The Justice Department has announced that it will deliver special counsel Robert Mueller's report to Congress and the public on Thursday morning, but with redactions of grand jury information (and other categories of information) that will leave innumerable gaps in our understanding of what Mueller uncovered. Many commentators have suggested that Congress's only mechanism for securing an unredacted report is to launch a formal impeachment inquiry - a blind step forward with great political risks for congressional Democrats and the party overall.

That unpleasant choice looked to be the upshot of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's recent 2-1 decision in McKeever v. Barr, which held that the courts lack "inherent power" to order disclosure of grand jury material and instead must hew to the six exceptions describing when such material can be released - exceptions that are delineated in Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

One of those six is disclosure "preliminary to or in connection with a judicial proceeding." And while it may seem anomalous, several courts have held - and the D.C. Circuit in McKeever expressly affirmed - that "judicial proceeding" within the meaning of the rule encompasses an impeachment inquiry by Congress.

It suggested that the House would be entitled to all the materials - unredacted - only if it first launched a formal impeachment inquiry. And because the Democratic leadership seems loath, for political reasons, to take that step, the prospects for proceeding under that exception - the only known avenue for procuring the unredacted report - looked stalemated.

But that's not correct. In fact, Congress has immediate recourse to seek the unredacted report pursuant to the "judicial proceeding" exception, without having to initiate an impeachment inquiry.

How do we know? Well, for starters, we need look no further than the Starr investigation of President Bill Clinton and the succeeding impeachment proceedings in Congress. In September 1998, before the House had initiated an impeachment inquiry, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr sought and received from federal district court an order to provide to Congress his report, including voluminous grand jury materials. The court's order granting the request provided expressly that it constituted an order for purposes of the "judicial proceeding" exception in the federal rules.

It was only after digesting Starr's report, and based upon the report, that the House decided to initiate an impeachment proceeding.

The necessary conclusion of the Starr precedent is that "preliminary to" covers circumstances in which Congress seeks a report to determine in the first place whether to launch impeachment proceedings. It follows that the House needn't first launch a formal impeachment inquiry to get the unredacted report.

The attorney general and Rep. Douglas Collins of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, have suggested that nearly everything about Starr's report is irrelevant to current circumstances because Starr was an independent counsel operating under a different statutory scheme than did Mueller. As, of course, he was. But so what? The court's express holding in response to the Starr motion was that its order applied to Rule 6(e); otherwise put, the transmission of grand jury material was proper because Congress needed it to determine whether to initiate a formal impeachment inquiry. It is difficult to see how Collins, Barr or the Justice Department could make a tenable argument to the contrary.

Indeed, nothing in the independent counsel statute governing Starr's investigation purported to suspend or override the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and it would be a bizarre statutory scheme that did so. To the contrary, the statute gave the independent counsel the exact same powers with respect to the grand jury as the attorney general or, by implication, regular Justice Department prosecutors.

And there's a much broader principle in play here. The Justice Department really has no business second-guessing a declaration by Congress, a coordinate branch, that it needs material to consider whether to bring an impeachment, much less to require it to have initiated a formal inquiry in advance. Plainly, as was the case with the Starr report before it, the Mueller report is an indispensable document for Congress to review to decide whether to take a further formal step toward impeachment.

The principle is analogous to the argument the Trump administration successfully made in Trump v. Hawaii - that it was improper to discount its stated reasons for the president's immigration order, dubious though they might have seemed, in light of the president's proclamations on the campaign trail.

A wide range of Supreme Court decisions endorses a similar principle of deference to Congress, which after all is a co-equal branch. Accordingly, if Congress offers a good-faith assertion that it needs the Mueller report to discharge its constitutional duty in deciding whether to impeach the president, no more should be needed. The request complies with both the letter of Rule 6(e) and the spirit of the basic constitutional structure.

The House Judiciary Committee should ask the district court for the release, without delay, of the unredacted Mueller report, because it is "preliminary to or in connection with a judicial proceeding" within the meaning of Rule 6(e). Leave it to the Justice Department to argue to the court, and the country, that the legal principles that applied to Starr no longer operate in 2019.

Harry Litman, a Washington Post contributing columnist, is a former U.S. attorney and deputy assistant attorney general. He teaches constitutional law and national security law at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law and the University of California at San Diego Department of Political Science.

Utah Rep. Karianne Lisonbee is back on Facebook after deleting her social media accounts amid a firestorm of criticism related to her past statements on LGBTQ issues.

Lisonbee, a Clearfield Republican, said she was the target of threats and vile attacks during the legislative session because of her support for diluting a proposed ban on the widely discredited practice of conversion therapy.

The bill, which would have barred licensed therapists from trying to change the sexual orientation or gender identities of minors, was drastically rewritten by Lisonbee and several like-minded lawmakers. LGBTQ advocates said the new, weakened version would have done more harm than good for gay youth, and the bill ended up stalling for the remainder of the legislative session.

Around the same time, the Associated Press brought to light some Facebook posts that Lisonbee wrote several years ago about conversion therapy. In one 2013 comment, Lisonbee wondered whether it is “possible that living a homosexual lifestyle may cause individuals to choose to commit suicide?”

The remarks were widely condemned by LGBTQ groups and proponents of banning conversion therapy. Advocates, however, denounced any threats or personal attacks on Lisonbee.

But she wrote to her colleagues that “vile messages and posts” had forced her to shut down her social media accounts. She also rose during debate over the state’s hate crimes bill to speak about being targeted for her political beliefs, prompting colleagues to add protection for political expression to the legislation.

Her revived Facebook page is not open to the public, and she didn’t immediately return a call for comment about it.

This is a “perilous time for our country," Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren told a crowd of more than a thousand as she began her speech in a Salt Lake City concert hall on Wednesday night.

The Massachusetts senator proceeded to detail her family’s path through financial hardship — a journey she contrasted with the growing challenges facing today’s middle class as evidence of a broken Washington that benefits the wealthy few at the expense of the many.

“We need big, systemic change in this country,” she said. “And I got a plan.”

Warren then outlined a three-part plan that begins with attacking corruption “head on” and culminates with the rewriting of “some basic rules” in the United States economy and in politics. She wants things like Medicare for All, the end of lobbying “as we know it,” a wealth tax, stronger unions and the repeal of Citizens United — a landmark Supreme Court campaign finance decision.

“When you see a government that works great for those who have money and can hire armies of lobbyists but isn’t working great for anyone else, that’s corruption, pure and simple,” she said. “And we need to call it out.”

Her ideas seemed to resonate with the crowd of more than a thousand people in blazing red Utah’s blue capital city. After waiting in a line that snaked around The Depot — and then for the hour it took her to come onstage after her scheduled start time while she was talking with those who weren’t able to get inside — they cheered as Warren outlined her policy positions, laughed at her jokes, chanted her name and booed a heckler who was eventually escorted out of the building.

And when it was over, many of them chose to wait in line again.

“I find her moving,” said Jeff Nielsen, 42, as he stood near the back of the line for a photo with Warren. “Something I think is ineffable, some charisma. She’s the one who when she’s talking on television has me nodding at the screen. I don’t know what that is.”

Though Nielsen joked he would vote for a “potted plant” over President Donald Trump, he said the former Harvard professor likely has his support among the huge crowd of Democrats who have entered the presidential race: 18 and counting.

Angela Landa, 23, a student at Utah Valley University who said she would stand in line “as long as it takes” to get a photo with Warren, felt similarly.

“She’s my woman crush,” Landa said with a smile. “I just feel like she really cares about people. I’ve looked at her platform, and I think it’s the most complete of all the Democratic candidates.”

In keeping with her reputation as a policy wonk, Warren outlined a number of public lands policies in a post on Medium.com ahead of her visit to Utah.

And on Wednesday afternoon, she made a brief afternoon stop in Big Cottonwood Canyon to highlight those proposals.

As she walked under snowcapped mountains and bare tree branches in the afternoon, she received a firsthand account of the challenges in Utah’s Wasatch Front canyons from Carl Fisher, executive director of Utah’s Save Our Canyons organization. He cited climate change, biodiversity loss and high visitation rates during their half-hour walking tour near Storm Mountain Picnic Area and Amphitheater in the Wasatch National Forest.

“There are so many places that we could be for our national parks and forests, but this is one good example of our national treasure and why it’s so important to protect our national treasure — not to be selling it off for pennies on the dollar for drilling and mining,” Warren told reporters before her tour. “That’s what my new proposal about our national forests and parklands is all about.”

Among Warren’s broad-ranging policy positions is a pledge to restore the state’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments if she is elected in 2020.

And while she recognized that’s been a divisive issue in Utah — with top Utah politicians celebrating Trump’s executive order shrinking the monument and many tribal groups and conservationists opposing the move — she said it’s necessary to do what’s best to protect the lands.

“I think it’s very important that we have a lot of local consultation and that decisions are made as much as possible with everybody who’s in the area," she said. "I understand that there are people who support expansion and people who don’t. Ultimately, we have to think about what is best for the national forests. They belong to all of us. They are a treasure for all of us.”

Bears Ears monument originally was designated under President Barack Obama just before he left office. Grand Staircase-Escalante was created more than 20 years ago by President Bill Clinton.

Trump’s executive order to shrink the monuments by 2 million acres is being challenged in court by separate consolidated lawsuits in federal court in Washington, D.C.

While not all of the policy positions outlined in her public lands agenda Monday specifically mention Utah, many would greatly affect the state, where about two-thirds of the land is federally owned.

She promised, for example, to sign an executive order on her first day as president to put a “total moratorium” on all new fossil fuel leases on public lands. She also said she would reinstate a methane pollution rule to “limit existing oil and gas projects from releasing harmful gases that poison our air,” reinstate a clean water regulation and work to provide 10% of the country’s overall electricity generation from renewable sources offshore or on public lands.

Warren is the third and best-known of the Democratic candidates to visit this red state so far and one of a half dozen women in the race.

Julian Castro, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, visited Utah in February — describing himself as “the antithesis of Donald Trump” — and former Maryland Rep. John Delaney came in January to call for an end to “hyperpartisanship.”

Utah will hold a presidential primary election next year on Super Tuesday. That move has significantly changed the state’s role in the presidential election and will likely mean a few more visits from presidential hopefuls in the future.

“How can you watch that stupid show?” I asked my father, in great pre-teen exasperation.

It troubled me no end that my old man — a smart guy who read The Atlantic, Albert Camus and all 11 volumes of Will and Ariel Durant’s “The Story of Civilization” — could happily sit there and tee-hee at such simple-minded dreck as “Gomer Pyle, USMC.”

Of course the reason that show — and not, say, “The Beverly Hillbillies” — bothered me so much was that people who wanted to annoy me would often, sometimes within seconds of hearing by surname, start calling me “Gomer.” The implication being that anyone with such a silly name must be as stupid and clumsy as the unlikely Marine who had once been the personification of the small-town bumpkin in “The Andy Griffith Show.”

They never compared me to Ernie Pyle, the Pulitzer-winning wartime newspaper columnist, or Howard Pyle, the artist and illustrator of epic stories. Not just because it wouldn’t be an insult, but also because it was unlikely that any 9-year-old in 1965 had heard of either one of them.

Dad waved me off. He couldn’t be absorbing the great minds of civilization all the time.

Besides, he said, “Gomer is a good soul.”

It took awhile — and the passage of the character into TV Land history — for me to grasp what my father was saying.

Gomer Pyle, as played by Jim Nabors, was not the sharpest tool in the shed. The humor of the show was built around the fact that he hadn’t been anywhere or done anything and that his childlike understanding of the world never changed, even as it frustrated everyone around him.

But Gomer was sweet and honest and was one of those people of whom it was said, “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Which — no disrespect to members of The Corps — probably made the Marines a poor career choice.

The show was silly, pre-disillusionment fluff. Everyone was white. Nearly everyone was male. Despite what was happening in the real world, a show set on a Marine base made absolutely no mention of Vietnam. Not even in a tasteless “Hogan’s Heroes” don’t-mess-up-or-you’ll-be-sent-to-the-Russian-front manner.

The other day I received in the mail some clippings from recent Salt Lake Tribune Opinion pages, each carrying various red Sharpie markings indicating my correspondent’s serious disapproval of arguments that the refugees presenting themselves on our southern border should be objects of pity and concern, not fear and alarm.

I can only gather that the person who sent the samples is of a certain age. Because he actually sends letters through the mail. And because he apparently thinks that the best way to insult me is to scrawl “Gomer” next to my name and visage.

If I were still 9 years old, that might have stung a bit. But now I see that it is impossible to imagine Gomer at a Make America Great Again rally or, if he found himself at one, to picture him with anything other than that confused look on his face. He never possessed the level of anger that would make him comfortable in such a place.

If he were posted to the Mexican border, even in full battle dress with a rifle at the ready, there is no way Gomer would be able to turn away a refugee family that was clearly no threat to anyone. (Though he could be tricked into sending them to a detention center after hearing some evil official — whom he would not perceive as evil — describe it as “a summer camp.” Just as he might be deceived into showing small-town sympathy for a real terrorist who pretended to be lost and alone.)

Popular entertainment provides more worthy role models that embody kindness, intelligence and strength. Mister Rick. Marshal Dillon. Captains Kirk and Picard. The Doctor. And each of them, I trust, would agree that a great problem of our time is that the studied cruelty that personifies the current administration is perceived as a qualification, while the kindness that was the soul of simple characters such as Pvt. Pyle is derided as stupidity.

I’ll stand with Cousin Gomer, thanks.

The Notre-Dame de Paris had been damaged and changed many times since it was begun in the mid-12th century. But the April 15 fire might have been its most catastrophic event.

Located on the eastern end of the Ile-de-la-Cité, an island on the Seine River, the site was a Christian church since the fourth century. And, for a long time, it remained a powerful symbol of church authority. Even today, it is the seat of the archbishop of Paris.

As a scholar of Gothic architecture, I have studied how this and other buildings were continuously adapted to reflect changing architectural fashion and to enhance the spiritual experience of the visitor.

Key part of religious district

The current cathedral, dedicated to Our Lady, or the Virgin Mary, replaced an earlier cathedral that was built during the Merovingian period, which lasted from the fifth to eighth century. The earlier building was dedicated to St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

Maurice de Sully is believed to have initiated the rebuilding of the cathedral around the same time that he became bishop of Paris in 1160. Maurice had previously served as archdeacon of the cathedral, where he also taught theology.

Other church officials likely also had a role in this rebuilding as the cathedral canons, or clerics, not the bishop, held authority over the structure.

Reconstruction of the cathedral was part of a larger redesign of the eastern part of the Ile-de-la-Cité. This neighborhood housed the church officials, masters, clerics, servants and others who worked to run the diocese of Paris and the cathedral school.

Maurice’s other projects at the time included construction of a new street, the rue Neuve Notre-Dame, which ran from the cathedral to the west — now replaced by the square in front of the cathedral. He also built a new palace for the bishop and a new charitable hospital.

How structures were added

Construction proceeded under a series of master builders.

The first part of the cathedral to be built was the eastern part, or choir. This was to serve as the religious heart of the structure where the main altar would be located. Construction then generally proceeded westward, though multiple parts of the building were sometimes worked on simultaneously.

The design, however, was continuously revised during the course of construction. For example, in the 1220s the upper wall of the cathedral, which had already been constructed, was demolished and rebuilt to allow for larger windows. This transformed the building from a four-story to a three-story structure.

The new cathedral was largely completed by around 1245, although, construction continued in various parts until the mid-14th century. During these 200 years chapels were added along the exterior of the cathedral, some structural supports modified and the transept arms were extended, giving the cathedral a crosslike shape.

In my assessment, these many remodels during the Middle Ages demonstrated the vitality of the cathedral in medieval life and the creativity of the builders as they adapted the building to changing architectural fashions and social practices. The change to a three-story structure, that had become the standard by the early 13th century, is one such example.

My forthcoming book shows how cathedrals, including Notre Dame of Paris, were connected to the daily life in the city. There were markets around cathedrals and also spaces where disputes could be resolved. In other words, the cathedral was an important part of medieval city life.

Meaning for France

Notre Dame was the most colossal church of its generation — wider and taller than other European churches of the mid-12th century.

There were several technological breakthroughs made in its construction. For example, it was a site of early experimentation with flying buttresses, the externalized buttressing arches that transfer the weight of the heavy stone vault away from the walls, which can then be pierced by large window openings filled with stained glass.

It was the first French Gothic cathedral to receive a line of chapels along its exterior. These were added to the building between the projecting buttress piers after 1228. Many other cathedrals would later adopt this pattern.

The chapels appended to the choir on the eastern end of the cathedral were the only ones from 1300-1350 to survive the French Revolution.

Later restorations

Paris cathedral played an important role in religious and secular life.

As the seat of the bishop, Notre Dame was the most significant religious building in the city. Its size and luxury symbolized the power of the church and the authority of the bishop. It was also the site of ceremonies connected to the king of France, including royal funerary processions and the royal entry, a ceremony in which the city received a new king.

Consequently, it was one of the many churches that were attacked during the French Revolution in the 1790s. This violence resulted in significant losses of medieval sculpture and stained glass and damage to the building itself.

By the 19th century, the cathedral was in a state of disrepair.

A major restoration effort began in 1843 under the supervision of architects Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Lassus and Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, which was spurred by a larger renewal of interest in Gothic architecture. Viollet-le-Duc completed the restoration work in 1864.

Many of the building’s iconic features date to the 19th-century restorations. These include the crossing spire that collapsed in the recent fire. It also includes the many gargoyles and chimeras that peer out from the upper parts of the cathedral, many of which are modern replacements of medieval sculptures.

The 19th century also saw the construction of the parvis, or square in front of the cathedral, which significantly altered how one encounters the structure. Visitors to the cathedral now have a much larger area from which to view the front of the building which facilitates spectacular views of the cathedral’s twin towers.

Why it will survive

The roof of the cathedral was largely destroyed in the recent fire. While much of the building is constructed from stone, the roof was supported by enormous wooden beams that sat above the vault or curved stone ceiling of the church.

Details are still emerging about its priceless 13th-century stained glass windows. And it is too early to say how much of the artwork housed in it survived.

The cathedral has stood for 800 years and withstood damage on many previous occasions. I am confident that it will survive this fire as well.

Although the 2019 fire may appear to many as a cataclysmic destruction, the cathedral is exceptionally well documented. Andrew Tallon, a scholar at Vassar College, who died last year, had digitally scanned the building, resulting in measurements of the structure that are more precise than any data previously gathered.

While some parts of the cathedral might be irreplaceable, I believe many future generations continue to admire and learn from this magnificent building, as well as its rich history.

Maile Hutterer is an assistant professor of the history of art and architecture at the University of Oregon. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily represent those of Religion News Service.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A few years ago I brought my son into the emergency room because he was having difficulty breathing. He was trying to fight a virus handicapped by his small airway and weak muscles.

I hadn’t realized how serious it was. As soon as we walked in the nurse took one look at him and rushed him back to a room. She called a code and within minutes my sweet, little boy was surrounded by nurses and doctors frantically calling out instructions for medicines and other emergent care.

It was truly a scene out of a hospital television show, and I could barely process it. I just stood there helplessly watching.

He was intubated a few hours later and we joined the mass of babies and young toddlers fighting RSV in the PICU.

We were lucky. There were doctors and nurses available, and they had the necessary medications on hand.

But some parents aren’t so lucky. Sometimes the medications aren’t as easily accessible, even very common drugs. And sometimes those shortages are based on business decisions.

The issue is so severe that the American Medication Association adopted a policy declaring drug shortages “an urgent public health crisis.”

Business Insider recently reported there are “205 drugs currently facing shortages,” including “everything from bags of saline solution to common antibiotics and a type of epidural used for pregnant women during childbirth.”

The shortages presented an opportunity to innovate the pharmaceutical industry in general, and a Utah company has taken up that call.

Almost 25 years ago, Clayton Christensen introduced the concept of disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovation “describes a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors.”

We’ve seen disruptive innovations in cell phone technology, personal computers, community colleges, and discount retailers like Amazon.

Known as “Silicon Slopes,” Utah’s tech industry has always been at the forefront of disruptive innovation, from the first electronic television transmission in 1927, to the founder of Atari, to today’s tech behemoths like Ancestry, Skullcandy, Zagg, Overstock, Workfront, 1-800-Contacts, and of course Adobe and Domo.

And now, Civica Rx.

Thursday is the grand opening of Civica, a new, not-for-profit, generic drug company meant to address the shortages and high prices of lifesaving medicines. Civica will first focus on stabilizing the supply and lowering the cost of 14 hospital-administered generic drugs.

Civica is the brain-child of Dan Liljenquist, who is a disruptive innovator himself. In 2010 as a state senator Liljenquist sponsored legislation reforming the state’s pension system by moving it toward a modified 401(k) system. Many say he saved the state pension system.

Liljenquist is currently a senior vice president and chief strategy officer for Intermountain Healthcare. He is also the lead architect and board chair of Civica.

I must admit, I have a slight conflict of interest. My sister is an executive director at Civica, and has been raving about the company since she started a few months ago. I would otherwise have little idea about the momentous disruption about to happen.

Liljenquist brought in Heather Wall to join his team as the chief commercial officer to help build out the business model. Wall was recently named to Modern Healthcare’s Women Leaders “10 to Watch” List, which is a big deal in the health care industry.

Men and women in the C-suite improving an industry that affects us all. A true Utah disruptive innovation.

The Intermountain Healthcare News Release announced that “initial governing members of Civica Rx will include Catholic Health Initiatives, HCA Healthcare, Intermountain Healthcare, Mayo Clinic, Providence St. Joseph Health, SSM Health, and Trinity Health. These seven organizations, representing about 500 U.S. hospitals, will each provide leadership for the Civica Rx Board of Directors and will provide much of the initial capitalization for the company.”

Three major philanthropies are also involved, evidencing the company’s commitment to its not-for-profit, social welfare mission.

The CEO of Civica is Martin VanTrieste, the former chief quality officer for Amgen. Amazingly, VanTrieste will lead Civica without compensation.

That’s how much the leaders at Civica believe in its mission, and its ability to change the pharmaceutical industry for the better.

Parents in emergency rooms will be forever grateful.

Michelle Quist is a columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune

Police have identified human remains found early this week in American Fork Canyon as a 24-year-old runner who’d been missing for more than a year.

A climber found the remains and some belongings April 14 in a ravine west of the Swinging Bridge picnic site. Police thought it could have been Jerika Binks, who disappeared in February 2018, but weren’t sure it was her.

The state medical examiner used dental records to determine it was Binks, Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith announced during a Wednesday news conference.

Investigators said after finding the body that they don’t think she died under suspicious circumstances. On Wednesday, Smith said Binks’ cause of death still hadn’t been determined, but that she had broken her leg and that might have played a role in her death.

Jed Alvey, her brother, said Binks will be remembered as spontaneous, outgoing and a fun person to be around.

“Some people may think we kind of had a year to grieve a little bit about it, but that’s not the case. It hit my family like it just happened yesterday," he said. "It was relieving, too, at the same time to know that we at least get to bring her home.”

On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr will release the 400-page report that was the product of a two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

So far, all the public knows is what was contained in a four-page memo written by Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein summarizing the findings: Russia did interfere in the election with the intent to help Donald Trump, the Trump campaign did not collude in the interference, and Barr concluded that the president did not illegally obstruct justice.

The more detailed version of the report to be released by the Department of Justice on Thursday is expected to include significant redactions, meant to protect ongoing investigations, intelligence-gathering methods and the identities of sources or individuals not found to be at fault.

But based on my leaks from impeccable sources (i.e. making things up), here’s a sneak preview of some of the bombshells that might end up being in the Mueller report.

• Given how much time they had, I expected fewer typos. For example: The special counsel did not reach a conclusion regarding whether the president “obsucted justips.” That’s just sloppy.

• The entire Russian hacking operation began as a poorly executed attempt to help Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff win “The Apprentice.”

• Even the Russians thought Trump insider Roger Stone was a weirdo and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was a disgusting slob. Attorney General William Barr concurred.

• Chapter 8 of the report appears to consist entirely of a dissection of Vice President Mike Pence’s “Fifty Shades of Grey” fan-fiction. And it’s surprisingly steamy.

• OMG! Ivanka and Jared are actually brother and sister! Gross!

• The last portion of Chapter 2 of the Mueller report details how Russians had done “test-runs” on their interference operations, helping lead to the “conscious uncoupling” of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin and later to guarantee eighth grader Kris Waltz won his election as class secretary.

• President Trump’s repeated tweets that the entire investigation was a witch hunt may have been accurate. Mueller’s team investigated whether Sarah Sanders was responsible for turning CNN’s Jim Acosta into a large toad.

• The entirety of Chapter 7 of the report is merely a photographic list of which Trump adviser is hunkiest? The winner in a landslide was, of course, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. (Barr reached his own determination, that the sexiest Trumper is Attorney General William Barr.)

• Redacting can be fun!

• Investigators attempted to interview Donald Trump Jr., but he didn’t know anything, including his home address, shoe size, the day of the week, or what product he uses in his hair.

• Appendix F of the Mueller report is actually Mueller’s NCAA March Madness bracket. Mueller had Auburn and Gonzaga in his Final Four, but also had Utah State making it past the first round.

• For some reason, Chapter 12 of the report appears to be a 1970s-era recipe for “Hamburger Chow Mein” made with cream of mushroom soup. The special counsel did not reach any conclusions regarding the recipe. Barr determined it did not rise to the level of delicious.

• The forward to the report was written by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sandy • With their home opener just days away, Utah Royals FC are looking forward to getting off on the right foot. After finishing just shy of the playoffs last season with a 9-7-8 record, coach Laura Harvey believes her team didn’t play up to its capability until the last three weeks of 2018.

So when the Royals get their 2019 season going on Saturday against the Washington Spirit — a campaign in which the team has the playoffs in its sights — three points will be the focus. But it won’t be long after that when URFC starts losing its best players due to international duty for the upcoming FIFA Women’s World Cup.

The Royals could be without as many as seven of their best players at various points throughout 2019. Six of those seven sat in the Lions Club of Rio Tinto Stadium on Wednesday, eerily turning a conceptual idea into a physical reality.

But those six players — and presumably Christen Press, who was not present — just want to focus on their time with the Royals and worry about playing for their respective countries when the time comes.

“These next few weeks, it’s all focused on Utah Royals and getting the results,” said Rachel Corsie, who will play for the Scottish national team this summer. “For me it’s unfortunate that I have to miss games for my club because obviously you never want to do that. But it’s the nature of the league. So as soon as we’re back, it’ll be straight back into Royals mode.”

Press, Becky Sauerbrunn and Kelley O’Hara, who are all expected to make the as yet unreleased United States Women’s National Team roster, will leave the Royals sooner than any of their other World Cup teammates. The three U.S. players head to France on April 29 after having played just two games for Utah.

.@UtahRoyalsFC coach Laura Harvey on the upcoming 2019 season. #URFC pic.twitter.com/0yW1YXqftu

— Alex Vejar (@AlexVReporting) April 17, 2019

Sauerbrunn said the USWNT players maximizing their two weeks with the Royals will come down to making sure the entire team is on the same page tactically and translating that into wins.

“If we leave after that Orlando game,” Sauerbrunn said, “we want to have left doing the most that we could for Utah, and hopefully that’s also six points so we’re starting the season off well and that’s momentum that the rest of the team can just carry on through.”

The Royals currently have six players on their roster listed as “national team replacements,” most of whom will have to step in to large roles while their teammates compete for international glory. O’Hara said it has been a focus of some World Cup players to communicate with the players who might fill in for them and make sure they’re put in a position to succeed.

“It’s kind of like a mentorship, in a way, and coaching people up in that sense,” O’Hara said. “They’re going to carry a big load of the season for us and it’s super important. We want to be able to leave, potentially, and know that everything is going to get taken care of. I think that the people who will be here are going to do that very well.”

Utah regulators’ ideas for cutting emissions from coal-fired electrical plants is under fire from environmentalists who dismiss it as a rehash of a flawed plan the Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency has already rejected — twice.

Under the Clean Air Act, the state is obligated to minimize “regional haze” that obscures vistas at national parks and other protected airsheds with the goal of achieving “natural conditions” by 2064.

Emissions from two power plants in Emery County impair visibility at Utah’s five national parks and three others in neighboring states, according to Cory MacNulty, associated director for the Southwest region of the National Parks Conservation Association.

She was among the critics lined up at public hearing Wednesday to denounce the plan before the Utah Air Quality Board, arguing that it allows a corporation to foul the air over Utah’s redrock country with avoidable emissions of nitrogen oxides, or NOx.

“This is pollution that obscures up to 87 miles of the landscape that should be visible through Delicate Arch at Arches National Park, from Island in the Sky at Canyonlands National Park,” MacNulty said. “These same facilities are emitting substantial amounts of greenhouse gases contributing to climate change.”

The proposal under consideration this month is a federally mandated revision to a controversial plan the Utah Division of Air Quality negotiated with PacifiCorp, Utah’s largest utility, more than a decade ago to substantially cut emissions of particulate matter and sulfur dioxide from the Hunter and Huntington plants.

“The plan we developed focused on those two [pollutants] because that’s where we had the biggest visibility impacts,” said agency Director Bryce Bird. Those upgrades have been installed, as well as retrofitted burners that don’t put out as much NOx, a pollutant that regulators say doesn’t impair the clarity of the air as much as sulfur dioxide and PM.

Bird’s boss Alan Matheson, who heads the Department of Environmental Quality, said the plan not only protects the view of Utah’s scenery but also insulates electrical customers from “significant price hikes" that could result were the state to require upgrades envisioned by the EPA under the Obama administration.

“Utah implemented pollution controls years ahead of schedule to achieve early visibility improvements,” he said. “The most accurate modeling tools demonstrate the state plan clears the skies over our parks as effectively as the federal plan, but at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars less.”

HEAL Utah, Sierra Club and other environmental groups, however, insist the state should go further and require scrubbers that remove much of the NOx from the exhaust coming from four of the plants’ five units subject to the regional haze rule. This equipment, known as selective catalytic reduction, or SCR, is now an industry standard in place at 269 plants around the country, including some that PacifiCorp operates outside Utah, and could reduce NOx emissions by 76 percent, activists said. That would cut annual emissions by 10,000 tons from Hunter alone.

The utility contends it would cost $700 million to install SCR at its Hunter and Huntington plants and another $150 million in operational costs over the lives of the plants.

Activists disputed those figures and argued SCR is worth the investment, considering the importance of Utah’s scenery to its economic foundations.

National Park Service modeling indicates that human-caused haze disrupts views on more than 300 days a year at Arches and Canyonlands, according to retired park manager Philip Brueck, who lives in Saratoga Springs.

“The state must do the right thing and hold PacifiCorp’s Hunter and Huntington coal plants accountable, requiring that their pollution be reduced so that visitors have the opportunity to experience the extraordinary beauty that these iconic national parks of the Southwest have to offer now and in the future,” said Brueck, a member of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. “As stewards of these beautiful lands, if we have the opportunity to improve any aspect of the environment that we live in, why wouldn’t we want to do that?”

Washington • The burning of Notre Dame Cathedral, a monument to human creativity and divine inspiration, invites first a mournful silence and then a search for meaning. This often involves efforts to understand the inexplicable by reference to metaphor.

That this ancient place of worship burned during Holy Week invites, perhaps paradoxically, hope. A time when Christians remember suffering and death and then celebrate resurrection speaks to the yearning for deliverance and renewal. Because Notre Dame was not completely destroyed by this tragedy — or by centuries of neglect, or by political threats — it can be reborn.

And the possibility of revival instructs us about tradition and its endurance. We are learning from experts in restoration and repair that a reconstructed building is never the same as it was before. We are also learning that when structures are hundreds of years old, they are not the product of a single time or a single culture. They are the creations of many tastes, many insights and many minds.

Traditions are built that way, too. They survive because those who honor them work mightily to protect them — but also because living traditions never fear adapting when change demands it.

In a stirring piece of journalism, The Financial Times’ Edwin Heathcote reminds us that great structures come to be hallowed for more than their magnificence. We appreciate them as well because they have embedded themselves in the lives of individuals and communities. He notes that architecture is often “revered as an art object or an artifact rather than a working component of everyday life.”

And he asks of Notre Dame: "But how much of that fabric is actually medieval? Cathedrals took centuries to build and they are always works in progress, accretions of layers from across the ages. The urgent questions then are: where do you start and what, exactly, do you rebuild?"

Which invites the other, more disturbing metaphor that has been invoked often in recent days: Notre Dame burned at a time when the Roman Catholic Church, to which it owes its life, is also burning in a different way.

Perhaps this is too easy a leap to make, but who can question that there is a deep crisis in the church, brought about by the failure of its leadership to protect its most vulnerable members? Who can miss the debilitating divisions in the church, reflected most recently by Pope Emeritus Benedict's letter that was widely interpreted (I think accurately) as a challenge to Pope Francis' worldview and his handling of the crisis?

Notre Dame's near destruction brought home why this crisis has, of late, left me close to silent. As a struggling, run-of-the-mill believer who is neither particularly holy nor doctrinally pure, I have — like many Catholics, I suspect — found it impossible to break with an institution that has been profoundly, at times wickedly, flawed yet still kindles acts of mercy, moments of transcendence and works of beauty.

From my first visit to Notre Dame just before Christmas in 1973 and continuing through many others, I always found the cathedral at once wondrous and welcoming. It was a blend of the sacred and the profane as bustling tourists made their way by pews where the devout and the doubting offered their prayers to a God they hoped was listening.

When I was there, I was always aware of French Catholicism's morally bifurcated history. It was a force for both shameful collaboration with the Nazis and the Vichy regime during World War II, and also heroic resistance. So we should not be shocked by this very human institution's more recent failures. There have been lies told to cover up corruption, but truths preached in the name of love and justice.

At times, I think that those who are leaving the church — the outraged parents, the women and LGBTQ people who feel excluded from its concern — may simply have more courage than I do. Yet I still want to place my bet with those who insist the church can be delivered, who remember, as with Notre Dame, that it is a work in progress about which we always have to ask, "What, exactly, do you rebuild?"

No matter how skeptical I get, I find myself joyful at Easter Mass, year after year, when we first hear the words, "He is risen, Alleluia!" It will take time and care, but I know Notre Dame will have its Alleluia moment. I pray there will also be one for the church that inspired its creation.

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

@EJDionne

Washington • Some government foolishness has an educational value that compensates for its considerable cost. Consider the multibillion-dollar federal electric-vehicle tax credit, which efficiently illustrates how government can, with one act, diminish its already-negligible prestige while subtracting from America’s fairness. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., hope to repeal the tax credit, which probably will survive because it does something that government enjoys doing: It transfers wealth upward by subsidizing affluent individuals and large economic entities.

In 1992, Congress, with its itch to supplant the market in telling people what to build and buy, established a subsidy for buyers of electric vehicles, which then were a negligible fraction of the vehicle market. In 2009, however, as the nation reeled from the Great Recession, the Obama administration acted on an axiom of the president's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Using the crisis as an excuse to do what they wanted to do anyway, those who think government planning of the U.S economy is a neat idea joined with environmentalists to persuade Congress — persuading it to dispense money is not difficult — to create a tax credit of up to $7,500 for consumers who buy battery-powered electric vehicles.

The tax credit was part of the administration’s “stimulus” package, which is most remembered for its promise of “shovel-ready” jobs. The president, too busy expanding the government to understand the consequences of prior expansions, discovered that such jobs are almost nonexistent, thanks to red tape that must be untangled before shovels can be wielded.

The tax credit quickly became another example of the government's solicitousness for those who are comfortable, and who are skillful in defense of their comforts. Today, demand for electric cars is still insufficient to produce manufacturing economies of scale (after a decade of production, moral exhortations and subsidies, electric cars are a fraction of 1% of all vehicle sales), and batteries are expensive. So, The Wall Street Journal reports, the $42,000 average price for an electric car is $8,000 more than the average price of a new car, and $22,000 more than the average price of a new small gasoline-powered car.

The Pacific Research Institute has examined 2014 IRS data showing that 79% of the electric-vehicle tax credits were collected by households with adjusted gross incomes of more than $100,000, and 1% by households earning less than $50,000. A 2017 survey found that households earning $200,000 received the most from the tax credit.

Some states have augmented the federal credit: In California, where about half of electric vehicles are sold, consumers can gain up to $15,000; in insolvent Connecticut — blue states are incorrigible — $10,500. The credit is, however, capped: Manufacturers can only sell 200,000 vehicles eligible for the full credit. Now almost all manufacturers (including high-end companies Bentley, Aston Martin and Maserati) are entering the electric-vehicle sector, and the cap is impinging on some of them (General Motors, Nissan). So, at long last such vehicles can be allowed to sink or swim on their own, right?

Of course not. The Barrasso-Smith legislation is fiercely opposed by the manufacturers, who of course want to expand and entrench it by removing the cap, partly because they know what the Journal knows: "When Georgia ended its $5,000 state tax credit in 2015, sales of electric vehicles fell 89% in two months."

Electric cars have cachet with advanced thinkers who want to be, or to be seen to be, environmentally nice. They do not think of such vehicles as 27.4% coal cars, that being the percentage of U.S. electricity generated by coal-fired power plants. According to a Manhattan Institute study:

“[B]ecause of stringent emissions standards and low-sulfur gasoline, new ICVs [internal combustion vehicles] today emit very little pollution, and they will emit even less in the future. Compared with new ICVs, ZEVs [zero-emissions vehicles] charged with the forecast mix of electric generation will emit more criteria air pollutants.” And the reduction of carbon dioxide — “less than 1% of total forecast[ed] energy-related U.S. CO2 emissions through 2050” — “will have no measurable impact on climate.”

The environmental excuse for the regressive tax credit being nonexistent, those Democratic senators whose presidential campaigns are fueled by fury about government being "rigged" for the benefit of "the rich" who are not paying "their fair share" will join their Wyoming colleague's attempt to end the electric-vehicle tax credit, if they mean what they say. If.

George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column with The Washington Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977.

@georgewill

georgewill@washpost.com

Houston • After the Jazz’s 32-point series-opening loss, they vowed to adjust and improve — specifically, by making James Harden work for his, limiting the Rockets’ open 3s, hitting some shots from deep themselves, and cutting down on turnovers.

So, after the first quarter of Wednesday’s Game 2, Harden had 17 points, four rebounds, and four assists; Houston made 6 of 13 from deep; Utah was 1 of 13 beyond the arc; and the Jazz coughed the ball up six times, leading to 11 Rockets points. The Jazz trailed by 20.

It didn’t get much better in the remaining three periods, as Houston rolled to a 118-98 victory and a 2-0 series lead that’s looking more insurmountable by the game.

This contest’s opening seconds proved an accurate harbinger of the epic disaster to come. After winning the opening tip, the Jazz’s opening possession saw them throw a bad pass and turn the ball over just 9 seconds into the game. Then, on the Rockets’ first chance with the ball, Ricky Rubio overplayed Harden to his left, Harden drove the lane with impunity, sucked in the help defense of Rudy Gobert, and lobbed a perfect alley-oop to Clint Capela.

After that, it became a lather-rinse-repeat (and repeat and repeat and repeat) cycle of Jazz players leaving Rockets open in the corner, Harden finding them, and the likes of P.J. Tucker and Eric Gordon knocking down treys. Houston led by as many as 28 points in Game 2.

“Things are gonna happen during the game — Capela’s gonna get a dunk, Harden’s gonna hit a 3, you’re gonna get a foul [called], all the things you don’t wanna have happen,” said Jazz coach Quin Snyder. “And the adjustment to that is just to keep competing. … That’s the mindset that we have to have.”

On the other end, Utah had little trouble generating its own open looks on the perimeter, but considerably more difficulty getting them to go through the hoop instead of off it.

Meanwhile, Rubio said the Rockets’ early physicality, and the Jazz’s failure to match it, may have made the difference.

“The way they set the tone — it wasn’t on offense, it was on defense,” he said. “They set the tone on defense playing really hard; the first three, four plays, we got, I don’t know, three, four turnovers. It’s hard to play with a team where you’re not scoring, you lose the ball, and then you gotta play in transition. We gotta learn from them — we gotta set the tone like they did to us.”

Donovan Mitchell agreed that the team’s energy wasn’t right at the outset.

“They’re ready to go. We weren’t [ready] from the jump, and it’s hard to come back when they’re as good as they are,” he said. “… We kind of dug ourselves a hole, and it’s hard to get back when you get down early like that. They hit everything and we missed everything, and they came out more aggressive.”

There were sporadic moments of promise, fleeting glimmers of hope throughout — a 9-3 run to start the second quarter to cut the deficit to 14 … an 11-2 stretch midway through the third to trim it to 17 … a 13-5 spurt in the fourth to climb within 20 — but none of them took.

Every time, Harden would wrest control firmly back, bombing away and connecting on an increasingly impressive array of shots you’d swear were bad ideas by virtually anyone else.

After snatching the momentum back with yet another stepback 3 late in the third period, Harden waved his arm dismissively, as though this all were simply too easy for him. And it may well have been.

The reigning MVP hardly broke a sweat in racking up a triple-double, this time totaling 32 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists in 33 minutes.

He had plenty of help, with Chris Paul contributing 17 points, and Gordon and Tucker 16 apiece. Nearly half the Rockets’ 38 made baskets were of the 3-point variety.

As for the Jazz, it was a second consecutive game of being hamstrung by an ability to convert open looks. They made just 39.8 percent of their shots overall, and — quite improbably — were somehow even worse from 3-point range this time, hitting only 8 of 38 tries from beyond the arc (21.1%).

“We’ve just gotta keep taking our shots. Shots that we normally make, they’ve been going in and out, some of ’em short,” said Derrick Favors. “Just shots we’ve gotta continue to take, keep being aggressive, can’t run away from it.”

Mitchell again proved unable to spark the offense, totaling 11 points and six assists, but shooting only 5 for 19 while committing five turnovers.

Ricky Rubio said the difference was the Rockets playing hard from the outset: "They set the tone on defense playing really hard; the first three, four plays, we got, I don’t know, three, four turnovers. … We gotta learn from them — we gotta set the tone like they did to us." pic.twitter.com/J9kwp5lgEP

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) April 18, 2019

But few of his teammates truly made an impact on that end, either.

Some, at least, posted some serviceable-looking numbers: Rubio had 17 points, nine assists, and four steals; Favors contributed 14 points, 12 rebounds, and three blocks; Gobert added 11 points and 12 boards; Royce O’Neale had 17 off the bench on 7-for-10 shooting. But Joe Ingles was virtually invisible yet again (seven points, two assists, one rebound), and Jae Crowder had another poor shooting effort (2 for 9 overall, 1 for 6 from deep).

“We have to get ourselves going as a group, collectively. And we’ve done that, we did it in spurts during the game, but that’s obviously not enough,” Snyder said. “We have to have that more consistently throughout the course of the game.”

The teams will now head out to Salt Lake City for Games 3 and 4, and the Jazz will go back to the drawing board, looking still for those ever-elusive adjustments and improvements.

“It’s a series — until there’s four wins on their side, we’re still alive,” said Rubio. “They played really good, but I think it was more us not playing with confidence. We have to play with confidence — on both ends of the floor. We haven’t had any good stretch where we feel like [we’re showing] the team we are. Watch film, get better. Usually, it’s tough to beat us over there. We’ll try to take the advantage of playing at home and come back here 2-2.”

Pamela Atkinson has been an icon for decades, symbolizing to many Utah’s commitment to helping its homeless, refugees and other disadvantaged populations.

Now, the longtime advocate and faith leader — a woman Gov. Gary Herbert refers to as the Beehive State’s own “Mother Teresa” — is being honored with a new round of affordable housing in Utah’s capital for those who most need it.

Officials with the Housing Authority of Salt Lake City broke ground Wednesday on what will be called Pamela’s Place Apartments, a five-story, 100-bed facility at 525 S. 500 West that will be devoted to permanent supportive housing for the region’s chronically homeless.

In addition to affordable studio apartments, the completed building will offer residents access to a full clinic, dedicated case workers, a variety of social services and community spaces, and special facilities for gardening and pets.

“It’s not a homeless shelter,” said Dan Nackerman, executive director of the Housing Authority. “It’s apartments for people perhaps coming out of homelessness or perhaps just very low-income and needing some service.”

He and others said the new building had been renamed for Atkinson in recognition of her years of influence and service in the state as a humanitarian, advocate for the downtrodden and elder in the First Presbyterian Church.

Herbert said Atkinson was commonly the hub of the wheel in major projects aimed at helping the disadvantaged. And after reeling off a list of half-dozen influential groups she helps lead, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox described her as a mentor during his early days in office, taking him on a life-changing tour to meet her “homeless friends.”

Housing advocates and other officials spoke of her ability to unite people around vital causes and embody the values of love and understanding.

But, typical of a quiet, self-effacing approach, when it came time for her to speak, Atkinson told the crowd of about 100 project supporters and community advocates that the event was not about her and instead focused on a new facility devoted to changing lives.

The $13.6 million housing complex, she noted, will give 100 chronically homeless residents at a time a stable, rent-subsidized micro-apartment while they sort through other issues and look for employment — all in an environment rich in support services and with full-time case managers on hand to help with their transition.

“Let’s just honor the people who have been involved in this,” Atkinson said of the project, which drew funding from a range of city, state and private sources, including $640,000 from Salt Lake City and its Redevelopment Agency to buy the land.

“Today belongs to this building," Atkinson said, "and what it is going to do for a hundred of our homeless friends who are going to take those steps out of out homelessness right here.”

“Gosh, am I proud to be a Utahn this point,” she said.

The investment firm Goldman Sachs, the Olene Walker Housing Loan Trust Fund and the National Housing Trust Fund were key contributors to the project’s financing. It has also relied heavily on federal low-income tax credits, officials said.

The building was designed by Architecture Belgique, headquartered in Midvale, and will be constructed by general contractor Wadman Construction, based in Ogden.

Pamela’s Place Apartments is one of three facilities devoted to permanent supportive housing getting underway in Salt Lake City, based on what Mayor Jackie Biskupski said was a recognition that putting housing first was key to helping get unsheltered Utahns stabilized and back on their feet.

Once completed, Pamela’s Place Apartments and the other facilities will have 242 beds between them devoted to permanent supportive housing, the mayor said.

“That is significant,” said Biskupski, who added the new housing was “the clearest sign yet that when our hearts are in the right place and when we have the right people at the table, anything is possible.”

A southeastern Utah county commission that used to be a vocal opponent of the Bears Ears National Monument created by President Barack Obama is switching sides in the debate now that it is controlled by Democrats.

The San Juan County Commission filed a notice Tuesday in federal court to withdraw as an objecting intervenor to lawsuits filed by conservation and tribal groups challenging President Donald Trump’s downsizing of the monument in 2017.

In a new court filing, writes FOX 13, the county gave notice it would no longer side with the president in the ongoing litigation filed by tribal groups.

“At the time San Juan moved for intervention, the County Commission supported the intervention. Following the recent election of a new County Commission in San Juan County, the County Commission no longer supports San Juan’s involvement in this litigation. Upon full consideration San Juan now seeks withdrawal from this lawsuit,” the filing states.

The victory in the November election by Willie Grayeyes gave Democrats two of the three commissioner seats. He is a member of the Navajo Nation, which overlaps with the county.

It was the first general election since a federal judge decided racially gerrymandered districts illegally minimized the voices of Navajo voters who make a slim majority of the county’s population.

The election led to a Native American and Democrat-majority commission that has now withdrawn from the lawsuit. The court case seeking to overturn Trump’s decision to shrink Bears Ears remains in a D.C. court.

Editor’s note: The Salt Lake Tribune and FOX 13 are content-sharing partners.

This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday, April 18, 2018. You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below:

• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/16/bagley-cartoon-cross/" target=_blank><u>Cross Purposes</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/15/bagley-cartoon-our-lady/"><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 • Some coaches let it be known in no uncertain terms that the organizations they oversee are not democracies.

Jazz coach Quin Snyder, meanwhile, though ultimately responsible for for crafting the team’s gameplan, is not so vain or foolhardy as to believe that he has a monopoly on worthy ideas.

Before Wednesday’s Game 2 at the Toyota Center, Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell spoke appreciatively of the coaching staff’s willingness to accept feedback from the players in the wake of their postseason-opening 32-point defeat.

“All of us have come in and given our input on what we see and what we should do, and the coaching staff is great and phenomenal as far as listening to us, as far as giving us their input, as well,” Mitchell said. “We have a great team team chemistry that allows our coaches and allows teammates to give their opinion and constructive criticism, and that makes it a lot easier, when you have guys who want to help each other out.”

For his part, Snyder sought to dismiss the idea that such back-and-forth emanated solely from the Game 1 situation, noting, “That’s something that we do all the time.”

That said, he also believed that, after that outcome, it was important to get the players’ perspective on things, to make sure everyone was in lockstep on how to proceed, to try and put people in optimal situations to succeed.

“I wanted to feel what those guys were thinking, to mirror what I was thinking. And part of that, too, is we’ve always had buy-in from our guys. And coming to do something collectively contributes to that,” Snyder said. “You see in football where you have a quarterback that audibles at the line of scrimmage, and so I sometimes think finding the comfort level that a player has enhances the probability that they’re gonna be able to do something both with force and conviction. So philosophically, it’s just what I believe as a coach.”

Pumped-up kicks

The “Adidas D.O.N. Issue #1” shoes haven’t yet appeared in stores, but they’ve made their debut in an NBA game.

Mitchell broke out his signature shoes for this playoff series, though he apparently remains in disbelief about having his own sneaker line, to some extent. That didn’t stop him from throwing in a plug extolling their virtues, however.

“It’s still kind of unreal to me. To get a shoe so soon really took me by surprise. It still does to this day, but I’m excited for it to go on sale,” he said. “People have been asking for it nonstop. To be able to wear it, it’s so comfortable — I’m not just saying that ’cause it’s my shoe! It’s comfortable; I love this shoe, man, and it’s just a blessing to debut it, especially in the playoffs.”

The shoes are expected to hit retailers in July.

Finally near full-strength

Utah’s injury reports over the past several weeks have had no shortage of occupants with assorted ailments. But that may finally be coming to an end.

While the team initially listed Kyle Korver (right knee soreness) as probable and Thabo Sefolosha (left hip soresness) as questionable, both were made available to play in Wednesday’s game.

That means the only player out now for the Jazz is reserve point guard Dante Exum, who had surgery on the patellar tendon in his right knee and is likely to miss the entirety of the playoffs.

New York • Scientists restored some activity within the brains of pigs that had been slaughtered hours before, raising hopes for some medical advances and questions about the definition of death.

The brains could not think or sense anything, researchers stressed. By medical standards "this is not a living brain," said Nenad Sestan of the Yale School of Medicine, one of the researchers reporting the results Wednesday in the journal Nature.

But the work revealed a surprising degree of resilience among cells within a brain that has lost its supply of blood and oxygen, he said.

"Cell death in the brain occurs across a longer time window than we previously thought," Sestan said.

Such research might lead to new therapies for stroke and other conditions, as well as provide a new way to study the brain and how drugs work in it, researchers said. They said they had no current plans to try their technique on human brains.

The study was financed mostly by the National Institutes of Health.

The 32 brains came from pigs killed for food at a local slaughterhouse. Scientists put the brains into an apparatus in their lab. Four hours after the animals died, scientists began pumping a specially designed blood substitute through the organs.

The brains showed no large-scale electrical activity that would indicate awareness. Restoring consciousness was not a goal of the study, which was aimed instead at exploring whether particular functions might be restored long after death.

After six hours of pumping, scientists found that individual brain cells in one area of the brain had maintained key details of their structure, while cells from untreated brains had severely degraded. When scientists removed these neurons from treated brains and stimulated them electrically, the cells responded in a way that indicated viability. And by studying the artificial blood before it entered the treated brains and after it emerged, researchers found evidence that brain cells were absorbing blood sugar and oxygen and producing carbon dioxide, a signal that they were functioning.

They also found that blood vessels in treated brains responded to a drug that makes vessels widen.

Sestan said researchers don't know whether they could restore normal whole brain function if they chose that goal. If such consciousness had appeared in the reported experiments, scientists would have used anesthesia and low temperatures to quash it and stop the experiment, said study co-author Stephen Latham of Yale. There's no good ethical consensus about doing such research if the brain is conscious, he said.

Researchers are now seeing if they can keep the brain functions they observed going for longer than six hours of treatment, which Latham said would be necessary to use the technology as a research tool.

Christof Koch, president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, who didn't participate in the study, said he was surprised by the results, especially since they were achieved in a large animal.

"This sort of technology could help increase our knowledge to bring people back to the land of the living" after a drug overdose or other catastrophic event that deprived the brain of oxygen for an hour or two, he said. Unlike the pig experiments, any such treatment would not involve removing the brain from the body.

The pig work also enters an ethical minefield, he said. For one thing, it touches on the widely used definition of death as the irreversible loss of brain function because irreversibility "depends on the state of the technology; and as this study shows, this is constantly advancing," he said.

And somebody might well try this with a human brain someday, he said. If future experiments restored the large-scale electrical activity, would that indicate consciousness? Would the brain "experience confusion, delusion, pain or agony?" he asked. That would be unacceptable even in an animal brain, he said.

In a Nature commentary, bioethicists Stuart Youngner and Insoo Hyun of the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland said if such work leads to better methods for resuscitating the brain in people, it could complicate decisions about when to remove organs for transplant.

Jazz play-by-play announcer Craig Bolerjack calls Jazz swingman Joe Ingles “Slow-Mo Joe,” thanks to his, uh, lower-than-average top speed for a NBA player.

But the Rockets’ switching defense requires quick-twitch muscles to defeat. There’s a blink in which to attack the defense at the moment of the switch, and Ingles hasn’t shown the ability to make that happen.

In Sunday’s Game 1, Ingles made just one shot and took only four, never getting to the free-throw line. Those three points were wildly off his season averages: he normally contributes 12 points per game on 10 shots, acting as one of the Jazz’s most efficient players.

Even worse than that was the lack of playmaking, as the Jazz also rely on the baskets Ingles creates. In the second half of the season, Ingles averaged 7.5 assists per game. In Game 1, he only assisted one basket.

Wednesday’s Game 2 showed incremental gains, but not enough to make the Jazz’s offense anywhere close to effective. He finished with 7 points on 3-8 shooting, giving out all of two assists this time.

Certainly, Ingles isn’t alone in his struggles. As the Jazz rely on Ingles to create, they also need role players like Jae Crowder and Thabo Sefolosha to make the shots that are created for them. That hasn’t happened: the two combined for just 2-15 shooting in Game 1 and 2-12 shooting in Game 2. Even Kyle Korver has yet to make a shot for the Jazz, going shotless in Game 1 and 0-2 Wednesday.

“Maybe the biggest thing for us is we were well below our averages offensively in almost any category. We’ve got to have a better offensive night,” Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said before the game. “I think that takes the pressure off your defense, too. If they’re taking the ball out of the net because we scored, that’s a very different possession than if we haven’t scored or if we turn the ball over.”

The Jazz know what they want to do on offense, but they haven’t been able to execute it.

“We’re trying to get downhill, trying to get in the paint. The more paint touches we have, it’ll make our offense better. They switch a lot, so once you break the paint and put them in rotations, we should get any shot we want to,” Crowder said. That’s the problem, though: the Jazz have only gotten inside on rare occasions. And when they have tried to drive-and-kick, the shots haven’t fallen.

If the Jazz can’t repair the cogs in their blender, this series will be over in a hurry.

Jeremy and Ember Ulrich are a young couple with a baby daughter who wanted to build a home in Sandy, where they grew up and near where their families live.

They found little vacant land was on the market and “what was available was expensive,” Ember Ulrich said.

So they looked farther south. In Bluffdale, they found that there wasn’t much in their price range with space for a good-size yard. They kept looking farther south.

The Ulriches ended up in Lehi, where they could afford to build a two-story, three-bedroom home on about a quarter acre of land. Not only could they buy more house for the money there, but it also was close to Jeremy’s job at Adobe in the Silicon Slopes.

“It’s the ideal location,” Ember said.

The Ulriches’ story, repeated thousands of times by other families, is part of what’s driving Utah County’s growth to a rate twice that of much-larger Salt Lake County — 2.6% vs. 1.3%, according to new U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Thursday. The other driver is the area’s near-the-top-in-the-nation birthrate.

Last year, Utah County added 15,710 people compared with Salt Lake County’s 14,813.

State researchers first noticed that Utah County was adding more people than Salt Lake County, and the Census Bureau’s revised numbers later acknowledged that has been happening since 2016. New estimates for 2018 clearly confirm the continuing trend, said Pam Perlich, demographics director at the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

“In Salt Lake County, it’s just becoming more and more difficult for young families to afford housing close in,” Perlich said. “That’s pushing people farther and farther out — and there are just more open spaces in Utah County. And with an increase in employment opportunities in Utah County, it makes more and more sense for people to live and work there.”

Andrew Jackson, executive director of the Mountainland Association of Governments, a regional planning agency there, said more than just cheaper housing is fueling Utah County’s growth.

“We’re just friendly. We’re friendly to business. We’re friendly to people,” he said. People in the northern county can commute either to Salt Lake City or Provo, or closer to Silicon Slopes. And many people who attend Brigham Young University or Utah Valley University tend to like the area and stay.

The Provo-Orem metro area, covering part of Utah County, ranked No. 10 nationally among metro areas for growth at 2.7%

“A lot of people come through to both universities. They get married, find a job and often their siblings start moving here," Jackson said. “Then the parents move in to be with their kids and grandkids.”

Perlich notes that most of the immigration into Utah County and the state as a whole is domestic, from other states. She said Salt Lake County is an exception to that, and most immigrants there are international — perhaps drawn to its more urban setting, apartments and jobs.

Growth ringing the Wasatch Front

The move outward from Utah’s population center by people looking for more affordable housing or elbow room is fueling growth not only in Utah County, but also in counties that ring the Wasatch Front. Three of these counties were among the top 75 fastest growing large counties in America, the Census reported. Wasatch County was No. 12 nationally at 4%, Tooele was No. 23 at 3.7% and Juab was No. 75 at 2.7%.

Also, Heber City in Wasatch County ranked No. 3 nationally for its 4% growth among the nation’s “micropolitan areas” with populations between 10,000 and 50,000. It was No. 1 in the nation the previous two years.

Heber City and Wasatch County are examples of “the overflow really from the dynamic growth in Utah County,” Perlich said. “Many of those [Heber City] folk are commuting down to Utah County to work, and to some extent into Salt Lake County, too. ... The ring counties around the Wasatch Front are really absorbing a lot of that suburban expansion.”

Wasatch County Manager Mike Davis said people “aren’t coming here for economic reasons. Our property values are sky-high, and they can probably get more house for their money elsewhere. ...

“As I talk to people, most say they are coming here mostly for the lifestyle. It’s a little quieter, we’re close to the mountains, and we don’t have much pollution.”

St. George, Cedar City growth

New Census estimates suggest Iron County and its population center, Cedar City, are experiencing a growth pattern somewhat similar to areas ringing Salt Lake County, attracting overflow from the St. George metro area in neighboring Washington County.

“We’re getting some overflow,” said Iron County Commissioner Paul Cozzens. “A lot of people want to retire in St. George, but they find the property has become so expensive there that they migrate to Cedar City.”

Cozzens said Cedar City growth has also been fueled because of manufacturers coming or expanding there; a rail spur helping to attract new businesses; beautiful scenery; Southern Utah University; and construction of a new temple for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that has led many to move to be near it.

Those factors combined to help boost Cedar City to No. 4 nationally for growth among micropolitan areas at 3.8 percent, and appear to have pushed it into a higher classification as a metropolitan area, with a population estimated at 52,775. Iron County also grew 3.8 percent, ranking it No. 17 among large counties nationally.

Nearby St. George is still booming. It ranked No. 3 nationally among metropolitan areas for growth at 3.5%, down from its blistering 4% growth a year earlier that had ranked No. 1 nationally.

“Decelerating slightly is not necessarily a bad thing,” Perlich said. “When you have that kind of explosive rate, it’s very difficult to stay on top of quality growth and keep up with infrastructure…. These areas in southwest Utah have a strong but manageable growth rate right now.”

St. George has an extra challenge. Emily Harris, demographer at the Gardner Institute, notes that a recent study it conducted showed that besides its permanent residents — now at 171,700 — seasonal and overnight visitors increase that by 57,000 people at peak times, creating additional demands for services.

Three counties lose population

While the latest Census estimates show growth in most of Utah, three rural counties lost population: Daggett (down 4.1%), Wayne (down 1.1%) and Emery (down 0.1%).

Perlich said the shrinking population in Daggett, already the state’s smallest, came mostly because its county jail closed after the state pulled about 80 inmates in the wake of an inmate abuse scandal. The latest estimates indicate a loss of 44 people, dropping the county population to 980.

“The closure of a group quarters in such a small county has a big effect,” she said, with the loss of inmates and perhaps people who had worked there and their families.

The small decrease in Emery County — six people, with a population now of 10,014 — continues to show struggles in coal mining areas, she said. And Wayne, losing 31 people with a population of 2,690, is an example of a rural area where young people tend to move away to find jobs.

Still, Perlich said new data shows Utah growth overall is strong, and is sign that its healthy economy is attracting many new immigrants, which may change the face of the state and its culture.

“People are coming not just from the Intermountain West, they are moving cross country and they are moving internationally,” she said. “That’s driving the increasing diversity of Utah’s population linguistically, culturally, ethnically, racially and religiously.”