news and talk shows and developed a strong social media following with his message that the country needs "a new generation of leadership."

Buttigieg's poll numbers have climbed. Some polls put him behind only Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the party's nomination in 2016, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet said he's running.

Buttigieg's campaign has raised more than $7 million in the first three months of this year, a total eclipsed by Sanders' leading $18 million but more than Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

"Right now, it's pretty fun," Buttigieg told The Associated Press last month while visiting South Carolina , where he was met by larger-than-expected crowds.

His challenge is finding a way to sustain the momentum over the long term and avoiding becoming a "flavor-of-the-month" candidate. Scrutiny of his leadership in South Bend has increased, as has his criticism of Vice President Gov. Mike Pence , who was Indian's governor when Buttigieg was in his first term as mayor.

Buttigieg would be the first openly gay nominee of a major presidential party; he married his husband, Chasten, last year. He would be the first mayor to go directly to the White House. And he would be the youngest person to become president, turning 39 the day before the next inauguration, on Jan. 20, 2021. Theodore Roosevelt was 42 when he took office, while John F. Kennedy was 43 and Bill Clinton 46.

The campaign kickoff speech echoed themes that have resonated with voters during Buttigieg's exploratory phase.

He talks often about how political decisions shape people's lives, including his own — from serving as a lieutenant in the Navy Reserve in 2014, to being able to marry his husband and to not having to worry about how to pay for his father's hospital bills after his father's death this year.

Buttigieg also says the best way for Democrats to defeat Trump may be to nominate a mayor experienced in helping to revive a Midwestern city once described as "dying," rather than a politician who has spent years "marinating" in Washington.

He has criticized Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again," saying the way to move the country forward is not to look backward or cling to an old way of life.

"There's a myth being sold to industrial and rural communities: the myth that we can stop the clock and turn it back," he said in the kickoff speak. "It comes from people who think the only way to reach communities like ours is through resentment and nostalgia, selling an impossible promise of returning to a bygone era that was never as great as advertised to begin with."

South Bend, which neighbors the University of Notre Dame, was hit hard by the decline of manufacturing, dating to the 1963 closing of the Studebaker auto plant that costs thousands of residents their jobs.

The hulking, dilapidated factory loomed over the city for much of the past 60 years as what Buttigieg called a daily reminder of South Bend's city's past. Partially remodeled, it's now a mixed-use mixed-use technology center outside downtown — and the setting for Bettigieg's announcement.

Several thousand people assembled inside, where a steady stream of raindrops fell on speakers on the stage through the leaky roof. An overflow crowd of a few hundred more stood outside.

"I like that he's young. He's so relatable. He doesn't seem like a politician to me," said Tom Lacy, a 62-year-old retired who came from Peoria, Illinois, for the event with his wife, Candy, on their 35th wedding anniversary. "The contrast between him and our current president is unbelievable."

Nausher Ahmad Sial, a 68-year-old developer from South Bend, said the 2020 election is about the future of the country and "we need to try new blood."

Sial, who came to the U.S. from Pakistan 35 years ago, said he has worked with Buttigieg on development projects in the city and described the mayor as a “very honest, very fair guy.”

Ambalavao, Madagascar • Babies wail as a nurse tries to reassure mothers who have come to vaccinate their children against a measles outbreak that has killed more than 1,200 people in this island nation where many are desperately poor.

Madagascar faces its largest measles outbreak in history, with cases soaring well beyond 115,000, but resistance to vaccinating children is not the driving force behind the rise.

Measles cases are rising in the United States and elsewhere, in part because of misinformation that makes some parents balk at receiving a vaccine. New York City is trying to halt an outbreak by ordering mandatory vaccinations in one Brooklyn neighborhood.

In Madagascar, many parents want to protect their children but face immense challenges, including the lack of resources.

Only 58% of people on Madagascar's main island have been vaccinated against measles, a major factor in the outbreak's spread. With measles one of the most infectious diseases, immunization rates need to be 90% to 95% or higher to prevent outbreaks.

On a recent day, the Iarintsena health center's waiting room was full, with mothers sitting on the floor and others waiting outside in the overwhelming heat. Two volunteer nurses and a midwife tried to meet the demand.

Nifaliana Razaijafisoa had walked 15 kilometers (9 miles) with her 6-month-old baby in her arms.

"He has a fever," she said. "I think it's measles because there are these little pimples that have appeared on his face."

The nurse quickly confirmed it.

"I'm so scared for him because in the village everyone says it kills babies," Razaijafisoa said.

The outbreak has killed mostly children under 15 since it began in September, according to the World Health Organization.

"The epidemic unfortunately continues to expand in size," though at a slower pace than a month ago, said Dr. Dossou Vincent Sodjinou, a WHO epidemiologist in Madagascar. By mid-March, 117,075 cases had been reported by the health ministry, affecting all regions of the country.

Some cases of resistance to vaccinations exist because of the influence of religion or of traditional health practitioners but they are isolated ones, he said.

This outbreak is complicated by the fact that nearly 50% of children in Madagascar are malnourished.

"Malnutrition is the bed of measles, " Sodjinou said.

Razaijafisoa's baby weighs just 5 kilograms (11 pounds).

"This is the case for almost all children with measles who have come here," said Lantonirina Rasolofoniaina, a volunteer at the health center.

Simply reaching a clinic for help can be a challenge. Many people in Madagascar cannot afford to see a doctor or buy medicine, and health centers often are understaffed or have poorly qualified workers.

As a result, information about health issues can be unreliable. Some parents are not aware that vaccines are free, at least in public health centers.

Four of Erika Hantriniaina's five children have had measles. She had wrongly believed that people could not be vaccinated after nine months of age.

"It's my 6-year-old daughter who had measles first. She had a lot of fever," she said. "I called the doctor but it was Friday. He had already gone to town. I went to see another doctor who told me that my daughter had an allergy. ... This misdiagnosis was almost fatal."

The girl had diarrhea and vomiting and couldn't eat, Hantriniaina said, adding that she narrowly survived.

Measles, a highly infectious disease spread by coughing, sneezing, close contact or infected surfaces, has no specific treatment. The symptoms are treated instead.

"Vitamin A is given to children to increase their immunity. We try to reduce the fever. If there is a cough, we give antibiotics," said Dr. Boniface Maronko, sent by WHO to Madagascar to supervise efforts to contain the outbreak. If the disease is not treated early enough, complications appear including diarrhea, bronchitis, pneumonia and convulsions.

Madagascar's health ministry has sent free medication to regions most affected by the outbreak. Maronko reminded heads of health centers in the Ambalavao region not to make parents pay, saying he had seen some doctors asking for money. He told The Associated Press that he feared the medicines wouldn't be enough.

The country's capital, Antananarivo, a city of 1.3 million, has not been spared.

Lalatiana Ravonjisoa, a vegetable vendor in a poor district, grieves for her 5-month-old baby.

"I had five children. They all had measles. For the last, I did not go to see the doctor because I did not have money," she said. "I gave my baby the leftover medications from his big brother to bring down the fever."

For a few days she did not worry: "I felt like he was healed." But one morning she noticed he had trouble breathing. Later she found his feet were cold.

"Look at my baby," she told her mother.

"She hugged him for a long time and she did not say anything. Then she asked me to be strong. He was gone."

Ravonjisoa said she blames herself, "but I did not imagine for one moment that he was going to die." At the hospital, a doctor confirmed that her baby died of measles-related respiratory complications.

Late last month, WHO started a third mass vaccination campaign in Madagascar with the overall goal of reaching 7.2 million children aged 6 months to 9 years.

“But immunization is not the only strategy for the response to this epidemic. We still need resources for care, monitoring and social mobilization,” said Sodjinou, the WHO epidemiologist.

Provo • Suddenly, BYU may have an embarrassment of riches at running back this season.

On Sunday, South Carolina running back Ty’Son Williams announced on Twitter that he will play his final season or eligibility at BYU. Williams will graduate from the Southeastern Conference school next month and will be immediately eligible at BYU as a graduate-transfer.

“I want to thank all the coaches and programs who reached out to give me an opportunity to continue my education for my last year. With that being said I will continue my last year of eligibility at Brigham Young University,” Williams wrote on Twitter Sunday afternoon.

Williams had narrowed his choices to Florida State, Western Kentucky, Marshall and BYU before choosing the Cougars. He was recruited to BYU by running backs coach AJ Steward and made an official visit to the Provo campus last month with his parents.

Two weeks ago, BYU announced the signing of another fifth-year graduate transfer, Rice running back Emmanuel Esukpa. Williams and Esukpa are expected to push returning starter Lopini Katoa, a sophomore, for the top running back spot in 2019.

The Cougars will also have walk-on redshirt freshmen Tyler Allgeier, redshirt freshman Sione Finau and oft-injured senior Kavika Fonua in the running backs room.

I want to thank all the coaches and programs who reached out to give me an opportunity to continue my education for my last year. With that being said I will continue my last year of eligibility at Brigham Young University. #LLDon @BYUfootball pic.twitter.com/2HfrTQOUf9

— Ty'Son Williams (@tyyda72) April 14, 2019

Williams was a four-star recruit in 2015 and played a year at North Carolina before transferring to South Carolina. He rushed for 471 yards as a sophomore and 328 yards this past season as a redshirt junior. Injuries have plagued a once-promising career.

BYU opens the season on Aug. 29, hosting the University of Utah.

In relation to both par and the leading score in the Masters, Tony Finau finished Sunday's round exactly where he started.

The Lehi resident was two strokes behind the leader when he teed off and never got any closer than that, ending up two strokes back of the winner, Tiger Woods. Where could Finau have made up two shots? That's too easy.

An 8-iron shot on the par-3 No. 12 that landed on the bank and trickled down into the water short of the green led to a haunting double bogey, taking Finau out of contention at Augusta National Golf Club. A three-birdie rally and a tie for fifth place gave him some consolation, and so did the experience of witnessing Woods' first Masters victory in 14 years as they played together in the final round.

Finau tweeted, “While it wasn't the round I had hoped it would be, it is one that I'll never forget.”

His closing 72 was nothing like Saturday’s 64 that had moved him into a tie for second place. Even so, that round should serve as one more building block toward a major title someday.

Finau’s coach, Farmington native Boyd Summerhays, has believed for five years that his game is built for the majors, and the evidence keeps saying so. Finau has posted top-10 finishes in four of the last five majors, starting last April at Augusta National, and has seven top-20 showings in 12 career starts.

And in the each of the next three months, thanks to the PGA Tour’s new calendar, Finau will take another shot on similar stages. The stories of other Utahns who have been in positions similar to where Finau was Sunday — in the exact same spot, in one case — provide a divergent road map of what may lie ahead in his career.

Provo's Dan Forsman was one stroke off the Masters lead in 1993 when he came to No. 12. He hit two shots into the water and eventually tied for seventh place, at age 34. Forsman was one of the PGA Tour's top players at the time, but he never again would contend in a major.

In 1999, Sandy's Mike Weir was paired with Woods in the final round of the PGA Championship and shot an 80, fading to a tie for 10th as he watched Tiger win. Four years later, Weir won the Masters.

Everything about Finau's game and his demeanor suggest he will have multiple opportunities to win majors, and eventually will maximize one or more of them, as Weir did.

Finau's performance in last September's Ryder Cup drove that home, to himself and others. In the Masters interview room Saturday, he told the story of looking around the U.S. team room in Paris. “That when I told myself, 'Not only do you belong here, but you can become a major champion like most of the guys in here, ” he said.

That forecast almost has to become accurate, at some point. Finau, 29, is giving himself so many chances that finishing on top one of these times seems inevitable. He faded to fifth place in the U.S. Open last June and he settled for a tie for fifth Sunday, although he deserves credit for fighting back from a tie for 12th as he walked off the No. 12 green.

Daniel Summerhays' third-place finish in the 2016 PGA Championship remains the best showing in a major for a Utah native in nearly a century. Finau will play next month in the PGA at Bethpage Black in New York, a state park facility – just like the old Jordan River Par 3, in the days when Finau was learning to play golf in the Rose Park neighborhood.

A victory for Finau in that public-course setting would be a great story, but not a stunning development. The surprise would be Finau’s not being in the mix in another major.

A 32-year-old South Jordan man was arrested early Sunday after his brother called police and said his younger sibling had shot him, according to a news release from the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.

The two brothers and their families were staying at a hotel in Summit County when the men got into an argument.

The man who was shot says during the dispute, his brother pulled out a gun and began firing it at him. One bullet struck him in the right buttock and the other went into the wall of the hotel room. The man was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.

The younger brother was arrested and booked into the Summit County Jail on suspicion of attempted homicide, discharge of a firearm, reckless endangerment, domestic violence in the presence of a child, carrying a dangerous weapon while under the influence of alcohol and intoxication. He is being held on $100,000 bail.