Parenting expert L.R. Knost wrote, “It’s not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless.”

I used to embrace this idea wholeheartedly. However, after learning about her experience with cancer, I’m unsure.

As a child development instructor, I enjoy integrating Knost’s insights into my teaching material and reading up on her latest work. Which is why I was surprised when her social media posts shifted from heartwarming parenting gems to this:

• “Still no chemo. Insurance is claiming I don’t have coverage for cancer treatments even though the coverage is clearly stated in my policy…”

• “Insurance is now admitting that I have coverage for chemo but arguing with my oncologist about whether it’s ‘medically necessary’ since this cancer is considered incurable. Crazy to pay for insurance for decades and then when you need it they can just decide you aren’t worth the trouble…”

• “My insurance company finally agreed to cover my chemo. BUT they refused to approve the pre-meds I HAVE to have before chemo….as long as our laws continue to be skewed in favor of corporations instead of the people they are supposed to serve and the workers whose labor keeps them in business, profits will always prevail over people.”

The person who I usually turn to for reassurance is now the one seeking it. Because of a broken system. If current medical trends continue, my kids indeed will be faced with a cruel and heartless world.

Will my children be tough enough to lose their life savings if they get cancer, like 42% of new cancer patients in the United States? Are they equipped to live in a country that spends more on health care than any other country in the world with worse outcomes? If my children get diabetes, are they prepared to pay $1,300 a month for supplies? Perhaps they can be tough enough to ration their insulin in hopes their fate is not the same as Alec Smith-Holt, an uninsured 26-year-old who died from diabetic ketoacidosis after such rationing.

It’s plausible my children can turn to crowdsourcing for help. As the economist Sara Collins said, “We find that underinsured people are nearly as likely to report problems paying their medical bills as people who don’t have any insurance … So it shouldn’t be surprising that people are raising funds through crowdsourcing.” One patient in need of a heart transplant was told by the committee she was not a candidate, and suggested a “fundraising effort of $10,000.”

With more and more people relying on GoFundMe to pay for health care, I hope my children are tough enough to decide which person asking for money deserves to live and who doesn’t. Should my children contribute to the neighbor who discovered a brain tumor or the local hate crime victim?

If Knost is correct in saying it isn’t my job to toughen up my children for a cruel and heartless world, perhaps it’s time for Congress to do its job in taking care of their constituents. This means listening to the voice of the people rather than money. In 2018, the insurance industry gave nearly $50 million in campaign contributions to Democrats and Republicans, and the pharmaceutical industry contributing over $28 million. We know money influences votes.

Congress has got to work together to prioritize people over party. No proposed health care plan is perfect, but many would be better than the current system. Congress must prioritize the lives of their constituents above the lining of their pockets.

Veronika Tait, Saratoga Springs, is a mother of two who earned her Ph.D. in social psychology at Brigham Young University and currently teaches psychology courses at two universities in Utah. When she’s not writing articles at veronikatait.com, she’s reading psychology books, researching decision making, conducting Story Time at her local library, or volunteering with political groups.

Houston • Donovan Mitchell’s Game 1 against the Rockets won’t go down as one of his more memorable performances, which makes it all the more ironic that his numbers are, for now anyway, seared into the memory banks.

Seven for 18 shooting … five turnovers … zero assists.

Over the past few days, the Rockets have made it known that they view being physically antagonistic with Mitchell as paramount to their ability to limit Utah’s offense as a whole.

“Well, you just have to try to be aggressive. He is a really good scorer; he can score in many different ways. We were trying to be a little physical with him and just stick with him throughout the whole game,” said Eric Gordon. “That’s what you have to do — try to break the rhythm up. He is the one guy that can really get them going. So you just have to try to break his rhythm up as much as possible.”

The Jazz’s offensive woes — 90 points; 19 turnovers; 39% shooting; 7 of 27 from deep — certainly weren’t all Mitchell’s fault, but no one disputes that for the team to be better on that end in Game 2, they will need more out of the second-year guard.

“I don’t think that’s any surprise [the Rockets] feel that way,” Jazz coach Quin Snyder said at Tuesday’s practice at the Toyota Center. “Part of Donovan’s experience this year has been going through those situations.”

So this is just another one to put on the résumé.

Snyder said he has been working on ways to help change things up for the Louisville product and give Houston’s defense some different looks — perhaps putting the ball in his hands more in certain situations to initiate; at other times, running him through more off-ball actions; maybe having him make his move earlier in the shot clock.

That last bit of emphasis stands out. Snyder said he and assistant coach Johnnie Bryant have made it a point to reiterate that “quick decisions” are imperative. Mitchell sometimes had a moment to attack the Rockets’ switching defense in Game 1, but too often hesitated a fraction of a second too long, causing opportunities and advantages to evaporate.

For all the different things Snyder said might occur, though, Mitchell was focused on not switching things up too much.

“Just attack, keep doing what I’m doing. Their defense was really designed to keep me out of the paint, so just find ways around that,” Mitchell said. “As a team, we’re not gonna miss a lot of the shots we missed last game. I don’t think any of us are looking at it like our offense was run in a bad way, we just missed wide-open looks. Some of those looks go in, it’s a different ballgame.”

For their part, the Rockets were in no rush to take credit for limiting Mitchell, saying they fully expect him to be in attack mode in Wednesday’s rematch.

“It’s not what we did, he just didn’t have a great game. We tried, but it’s not like, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got a formula’ or anything,” said Houston coach Mike D’Antoni. “He’ll play better. We just gotta keep making it hard on him, and hopefully he won’t get it going. But he could.”

James Harden, who has gotten to know Mitchell well through their mutual endorsements with Adidas and Body Armour, was asked if being around the Jazz guard off the court (such as when they are filming television advertisements) gave him any added insight into what makes him tick, thereby providing an in-game advantage.

The reigning Most Valuable Player laughed off the idea.

“Nah, it doesn’t help — it doesn’t help at all. He’s a competitor, he loves to go out there and hoop. All those things off the court can’t help you on the court,” Harden said. “He goes out there to hoop and he’s a beast. He was aggressive in Game 1, but he’ll be twice as aggressive in Game 2.”

Meanwhile, Mitchell’s teammates have vowed to step things up to help him out.

Told the Rockets had mentioned getting physical with Mitchell, Jazz big man Derrick Favors said it was incumbent Utah’s players to get physical in return if that’s what it takes to free him up.

“We’ve got to get that pressure off of him. Get those guys off of him, set good screens for him, get him open, just find ways to get him more involved offensively,” Favors said. “Out on the perimeter, they’re trying to be physical with him, double-teaming, triple-teaming him. It’s up to us bigs and the rest of the team to set good screens for him, get those guys off of him, and wear them down a little bit.”

In the end, Snyder said, progress will depend on the entire team making improvements.

“He [has] experienced people locking in on him like that. Everybody’s got to do a little bit more,” Snyder said. “Our ability to handle those situations and handle their physicality will require us to turn our energy up.”

Littleton, Colo. • Authorities said Tuesday they are looking for an 18-year-old woman suspected of making threats against Columbine High School, just days before the 20th anniversary of a mass shooting that killed 13 people.

The information prompted a lockdown at the high school and several others outside Denver. All students were safe, school officials said.

Sol Pais traveled to Colorado on Monday night and made threats against the schools, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and the FBI said. Officials didn't provide further details about the threats or say where she was from.

Pais was last seen in the foothills west of Denver, was considered armed and extremely dangerous and should not be approached.

The doors were locked at Columbine and more than 20 other schools in the Denver area as the sheriff's office said it was investigating threats against schools related to an FBI investigation.

Students left classes on time, but after-school activities were canceled at Columbine in Littleton, Colorado.

Teenage gunmen attacked Columbine on April 20, 1999, killing 12 classmates and a teacher.

This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Wednesday, April 17, 2019. You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below:

• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/15/bagley-cartoon-our-lady/" target=_blank><u>Our Lady</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/12/bagley-cartoon-hog-heaven/"><u>Hog Heaven</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/11/bagley-cartoon-take-me/"><u>Take Me Out of the Barr Game</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/10/bagley-cartoon-fer-hecks/"><u>Fer Heck’s Sake — Get Out!</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/09/bagley-cartoon-name/"><u>The Name Caller</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/08/bagley-cartoon-radical/"><u>Radical Extremists</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/05/bagley-cartoon-official/"><u>Official Mugging</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/04/bagley-cartoon-church/"><u>Church Approved</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/03/bagley-cartoon-brexit/"><u>The Brexit Knight</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/02/bagley-cartoon-national/"><u>National Security Crisis</u></a>

Want more Bagley? Become a fan on Facebook.

Houston • Sunday’s offensive effort left a lot to be desired in general, but arguably the biggest problem area for the Jazz on that end of the court was the team’s woeful 3-point shooting.

They connected on just 7 of 27 attempts from beyond the arc — 25.9% — which made forays into the paint all the more difficult.

The Rockets, meanwhile, hit 15 of 41 attempts (36.6%), and the 45-21 advantage in points from deep proved a significant factor in the outcome.

Jazz coach Quin Snyder said Utah was impacted both by getting some good looks and simply missing them as well as missing opportunities for other quality shots.

“The ones we did get, we’ve got to keep shooting. You can’t shy away from those,” Snyder said. “… I think we didn’t recognize, at times, there were some guys who were open and we’ve got to see if we can find ’em. They might be on different places on the floor, so our eyes have to be out more.”

While Donovan Mitchell endured some Game 1 struggles, he actually was the team’s lone bright spot from deep. He connected on 3 of 7; everyone else was a combined 4 for 20: Jae Crowder went 1 for 7. Thabo Sefolosha was 1 for 4. Both Joe Ingles and Ricky Rubio made 1 of 3.

Mitchell, however, thinks much of that was simply bad luck rather than bad offense.

“We just missed wide-open looks. Some of those looks go in, it’s a different ballgame,” he said. “… We’ll make shots. I don’t think we’re too worried about the offensive end.”

For all the attention focused on the Rockets’ aggressive defensive efforts, James Harden was actually inclined to agree with Mitchell.

He also noted that, while the Jazz struggled to convert beyond the arc, they certainly made up for some of it by capitalizing at the free-throw line.

“We played pretty good defense, but they missed some shots as well. Give them credit — they’ll be better in Game 2. They’ll make those shots,” Harden said. “Our defensive intensity’s gotta go up even more, whether it’s contesting shots, whether it’s contesting rim attempts. We fouled them way too much — they shot 27 free throws, we only had [12]. We gotta do a really good job contesting those 3s and not fouling at the rim.”

Mourning a loss

Much of the world watched in horror on Monday as the famed Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris suffered a catastrophic blaze. Jazz center and French native Rudy Gobert was among them.

On Tuesday, Gobert lamented the fire that gutted most of such a historic landmark.

“It was tough to watch. It was one of the most iconic monuments not only in France, but in history in general — [it dates to] before my grand-, grand-, grand-, grand-, grandparents were born,” Gobert said. “It’s something that has a lot of room in our hearts, and it was tough to watch. It’s great that they were able to save some of it.”

Has Yale Law School violated the U.S. Constitution? Has it offended the First Amendment?

To respond to those questions, you don't even need to know what Yale is accused of doing. The answers are No and No.

Yet, in a highly publicized letter to Dean Heather Gerken, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused the law school of adopting a new policy that discriminates against Christian organizations on the basis of religion — and is therefore unconstitutional.

Cruz means business. He announced that the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on the Constitution, which he chairs, is initiating a formal investigation, and warned that as a result of the inquiry, the case might be referred to the Justice Department. He directed Gerken to preserve and maintain all relevant records, with a view toward the investigation and future litigation.

"The First Amendment protects both free speech and the Free Exercise of religion," Cruz wrote, explicitly invoking the nation's founding document. "Yale's new policy does neither. Instead, it appears that the policy rose from unconstitutional animus and a specific discriminatory intent ..."

The evident goal of the school's new policy is to ensure that Yale does not fund students working for public-interest organizations that discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex or sexual orientation. In Gerken's words, Yale will not "subsidize employers that discriminate against our own students."

Cruz's concern is that some religious organizations discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. In his view, it is discriminatory to discriminate against them for that reason.

He’s certainly entitled to object to the new policy. The problem with his letter is that the Constitution and its Bill of Rights apply only to public officials — not to the private sector, and not to private universities at all.

This is an elementary point. Every member of the Supreme Court agrees with it; there is no division here along ideological lines. By all accounts, Cruz is an excellent lawyer, and so his error is a genuine puzzle.

To see the point, consider the text of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." Because the text is aimed at Congress (and, after the Civil War, applied to state governments as well), it does not constrain private institutions.

If the local grocery store doesn't want to hire anyone who voted for Cruz in a presidential primary, it is perfectly entitled to do that, as far as the Constitution is concerned. If a private university decides that it only wants to invite conservative speakers in 2019, to have one-sided discussions about affirmative action, to forbid military recruitment on its campus, or to celebrate Christmas, the Constitution does not stand in its way.

For a long time, conservatives have applauded the fact that the Constitution generally applies only to "state action" (as it is called). They have been right to do so. The government is in a unique position to quell political dissent and religious liberty.

By contrast, the sheer number of private institutions, and their extraordinary variety, greatly diminishes the threat to freedom. Opening up space for those institutions, allowing them to choose their own paths, is itself a safeguard of freedom.

At this point, defenders of Cruz's letter might note that various civil-rights laws reject this conclusion. Such laws forbid private employers from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Other laws forbid private institutions receiving federal funds from discriminating on the basis of race, color, sex or national origin.

Interestingly, such laws do not forbid private institutions, including private universities, from discriminating on the basis of religion — in part because religious universities discriminate on religious grounds, and many people believe that they are entitled to do exactly that. But there are many civil-rights laws, and some of them contain some ambiguities.

If a law school really does discriminate against religious believers, it might be violating one of them. But that’s not a point about the Constitution. Even if discrimination against religious institutions by a private university might violate some law enacted by Congress — a tricky legal question — it would not violate the First Amendment, which is Cruz’s focus.

It is not too much to expect the chairman of the subcommittee on the Constitution to understand the reach of the Constitution — and to avoid elementary legal mistakes in the context of a threatening letter, written on stationery headed with the still-majestic words, “United States Senate.”

Cass Sunstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the author of “The Cost-Benefit Revolution” and a co-author of “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness.”

Washington • The president isn’t waiting. As Washington counts down the final hours until publication of the redacted special counsel report — now expected Thursday — Donald Trump stepped up his attacks in an effort to undermine potential disclosures on Russia, his 2016 campaign and the aftermath.

He unleashed a series of tweets Monday focusing on the previously released summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusions — including a crucial one on obstruction of justice that Trump again misrepresented — produced by Attorney General William Barr.

“Mueller, and the A.G. based on Mueller findings [and great intelligence], have already ruled No Collusion, No Obstruction,” Trump tweeted. “These were crimes committed by Crooked Hillary, the DNC, Dirty Cops and others! INVESTIGATE THE INVESTIGATORS!”

The Mueller Report, which was written by 18 Angry Democrats who also happen to be Trump Haters (and Clinton Supporters), should have focused on the people who SPIED on my 2016 Campaign, and others who fabricated the whole Russia Hoax. That is, never forget, the crime.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019

....Since there was no Collusion, why was there an Investigation in the first place! Answer - Dirty Cops, Dems and Crooked Hillary!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 15, 2019

Press secretary Sarah Sanders repeatedly tried to make the same case on TV talk shows on Sunday. But the political battle is far from finished over the special counsel’s investigation of Russian efforts to help Trump in 2016 and whether there was cooperation with his campaign.

Democrats are calling for Mueller himself to testify before Congress and have expressed concern that Barr will order unnecessary censoring of the report to protect the president. The House Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, is poised to try to compel Barr to turn over an unredacted copy as well as the report's underlying investigative files.

The Justice Department announced Monday that it expects to release the redacted version Thursday morning, sending the findings of the nearly two-year probe to Congress and making them available to the public.

Mueller officially concluded his investigation late last month and submitted the confidential report to Barr. Two days later, the attorney general sent Congress a four-page letter that detailed Mueller's "principal conclusions."

In his letter, Barr said the special counsel did not find a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump associates during the campaign. However, contrary to Trump's false claim , Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice. Instead, Mueller presented evidence on both sides of that question. Barr said he did not believe the evidence was sufficient to prove that Trump had obstructed justice, but he noted that Mueller's team did not exonerate the president.

Portions of the report being released by the Justice Department will be redacted to protect grand jury material, sensitive intelligence, matters that could affect ongoing investigations and damage to the privacy rights of third parties, the attorney general has said.

The scores of outstanding questions about the investigation have not stopped the president and his allies from declaring victory.

They have painted House Democrats' investigations as partisan overreach and have targeted news outlets and individual reporters they say have promoted the collusion story. The president himself seethed at a political rally that the whole thing was an attempt "to tear up the fabric of our great democracy."

He has told confidants in recent days that he was certain the full report would back up his claims of vindication but was also convinced the media would manipulate the findings in an effort to damage him, according to two Republicans close to the White House not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. In the waiting game's final days, the White House continued to try to shape the narrative.

"There was no obstruction, which I don't know how you can interpret that any other way than total exoneration," press secretary Sanders said on "Fox News Sunday."

While the president unleashed his personal grievances, his team seized on any exculpatory information in Barr's letter, hoping to define the conversation in advance, according to White House officials and outside advisers who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss private deliberations.

The victory lap was deliberately premature, they said.

But Trump's inner circle knows there will likely be further releases of embarrassing or politically damaging information. Barr's letter, for instance, hinted that there would be at least one unknown action by the president that Mueller examined as a possible act of obstruction. A number of White House aides have privately said they are eager for all Russia stories, good or bad, to fade from the headlines. And there is fear among some presidential confidants that the rush to spike the football in celebration could backfire if bombshell new information emerges.

Trump and his allies also continue to attack the origins of the Russia investigation, portraying it as an effort by Democrats and career officials in the Justice Department to bring him down.

"Any aspect of that report, I hope it does come out because there was no collusion, whatsoever, no collusion," Trump told Minneapolis TV station KSTP while there on Monday. "It was a big con job and everybody knows it...The crime was committed by the other side. This crime was all made up, it was all a fabrication and that's come out loud and clear."

His long-asserted accusation — though not supported by evidence — that his campaign was spied upon was given new life last week when Barr, testifying before Congress, said he thinks "spying did occur" in 2016.

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

Barr later softened his tone to "I am not saying improper surveillance occurred."

The attorney general's comments have frustrated Democrats, already anxious for the release of the full, uncensored report and concerned that Barr may withhold pertinent information. The report could provide new information that could prompt further investigations or even consideration of impeachment proceedings, a tricky political calculation since Mueller did not conclude there was collusion or obstruction.

The Russia probe began on July 31, 2016, when the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's efforts to influence the presidential campaign and whether anyone on the Trump campaign was involved. That probe was prompted by former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos' contacts with Russian intermediaries, including a Maltese professor who told the young aide that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of emails.

___

Lemire reported from New York. Associated Press writer Chad Day contributed to this report.

___

Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Balsamo at http://twitter.com/@MikeBalsamo1 .

Video: A destructive fire tore through Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on April 15. (Antoine Goldet,Allie Caren/The Washington Post)

As a conflagration spread through the ancient timbers of Notre Dame Cathedral’s attic on Monday, a parallel fire was spreading on social media. This one was willfully set, a series of conspiracy theories neatly slotted into preexisting cultural biases. And soon enough, willing believers were aflame with hate.

The conspiracy theorizing began almost as soon as the blaze did, right when people saw the shocking, transfixing video of the cathedral's spire toppling. While French authorities began to assert almost immediately that the fire was apparently accidental, the brief gap between the startling images' generation and their explication was enough for far-right figures to exploit with their own sinister insinuations. Their prevailing view was nearly identical and, apparently, completely false: that the fire was deliberate and most probably set by Muslims.

Conservative gadflies on social media were among the first to leap to dark conclusions about the blaze, even as it raged: Matt Walsh, a conservative blogger who identifies himself as a "theocratic fascist" in his Twitter bio, wrote , "I don't understand how a fire of this magnitude could happen accidentally," accumulating nearly 9,000 likes. Infowars, a conspiracy-oriented outlet helmed by Alex Jones, immediately publicized unverified rumors claiming the fire had been "deliberately started" and linking the blaze to "anti-Christian attacks." Katie Hopkins, a racist British provocateur, was far more explicit , claiming that "Jewish and Christian Parisians" are being "hunted out of the city by Islamists, fleeing in their thousands," and affixing the hashtag #NotreDame.

Many figures on the right took the opportunity to turn Notre Dame into a metonym for Western civilization as a whole, intimating that far more than a cathedral was in peril. Just as the fire hit social media, conspiracy theorist and brain-supplements salesman Mike Cernovich dramatically tweeted that "The West has fallen." Shortly thereafter, fast-talking far-right pundit Ben Shapiro called Notre Dame a "monument to Western civilization" and "Judeo-Christian heritage." Given the already-raging rumors about potential Muslim involvement, these tweets evoked the specter of a war between Islam and the West that is already part of numerous far-right narratives; it was also a central thread in the manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch, New Zealand, shooter.

Richard Spencer, professional racist and coiner of the term “alt-right,” openly advocated for such warfare, stating (and misspelling) his hopes that the fire would “spur the White man into action — to sieze power in his countries, in Europe, in the world,” and declaring such an insurgence a “glorious purpose.” And, as Buzzfeed’s Jane Lytvynenko reported , other, more oblique figures managed to go even further, from provocation in the abstract to more concrete incitement. A “parody account” masquerading as Fox News fabricated a tweet from Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., that said, “They reap what they sow #NotreDame.”

Omar, under relentless attack by the right — including the president — became something of a totemic figure for those on social media already predisposed to see the fire as a Muslim conspiracy. Blogger David Futrelle, an expert on the worst of the Web, gathered dozens of tweets claiming that Omar was either celebrating the fire (variously “smiling inside,” “happy as a muslim terrorist,” “giddy and laughing”) or, somehow, had caused it. Multiple accounts questioned whether Omar was in Paris and whether her relatives had set the fire or asserted falsely that she was affiliated with a Muslim group that had set it.

While baseless, racist conspiracy-peddling is an unfortunate but constant feature of social media — the background noise to any unfolding event — more mainstream conservative media proved to be just as susceptible to a narrative of civilizational conflict. On “The News and Why It Matters,” a video program and podcast on TheBlaze.com, former Fox News mainstay and current talk-radio host Glenn Beck floated the possibility of a coverup by France’s government.

“If this was started by Islamists, I don’t think you’ll find out about it, because I think it would set the entire country on fire,” Beck told his co-hosts, adding that this was France’s “World Trade Center moment.” On Fox News, Tucker Carlson hosted far-right columnist Mark Steyn, who denounced France as “godless” and inveighed against the “post-Christian” country. As Carlson nodded along, brow furrowed, Steyn recounted a story of worshiping in the Basilica of Saint-Denis, which is now, he declared, “in a Muslim suburb,” and asserted that rebuilding Notre Dame, as President Emmanuel Macron had promised to do, would be pointless.

By Tuesday morning, French authorities had declared the fire extinguished. The structure of Notre Dame is intact, although its spire, a 19th-century addition, collapsed. But the conflagration of conspiracy, a corruption of the natural human tendency to assign meaning to events, rages through our information sphere unchecked. It should not take the imprecations of journalists to restrain this dangerous flow of misinformation. It is past time that those who stoke inflammatory rhetoric, knowing its potential to catalyze racist violence, were made to stop playing with fire — before it’s too late to control the inferno.

Talia Lavin is a writer and researcher based in Brooklyn.

Global markets are awash with cheap uranium, threatening to put out of business U.S. producers who say they are competing against “state-sponsored” companies in Russia’s orbit bent on cornering the market for a critical fuel that powers a fifth of U.S. electrical generation and the nation’s nuclear Navy.

In the coming three months, however, President Donald Trump is expected to issue a trade decision that could make or break the U.S. uranium-mining industry with implications for southeastern Utah, where idled and abandoned mines still dot some of the world’s most beautiful desert landscapes.

At the request of two U.S. producers, the Trump administration is weighing whether to require the nuclear power industry to secure up to 25 percent of its uranium from domestic sources. Such a move would make mining near Grand Canyon National Park and Bears Ears National Monument much more likely, say critics such as Amber Reimondo, energy program director of the Grand Canyon Trust.

“U.S. uranium prices will climb and U.S. uranium miners will be given a bypass around the presently saturated global market,” Reimondo said. “The brimming global supply of uranium has kept prices low for years, restraining the kind of rampant plundering of public and tribal lands that this country experienced decades ago. The public is still grappling with the consequences and paying the price of the last uranium boom.”

Domestic uranium producers supply less than 5% of the 50 million pounds used annually in the nation’s 99 nuclear plants, while about half that demand is fed by countries whose interests don’t align with those of the United States and who aggressively subsidize their industries, according to the quota proposal advanced by Energy Fuels Resources, a leading uranium producer with operations in Utah.

“Today we face a serious crisis because the domestic industry that produces this key ingredient for the nation’s defense and critical infrastructure is threatened by imports from state-sponsored producers in Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and China,” states the proposal. “With no free market constraints, producers in these countries are destroying our uranium mining industry.”

Uranium oxide, known as yellowcake, is selling for about $25 a pound, while on average the cost of production is around $40. The U.S. industry, which has shed about half its workforce in the past two years, is barely surviving on long-term contracts that are to expire soon and could be reset at lower price points absent trade relief, according to the petition.

Energy Fuels, which operates the nation’s only uranium mill in southeastern Utah, joined Ur-Energy last year in filing a petition under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which authorizes such quotas on the basis of national security. The Commerce Department has been studying the proposal for nearly a year, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross submitted results Monday of an “investigation into the effect of imports of uranium on the national security," the department announced. The White House has 90 days to take action on the confidential recommendations.

“The potential financial impact of this proposal on U.S. consumers is negligible and a reasonable price to pay to ensure the survival of an industry that is essential for U.S. national security,” states the petition, which also seeks a “Buy American" policy for federal agencies that use uranium.

The Grand Canyon Trust worries that the expansion of mining unleashed by the quota would put intense political and economic pressure on the Interior Department to lift a long-standing uranium-mining moratorium on about 1 million acres surrounding Grand Canyon National Park.

Under a 25 percent quota, the price of uranium would more than double by 2022 to about $50 a pound and increase annual U.S. mining revenues by $150 million to $700 million, the petition states. Domestic production would jump to about 11 million pounds a year, far more than the 1.4 million produced now.

“If we do get relief, that could change our business overnight," Energy Fuels CEO Mark Chalmers said at an investors conference last year.

Besides its mill at White Mesa outside Blanding, Energy Fuels has several permitted mines ready to produce within six months, including the La Sal and the Daneros mines in San Juan County. White Mesa produced 380,000 pounds in 2017 from “alternate feeds,” typically waste from federal nuclear sites, and another 950,000 pounds on behalf of other miners, Chalmers told investors. At the $40 to $50 price, Energy Fuels’ annual production target would be 2.5 million pounds. A typical nuclear reactor consumes about 500,000 pounds a year.

Chalmers and Utah officials previously had pressed the Interior Department to shrink Bears Ears monument, citing national security concerns similar to the ones raised in the quota petition. In late 2017, Trump ordered the 1.35 million-acre monument designated the year before slashed by 85 percent, carving out areas covered in mining claims. Energy Fuels or companies it controls hold stakes in a majority of the claims near or around Bears Ears and Grand Canyon, according to an analysis by Grand Canyon Trust.

Around the same time, the Interior Department included uranium on its list of 35 “nonfuel” mineral commodities that are essential to national security.

The nuclear power industry is also pushing back against the quota, arguing it could speed the retirements of many nuclear plants, costing jobs and raising utility rates. Fuel costs for nuclear plants would rise by at least $500 million and as much as $800 million, increasing the cost of electricity by up to $1 per megawatt hour, according to a report commissioned by the Nuclear Energy Institute.

“Quota-related cost increases will have a detrimental impact on the already struggling merchant nuclear power sector,” states the report. “Even without a quota, merchant nuclear generators currently receive insufficient market revenues to cover their ongoing cash operating costs in most regions of the country.”

It rejected Energy Fuels’ assertion that U.S. uranium mining is in decline, the essential premise supporting the quota proposal, arguing the power industry has long relied on foreign uranium.

During the past 25 years, while nuclear plants consumed a steady 50 million pounds a year, U.S. mines have supplied between 2 million and 6 million, without an apparent long-term trend, according to the institute’s report.

“Given projected future demand, the U.S. domestic mining industry would need to raise production to about 11.1 million pounds per year to meet the requirements of the proposed quota,” the report states. “This represents an unprecedented expansion of production well beyond the highest level that the industry has achieved since 1994.”

Chalmers contends his company is poised to meet that expansion, pointing to its mines and mill on the Colorado Plateau.

“It is abundantly clear that relying on Russia and China for critical uranium is dangerous. ... We look forward to remedies that will preserve the U.S. uranium mining industry,” he wrote in a recent op-ed. “The U.S. must put national security above the lure of cheap uranium. There is no choice — the stakes in an ever increasingly perilous world are too high.”

Weber State University’s engineering building is in a constant state of disrepair.

Ceiling tiles come crashing down in the middle of hallways. The power goes out weekly. The heating seems to work only in the summer. And when David Ferro poked his head into one of the classrooms last month, the floor was flooded — but computer science students were still sitting in there studying because every other space was taken.

“They were coding away and their feet were in water,” said Ferro, dean of engineering, applied science and technology at the northern Utah school.

The building, constructed in 1957, has been on the state’s list for repairs for years, always considered for a remodel but never making the cut.

Until now.

In this year’s session, state lawmakers designated $50 million to Weber State to tear down the dilapidated structure and build a newer, bigger, better space. It’s one of the major higher education projects to get funding this year — with the Legislature appropriating the most money it ever has for the construction of buildings at Utah’s colleges and universities.

Most of that funding, totaling more than $158 million, will be spent on science and business centers.

David Buhler, Utah’s commissioner of higher education, helped prioritize which buildings should be funded. Ultimately, he said, it’s about meeting the state’s workforce needs for engineers, accountants and market analysts. And the focus is on the schools that are growing the fastest.

“This was certainly a standout year,” he said. “Students deserve the kind of facilities that will really help them learn and be successful.”

The funding for 2019 is roughly $53 million more than last year and $49 million more than the previous banner year in 2010 (when $109 million was designated). Here’s a look at the three big projects it will help fund this year:

Weber State University — science building

There are 3,200 students in Weber State’s engineering and computer programs — which make up more than 10% of the school’s population — and they continue to attract more each year.

“Our growth rate has outpaced the rest of the institution,” Ferro said. “We’re just busting at the seams.”

The Ogden campus houses those students in the one science building that’s currently crumbling. There aren’t enough classrooms. There aren’t any study spaces. And most of the faculty offices have been spread out across campus.

Construction on the new project that will replace it is set to begin in June 2020 with the space opening sometime in 2021. The 143,000-square-foot project will be funded with $50 million from the Legislature, as well as $8 million in community donations. The biggest change will be new, updated lab space.

“This is really needed. Fortunately, the Legislature helped us,” Ferro said. “We will squeeze every amount of effectiveness out of every dollar.”

Utah Valley University — business building

Utah Valley University’s new business building in Orem will be designed to look like a financial corporation’s office space. The point: Get students accustomed to working in that environment early so they’re better prepared for jobs when they graduate.

“It’s going to be an exciting and fresh new take,” said Jacob Sybrowsky, associate dean of business there.

The project will replace a building constructed in the 1970s to house several departments. More than anything, that structure is just too small.

UVU is the largest and fastest growing college in the state with nearly 40,000 students. About 6,000 are business and business management majors. “In our current space, we’re limited,” Sybrowsky added.

The 160,000-square-foot replacement will incorporate classrooms with professors’ offices, and there will be a “collaboration zone” for students to work together on projects and marketing research. There will also be the same stock-tracking technology systems throughout the building that are currently used on Wall Street.

The school is still fundraising — in addition to the $50 million appropriated for this by the Legislature — with a groundbreaking set for fall 2021.

Dixie State University — engineering building

The third major project to get funding this year, another $50 million, is a planned science building at Dixie State University.

The southern Utah school has nearly 10,000 students and most of its facilities are older buildings — including an elementary school — converted into a campus. Its current science building, constructed in the 1960s, was not originally designed for classes or experiments. And some students are having to schedule lab time at 10 p.m on a Sunday just to get in.

The new building, at 120,000 square feet, will be five stories tall with specialized equipment and labs. It will also house the mechanical engineering program, which was added in 2018, as the school expands more into the sciences. Construction will start this fall.

“Dixie State is really growing in the way of its science, technology and engineering offerings,” said Eric Pedersen, dean of science. “We’re just really excited to have this kind of space for our students.”

The future of funding

The Legislature will change its process for approving higher education buildings and funding next year.

Currently, colleges compete with all state agencies to win money for projects. But under a measure approved by lawmakers this session, there will now be a pot of $100 million in ongoing funding to be split among the eight public universities, which will pitch projects to the Utah System of Higher Education.

“That will be a huge step forward,” Buhler said.

The hope is that rather than creating new buildings, more schools will look at updating spaces and remodeling. This year, of the $158 million dedicated to university projects, only $1 million will be used for that. (Utah State University plans to spend that money on extending its Grand County facilities.)

Other funding appropriated this year includes $2 million for Southern Utah University to design a new technology building, $4 million for a cost overrun in creating the new performance center at UVU and $650,000 extra to finish a sports complex at Snow College.

The organization that regulates Utah attorneys will investigate complaints that seven lawyers are violating rules of conduct by being polygamists, creating one more song for the state’s complicated dance with plural marriage.

The complainant, Melissa Ellis, shared with The Salt Lake Tribune the confirmation letters she received from Utah State Bar. The lawyers being investigated include Paul E. Kingston, leader of the Davis County Cooperative Society, also known as the Kingston Group. He has been a licensed attorney since 1990, according to a bar directory.

For Ellis and other polygamy opponents, the complaints represent a long-standing criticism of how Utah takes no action against polygamists who hold public office or professional licenses. At the same time, the inquiry also risks giving polygamists something they need to challenge Utah’s bigamy statute in court.

Jonathan Turley, a Washington, D.C., attorney who represented the Brown family from the television show “Sister Wives,” said imposing discipline against a lawyer for being a polygamist could be the “actual harm” the Browns lacked when they challenged Utah’s polygamy laws and lost.

“These lawyers should challenge the effort and underlying law,” Turley wrote in an email last week to The Salt Lake Tribune. “They enjoy the same constitutional protections as their clients. An effort to disbar them based on their lifestyle would raise serious constitutional questions.”

Ellis, 34, is a former member of the Kingston Group and has on ongoing custody dispute with her ex-husband, with whom she has four children. At various points, he has been represented by two of the lawyers in Ellis’ complaint.

The attorneys in the Kingston Group often provide free legal services to other members or trade for the services, Ellis said. That practice, she contends, provides members incentives to take other people to court and creates a harassment that Utah won’t stop.

“The state’s not taking any action on anything,” Ellis said. Polygamy is “illegal, and they know it.”

Utah law makes polygamous relationships a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and up to 15 years if it’s committed in conjunction with a crime such as fraud or physical abuse.

The bar complaints themselves are unlikely to go far. The rule cited by Ellis defines misconduct as when attorneys “commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness or fitness.”

Another section of the Utah State Bar rule defines misconduct as “involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.”

Linda F. Smith, a professor of law at the University of Utah who teaches a legal profession class and sits on the Ethics Advisory Opinion Committee at the Utah State Bar, said it’s unlikely being a polygamist would be enough to meet either of those two definitions. In an interview, Smith pointed to comments published alongside the rule saying some crimes, including adultery, are not offenses that would reflect on one’s fitness to practice law.

Smith used the example of former President Bill Clinton. His Arkansas law license was suspended for five years not because he may have committed adultery but because he lied in a deposition.

“The focus is on honesty,” Smith said.

That’s an indication to Smith that the bar doesn’t consider consensual relationships between adults to be evidence of untrustworthiness or unfitness.

“Lawyers have been polygamists in this state for a long time,” Smith added. “This isn’t that new.”

The bar has taken a look at polygamists before. In 2011, it held a hearing on whether to issue a law license to Laura Fuller, a plural wife in the Kingston Group. Among those who testified against admitting Fuller to the bar was Jessica Christensen, who went on to be one of the stars of “Escaping Polygamy.”

Fuller received the license and is one of the attorneys in Ellis’ complaint and whom the bar acknowledged it would investigate. Inquiries into lawyer conduct are famously secretive, with the bar acknowledging complaints only if the allegations are sustained. The attorneys in the complaint declined to comment. A bar representative of the bar’s Office of Professional Conduct did not return messages seeking comment.

The acknowledgment letters sent to Ellis said an initial investigation into whether rules were violated can take 150 days. If investigators believe there’s enough information to proceed, a follow-up probe can take another 120 days, with findings presented to a panel up to 90 days after that.

Drew Briney, a former Utah attorney and one of the stars of the polygamy reality show “Seeking Sister Wife,” wrote in an email that the bar complaint is an example of the kind of “bigoted harassment” that polygamists receive. Many people, he said, associate polygamy with fraud and dishonesty.

“I hope this will allow a test case to finally challenge the bigamy statute in a lasting way,” Briney wrote. “It’s great news from that perspective and they chose the perfect group of people to challenge the law, so I’m elated about that. I’m sorry for the grief it will cause them (unless this was orchestrated for the express purpose of challenging the law).”

In the Brown case, the family sued the state after police in Lehi conducted an investigation into whether Kody Brown and his four wives were breaking the portion of Utah’s bigamy statute applying to polygamists. No criminal charges were filed, but the family sued the Utah County Attorney’s Office anyway.

A federal judge in Salt Lake City found the portion of the bigamy statute unconstitutional. On appeal, the Browns lost. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, without addressing whether the statute was unconstitutional, said the Browns lacked standing to sue because they couldn’t show they had been harmed.

And what will you say afterward, America?

That is not to encourage or even predict that there will be an “afterward” — that is, that someone will use violence to silence Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women in Congress. But it is to say the possibility is real. Especially given that Donald Trump is leading a lynch mob against her.

This comes after Jeanine Pirro of Fox “News” questioned whether Omar’s faith — she wears what Pirro called a “he-jab” — was incompatible with being an American. And after an altercation in the West Virginia capital over a poster linking Omar to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. And after a Trump supporter was arrested for allegedly threatening to “put a bullet in her f------ skull.”

Now here comes Trump, not to tamp down extremism, but to fire up the mob. His pretext: four words. They came last month in a speech Omar gave to a gathering of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR was, she said, founded "because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."

"Some people did something." That's how Omar described the 9/11 attacks. To be sure, it's fair to question what she said and how she said it.

Besides being factually inaccurate — CAIR was founded in 1994 — it was an arguably inartful way of describing an attack that left 3,000 people dead. It was also, arguably, an effective way of drawing a distinction between the great, peaceful mass of Islam and the small band of moral freaks who hijacked airplanes that crystalline Tuesday morning.

But for all that Omar's words were, arguably, they have been one thing, indisputably: a weapon in the hands of intolerance. And intolerance has no greater champion than Trump.

So it was unsurprising to see him go on Twitter to ramp up the mob, posting a video that juxtaposed Omar's words with news footage of that dreadful morning. "WE WILL NEVER FORGET," he tweeted. This was on Friday. Two days later, Omar was reporting a spike in death threats and security people were imposing new measures to protect her.

A brown-skinned Muslim from Somalia, it seems, is forever on probation, her love of country always suspect. Yet a pale-skinned putative Christian from Queens has no need to prove his patriotism, even after he observes — on Sept. 11 itself, yet — that the fall of the Twin Towers means he now owns the tallest building in Lower Manhattan. Indeed, he can even go on to be president. And isn't it telling that a country that supposedly holds that tragedy sacred forces that day's first responders to periodically beg a resistant Congress for money to cover the cancers and other disorders their heroism has left them with.

But it's Ilhan Omar who is the outrage, right? Not our gross neglect of 9/11's heroes, not these naked appeals to bigotry, not the putrescent soul of a man who would put someone else's life in danger for political gain. None of that. Just her.

So what will you say, America, in the awful event of afterward? Likely, you'll say what you always say. "This is not who we are. We're better than this." It's a fable we keep telling ourselves.

As practiced as we have become in seeing the betrayal of our highest ideals, we are still unable to face the contradiction, the lie, that keeps betraying them. So if this unhinged hatred leads where unhinged hatred so often does, maybe the best thing we can do for ourselves, the best gift we can leave to posterity, is to at last admit the truth.

"Better than this?" No. Granted, we had a chance to be.

But we chose otherwise.

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald. lpitts@miamiherald.com

When Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., discusses her biography, she talks movingly about how her family finances all but cratered when she was a teenager after her dad suffered a heart attack and about her struggles for child care as a young mom.

Here's something Warren doesn't talk much about: When all that happened, she was a Republican. "A diehard conservative," one high school friend told Politico, which published an article about all this last week. "Sometimes surprisingly anti-consumer," recalled a law school colleague. In 1980, she wrote an influential paper on utilities regulation that essentially ignored the consumer issues she now champions.

It's not hard to blame Warren for not talking about the fact she didn't register at a Democrat till 1996, when she was in her late 40s. It risks making her look inconsistent, something to which voters are all too sensitive, especially when it comes to women. (Just ask New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.) Little wonder she told Politico she considered herself "nonpartisan" during the period.

But she should reconsider. Her story of moving from right to left is, in many ways, as good a case for "capitalism with rules," as she describes her beliefs, as any policy paper or proposal.

Warren is open about how her experience of studying families in bankruptcy changed her. She began what became a decades-long project expecting to find a bunch of financially frivolous slackers attempting to take advantage of the system. Instead, she discovered people drowning under the weight of uncertain jobs, increasing medical expenses and stagnating salaries. Faced with facts, she adjusted her beliefs to reality.

Warren has written about that conversion extensively, most notably in the two books she co-wrote with her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi: "The Two-Income Trap" and the personal finance guide "All Your Worth." But if she added her political evolution to the story, Warren would be making a stronger argument for why her agenda of enhanced business regulation, increased consumer protection and a beefed-up social safety net is right for America.

To register as a Republican in the 1970s and 1980s did not necessarily mean someone supported a far-right agenda. The Clean Air Act, now under attack by President Trump, was signed into law by Richard Nixon. It was George H.W. Bush who enacted the Americans With Disabilities Act. I don't want to suggest Republicans were liberal - hardly! Warren, for one, remained a Republican despite the fact that Nixon vetoed a plan for national, subsidized child care in 1971, something that would have made her life as a young working mom much easier.

This political world is all but incomprehensible to voters under the age of 40, who came of age either in the hyperpartisan world of Newt Gingrich's Contract With America and Clinton impeachment, or the obstructionist Republican Congress of the Obama presidency, and a party that was heading further and further to the right. Yet many older Democratic voters pine for this lost political reality - we see this with every candidate who pledges to work across the aisle, brandishes their bipartisan credentials and holds themselves as someone with unique talents to get the other side to see reason.

As the Boston Globe's Michael Cohen recently pointed out, Warren is doing no such thing. Her message is empathetic toward individual people but angry about our politics and financial system. "History suggests that as a progressive populist, Warren faces a tough slog," he wrote.

Yet political evolutions are not unknown in presidential politics. Ronald Reagan, for one, was a registered Democrat and president of the Screen Actors Guild before crossing the aisle. "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me," he liked to say. (As for the current president, he has switched parties multiple times.)

Warren's journey, moreover, is one that is shared by a number of other groups. Millennial women, for example, are now more likely to identify as Democrats than a mere five years ago. Then there are the never-Trump Republicans, many of whom are now undergoing political awakenings of their own. Did you ever expect to see columnist David Brooks embrace reparations for African Americans?

Perhaps if Warren talked more about her political evolution, she could demonstrate she isn’t some stereotypical Massachusetts liberal. When it comes to voters who are skeptical of regulation and inclined to believe people are taking advantage of government benefits, Warren can say she was once where they are politically. If I could change my mind, she could tell them, so can you.

Helaine Olen is a contributor to Post Opinions and the author of “Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry.” Her work has appeared in Slate, the Nation, the New York Times, the Atlantic and many other publications. She serves on the advisory board of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Littleton, Colo. • A young Florida woman who traveled to Colorado and bought a shotgun for what authorities feared would be a Columbine-inspired attack just days ahead of the 20th anniversary was found dead Wednesday in an apparent suicide after a nearly 24-hour manhunt.

Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Shrader said 18-year-old Sol Pais was discovered by the FBI with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The manhunt had led to the closing of Denver-area schools as a precaution.

During the manhunt, the FBI said Pais was “infatuated” with Columbine and made threats ahead of Saturday’s anniversary of the attack that killed 13 people at Columbine High School in 1999. The FBI described her “extremely dangerous.”

The Miami Beach high school student flew to Colorado on Monday night and bought a pump-action shotgun and ammunition, authorities said.

Agents had focused the search around the base of Mount Evans, a popular recreational area about 60 miles southwest of Denver.

All classes and extracurricular activities for about a half-million students were canceled as a precaution, though sheriff's spokesman Mike Taplin said the young woman's threats were general and not specific to any school.

"This has become a massive manhunt ... and every law enforcement agency is participating and helping in this effort," said Dean Phillips, agent in charge of the FBI in Denver.

Authorities said Pais was last seen not far from Columbine — in the Jefferson County foothills outside Denver — in a black T-shirt, camouflage pants and black boots.

The alert also said police who come into contact with her should detain her and evaluate her mental health.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said federal, state and local law enforcement were "dedicating all of their resources to locate this dangerous individual."

"We know that there is a lot of anxiety right now in Colorado," Polis said in a statement.

Because of the threat, Columbine and more than 20 other schools outside Denver locked their doors for nearly three hours Tuesday afternoon, and some canceled evening activities or moved them inside.

Pais' parents last saw her on Sunday and reported her missing to Florida authorities on Monday night, police in Surfside, Florida, said.

Messages left by The Associated Press at two numbers listed for Pais' relatives in Florida were not immediately returned, while another number was disconnected.

Adam Charni, a Miami Beach High School senior, said Pais dressed in black and kept mostly to herself. He said he was "baffled" to learn she was the person authorities in Colorado were searching for.

Another classmate, 17-year-old junior Drew Burnstine, said Pais was a quiet, smart student who sat alone in class and "never caused problems or indicated that she wanted to harm anyone."

Two teenage gunmen attacked Columbine on April 20, 1999, killing 12 classmates and a teacher before taking their own lives.

State Rep. Patrick Neville, the Republican House minority leader, was a 15-year-old sophomore at Columbine High at the time of the shooting and now has three school-age daughters.

"It wasn't easy for me to explain to my kids what was going on last night," Neville said on the House floor Wednesday.

Associated Press writers Ellis Rua in Miami Beach, Florida and James Anderson and Thomas Peipert in Denver contributed to this report.

When you think about it, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that the road to the Democratic presidential nomination would go through Utah or that, realistically, it would even be a pit stop.

But thanks to the completely bizarre Game-of-Thrones-style world of nominating politics, Utah will be a regular stop-over for the slew of candidates competing to be the Democrat to take on President Donald Trump in 2020 — and then get crushed in the Beehive State.

So why are they bothering to come here?

This past session, the Utah Legislature made two key changes, both of them helping to assure Utah’s voters have at least a little bit of a say in choosing their party’s nominees. SB242, sponsored by Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, changes Utah’s nominating system from a party-sponsored caucus (remember those crazy long lines in 2016?) to a statewide primary.

More importantly, the bill moves Utah’s presidential primary up to March 3, where it will join 11 other states holding their nominating contests on what is called “Super Tuesday.”

While Utah is a small piece of that Super Tuesday field, at that critical juncture candidates can’t ignore a single delegate.

So, instead of having candidates fly into town to scoop up whatever money they can — as we saw Hillary Clinton do in 2016 — Utahns will get a chance to hear from the contenders, like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren who is holding a campaign rally in downtown Salt Lake City on Wednesday evening.

Warren isn’t the first Democratic contender to visit the state — former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro and former Maryland Sen. John Delaney have already been through — and she surely won’t be the last.

“A number of the campaigns have already been reaching out to figure out when will be the best time” to come to the state, said Utah Democratic Party Chairwoman Daisy Thomas. “We will definitely be receiving almost all of them — if not all of the candidates — this year.”

And with more than 50,000 people running for the Democratic nomination, maybe we’ve finally plugged that hole left when the Outdoor Retailer show left for Colorado.

That’s an exaggeration. But it’s also a far cry from what we saw in 2016, when the parties held caucuses late in March. By then, both contests were practically locked up.

Even then, desperation brought Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich out to try to stop Trump, who popped into town, too. And Sanders, grasping for anything to keep his campaign viable, came to town twice, turning out one of the largest crowds the state has seen for a political event.

Caucus turnout demolished expectations as Utah went for Cruz and Sanders — and it barely made any difference.

In 2020, of course, there won’t be much action on the Republican side. Utah GOP Chairman Rob Anderson said that, with “a presumptive coronation for President Trump,” it didn’t make sense for the party to raise the money to pay for the caucuses. (Taxpayers will pay $2.5 million to conduct the primary.)

The Trump campaign was fine with the change and Anderson said he thought holding Utah’s primary on Super Tuesday “would put Utah on the map.”

Thomas, his Democratic counterpart, agrees.

“Now that we’re part of Super Tuesday, we’re much more part of the conversation for these presidential candidates,” she said. “They’re going to all be working for every single delegate vote and making sure they’re coming and hitting Utah and talking to real Utahns across the state.”

That forces candidates to address issues important to Utah and the West. Just this week, ahead of a visit to Colorado and Utah, Warren rolled out a policy proposal focused on protecting public lands, repairing dilapidated national parks, and restoring the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.

Part of Warren’s proposal is an executive order banning any new fossil fuel development on public lands. It’s a radical idea to contend there’s nowhere in the 600 million acres of federal land in the West appropriate for oil and gas development and that the president has the unilateral power to shut it down.

But the important part is that Warren is talking about these Utah issues and other Democratic contenders will have to do the same over the next 10 months — that can only be good for our state.

President Trump has an “acting” Cabinet. Does that make him “acting” president?

Trump is slowly getting what he wants by continuing to fire various members of his Cabinet and replacing them with “acting" members of his coterie, thus avoiding the necessity of having his cabinet appointees approved by the Senate, which is the usual situation.

His new Cabinet members are now termed “acting” and thus serve solely at the pleasure of the president without any congressional oversight.

Trump is clearly feeling comfortable running the White House in a manner that might potentially lead to a bad outcome; he does not tolerate rejection well.

The more germane is whether Trump envisions himself merely “acting” president.

Louis Borgenicht, Salt Lake City

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The Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) — the 10,000-pound bully — is furthering its reputation of not caring about local communities, creating angst and havoc while claiming it’s “all for the children.”

It is now selling land for a Love’s Truck Stop right next to a quiet, rural residential neighborhood in Spanish Valley, just south of Moab.

Truck stops have received a lot of attention in the press lately as attracting drug dealers, transients, crime and prostitution. It would be cruel to put this next to such a neighborhood.

SITLA claims that it is selling the land to benefit children – but this will be at the price of the children in the neighborhood who currently don’t have to lock their doors or worry about riding their bikes and horses around the neighborhood. Also, of course, we’ll have more night sky light pollution, air pollution and the noise will inundate the neighborhood. There are several more appropriate, nearby SITLA-owned venues for sale that are not next to neighborhoods. We need a super hero to rescue us from SITLA.

Kathleen Kelly, Moab

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The gentleman who wrote to The Public Forum of our considering a “Marshall Plan" effort to stabilize the chaos that identifies parts of Central and South America has made some rather confusing assumptions.

First, the devastation in Germany and other parts of Europe at the end of World War II had left no discernible governing authority. The United States was in control and had a clear intent.

First, to relieve the massive suffering that conflict had created. Secondly, to assure that another tyrannical form of governance (yes, the Comunist regime), would not quickly install a repressive control.

As for the United Fruit Company insertion, the improper involvement by that particular organization is past history. So to assuage the letter's writer's desire to economically ease the social and political problems in those locations, just remember, we've already poured billions in that area over the years. Right into the pockets of corrupt, Banana Republic overlords and dictators along with their drug cartel intimidated administrations.

We salvaged a brutalized European population as best we could. We did it for their benefit and, true, ours, in a world already fraught with political upheaval, global discord and the ambition of the disparate revolutionary. Until the people there rise and clean their own house, the faux humanitarian cries of the ultra-liberal will merely enrich the already entitled.

James F. Oshust

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With the recent talk about changing our state flag, I’m a bit puzzled as to why time and resources should be expended in such a direction. Rather than changing our flag, we might do well to contemplate its imagery in a new light.

Particularly lost to our understanding today is the imagery of the beehive. Rather than being a hub for mindless drones, it denotes a society in which each individual works together for the good of the whole.

Leonard Arrington, a historian from years past, challenged the hoary myth that “the Mountain West was a land of rugged individualism developed by rugged individualists and rugged corporations.” Much of this state’s economic development was accomplished by “group saving and group investment under planned direction.”

However one may feel about our theocratic roots as far as Euro-American settlement is concerned, it was nevertheless a universe away from the ultraconservatism garbed in Christianity that has held sway around here for the last hundred years. Some might even have an easier time in drawing a redesigned flag from memory, but I suspect that such a flag’s symbolic meaning and power will only sink as deep as the paper.

Wesley Long, Murray

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Rich Lowry’s April 13 column, “The McCarthyite, anti-Christian campaign against Chick-fil-A” equates opposition to Chick-fil-A with opposition to Christianity. The glaring logical fallacy in Lowry’s editorial is inexcusable.

Chick-fil-A’s CEO and founder oppose gay marriage and contribute money to anti-LGBTQ organizations. People, including me, oppose Chick-fil-A for those reasons and those reasons alone.

Moreover, Christianity is not synonymous with opposition to gay marriage or the LGBTQ community. The Unitarian Universalist Association, for example, now stands firmly behind the LGBTQ community and gay marriage. With all due respect Mr. Lowry, don’t tell me I’m anti-Christian because I’m not.

Luke Smart, Salt Lake City

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