“Game of Thrones” is the most binge-watched TV show in America, but Utahns prefer a show that starred an actress charged in the college admissions scandal — if you believe an unscientific survey by Geek.com, that is.

The website asked its readers to answer questions about their binge-watching habits over the past 18 months. While HBO’s “Game of Thrones” was No. 1 nationally and in eight states (more than any other show), Utahns were alone in their preference for the Hallmark Channel family drama “When Calls the Heart.”

That’s the show that fired Lori Loughlin after she was indicted on federal mail fraud and money laundering charges. She is accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to get her two daughters into the University of Southern California as members of the crew team — even though neither of them ever participated in crew.

Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, pleaded not guilty Monday to the fraud and money laundering charges.

According to Geek.com, Utah was one of just five states where respondents said they prefer to binge TV dramas over comedies or other genres, even though “Game of Thrones” was No. 1.

(Binge-watching is viewing several episodes of a series in succession; the website did not define how many episodes constitutes a binge.)

The top 10 binged shows in the unscientific Geek.com survey are:

1. “Game of Thrones”

2. “The Office”

3. “Ozark”

4. “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”

5. “Grace and Frankie”

6. “NCIS”

7. “Grey's Anatomy”

8. “You”

9. “Shameless”

10. “Friends”

St. George • College students and residents in a Utah city have quickly taken to e-scooters as a new method of local transportation.

The Spectrum reported Monday that Dixie State University students and others in St. George have taken more than 13,400 trips using the Spin-brand electric scooters since they were introduced in March.

Officials say the program’s launch at the university initially put 100 scooters into service, and by next week the program will reach the maximum 400 e-scooters allowed under Spin’s contract with the city in the southwest corner of the state.

Officials say more than 5,000 riders have downloaded the app and taken a ride for $1, plus 15 cents per minute, with the “vast majority” of riders believed to be Dixie State students riding from housing complexes to campus.

Ogden • Students at a Utah university have expressed frustration with the administration’s response to racist stickers and posters found at the school.

Weber State students are unhappy with the university’s actions after material promoting white supremacy appeared the weekend of March 30-31 on buildings and other structures around the Ogden campus, The Standard-Examiner reported Sunday.

Some students said many at the school about 38 miles (61 kilometers) north of Salt Lake City were unaware because an alert about the stickers was not extensively communicated.

University President Brad Mortensen released a statement April 10.

"At Weber State, we vigorously protect free speech and the diversity of ideas," Mortensen said in the statement. "Nonetheless, we call out racist and hateful speech aimed at intimidating and frightening individuals and communities."

The timing of Mortensen's comments frustrated some students.

"I just don't understand why the statement took so long to come out when these stickers were on campus (two weeks ago)," said JaLisa Lee, president of student organization Black Scholars United.

Staff removed the offensive material before classes resumed April 1, said Public Relations Director Allison Hess.

The university did not want to draw additional publicity to the white supremacy group, Hess said.

The administration sent a message to student leaders and campus offices about the stickers, she said.

The message invited students to share campus safety concerns on a student union white board April 2, which were addressed in a follow-up conversation with the chief diversity officer April 4, Hess said.

Considered separately, MaKenna Merrell-Giles and MyKayla Skinner are great gymnasts.

Together, the two are the result of some sort of human chemistry experiment, combining to create huge results for the Utah Utes.

Would Merrell-Giles be the gymnast she is without Skinner? It’s doubtful. Would Skinner get the big scores she consistently earns without Merrell-Giles setting her up? Probably not.

One thing is certain though, their combination has been tremendously successful for the two gymnasts, as well as the Utes.

They will share the competition floor for the last time this week when the Utes compete in the NCAA Championships in Ft. Worth.

The Utes knew the quality of gymnasts they were getting when they recruited the two, but had no idea how they would come to push each other. They share the commonality of both being members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but really didn’t know each other except for a few brief run-ins at competitions during their club days.

Now, three years later, they are arguably one of the strongest duos in collegiate gymnastics and one of the most uncommon too. Plenty of teams have more than one superstar, but what makes this pair unique is that Merrell-Giles not only accepts, but thrives in the role of being the setup for Skinner.

She isn’t just satisfied to do so, but takes it as a personal challenge to box the judges into a corner. If she can earn a 9.95, then how can the judges give Skinner anything less when she goes out and nails a routine with even more difficulty?

“It’s only going to make our team better,” Merrell-Giles said of the arrangement. “It’s not like she gets in the gym and gets more attention, we both put in the same amount of work and I know how hard she works.”

Merrell-Giles’ attitude toward the setup is so matter of fact, it is unusual, Utah coach Megan Marsden said.

“MaKenna is the unsung hero and she relishes the position,” Utah coach Megan Marsden said. “It’s a cool story that she takes so much pride in doing her part. She is a humble soul.”

The Utes learned just how valuable it is to have the two go back-to-back when they were experimenting with the beam lineups and put Merrell-Giles earlier in the lineup. The chemistry didn’t work nearly as well and now the two go together on every event, except bars, where Missy Reinstadtler competes between them since her routine has the potential to earn slightly more than Merrell-Giles’ does.

The pairing is so unique that Marsden struggled to think of another duo the Utes have had, finally settling into a comparison of Missy Marlowe and Shelly Schaerrer, who starred for the Utes from 1989-92.

But the Skinner-Merrell-Giles duo is still different, for the way Merrell-Giles has upped her game yet remains willing to be the star in the shadows.

“They are a dynamic duo,” Marsden said of Skinner and Merrell-Giles. “There is a connection between the two that helps both of them be successful.”

Marsden credits Merrell-Giles for being a good influence on Skinner when she arrived at Utah. Often it is difficult for elite gymnasts to make the switch to the team-oriented ideal of college gymnastics after competing for so long as an individual, but Skinner made that switch rather easily. Part of the ease in transition certainly is due to Skinner’s own personality, but Merrell-Giles was there as a guide.

“MaKenna was a great example for MyKayla when she arrived because she helped MyKayla understand the epitome of team gymnastics,” Marsden said. “There was an immediate connection with them and their relationship continued to grow onto the competitive floor. Sports can do that for people. They started as friends and ended up incredible teammates.”

Skinner remembers those first days and how Merrell-Giles helped her with everything, even to the point of showing her how to line up at practice.

“She definitely helped me a lot,” Skinner said. “We fed off each other, and she had the experience of being at Utah because I deferred a year and I had the experience of the Olympics so we grew a lot and pushed each other. We help each other so much in competition it has been fun and special.”

Now they joke that they are “Mick and cheese.”

“She is my sister,” Merrell-Giles said. “She is an easy person to get along with. She will come up to me before vault or floor and say, ‘Come on Kenna, let’s do it.’ We are like a 1-2 punch.”

Individually, their success can be measured in all the individual accolades that have come their way. Merrell-Giles is an eight-time All-American and the 2018 regional and Pac-12 vault champion. Skinner is a 22-time All-American, eight-time regional champion and seven-time Pac-12 champion.

But the team has obviously profited too with the Utes enjoying successful seasons during their time at Utah.

However, the postseason hasn’t been quite as kind to the Utes in the last three years. They won the 2017 Pac-12 title, but the national showings have been disappointing, finishing ninth in 2016 and fifth the last two years.

Is the chemistry between Skinner and Merrell-Giles enough to lead the Utes to a better finish this year?

Both are hopeful but neither is sure, noting that the Utes are in a tough session Friday and by seedings the Utes are underdogs to advance.

But both are going into it believing the Utes have a fighting chance too and accept the responsibility of setting the tone.

“It helps a lot that MaKenna is a senior and I am a junior now and we have some of the most experience on this team,” Skinner said. “We have accomplished a lot and hopefully that will help lead us to that win. That is the role we have.”

Paris • A symbol of Paris, a triumph of Gothic architecture and one of the most visited monuments in the world, the Cathedral of Notre Dame is a beloved icon for millions across the globe. But for many in this largely Catholic country, especially for the most faithful, the medieval masterpiece is a sacred space that serves as the spiritual as well as the cultural heart of France.

So as it burned on Monday — during Holy Week, which precedes Easter — Parisians gathered on the other side of the Seine, embers blowing onto their heads, praying and crying as they sought fellowship in their shared disbelief. As night fell, people clutched flickering candles, still praying as ochre-colored plumes of smoke billowed in a dimming sky. The sound of hymns filled the air.

The fire is another blow for Catholics in France, where a cardinal was recently convicted of a sex abuse cover-up. And Catholic churches in France have reportedly come under attack in recent months; a cross of human excrement was found at one church and a beheaded statue of Jesus at another.

Far more to the French than just a tourist attraction, Notre Dame — “she,” as the French refer to “Our Lady” — is very much a working church. Among the roughly 30,000 people who walk through the massive arched entryway every day are devoted Catholics who worship under its wondrous stained-glass windows, attending one of its many Masses and vespers.

The building belongs to the French State, but the Catholic Church holds the rights to its use and the archdiocese is responsible for its administration and operation. At one point referred to as “the eldest daughter of the church,” the 800-year-old Notre Dame is the liturgical center of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Paris in a country that has long been identified with Catholicism.

“It’s something one thought would last forever,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who has visited the cathedral many times. “This affects all Catholics in France but [also] all people in France. It affects Catholics around the world but all people in the world. It’s a central icon of civilization.”

And yet even amid such a loss, it’s important that people remember Notre Dame is still just a building made of stone, Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, spokesman for the Bishop’s Conference of France, said on the French television network TF1. As Holy Week begins, Catholics are urged to be the “living stones of the church” as they celebrate the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ, “source of our hope,” the conference said in a statement.

Catholicism was the official religion of France until the revolution of 1789, and until that point, French kings enjoyed close relationships with Popes. In 2017, 60% of adults in France identified as Catholic, according to the Pew Research Center.

While Catholicism is still the largest religion in France, the church’s ranks have steadily dwindled during the past three decades.

Still, France remains a stronghold of Catholicism and a destination for many pilgrims, for whom Notre Dame remained an essential holy site. Among the many relics held at the cathedral are a thorn of crowns said to have been placed on the head of Jesus before his crucifixion and a piece of the cross upon which he died.

Built between 1160 and 1260, Notre Dame survived riots in the 16th century, the upheavals of the French Revolution in the 18th, damage from bombing in World War I and from bullets in World War II.

When it was built, it was one of the tallest in the Western world and is considered a classic piece of Gothic architecture, said Tom Lucas, a Jesuit who is a professor of art history at Seattle University. It took around a hundred years to build before it was largely completed in 1260. Victor Hugo’s novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” in 1831 helped to bring popular interest to the cathedral.

“It was a remarkable piece of work on every level,” Lucas said, “a symbol of beauty and serenity as a spiritual center for the French people and an emblem of the city.”

The cathedral has had its share of challenges. During a revolt by the French Huguenots 1540s, several sculptures were damaged by the Protestants who considered them idolatrous. The spire came down in the 1700s after it was damaged by the wind. During the French Revolution, heads were chopped off of statues of biblical characters, and a goddess of liberty replaced the Virgin Mary in some places, Lucas said.

Never, though, had it suffered damage as severe as that inflicted in Monday’s fire.

Despite the French emphasis on laïcité, which roughly translates to “secularism,” many of the nation’s milestones were marked in Notre Dame. In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte was consecrated emperor of France there. In 1944, General Charles De Gaulle and General Philippe Leclerc attended a mass in the church to mark Paris’ liberation from the Germans. And, in 1966, world leaders flocked to the cathedral to pay their final respects to former French president François Mitterrand.

“All the big events in our history unfolded in Notre Dame,” journalist Stéphane Bern said on French television.

The masons who worked on the cathedrals like Notre Dame often knew it wouldn’t be complete within their lifetime, an expression of one’s devotion to God and to the church, said Judith Dupre, a structural historian who wrote on the architecture of churches.

Churches like Notre Dame provided art freely in a democratic manner, since people didn’t have to pay to see the inside, she said. For the first time, peasants could go in and see people who looked like them depicted in wood, stone and glass. “By extension, you could see yourself as a potential saint,” she said. The stained-glass windows were a promise of heaven for many people.

Perhaps after St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Notre Dame is likely the most famous cathedral in the world, said Krupali Krusche, an expert on historical building preservation at the University of Notre Dame who led the digital preservation of the Taj Mahal and the Vatican’s Belvedere Courtyard.

“In the late middle ages this showed how far and strong the Catholic institution had gotten,” she said. “Some of the best works of art from the time were brought. The stained glass windows are some of the most exquisite pieces. About 700 years of history were just lost in one day.”

Pulliam Bailey reported from New York City.

Joe Ingles was feeling fine, and he had it going on.

And that was one of the most significant aspects to the Jazz’s only win over the Rockets in their playoff series last year, coming in the second game.

As the Jazz try to figure out — after their 32-point defeat on Sunday — how not to get blown off the floor by Houston in Game 2 this time around, it’s worth reviewing some of the basics of their postseason victory over James Harden’s team.

To start, the Jazz got help from players other than Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert. In fact, in Game 2, Mitchell did not play particularly well, at least not when seeking his own shot. He was neither efficient nor proficient, scoring a mere 17 points on 6-for-21 shooting, as Houston’s defense built all kinds of resistance around him. Gobert played cleaner, hitting 5 of 7 shots for 15 points.

But Mitchell excelled at one thing in that win: He had 11 assists, repeatedly setting up his teammates for shots they actually made. Quite a concept. The Jazz connected on just shy of 52 percent of their attempts, which is 13 percent better than their sorry performance in Game 1 on Sunday night.

Ingles was the primary alternative threat, scoring 27 points on 10-for-13 shooting, which included making 7 of 9 3-pointers. Compare that with what happened the other night, when Ingles got all tangled up and couldn’t — or didn’t — conjure anything more than a single made shot.

Jae Crowder found his range, too, making 5 of 10, 3 of 6 from deep, for 15 points. Derrick Favors got 10 points, Royce O’Neale six, Dante Exum nine. And there was one other wildcard in that game: Alec Burks, the former Jazz wing who had something that is in rare supply on this Jazz team now. He has athleticism, the ability to go iso-ball, that enabled him to score 17 points on a switching defense, a defense that required him to do some damage one-on-one. He did.

Now, Burks, as a Sacramento King, is no option. And the injured Exum, who helped on defense in addition to his scoring, also is a no-go.

As much attention as was paid to the way the Jazz guarded Harden in the first game of the current series — playing him from the side and behind on the perimeter — it only wound up putting Gobert in a tough spot as tried to stop both Harden’s drive and his initial defensive assignment. All the while, Harden shot floaters over Gobert or hit an open teammate with an assist.

Yet, it was the offensive end that was in need of even more repair.

In the first game, the Jazz’s motion offense got jammed up by the Rockets’ infamous switching, and the result was 18 turnovers and only 17 assists. In their Game 2 win last time, the Jazz still had 17 fumbles, but they garnered 26 assists.

There are two ways of looking at that. Either the ball movement put the Jazz in favorable positions to hit open shots, or the Jazz hit open shots and thereby made the passing appear timely and effective. It’s obviously a lot harder to stack up assists when guys are chucking bricks, easier when they dust the net.

On Sunday night, the Jazz looked uncomfortable, and even worse, unconfident. It made you wonder whether all the postseason losing to the Rockets is playing on their minds.

It did not mess with them in Game 2 last season, especially with the help of Burks’ sometimes unpredictable, herky-jerky, scrambling contributions. His movements were too rapid, too automatic and gung-ho for him to worry much about the results. He made 7 of 11 shots and was perfect from the foul line. Enough for the Jazz to gain their one moment in the series sun.

Another aspect to that win: The Jazz led for most of the game, taking at one juncture a 19-point lead, avoiding the predicament they’ve suffered too often in defeat, where they fall behind early and spend too much effort and energy trying to climb back into contention. They led by eight after the first quarter, by nine at the half, fell behind briefly in the third and fourth quarters, but finished strong, outscoring the Rockets by seven in the fourth, winning by eight.

Harden and Chris Paul combined to score 55 points in Game 2, Clint Capela got another 21, and none of those points mattered, on account of the Jazz’s assured showing at the other end.

That was then, this is now.

And the question of the present is: Can they do it again? And again? And again? And again?

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

So another norm of public decency falls, like a historical building demolished to make way for one of Donald Trump’s tasteless towers.

When the president of the United States goes after an American Muslim — in this case Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who came to the United States as a Somali refugee — using images of the 9/11 attacks, it is cruel, frightening and dangerous in new ways.

It is cruel because Trump essentially delivered his political rant while standing on desecrated graves. The images he employed not only included burning buildings but also burning human beings, drafted into a sad and sordid political ploy. Is nothing sacred to Trump? When said aloud, the question sounds like an absurdity. Trump has never given the slightest indication of propriety, respect or reverence. His narcissism leaves no room to honor other people or to honor other gods. Both the living and the dead matter only as servants to the cause of Trump himself.

This cruelty extends to those who have fled war in Syria. President Barack Obama did little to serve their interests. Now, the victims of violence are treated as villains in Trump’s fictional version of global threats. Syrian refugees, according to Trump, are “trying to take over our children and convince them how wonderful ISIS is, and how wonderful Islam is.” On the strength of such calumnies, Trump has essentially destroyed America’s asylum system.

This has led to a frightening state of affairs. By all the evidence, Trump is an anti-Muslim bigot. At one campaign event in 2015, a member of the audience stated, “We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims.” And he went on to ask, “When can we get rid of them?” Trump responded: “We’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.” Imagine a normal politician on the left or right being asked about the possibility of getting rid of all the Christians, or getting rid of all the Jews. They would likely use such a moment to clarify that they aren’t, in fact, insanely prejudiced monsters. Trump used such a moment to affirm the instinct of mass deportation and to promise a range of other anti-Muslim actions.

Could this have been a slip of the tongue? No, it wasn’t. Trump has a long history of animus — raw animus — against one of the Abrahamic faiths. He has said, “We’re having problems with the Muslims.” And: “There is a Muslim problem in the world.” And: “The United Kingdom is trying hard to disguise their massive Muslim problem.” And: “Islam hates us.”

The Quran, in Trump’s scholarly opinion, “teaches some very negative vibe.” He has claimed: “You have people coming out of mosques with hatred and death in their eyes.” He once called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” He has variously and publicly considered the closing of mosques, warrantless searches and the creation of a national database to track Muslims. In Trump’s view, “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before.”

The president claims to have seen “thousands and thousands” of American Muslims cheering on 9/11 when the towers fell — a lie and libel. He attacked a Muslim Gold Star mother, claiming that she “wasn’t allowed” to speak at the Democratic convention because of her faith — a lie and a libel. He has praised Gen. John Pershing for executing Muslim insurgents in the Philippines with bullets dipped in pig’s blood — a historical myth, but a revealing fantasy of anti-Muslim war crimes.

By all the evidence, Trump believes that Islam is incompatible with American ideals and that Muslims are, as a group, threatening to American security. This is not only rank religious bigotry; it is the attitude most likely to alienate some Muslims from American ideals and turn a dangerous few toward radicalism and violence.

None of this requires us to believe that Omar is a wise or thoughtful public figure. She isn’t. She traffics in the worst anti-Semitic tropes. But Trump’s perception of religious liberty as freedom only for the faiths he prefers is a potential threat to every religious group. What if some future leader views Mormonism as incompatible with American democracy, or evangelical Protestantism? By what principle would Trump supporters be able to criticize discrimination against such groups?

Religious freedom is either rigorously equal, or it becomes an instrument of those in power to favor or disfavor religions of their choice. And those believers who are currently in favor may someday discover what disfavor is like.

Los Angeles • Georgia Engel, who played the charmingly innocent, small-voiced Georgette on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and amassed a string of other TV and stage credits, has died. She was 70.

Engel died Friday in Princeton, New Jersey, said her friend and executor, John Quilty. The cause of death was unknown because she was a Christian Scientist and didn't see doctors, Quilty said Monday.

"I know the world will be sad and sorry. She touched so many people," said her agent, Jacqueline Stander.

Engel was best known for her role as Georgette on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," the character who was improbably destined to marry pompous anchorman Ted Baxter, played by Ted Knight.

Engel also had recurring roles on "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Hot in Cleveland." She was a five-time Emmy nominee, receiving two nods for the late Moore's show and three for "Everybody Loves Raymond."

She was "the sweetest, kindest, dearest woman. And crazy talented. I will miss her," Valerie Bertinelli, who starred in "Hot in Cleveland," said in a Twitter post.

Georgia Bright Engel was born in July 1948 in Washington, D.C., to parents Benjamin, a Coast Guard officer, and Ruth Engel. She studied theater at the University of Hawaii.

Her prolific career included guest appearances on a variety of series, including "The Love Boat," ''Fantasy Island," ''Coach" and "Two and a Half Men." Her "Hot in Cleveland" role reunited her with Betty White, her co-star in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (1972-77) and "The Betty White Show" (1977-78).

Engel appeared on Broadway in plays and musicals including "Hello, Dolly!", "The Boys from Syracuse" and, most recently, "The Drowsey Chaperone" in 2006-07. She starred in an off-Broadway production of "Uncle Vanya" in 2012.

Engel could be as upbeat as the fictional Georgette, as was demonstrated during a panel discussion last year promoting the 2018 PBS special, "Betty White: First Lady of Television."

She recalled that a possible "Everybody Loves Raymond" spinoff set to include her and Fred Willard never come to fruition, which she called a great disappointment.

"But if that hadn't happened," she said, "I wouldn't have been able to star" in writer-actor Bob Martin's "Drowsey Chaperone," which led to her custom-tailored role in Martin's "Half Time." The musical, about older adults who school themselves in hip hop to perform in half-time shows, was staged in New Jersey last year.

"It's given me such joy," said Engel, who had hoped to see it move to Broadway.

Her real-life voice was as sweet as the one familiar from her screen roles. "What you see is what you get. That's not a character voice — that's our girl," a smiling White said in a 2012 interview with Engel, calling her a "pure gold" friend and colleague.

Engel's final credited television appearance came last year in the Netflix series "One Day at a Time."

Funeral services for Engel, whose survivors include her sisters Robin Engel and Penny Lusk, will be private, Quilty said.

Davis County Republicans over the weekend picked a group of self-described bridge builders to represent them on the party’s state central committee — candidates who say they value party unity, ending meetings on time and keeping the Utah GOP out of debt.

At the same time, the county’s delegates passed a resolution to continue a struggle that some say has chewed through the party’s time and money and been at the root of its internal strife. They acknowledge it’s something of a mixed message; in the Davis County GOP, which has been a microcosm for the discord afflicting the state party in recent years, opinions are still divided on the 2014 state election law that allows candidates to gather signatures to qualify for the ballot.

“The delegates do really see things different ways,” said Rep. Ray Ward, a Bountiful Republican who helped rally the “Republicans Building Bridges” slate.

The 11-person slate met with success during last weekend’s Davis County convention, landing eight of the 14 state central committee posts that were up for grabs. The remaining six went mostly to incumbent committee members who have dug in their heels over SB54, the law that enabled candidates to secure spots on the ballot by gathering signatures and/or through the traditional caucus-convention system.

Last year, Ward had to contend with fallout from the Davis County hardliners’ visceral reaction against SB54. The county party adopted a punitive rule for signature-gathering candidates, requiring them to capture 70% of the convention vote to clinch the party nomination compared with 60% for convention-only candidates.

The rule came into play when Ward, a moderate Republican who gathered signatures, captured a 66% convention win over Phill Wright, former state Republican vice chairman, but still had to face him in the primary.

Ward said he accepts there are conflicting viewpoints on signature gathering, but he believes opponents of the process have had an outsized influence in party politics over the past couple years.

One of those hardliners, Don Guymon, said he does remain dedicated to overturning SB54 five years after the law’s passage. But he says he and his allies — pejoratively known as the “Gang of 51” — have been unfairly depicted as rabble-rousers and argues the state party drama is really coming from elsewhere.

Before this year’s convention, someone circulated fliers taking aim at him and other Davis County Republicans who supported the state party’s legal battle to reverse SB54. He’s not sure who printed these attack pieces, but he said his own literature was forward-looking and strictly focused on the positive.

"I think it's a convenient excuse to blame the lack of civility on the Gang of 51, when in reality, I think it's the people who had power and are trying to get it back," he said.

The most realistic way of restoring the dominance of the caucus-convention system, Guymon said, would be to overturn it in the Legislature. That’s an opinion shared by other members of the so-called Gang of 51, including Helen Watts, another Davis County Republican reelected to the state central committee on Saturday.

That doesn’t mean party members sit on their hands — while they are lobbying the state to do away with the signature path, “let’s make it as attractive as possible to go through the caucus system,” she said.

Delegates in Davis County passed a resolution to “highly insist” that state legislators repeal SB54, reasoning that candidates who gather signatures “do not have to support our party platform” and “have proposed huge tax increases.”

But Kara Toone, a member of “Republicans Building Bridges,” said polling has shown Utah voters support SB54, making it tough for lawmakers to topple the law. Toone said the state central committee members chosen from Davis County generally seem ready to lay down the sword and end party infighting, regardless of their opinion on signature gathering.

"All of these new people that I've talked to are not anti-caucus system; they're anti-fighting. I'm hopeful that we can figure out where we have common goals and then actually work together like adults and come to solutions," she said.

Over the weekend, Salt Lake County’s GOP also elected a number of sitting lawmakers and other moderate candidates to the state central committee.

And even the financier behind the anti-SB54 lawsuit — which fizzled earlier this year when the Supreme Court declined to hear the case — says he’s ready to turn attention to other issues inside the party.

Dave Bateman, CEO of the Lehi-based Entrata software company, who took over the party’s legal costs, is running for the state central committee in Utah County in the hopes of helping the state GOP with fundraising. He supports continuing to encourage lawmakers to scrap the signature path but believes the legal fights have run their course.

“I feel like now’s a good time to find commonality,” said Bateman, who will be up for election later this month at Utah County’s GOP organizing convention.

He says the conflict within the state party has been misrepresented in the media — the state central committee itself has been largely on the same page but at odds with the party chairman, Rob Anderson, who is not seeking reelection.

Wright, a GOP hardliner who like Anderson hails from Davis County, is one of four candidates running to become party chairman. Wright is employed by Bateman.

Every cathedral, like any great stone building, is a work in progress. No sooner have the walls risen than they start to collapse, the weight of stone pushing down and splaying out, settling and cracking.

Take a closer look at most great old churches, and you see huge pillars wrapped in metal, iron reinforcing bars embedded in the walls, arches pulled together at their base with metal rods. If you took an X-ray of the buildings, they would look a bit like the mouth of someone who has had a lot of dental work — a messy confusion of interventions, repairs and misguided improvements.

It looks as if the structure of Notre Dame, in Paris, is mostly intact, despite the fire that consumed the roof above its stone vaults and brought down its 19th-century wood and metal spire. Much of the art was saved, some of it placed in storage before renovations, and other pieces were removed before the fire could destroy them. Early photographs and descriptions of the damage seem to indicate that part of the ribbed ceiling structure has collapsed, and it will take time to determine how much of what remains is structurally sound. Fire may not burn rock like it burns timber (though limestone is susceptible), but heat and water can ruin the integrity of stone.

Either way, the shock of the fire is still extraordinary, felt throughout not just France but also the world. Notre Dame stands at the heart of Paris, has led a long, rich life in the literature and imagination of France, and is one of the most beautiful Gothic structures on the planet. It soars above a city that has an embarrassment of architectural riches, and it never ceases to draw the eye, by day and night, registering changes in the weather and the seasons with subtle changes of color and shadow.

History, however, tells us these things are all too common, even as modern media saturation makes it seem somehow unprecedented. Flip through the pages of any tourist guide to an old castle, church or palace, and there is often a litany of fires, floods, revolutions and occasional bouts of revolution and iconoclasm. The prison of the Bastille, in Paris, was pulled down in the 18th century in the name of liberty, while much of the medieval city was plowed under in the 19th century in the name of progress.

Building large stone churches has always been an art and a science, and it sometimes meant trial and error. The first dome at the greatest church of all — Hagia Sophia in Istanbul — collapsed before the miraculously thin saucer we see today was successfully completed. These tribulations are soon forgotten, and even today, most visitors who contemplate the massive supports added to Justinian’s church consider them beautiful architectural curiosities.

Like Hagia Sophia, St. Paul’s in London was built on the ruins of an older structure. The great 1666 fire that ravaged much of London destroyed the old St. Paul’s and almost 90 other churches. That destruction gave the architect Christopher Wren his moment, not just to remake the city’s greatest church, but also to connect the city’s irrational streets with a web of smaller, jewel-like places of worship that define their districts and neighborhoods to this day. In the mid-16th century, two fires ravaged the interiors of the Doge’s Palace in Venice, offering artists a chance to work on an epic scale, redecorating its palatial rooms, and vying for dramatic and narrative preeminence.

Creative Destruction is an ugly idea, hijacked by greedy and ambitious people to justify an oppression that is anything but creative. But most cathedrals exemplify the idea of continual evolution and renewal; they are sturdy, vulnerable, fragile and resilient, and it is social architecture that keeps them standing, not piers, arches or buttresses.

I heard about the fire that hit Notre Dame while driving from Ferrara to Siena, in Italy, where great churches have been remade so many times that they often look like a patchwork of architectural non sequiturs. The exterior of the Duomo in Ferrara is a magnificent jumble of ideas, and additions, while the facade of the cathedral in Siena is as clear as a theological road map, even if the brightly colored mosaics in the gables are 19th-century work. In Ferrara, you can almost imagine why a Renaissance architect might say, “Tear it all down and start over.” In Siena, the thought of modernization feels like blasphemy. Yet both churches are exquisite.

Notre Dame was also partly a 19th-century fantasy, its famous spire added by the architect (and fabulist) Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to replace one that had been removed in the late 18th century. Critics in the 19th century rediscovered the beauty of the Gothic style, while imaging it to be something immutable and fixed, like a poem in stone — and they weren’t averse to improving the poem if its fantasy of the past wasn’t quite what they were hoping for. Paris lived with Viollet-le-Duc’s spire for so long that the city will now have to decide which cathedral it wants back — the one that existed in the age of Revolution and Napoleon, or the one that most people know from postcards. The real Notre Dame, the authentic Notre Dame, isn’t an option because it never existed.

In other cultures, sacred sites are often sacred not because of what is built there, but because of the persistence of religious devotion. The site is holy, not the thing. A temple may be dismantled and rebuilt, but what matters is the behavior of particular people at that particular place. There is more of that in Western notions of the sacred than we’re likely to acknowledge. Great churches are built on the site of previous great churches, which were built on foundations of pagan temples.

Tourism, in some ways, contains a vestige of that kind of thinking. People still visit and snap pictures of the brick campanile in Venice, which fell down in 1902 and was rebuilt. Tourists flock to places just to say they have been there, and the effort of the journey is often just as important as the authenticity of the object. No tourist will forswear Notre Dame because it has a new roof.

None of this is to minimize the losses at Notre Dame. It will take years to remake the building, and much of what was inside will never be restored. But the great cathedrals of Europe took centuries to build, have been crumbling for even longer and will continue to be made and remade. Innumerable lives have been lived out in the shadow of buildings that are half-finished, or missing their towers, or in great disrepair. And now the cycle begins again in Paris, where people will argue over every detail and fret about who pays for what and whether they should rebuild a Disney fantasy of the past or make it all anew, for a new age. Some daring heretics will even suggest, perhaps, that the building should remain as it is, newly reconfigured for a secular age, like the melted bells in St. Mary’s of Luebeck, Germany, which fell to the ground during the bombing of 1942 and remain on the floor as a memorial to the losses of war.

Meanwhile, the roof will rise again, and in a century some bored teenagers will stand in the plaza before the great Gothic doors and listen as their teacher recounts the great fire of 2019, just one chapter among all the others, and seemingly inconsequential, given the beauty of the building as it stands glowing in a rare burst of sunlight on a spring day in Paris.

Provo • Right fielder Brock Hale believes every member of the 2019 BYU baseball team has his back this season.

The senior from Mesa, Ariz., isn’t sure he could say that last year when the Cougars were picked to defend their 2017 West Coast Conference title and make it back to the NCAA Tournament, but faltered mightily and finished with a disappointing 22-28 record and out of the four-team WCC tournament.

With Hale and other seniors such as infielders Brian Hsu and Casey Jacobsen, catcher Noah Hill, pitcher Jordan Wood and outfielder Keaton Kringlen leading the way, BYU is having one of its best seasons in years.

“The biggest reason for the turnaround is the camaraderie we have with each other this year,” Hale said last Friday after the Cougars downed Pepperdine 4-2 to clinch their third WCC series win. “Last year, we weren’t a cohesive group. Everyone on this team jells well together. It makes it a lot easier to go out on the field when you know everyone has your back and you are all willing to fight for each other. I think that’s the biggest difference this year.”

The Cougars are 24-9 overall and tied for second in the WCC race with a 10-5 league record, a game behind league-leading Loyola Marymount (22-13, 11-4). They step away from the WCC race this weekend, but still have an important three-game series at Washington (16-15) Thursday (7 p.m.), Friday (7 p.m.) and Saturday (2 p.m.).

The nonconference set is huge to their hopes for an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament if they don’t win the WCC tournament, because the Cougars’ RPI is 42.

“If we can go up there and win that series, our RPI could be really good,” said coach Mike Littlewood. “We are going to face their main [pitching] guys, and they will see our main guys. It should be a fun weekend.”

Littlewood said BYU’s RPI probably has to be in the 30s, and the Cougars probably have to win a game or two in the conference tournament, to get an at-large berth.

“But it is a crapshoot,” he said. “There have been teams in our league who didn’t win the tournament and were in the 30s and didn’t get in. You never know.”

Littlewood said BYU’s policy of not playing on Sundays “is detrimental” to getting into the NCAAs because teams in whatever sub-regional BYU is sent to have to move their pitching up a day for a Thursday-through-Saturday series. Many schools balk at doing that.

Regardless of their postseason aspirations, fun is a good way to describe this season, after last year’s showing. The Cougars were picked to finish sixth in the WCC, but Littlewood said in February that this team was going to exceed expectations.

“We felt like we had the talent,” he said. “Really, the key to this year’s success is leadership from our seniors, and then there are some juniors and even some freshmen that are leaders. The leadership has created a culture where they are expecting greatness and holding the younger guys accountable, and the younger guys are buying in. Everybody is on the same page.”

That wasn’t the case last year, Littlewood and Hale said.

That’s why Littlewood “cleaned house” by pushing 8-10 underclassmen out the door — some left willingly — and worked all offseason to change the culture in his program. He added 17 newcomers and three recently returned missionaries, and found a gem in new pitching coach Michael Bradshaw, who was Arizona’s assistant director of baseball operations from 2015-18 and before that a pitcher at Nevada.

“He’s been great,” Littlewood said. “He is very detail-oriented. He knows each pitcher individually. Every single day, every single pitcher has an individual throwing program that he holds them accountable to.”

Pleasant Grove product Easton Walker is 4-0 and has one of the best earned run averages in the country (0.82) , while fellow starters Justin Sterner (6-3) and Jordan Wood (4-1) have also been solid. Littlewood said reliever Reid McLaughlin (5-0, 1.54 ERA) “has been the most surprising guy on the entire team.” Drew Zimmerman, a right-hander from Lehi, has taken the closer role and excelled.

“Our pitching has been great,” said Hale, who has hit seven homers and driven in 28 runs. “They’ve given us hitters a lot of confidence to know that we can go out there and battle and battle and as long as we keep it close we know our pitchers are going to get it done.”

Offensively, Hsu leads the team with a .383 batting average, while sophomore infielder Jackson Cluff, from Meridian, Idaho, has returned from a church mission to Atlanta and made himself a prospect for June’s major league draft. Cluff is hitting .361 with 40 RBI.

“We have scouts at every game watching him,” Littlewood said. “I mean, he is probably a guy we won’t see back here next year.”

Houston • Jazz coach Quin Snyder is a big enough fan of Rockets point guard Chris Paul’s acumen that he’s willing to go to the well of self-effacing humor to make his point.

“I’ve said it before, I think Chris is probably a better coach than me,” Snyder said. “That’s not saying much about me, I’m trying to give him a compliment.”

The two know each other well from their multiple playoff battles: In each of the last of the last three seasons, they’ve battled it out, with Snyder coming up victorious in 2017 against the Clippers and Paul winning last year in the second round. But there’s also their shared time on the NBA’s competition committee, including the meetings last summer that resulted in the NBA instituting new points of education on player freedom of movement.

“Quin and I are both on the competition committee, so I have the utmost respect for him,” Paul said. “When we’re in those three-hour competition committee meetings, you get a chance to see how coaches’ minds work.”

The “coach on the floor” description is a tired cliche, but it’s one that fits Paul more than any other current NBA player. For Paul, every stoppage in play is an opportunity to talk to one of his teammates about something he saw on the floor, something they can use in an upcoming possession.

“It’s throughout the game. I think he kind of analyzes the game as he goes, make those little adjustments as players on the court. He sees certain things and... he communicates it," Rockets forward P.J. Tucker said. “It’s just little adjustments that we make as players on the floor that he’s really good at.”

Chris Paul, on Quin Snyder saying CP3 is probably a better coach than him: "Tell Quin I ain’t no free agent no more! He don’t need me anyway! But I really like Quin. That’s why this series right here is a big series, ’cause I know that their team will be prepared every night." pic.twitter.com/wEfBAHqWdA

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) April 16, 2019

In fact, Paul did it so much in his Clippers’ tenure that he ended up getting on the nerves of some of his teammates. Former Clippers center DeAndre Jordan was reportedly “tired of Paul’s constant barking," according to a 2015 ESPN article.

These Rockets, though, seem to appreciate Paul’s influence. James Harden and Paul frequently communicate, whether it’s about the nuances of the Jazz defense or the bigger picture of a playoff series.

“James and I were in the locker room talking about this just now: If you win, you feel like you’re never going to lose again, and if you lose, you feel like you’re never going to win again,” Paul said.

Of course, that’s not true. That’s something that the Jazz clearly showed last year — after losing Game 1 to the Rockets in similar blowout fashion, Utah came back to steal Game 2 with a new and improved game plan. And it’s that ability to make effective adjustments that gives Paul confidence that this will continue to be a series.

“I really like playing against him. That’s why this series right here is a big series, because I know that they’re going to be prepared every night,” Paul said.

That being said, while Paul appreciates Snyder’s kind words about his smarts, he was wary of an ulterior motive.

“Tell Quin I’m not a free agent anymore,” Paul laughed.

As white smoke billows out of a gray sedan, stuffed with wooden pallets and straw and pulled halfway inside a metal storage container, a crew of firefighting recruits pull up in fire engines to the makeshift scene.

“Seems like we have a car fire that’s connected to a garage,” Unified Fire Authority recruit Megan Fenton explains. She and about a dozen recruits who aren’t putting out that training fire are watching to see how the rest of their class responds.

The recruits ready fire hoses. Some attack the car fire. Some enter the “building” to attack from inside.

Benton said her class of 27 recruits has tackled all sorts of simulated fires in their training so far, but they haven’t seen this exact scenario before. She said the trainers try to keep the classmates on their toes, since no two real-world fires are ever the same either. About 7 minutes after the blaze started, the recruits had extinguished it.

This class of recruits will finish training and begin probationary periods as full-fledged firefighters at the end of May, and that influx of firefighters will help with UFA’s hiring needs. But in order to keep up with demand, the fire department will need to hire 12 to 20 more firefighters every year.

UFA recruitment numbers have dropped about 70% over the last ten years, while workloads have increased, especially in faster-growing cities, according to a news release from the department.

Before this year, UFA hired a new class of recruits every two years, UFA spokesman Matthew McFarland said. But the department was losing many good candidates to other departments because of the long wait time between recruitment classes. Now the department is hiring a new batch every year. Recruitment begins in July.

McFarland said it’s hard to know why fewer people want to be firefighters than in years past, but he suspects there are multiple reasons. Perhaps, he said, it’s because a younger generation of people want different things out of their jobs, preferring a technology-related role behind a desk to out-in-the-field, dirty work. Or they’re waiting longer to decide on a career, trying out multiple jobs before settling down.

Whatever it might be, McFarland said firefighting is still a good option for a lot of people.

“You get to work for the public. It’s really exciting if you like problem solving, if you like new things every day,” he said. “It’s ever changing, and that’s not going to change no matter what.”

Entry level firefighters can expect to make $44,233 a year, without considering overtime or other benefits, according to UFA’s website. Pay increases on a scale based on experience and rank. Firefighters typically work 48 consecutive hours, and then are off four days before starting the schedule over again.

There’s also a pension, one of the best in the U.S., according to a May 2018 American Investment Council report.

Benton said she decided to go into firefighting after trying out a job in the corporate field.

“Every day I’d go to work and look at my watch,” she said. “I’ve never thought about that here.”

She said some people might not consider the job because it’s difficult mentally and physically — but it’s also rewarding. Other than being a doctor, she said, in what other jobs do you get to regularly save lives?

And as someone who played sports growing up and in college, Benton said she loves the team atmosphere of the job.

UFA is Utah’s largest fire agency, serving nine cities and five townships in Salt Lake and Utah counties, in addition to the unincorporated areas of Salt Lake County, according to its website.

For more information on becoming a UFA firefighter, visit unifiedfire.org and click on the “Employment” tab.

Utah Royals FC forward Brittany Ratcliffe is going to be sidelined for awhile.

Ratcillfe announced via Instagram Tuesday that she has torn her ACL and will miss most, if not all, of the 2019 season.

“There are no words to describe the sadness I feel in my heart,” Radcliffe wrote. “But it is through adversity that we realize what we are truly made of. You can never control the adversities you face, but you can always control the response.”

Radcliffe said in her post that she suffered the same injury eight years ago.

The Royals forward, who joined the team last year after FC Kansas City ceased operations, played 10 games in the 2018 season and scored two goals.

The electric scooter craze that was isolated last summer mostly to the streets of Salt Lake City is now spreading across the state just in time for warmer days.

Spin brought a few hundred of its bright orange scooters to sunny St. George last month. And on the other end of the state, the e-scooter giant Lime has plans to launch up to 300 scooters in Ogden on Friday.

The rise of e-scooters across the country has been marketed as a way to bridge the gap in a person’s last mile from mass transit and to reduce car trips to ease traffic, congestion and greenhouse emissions. In Ogden, city staff hope they will encourage more people to take public transportation.

“That’s good for the environment, that’s good for everybody — for traffic, for congestion," said Mark Johnson, Ogden’s chief administrative officer. "I think [a scooter] just adds another convenience that people can get around without getting in their car and actually driving around their car and adding congestion. And they look like they’re fun.”

Jonathan Hopkins, Lime’s northwest director of strategic development, told The Salt Lake Tribune that the company’s research has shown about a third of its users would have driven or taken a ride share if not for a scooter and 20% said their last trip was to connect to a public bus or train. He also noted that businesses in cities with the scooters have seen economic boosts as a result of increased accessibility.

With all those benefits in mind, city officials in Ogden have been negotiating in recent weeks with Lime and one of its competitors to bring their new technology to the city, Johnson said.

But the presence of the scooters in the city is only temporary for now, with a three-month trial period that will allow both the company and the city to see if there’s enough demand, work out any kinks and adjust the number of scooters as needed.

Johnson said that it’s likely any scooter issues would eventually have to go before the City Council. But for now, Lime and future scooter companies will operate under an agreement with the city that sets stipulations on liability and scooter speeds and ensures a portion of company proceeds come to the city, which is allowing use of public roadways and sidewalks.

“We want to get a couple months under our belt so we have some experience and then we’re making good choices,” Johnson said. “If we’re going to change an ordinance, we want to be able to know that we’re changing it correctly, and we want to make sure we’re doing something that will benefit the scooter program.”

Both Ogden and St. George have major universities. Providing transportation options for students was a major part of the decision to bring the scooters to the southern part of the state, according to Marc Mortensen, St. George’s support services director and chairman of its active transportation committee.

“The motivating factor was really for Dixie State University, as well as it being really nice weather and obviously a huge tourism base here during peak seasons, which are typically in the spring and in the fall,” he said. "So we thought it would be a good fit for St. George and turns out they’re highly popular.”

The city has been gradually increasing its scooter numbers up to a cap of 400 and saw almost 14,000 rides in the company’s first month of operation, Mortensen said, and most of that has been centered around Dixie’s campus. While the city initially worried the scooters would hurt its bikeshare program, he said that hasn’t been the case.

“It turns out that it did just the opposite,” he said, noting that Spin has a partnership with Zagster, the Live Well Intermountain Bike Share provider. “In fact, we’ve seen a boost.”

The launch of e-scooters outside Salt Lake City coincides with the passage of a bill in the state Legislature earlier this year that created a framework for cities to regulate the new technology and squared their use with Utah law.

Salt Lake City has yet to create a formal ordinance governing Lime and its competitor, Bird, in the city, as well as for similar businesses. In the meantime, those companies are currently regulated under a one-year operating agreement that requires companies to share aggregate data about how many people are riding and puts limits on where scooters can be left.

To take one of the scooters, a rider can simply download the company’s app to locate and unlock the most convenient one. They have no docking stations, meaning riders can simply drop the vehicle wherever their journey ends.

While scooter advocates have lauded their many benefits, the new technology has also come with some challenges. Sidewalk scootering has been a problem in Salt Lake City and has led to several injuries. Salt Lake City’s emergency rooms, in fact, reported a 160 percent spike in visits involving e-scooters last fall — a result Johnson said he hopes Ogden won’t also see.

“We want people to be safe,” he said. “But we also want [scooters] to be used and I think that’s the key. Come and try them out.”

Herriman • When Real Salt Lake went into Rio Tinto Stadium last Saturday coming on the heels of a four-game losing streak, the team collectively felt some nerves. Coach Mike Petke alluded to that in his postgame remarks, even though his team picked up the 2-1 win over Orlando City SC.

Snapping the losing streak had to feel good for an RSL squad that started the season with only one win in its first six games. Now as Real heads on the road to face expansion side Cincinnati FC, they’re looking to keep that momentum going. But it could be more challenging to do that away from home.

“I know in this league it’s tough to keep that winning streak going when you’re going on road,” midfielder Albert Rusnáks said Tuesday after training.

RSL sits eighth in the Western Conference and has played four road games so far this season. The only team in the West that has played more than four is Minnesota United, which is 3-2-0 in those games and is in sixth.

Runsák said part of the reason why the top teams in Major League Soccer are at the top is because they have had the majority of their games at home. RSL is in the midst of a stretch where six of its first nine games are away from Rio Tinto. That makes it difficult for Real to gain much traction, Runsák said.

“I fee like that momentum is easier to build when you have a couple of home games in a row, and you win those and then you go for one away and then you come back home for two again,” Rusnák said. “It’s easier to kind of get points on board.”

The team’s road-heavy schedule prompted Petke to focus more on defending to start the season. But a rash of red cards have hampered some of the road results the team felt it could have earned.

Now that RSL started what Damir Kreilach termed as its “new season” with a win this past weekend, building on it will be paramount. Defender Donny Toia, who started his second game of the season against Orlando, said he definitely believes RSL has momentum going next week, and that the key to keeping momentum is staying focused.

“It’s just the mentality from first minute to the 90th minute,” Toia said. “You just have to stay focused the entire time and concentrate on the objective.”

Rusnák said the game against Cincinnati will be difficult enough is it is based on the fact that it’s on the road, and cited how dismal the team’s away record has been over the past couple of years. But he’s confident that the team can reverse its fortunes on that front.

“I feel like it takes that one game to break that kind of bad lock on road,” Runsák said. “I think things could change around.”

Washington • Rep. Rob Bishop, who has said he won’t run for another term, raised no campaign money in the last three months. Freshman Rep. Ben McAdams hauled in north of $300,000.

On the other side of the Capitol, Sen. Mitt Romney paid a handsome six-figure sum to his now chief of staff the day before he was sworn into office, new disclosures show.

Romney’s campaign paid Matt Waldrip, who previously led business development at the hedge fund Solamere and now runs the Utah Republican’s office, $225,000 on Jan. 2, just before Romney joined the Senate, according to a filing with the Federal Election Committee.

“This payment was part of Matt’s compensation package from the campaign,” said Beth Myers, a longtime Romney aide.

Waldrip's firm, MJW Consulting, had only been paid about $12,000 during the 2018 campaign, records show. His firm nabbed $616,000 during the 2016 election cycle from Romney's former presidential campaign, though Romney was not an active candidate for office.

Romney’s camp also spent about $15,000 on legal fees to the firm Caplin & Drysdale and $17,000 to a campaign consultant. Romney’s insurance bill? About $27,000.

And he paid nearly $1,000 for new Senate stationary.

The freshman senator — the 2012 GOP presidential nominee who moved to Utah shortly after losing the general election to President Barack Obama — has been on a spending binge, records show, as he paid off campaign costs from last year.

He raised $15,450 in the first quarter of the year but spent $238,655. He has $34,616 in his campaign account.

Bishop, who promised in his last campaign he wouldn’t run for Congress again and is rumored to be considering a gubernatorial bid, didn’t raise a dime this year and is sitting on $324,573 in the bank. Should he run for a state office in Utah, he could transfer that money over to a new campaign account.

Bishop's campaign transferred $10,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The congressman said Tuesday that he's abiding by FEC rules that he can't rake in money for a race he's not yet in. He's hedging his bets, he said.

“You can’t take that as an absolute” that he won’t run again, he said.

“I'm being technically serious here that when I said I was not going to run again, that means I cannot raise money by our FEC rules for a race I said I'm not going to do,” Bishop said. “If at some point I change my mind and then announce I am running, yeah I can raise money for that again.”

McAdams, the only Democrat in Utah’s delegation, pulled in about $310,000 in the first three months of the year, continuing an aggressive campaign effort for a district that is majority Republican. McAdams beat then-Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, with one of the nation’s smallest margins of victory in the 2018 midterms.

“The outpouring of support for Ben’s re-election is a testament to the incredible work he’s done during his first 100 days in Washington,” Andrew Roberts, his campaign manager, said. Roberts pointed to the Democrat’s balanced budget amendment plan and his support of health care insurance that covers pre-existing conditions.

Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who is up for re-election in 2022, took in more than $145,000 and spent $82,000. In total, Lee has some $305,000 in his campaign account.

Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, raised $68,500 for his re-election and spent nearly $67,000. He has $148,000 cash on hand.

And Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, grabbed about $66,000 from donors and forked over $39,000 in expenses. He has nearly $191,000 in his account.

Salt Lake City • A University of Utah student leader wants the school to improve its communication with its student body, particularly regarding investigations into two recent sexual assaults.

KUTV reports Student Senate Chair Kaitlin McLean says she doesn’t think every student feels safe right now following a sexual assault on campus Saturday and another on March 26.

McLean praised the university's efforts to send alerts on sexual assaults and would like to see continued information-sharing.

University of Utah Police Lt. Brian Wahlin says investigators are working hard to find the suspect in the Saturday assault.

University police released surveillance photos of a dark-colored Toyota Tacoma truck that was driven by the suspect.

The department also has been working on the March 26 case but has not released much information.

No one has been charged or arrested in either case.

Flagstaff, Ariz. • Federal legislation has been introduced to settle one of the largest outstanding water rights claims in Utah.

The settlement would give the Navajo Nation 81,500 acre-feet annually of Utah's unused share of water from the upper Colorado River basin.

Utah and the Navajo Nation reached the agreement in 2016, but it needs congressional approval.

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney introduced the bill earlier this month. Arizona's two U.S. senators signed on as co-sponsors.

The bill would provide the Navajo Nation with $210 million for water infrastructure projects, including wells, pipelines and water treatment plants. Utah agreed to chip in $8 million.

The Navajo Nation originally claimed twice as much water as the settlement includes. Tribes often settle claims in exchange for funding to put the water to use.

Farmington • A former nursing assistant who elbowed and shoved two Alzheimer’s patients at a Utah assisted-living center has been sentenced to a year in jail, followed by four years of probation.

Second District Court Judge Michael Edwards on Monday sentenced Jason Harold Knox to a year in jail on two second-degree felony charges of aggravated abuse of the elderly or disabled.

Knox pleaded guilty to abusing 71-year-old Richard Crossley and an 89-year-old female patient at Chancellor Gardens in Clearfield.

Kellie Bingham, the daughter of Crossley, placed a video camera in her father's room, capturing incidents in which Knox slammed the dementia patient into a wall and plunged his elbow into the victim's abdomen.

Police arrested Knox Oct. 7, 2018, after Bingham provided the video to Clearfield officers.

The 89-year-old patient died six weeks after the abuse.