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The reaction to athletes transferring from a school usually fits one of two categories. Fans either believe it’s a sign of a failing program, or they diminish the athlete’s ability.

Armand Shyne seems to have found a sweet spot. The former Utah running back is moving to Texas Tech as a graduate transfer. Shyne is remembered for his contribution to the Utes’ first Pac-12 South championship, yet the program has so much depth at his position that his move is understandable.

Utah wouldn’t have beaten Oregon without Shyne’s 174-yard effort in the first game the Utes played without quarterback Tyler Huntley and running back Zack Moss. But with Moss returning and the Utes having developed considerable talent in the backfield, Shyne sought more of an opportunity to play as a senior. He may find it at Texas Tech, in former Utah State coach Matt Wells’ program.

Stories of the week

This is a big week for Utah’s gymnastics team, competing in the NCAA meet at Fort Worth, Texas. Lya Wodraska has it all covered for us, starting with this look at Ute stars MyKayla Skinner and MaKenna Merrell-Giles (TRIB).

And then there’s Sydney Soloski, doing her thing on the balance beam (TRIB).

Wodraska wonders how starting the meet on the floor may affect the Utes (TRIB).

From a national perspective, a Slate writer looked into why Skinner is so polarizing in the gymnastics world, with a conclusion that basically defends her demeanor (SLATE).

The Utes concluded spring football practice with the Red-White Game last weekend. One of the biggest stories was the Ken Garff family’s $17.5 million donation to the Rice-Eccles Stadium expansion project (TRIB).

The quarterbacks looked good against a depleted defense, but what about the kickers? (TRIB).

Tribune columnist Gordon Monson is impressed with the Utes, going into the 2019 season (TRIB).

Offensive coordinator Andy Ludwig has shown a lot of variety in his scheme, but fans can be assured that he understands Moss’ place in the program (TRIB).

Ute basketball coach Larry Krystkowiak always has a lot to say in his season-ending media interviews. In this year’s case, Ute athletic director Mark Harlan seemed to sense that Krystkowiak needed to hear an expression of support (TRIB).

Krystkowiak will rework his staff in some form, with the departure to UNLV of assistant coach DeMarlo Slocum after eight seasons at Utah. Donny Daniels will be part of the staff in one role or another, and that’s a healthy development for the program (TRIB).

Other voices

Do the Utes have a chance to make the College Football Playoff semifinals? Yes (barely), according to this ESPN analysis (ESPN).

Regardless of whether Ute fans consider Colorado their Pac-12 “rival,” this New York Times look into how the Buffs’ program is viewed in Boulder is interesting (NYT).

Dirk Facer of the Deseret News profiled Ute baseball star Oliver Dunn (DNEWS).

Around campus

• Utah’s baseball team (8-19, 3-12 Pac-12) claimed a series victory over USC last week, thanks to a pair of 5-4 wins. The Utes will host No. 12 Arizona State in a three-game series at Smith’s Ballpark, with 6 p.m. starts Thursday and Friday and a 1 p.m. first pitch Saturday.

• The challenging Pac-12 schedule continues for Utah’s softball team (14-26, 3-9). The Utes earned one win in three games at No. 25 Stanford last week. They will host No. 3 Washington in a series at Dumke Family Softball Stadium with games Thursday (6 p.m.), Friday (6 p.m.) and Saturday (noon).

• The Utah lacrosse team’s schedule is down to two home games remaining in the Utes’ inaugural Division I season. The Utes will meet Cleveland State on Saturday (noon) at Judge Memorial, coming off a 14-12 loss at Hartford. Utah (4-9) has lost six games in a row, with three defeats by two goals or fewer.

Video: Attorney General William P. Barr on April 18 discussed the release of the redacted report from special counsel Robert S. Mueller’s investigation. (The Washington Post)

When Attorney General William Barr announced he was going to hold a news conference before the release of the Mueller report Thursday, there was instant pushback. How can the media ask questions about a report it hasn’t seen? Would this just be a whole bunch of pre-spin from a man already accused of being too friendly to the president who appointed him?

Barr's performance did nothing to argue against those allegations.

In a lengthy opening statement, Barr found just about every way possible to say that there was no coordination, cooperation or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. He also said Trump was right about "no collusion," expanding Trump's exoneration to a more nebulous term with little legal significance.

But perhaps more importantly, on obstruction of justice, he seemed to go to bat for Trump personally, offering a sympathetic take on Trump's state of mind and cooperation. Here's the key section, from his prepared remarks:

"In assessing the President's actions discussed in the report, it is important to bear in mind the context. President Trump faced an unprecedented situation. As he entered into office, and sought to perform his responsibilities as President, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office, and the conduct of some of his associates. At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the President's personal culpability.

"Yet, as he said from the beginning, there was in fact no collusion. And as the Special Counsel's report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks. Nonetheless, the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel's investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely, and asserting no privilege claims.

"And at the same time, the President took no act that in fact deprived the Special Counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation. Apart from whether the acts were obstructive, this evidence of non-corrupt motives weighs heavily against any allegation that the President had a corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation."

Let's break this down.

The first objectionable aspect is Barr's decision to sympathize with Trump. It was an "unprecedented situation," according to Barr, and he was facing "relentless speculation."

That's a pretty loaded term. He was "frustrated and angered by a sincere belief" that the probe was undermining him. How does he know it was sincere?

Barr was asked about this in the Q&A portion, and he emphasized, "The statements about his sincere beliefs are recognized in the report that there was 'substantial evidence' for that." We will have to see what the report says.

But even then, why offer this kind of preemptive defense of Trump's motives? And why focus on all the ways in which Trump was absolved of culpability? Why take a shot at the media's "relentless speculation?" As more than a few people have noted, it's the kind of statement you'd expect from a Trump defense attorney rather than the attorney general.

Barr could have attributed all of these things to the Mueller report, but he didn't. We'll see whether Mueller drew the same conclusions, but this was a very conspicuous inclusion in Barr's prepared remarks. And the way it was framed was pretty much exactly what people were concerned about on Wednesday night when the news conference was announced.

The second problematic part is when Barr says "the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel's investigation."

There is evidence of extensive cooperation by the White House in fulfilling documents requests, providing staff for interviews, etc. But we also know that Special Counsel Robert Mueller wanted to interview Trump, and the White House fought it for months. Eventually, they issued written responses.

"Extensive cooperation" might have been justifiable; "full cooperation" was not. Not with Trump declining to give an interview. And given so much of this rests on Trump's frame of mind, Trump's decision not to explain himself directly to Mueller seems a pretty significant bit of uncooperativeness.

We should all see the full report and then judge Barr's alleged pre-spinning. But the danger here was always going to be that this would look like a political performance from an attorney general who's neutrality in this whole matter has been in question throughout. Barr wrote an unsolicited memo attacking the foundation of Mueller's obstruction probe.

He said in 2017 that the central event in the obstruction probe - the firing of James Comey - was AOK. And both his letter summarizing the Mueller report's principle conclusions and his recent testimony seemed to err on the side of benefiting Trump.

Barr made no effort Thursday to be mindful of that history and combat his perception problem. And even if he was accurately portraying the report, he seemed to pull out many of the most pro-Trump aspects of it, without dwelling on what might be problematic.

That’s what many feared.

Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Hill newspaper.

@aaronblake

Hale Centre Theatre's 2020 season will feature bluegrass music, ballroom dancing, a practically perfect nanny, a sinking ship, a murder, a jungle hero and a holiday classic — along with a “surprise.”

The Sandy theater company announced seven productions Thursday and said it’s keeping an eighth secret “due to the publisher’s request.”

The season will feature “Bright Star,” “Strictly Ballroom,” “Mary Poppins,” “Titanic: The Musical,” “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Tarzan” and “A Christmas Carol.”

“These productions will really allow us to showcase the staging and artistic capabilities of the two stages in our new home in Sandy, particularly our stage-flooding water features,” said Sally Dietlein, HCT executive producer and co-founder.

The shows will be staged in Hale's 467-seat Jewel Box Stage and the 911-seat Centre Stage. The schedule is:

• “Bright Star” (Jan. 20-May 2, Jewel Box Stage): This blue-grass musical is about a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who falls in love with a boy from a prominent family. Written and composed by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, it's set in the 1940s (with flashbacks to the 1920s).

• “Strictly Ballroom” (Feb. 5-Aprll 11, Centre Stage): Based on the 1992 movie — directed and co-written by Baz Luhrman — this musical is set behind the scenes of ballroom dance competitions.

• “Mary Poppins” (April 29-July 11, Centre Stage): This adaptation fuses P.L. Travers' books and the 1964 film, from which it draws several songs.

• “Titanic: The Musical” (Aug. 5-Oct. 17, Centre Stage): This 1997 show set on the doomed ocean liner in 1912 won five Tony Awards, including best musical.

• “Murder on the Orient Express” ( Aug. 24-Nov. 14, Jewel Box Stage): Based on Agatha Christie's 1934 novel, world-famous detective Hercule Poirot is trapped on a snowbound train with a murder victim and a slew of suspects.

• “Tarzan” (Nov. 9-Jan. 16, 2021, Centre Stage): This Disney musical is based on the 1999 animated film, with music by Phil Collins — including the Oscar-winning song “You'll be In My Heart.”

• “A Christmas Carol” (Nov. 30-Dec. 26, Jewel Box Stage): For the 36th consecutive year, Hale will present its Wilkins and Bradford musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic novel in which Ebenezer Scrooge learns the true meaning of Christmas.

According to Hale, information on ticket sales — including season-ticket renewals — will be announced “soon.” Tickets will be $36-48 for adults and $18-22 for children and teens ages 5-17. No one under the age of 5 is permitted in the theater.

Ticket information is available at 801-984-9000; at hct.org; or at the box office at 9900 S. Monroe Street in Sandy.

Traditional signs of spring include tulips and Easter eggs. New signs of spring at The Gateway include a narwhal flying through space and a unicorn breaking free from a canvas.

Vestar, the company that owns The Gateway, has hired Utah artists to create fantastic art installations with a spring theme. The artwork will fill 10 empty storefronts throughout the outdoor mall for the next three months.

Artists also will be able to open shops in their spaces during monthly Gateway Art Strolls, organized in partnership with the Salt Lake Gallery Stroll. The selected artists began creating their installations in early April, but the official launch of the new edition of the mall’s Art Shop Project is Friday.

Cait Lee, a graphic designer from Salt Lake City, learned about the project from her sister, Mika. With friend Jess Stevens, the sisters wanted to create a mystical and ethereal space, focusing on the idea of two worlds coming together.

They landed on “GalaxSea,” a playful display of sea creatures in space. The main focus of the installation is a giant 3D narwhal flying through space toward a black hole.

“We picked … something that people don’t really see that often,” Cait Lee said.

“Ideally, we want to catch people and make them take another look and figure out what is happening and take them to another dimension,” Mika Lee said. “People are rarely underwater or in outer space. We’re going to combine the two things and show them something that’s cool.”

Mika Lee said her sister has a “really unique take on art,” but is “kind of limited in what she does at work.”

But with Cait Lee’s experience “having gone to Burning Man and done different art rooms,” her sister said, “I thought that she’d be such a great addition to something that is being offered to Utah.”

The sisters plan to be among the artists who open a pop-up shop during the strolls.

“Not only will they have their window display, they’ll also be able to sell,” said Jacklyn Briggs, marketing director for Vestar. “Some of them are illustrators and other have sculpture pieces they can sell.”

Vestar purchased the mall in 2016 and began revitalizing the area, and incorporating art is a large part of its plan, Briggs said. Several previous versions of the Art Shop Project have been staged; with empty retail spaces in transition, “why not offer them up to local artists to create the window displays?” Briggs said.

Art murals can be seen around The Gateway, including a newly commissioned piece dedicated to Utah Jazz player Donovan Mitchell. The windows also join Dreamscapes, a 17-room interactive art exhibit that has extended its run until at least May 5 at 110 S. Rio Grande St. It’s next door to the Urban Arts Gallery, which also participates in the Gateway Art Stroll.

While the murals were created by artists from across the nation and world, the storefront windows and temporary art shops “give local artists some opportunities here too,” Briggs said.

Briggs said Vestar wanted the installations to be bright and playful to match The Gateway’s aesthetic of being an urban playground. The artists selected are an eclectic group, with some working in wood and others using glass to bounce light.

“It runs the gamut and they’ll all be different in their own way, but they definitely have the overall theme of spring,” Briggs said. “It’s a little outside of the box. It’s something special for people to appreciate.”

Anastasia Bolinder from Draper found out about the Art Shop Project through following Utah artists on Instagram. She wanted to do an installation based on the concept of breaking free. Her piece will have a large wire unicorn escaping a canvas.

“It will have fabric over the body and then will be painted with watercolor,” Bolinder said. “Behind it, we will have lights and we will also have 180-year-old paper that we will be putting together in sheets that are from an art book. It will have watercolor on that too, to add some bright, spring colors.”

Bolinder said she has always loved fantasy and was inspired by the chance to do something fun. “I thought, why not go as big as you could possibly go?” she said.

She also wanted to incorporate the idea of imagination, and create something that inspires people or makes them feel like a kid again.

“I feel that a lot of times growing up, you lose that sense of imagination,” Bolinder said. “But no matter what you’re doing, it’s always good to have imagination and to inspire creativity in other people.”

Chadwick Fairbanks III, one of four candidates seeking to lead the Utah Republican Party, deleted a series of posts from his campaign website Thursday that were copied without attribution from outside, conservative-oriented websites.

The posts, lifted in their entirety but with some minor alterations, were taken from the Washington Examiner, NewsWars and the Tenth Amendment Center and published under Fairbanks’ name at utahgopforchadwick.com. Their topics included the potential of Utah becoming a politically competitive or “purple” state, sanctuary cities and the national debt, respectively.

Fairbanks told The Salt Lake Tribune the posts were intended to include links back to their original sources, but his web manager had inappropriately taken liberties with the content.

“I have had a strongly-worded conversation with my guy and we are in the process of rectifying that,” Fairbanks said. “If it goes up, it will have the proper attribution. It will be totally redone.”

The misattributed posts were brought to The Tribune’s attention by an anonymous tipster, who emailed the newsroom objecting to the misattributions.

A spokeswoman for the Utah Republican Party said she was unaware of any formal complaints filed with the organization.

Two posts on Fairbanks’ website — dealing with the recent arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and a plan to improve the Utah Republican Party — appeared to be original works, but were also deleted Thursday.

Fairbanks said he had the practice of providing bullet points and a general topical direction to his staff, who would then create the content for his website. He said posts would be “staunchly” overseen in the future.

“We’re going to probably change how we do that altogether so we don’t run into any issues going forward,” he said.

When the big earthquake strikes Utah, most people know they should drop, cover and hold on. But after the ground stops moving, the next question can seem a little more daunting: What happens now?

After more than 130 minor earthquakes hit the area near Bluffdale in February, it’s a question that may hit closer to home for some residents in Salt Lake County. But as experts stressed emergency preparedness Thursday in conjunction with the 8th Great Utah ShakeOut — a drill mimicking a magnitude 7 earthquake along the Wasatch fault — they worry that’s a question people are not prepared to answer.

“When you look at how many responders we have versus how many people are going to be displaced — because we’re looking at 350,000 people displaced valleywide — there just aren’t enough responders to go around,” said John Flynt, Salt Lake City’s community preparedness coordinator.

That means people won’t be able to rely solely on emergency officials. And Flynt, the mastermind behind the SAFE Neighborhoods program, has a solution for that.

The disaster-preparedness initiative, which stands for Schools Aid Families in Emergencies, is centered around the philosophy that communities will need to help one another in case of an emergency. Under the program, each person in Salt Lake County should grab a prepared emergency kit after an earthquake and head to the nearest public elementary school, which will act as a hub for services.

All 147 elementary schools in Salt Lake County have a kit with basic organization materials and leadership job sheets for residents to use while managing their hubs, but each will likely operate differently. Some neighborhoods may have to use the school as a temporary shelter if their homes are unsafe, while others will use the school as an area for household reunification, information gathering and service coordination.

“This whole program was designed to bridge that gap between when the ground stops shaking and responders get there,” Flynt said. “The whole philosophy is sort of neighbor helping neighbor.”

The program has not yet expanded to other counties, Flynt said.

In conjunction with the neighborhood program, he also recommends people create a 96-hour emergency kit. It could take at least that long before they would receive assistance from emergency respondents, he said, and the residents would need to be self-sufficient.

While Flynt recognized that may seem intimidating, he encouraged residents to work on building their kit slowly rather than all at once, adding an item or two each month.

More than a million people participated in the Great ShakeOut on Thursday, including more than 600,000 K-12 students and employees at the state Capitol campus, according to a news release from the Utah Division of Emergency Management. The annual drill is meant to keep Utahns prepared for a major quake, which generally occurs about every 350 to 400 years.

Since pioneers settled Utah in 1847, the state’s largest earthquake was in 1934, when a 6.6 magnitude quake shook an area north of the Great Salt Lake. In 1901, an earthquake occurred near Richfield with an estimated magnitude of 6.5, according to information from the University of Utah.

On Thursday, Utah experienced three minor earthquakes: two in Ferron and one in East Carbon.

“We get anywhere from 700 to 800 small earthquakes in the state a year, but the frequency and the number we’ve had in just the last few months has been an inordinate number for the valley,” Flynt said. And while that doesn’t necessarily mean the big one is imminent, he said, it doesn’t decrease the chances either — and it’s best to be prepared before the ground starts to shake.

Though the official Utah ShakeOut Day of Action was Thursday, interested parties can register to hold their ShakeOut drill on any day of the year at http://ShakeOut.org/Utah.

For a time, President Donald Trump could plausibly say this wasn't just his fight. The previous administration of Barack Obama tacitly greenlit the 2015 Saudi intervention into what was then a civil war in Yemen. Four years later, the conflict has metastasized into a grim regional conflagration, pitting a U.S.-backed Saudi and Emirati-led coalition against the country's Houthi rebels, whose ties to Iran have only grown tighter amid the fighting.

Accurate figures are hard to come by, but it is estimated that 50,000 Yemenis have been killed in the war so far, including dozens of civilians slain in Saudi airstrikes using U.S.-made munitions. The bombardments and an ongoing blockade have contributed to the wholesale collapse of the country's economy. Nearly 10 million Yemenis live on the brink of famine, while thousands have endured (and succumbed to) outbreaks of cholera, diphtheria and other diseases that have spread amid the catastrophe.

Efforts by the United Nations to reach a diplomatic solution to the war trudge on, but a limited cease-fire doesn't appear to have set the stage for a lasting peace. Instead, battles continue to rage between an array of warring parties, including militias affiliated with extremist groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State. The United States provides the Saudi-led coalition with intelligence, aerial targeting assistance and, of course, billions of dollars in weapons. All the while, my Washington Post colleagues reported, "the Saudi-led effort, which has targeted civilian facilities and prevented aid shipments from getting to Yemenis, has been faulted by human rights organizations for exacerbating what the United Nations has deemed the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe."

This month, Trump was handed a seemingly perfect out from this mess. A resolution that landed on his desk last week, which had bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, invoked Vietnam-era limits on presidential war powers to force an end to American participation in the Yemeni war. Lawmakers contended that the continued American role in the conflict - which seemed strikingly outside the bounds of the post-9/11 authorization used to justify U.S. hostilities in multiple Middle East conflicts - required congressional consent.

"Without U.S. support, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman would likely be forced to end the war," noted a Washington Post editorial in March. "Unfortunately, the Trump administration is doubling down."

On Tuesday evening, Trump did just that, choosing to veto the measure. "This resolution is an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities, endangering the lives of American citizens and brave service members, both today and in the future," he said in a statement, suggesting that U.S. servicemen posted in other gulf countries were at risk from Houthi attacks outside of Yemeni territory. According to my colleagues, Trump also bristled at the implicit anti-Saudi line of the legislation, which picked up steam in the aftermath of the grisly murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump's critics on the Hill didn't hide their disappointment. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said the veto "shows the world he is determined to keep aiding a Saudi-backed war that has killed thousands of civilians and pushed millions more to the brink of starvation." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., decried Trump's decision to "contravene a bipartisan, bicameral vote of the Congress and perpetuate America's shameful involvement in this heartbreaking crisis."

Though the resolution's impact was always largely symbolic, critics of the Trump administration argue his veto only encourages a Saudi regime that has shown a propensity for recklessness abroad. "We did not intend U.S. support to the coalition to become a blank check," 30 former Obama officials wrote in a letter last year. "But today, as civilian casualties have continued to rise and there is no end to the conflict in sight, it is clear that is precisely what happened."

Humanitarian organizations warned of bleak times ahead for Yemenis. The veto "sends a sobering message to Yemeni families caught in the daily hell of war: our administration simply does not care," Scott Paul of Oxfam America said in an emailed statement. "With a veto, they lose faith in the United States and see the end to their suffering a little further out of reach."

The irony in Trump's resolute support of the Saudis is the extent to which it clashes with his broader political message. In his State of the Union address earlier this year, he said "great nations do not fight endless wars" and reiterated his desire to draw down U.S. involvement in Middle East battlegrounds. But, as John Glaser, a foreign policy expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote in an email, Trump has given yet another "bold signal that his administration remains committed to aiding the Saudi regime in its brutal war in Yemen, to the detriment of basic humanitarian values and U.S. strategic interests."

What explains this commitment to Riyadh? Of course, there is the administration's deep hostility toward Iran and Iranian influence in the Middle East, as well as the White House's desire to keep the Saudis onside as it carries out its quixotic quest toward a peace plan between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Critics also point to the Trump administration's tendency toward brazen, unilateral action, from its retreat from the nuclear deal with Iran to its controversial recognition of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Guardian columnist Simon Tisdall noted that Trump has displayed a "now systemic, vandalistic contempt for international law."

"Donald Trump's presidency makes plain that global supremacy has become an end in itself, unmoored from the interests of the American people and most of humanity," political historian Stephen Wertheim wrote last month. "'Our military dominance must be unquestioned,' Trump has declared, 'and I mean unquestioned.' Trump has stripped supremacy of ethical pretense and strategic justification. He values it for its own sake, as a gesture of brute domination."

And in his unflinching support for a disastrous war, it is ordinary Yemenis who feel the force of that brutishness.

Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor and correspondent at Time magazine, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.

@ishaantharoor

Fort Worth, Texas • Utah’s gymnastics team likens the season to climbing a mountain, with the goal of improving throughout the year so the Utes are in prime form at the NCAA Championships.

Unfortunately for the Utes, their last few NCAA Championships have ended not at the top, but in the valley of lows.

The Utes, who compete in the NCAA Championships Friday at 1 p.m. in Ft. Worth, finished ninth in 2016 and fifth the last two championships.

Utah is the third seed in its session this year, competing against UCLA, LSU and Michigan, but the Utes believe they can advance to the finals and earn their highest finish since placing second in 2015.

“One of the goals is to do better than we did last season and that takes getting to the final night to do that,” Utah coach Megan Marsden said. “That is the goal of all our teams, to be there on the final night because that is when the champion is determined.”

This year the format makes it harder to reach the finals since only four teams instead of six teams advance. Utah lost to both LSU and UCLA twice in the regular season and has a win over Michigan.

The Utes are matter-of-fact when they say they aren’t sure they can beat the Bruins, who seem to be competing in a league of their own lately, but they do feel they can upend the Tigers.

“We know our seed is kind of hard, but we are going to be in front of six judges so the judging should be more fair and we won’t be in SEC territory,” Utah junior MyKayla Skinner said. “It’s going to go to the team that has the meet of their life that night, and hopefully we can get the job done.”

The Utes are well aware they need to have that kind of meet after their experience at regionals. There, the Utes had a mediocre effort the first night. They didn’t have any falls, but they lacked the big scores too.

Utah knows it can’t afford that kind of showing at nationals, especially after having lost to the Bruins and Tigers previously.

“We are going to have to come out guns blazing on the first day,” Marsden said. “We can’t approach it like we did at regionals when we were flat and good but not great. We were fortunate enough to advance but we have to come out sticking every vault and every dismount from the beginning.”

It sounds like a simple philosophy, but it has been a hard one for the Utes to grasp of late.

While other teams have noticeably picked up their efforts at nationals, the Utes have not. Their weakness hasn’t been so much falls, but just a lack of urgency.

This year the Utes have been very consistent, but do they have the necessary fire?

Skinner, the most demonstrative member of the team, just shakes her head at the question. She is as frustrated by the letdowns as anyone involved.

“I’ve wanted this team to feel that the last two years,” she said. “It’s like we have made it to nationals so cool, we’re here. But we don’t just want to make it to nationals. We want it to end the way we want it to. We have worked so hard and we want to show that. We don’t have anything to lose so let’s go freaking kill it.”

Skinner’s thoughts were echoed by her teammate MaKenna Merrell-Giles, who seems to relish the Utes’ underdog status.

“It’s almost like a movie, all of us in that one session,” she said. “It’s going to be tough, but it has been our goal to get to the final day of nationals. We have been preparing for this all season.”

The owners of Salt Lake City’s Five Alls have decided to close their five-decade-old eatery, which at one time was one of Utah’s most popular restaurants for wedding proposals, birthday celebrations, holiday meals and dinner before the high school prom.

“We had a great 50-year run,” said Anne Halliday Lentz, a daughter of founder Richard Halliday, who opened the restaurant in 1969 and attracted customers with single-priced five-course Scottish meals served on old-English-style pewter plates and goblets.

The Five Alls signature appetizer was its clam dip served with freshly baked breadsticks, but other menu items were just as beloved — from the spinach soup and chicken Kiev to the cheesecake.

Lentz closed the restaurant, at 1458 S. Foothill Drive, last week and announced her decision on the restaurant’s Facebook page. The post garnered nearly 200 comments and shares along with dozens of sad-face emojis.

“We are heartbroken,” one customer wrote. “My wife and I have been every year since we met, for all of our special occasions.”

“A friend recommended Five Alls in 1971 for our first anniversary,” wrote another regular. “That started a tradition that lasted 48 years, adding birthdays along the way. Our last visit was last month. Always looked forward to the clam dip and breadsticks. Your soups were to die for!”

Brandon Fugal said his family members — who all live in Pleasant Grove — have been regular customers since the restaurant opened. “Honestly, four generations of my family have made it their favorite restaurant.”

It started with Fugal’s parents, Dan and Jill, who married in 1969 and were some of the first Five Alls customers, he said. As the Fugal family grew to include four sons, and grandchildren, the Five Alls became the go-to restaurant for special occasions and parties.

When Fugal married his wife, Lacey, 24 years ago, the Five Alls become their weekly “date night tradition," ordering the filet of Oscar and sitting in one of the booths in the back. “For the last 15 years, we don’t even ask for menus,” he said. “The staff already knows our order and where we want to sit.”

Even though the menu and decor remained the same for decades, Fugal said, his family never tired of the Five Alls. “It’s the most unique dining experience in Utah,” he said, “and it’s a tragedy to see yet another multigenerational institution close.”

Indeed, the Five Alls joins a long list of iconic restaurants — including the New Yorker, Lamb’s Grill and The Oaks in Ogden Canyon — that have closed in recent years.

Part of Five Alls’ allure was its old-English decor — which included a cottage-style front door and swords and shields on the walls. Even the name, the “five alls” was a nod to a classic British pub sign that depicts five men: the king, who “governs all”; the bishop, who “prays for all”; the lawyer, who “pleads for all”; the soldier, who “fights for all”; and the countryman with a scythe and rake, who “pays for all.”

Richard Halliday learned the restaurant business while working for Finn Gurholt, the founder of the original Finn’s Restaurant on Parleys Way, becoming an excellent baker and chef before branching out on his own, said Lentz, who noted that her father met her mother when she was a waitress at the Five Alls.

When the couple divorced, Lentz, who was still in high school, stepped in to help run the restaurant.

While she won’t miss “the stress of running a restaurant,” Lentz said, she will miss the customers.

“They’re why I did this job and why I did it for so long,” she said. “I’ve spent 22 years in the dining room, and I see some of them every single week. I have a relationship with them.”

Six months ago, Richard Halliday — described by his daughter as the “heart and soul” of the restaurant — was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and has been unable to help run the place.

That left Lentz to not only run the Five Alls kitchen — something her father did — but also care for her ailing parents and rear the three young children — ages 9, 6 and 2 — she has with her husband.

Something had to give, she said. “This is my dad’s baby,” she explained. “He and I did it together, and without him, maybe it’s OK to say goodbye.”

She plans to have an open house soon, when she will sell goblets, plates and other memorabilia. “My goal is to pay off the bills and close free and clear of any debt,” she said. “But I also want customers to have a little piece of what mattered to them.”

Before that happens, though, the landlord and some of the employees may try to reopen the restaurant, said Paul Latteier, who worked as the Five Alls host for at least 20 years. “There are a lot of people who want to see it stay.”

First, they must find financial backing and hire one of the previous chefs.

“We’ll have to see,” said Latteier, who also owns the copy shop in the basement and is keeping his fingers crossed. “There so many things that are unique about Five Alls.”

New York • The percentage of U.S. adults who belong to a church or other religious institution has plunged by 20 percentage points over the past two decades, hitting a low of 50% last year, according to a new Gallup poll. Among major demographic groups, the biggest drops were recorded among Democrats and Hispanics.

Gallup said church membership was 70% in 1999 — and close to or higher than that figure for most of the 20th century. Since 1999, the figure has fallen steadily, while the percentage of U.S. adults with no religious affiliation has jumped from 8% to 19%.

Among Americans identifying with a particular religion, there was a sharp drop in church membership among Catholics — dropping from 76% to 63% over the past two decades as the church was buffeted by clergy sex-abuse scandals. Membership among Protestants dropped from 73% to 67% percent over the same period.

Among Hispanic Americans, church membership dropped from 68% to 45% since 2000, a much bigger decline than for non-Hispanic white and black Americans.

There was a big discrepancy over that 20-year period in regard to political affiliation: Church membership among Democrats fell from 71% to 48%, compared to a more modest drop from 77% to 69% among Republicans.

David Campbell, a University of Notre Dame political science professor who studies religion’s role in U.S. civic life, attributed the partisan divide to “the allergic reaction many Americans have to the mixture of religion and conservative politics.”

“Increasingly, Americans associate religion with the Republican Party,” he said, “and if they are not Republicans themselves, they turn away from religion.”

Mark Chaves, a professor of sociology, religion and divinity at Duke University, said that as recently as the 1970s, it was difficult to predict someone’s political party by the regularity with which they went to church.

“Now it’s one of the best predictors,” he said. “The correlation between religiosity and being Republican has increased over the years.”

The overall decline in church membership is driven by cultural and generational factors, said Nancy Ammerman, a professor of the sociology of religion at Boston University.

“Culturally, we are seeing significant erosion in the trust people have for institutions in general and churches in particular,” she said. “We are also seeing a generational shift as the ‘joiner’ older generation dies off and a generation of non-joiners comes on the scene.”

The new Gallup findings underscore that generational dynamic. Among Americans 65 and older, church membership in 2016-2018 averaged 64% percent, compared to 41% among those ages 18-29.

“The challenge is clear for churches, which depend on loyal and active members to keep them open and thriving,” wrote Gallup poll analyst Jeffrey Jones. “How do they find ways to convince some of the unaffiliated religious adults in society to make a commitment to a particular house of worship of their chosen faith?

“These trends are not just numbers, but play out in the reality that thousands of U.S. churches are closing each year,” Jones added. “Religious Americans in the future will likely be faced with fewer options for places of worship, and likely less convenient ones, which could accelerate the decline in membership even more.”

Professor Scott Thumma, who teaches sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary, suggested several likely factors behind the decline. Among them, he said religious young adults are delaying marriage, postponing having children, and, when they do, having fewer children.

He also suggested there was diminished social pressure to formally join organizations.

“I’ve encountered many persons in churches that have attended for several years but did not officially join or become a member,” he said by email. “This is also evident in persons switching from one congregation to another without joining any.”

The findings are based on Gallup surveys conducted over the last 20 years, with most surveys including at least 2,000 U.S. adults and having a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Some findings are based on aggregated interviews from 1998-2000 and 2016-2018, with each period including interviews with more than 7,000 adults.

Gallup reported there were “insufficient cases to provide reliable estimates on church membership among other religions, but the data suggest that membership in a place of worship has been stable among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (near 90% in both time periods) and Jews (in the mid- to low 50% range in both time periods) over the past two decades.

Vatican City • Pope Francis ushered in the most solemn period in the Catholic liturgical calendar by celebrating a Holy Thursday Mass and the ritual washing of the feet, made more poignant this year after the devastation of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral.

The Chrism Mass celebrates the unity of priests with their bishops. During Thursday’s service in St. Peter’s Basilica, Francis blessed the holy oils that will be used over the course of the year in the administration of sacraments.

In his homily, Francis stressed that when priests use the oil, they are distributing their vocation and heart to the people of God.

“We anoint by dirtying our hands in touching the wounds, the sins and the worries of the people,” he said. “We anoint by perfuming our hands in touching their faith, their hopes, their fidelity and the unconditional generosity of their self-giving.”

This year, the final days of Holy Week — which for Catholics commemorates Christ’s crucifixion, death and resurrection — have taken on particular resonance after the fire at Notre Dame, a symbol of French Catholicism.

Francis has offered his condolences repeatedly to the French faithful, and French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that during a call to Francis after the blaze, he had invited the pontiff to visit Paris. On Wednesday, Francis fielded a call from U.S. President Donald Trump offering the sympathy of the American people over the loss, the Vatican spokesman said.

Later Thursday, Francis travels outside Rome to Velletri, where he will celebrate the ritual foot-washing ceremony at a prison. Francis has frequently chosen to wash the feet of prisoners during the Holy Thursday ritual, which re-enacts Christ’s washing the feet of his disciples, in a bid to show his willingness to serve even those on the farthest margins of society.

On Friday, he presides over the Way of the Cross procession at Rome’s Colosseum reenacting Christ’s crucifixion, followed by the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday in a flower-decked St. Peter’s Square.

The number of adults in Utah considered to be at an unhealthy weight has remained roughly the same over the past decade — but individuals here who are already overweight are becoming more so, according to a new study released by the state.

And it’s leading to widespread health problems and hundreds of premature deaths each year. Michael Friedrichs, an epidemiologist with the Utah Department of Health who led the research published Thursday, calls it “the hidden epidemic.”

“These people are at higher risk for hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, as well as certain types of cancer,” he added. “This shift is really concerning.”

In Utah, three in five adults are at an unhealthy weight, the data shows. Of those, the percentage in the obesity category has jumped to 41.7% up from 32.8% in 1999. If the trend doesn’t change, soon more than half of those at an unhealthy weight will be obese.

Overall, Utah still has some of the lowest obesity rates in the country. About one in four adults in the state is obese, but 40% of adults nationwide are obese. (The data counts people with a body mass index of 30 or more as obese and those above 25 as overweight.)

The state’s numbers have remained relatively static since 2011, when 23.4% were obese. Twenty years ago, though, the numbers hovered around 12%. Public health experts say that might not seem like a fast jump, but it has significant consequences.

People who are obese are more likely to have heart attacks — a risk that jumps 40 percent just between the overweight and obese categories — and to develop diabetes. Additionally, Friedrichs said, the cost for medical care goes up exponentially.

In 2008, the estimated yearly health care cost of obesity was $147 billion in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Friedrichs believes there’s an emerging mindset that obesity is normal or “it’s just the way of the world.” Even President Donald Trump’s doctor categorized him as obese as part of his 2019 physical exam.

“But we should be paying attention,” the epidemiologist said. “All across society we need to work on this.”

The health department has started a healthy living program to help residents make better food and exercise choices — including going into schools and workplaces to talk about it.

A federal judge on Thursday barred the state from enforcing Utah’s new abortion restrictions while a case challenging their constitutionality winds its way through the courts.

HB136, passed by the Utah Legislature during the session that ended in March, bans elective abortions after 18 weeks of gestation. The Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah have filed a lawsuit to strike down the law, saying it violates longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

The office of Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes on Thursday filed a motion agreeing to what’s called a preliminary injunction that would prevent the 18-week ban from taking effect in May. The ACLU and Planned Parenthood welcomed Reyes’ motion and a judge’s decision to issue the injunction.

“This means there will be no disruption in care for the Utah women seeking abortion services at or after 18 weeks,” Karrie Galloway, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood in Utah, said in a prepared statement. “Every person deserves the right to decide whether and when to become a parent, and we will continue to fight to protect the constitutional rights of Utahns to access safe, legal abortion.”

In their motion, state lawyers acknowledged the “case raises important questions that deserve thoughtful and careful consideration.”

But Reyes also emphasized that his office wasn’t conceding problems with the law.

“Since we expect this case or one like it to be elevated to the United States Supreme Court, this injunction lets both the state and the plaintiffs carefully and thoughtfully build factual records in support of their positions,” he said in a statement. “In the process, we look forward to vigorously defending HB136 and explaining why it constitutionally protects the most vulnerable among us.”

A separate filing submitted by Sim Gill, the Salt Lake County district attorney, said HB136 is “plainly contrary to binding legal precedent” and that enforcing it would be a violation of established federal law.

The new abortion measure creates criminal penalties for physicians who violate the 18-week ban, and Gill is named as a defendant in the case because he theoretically would be tasked with holding these doctors accountable under the new law. The only two Utah clinics that provide abortion services are in Salt Lake County, Gill’s jurisdiction.

A legal filling from Gill’s office argued that Planned Parenthood’s “true quarrel is not with him but with the State of Utah.”

“Any public policy that would require a prosecutor to intervene with a patient and their doctor should require strict adherence to the Constitution to ensure no state action violates the individual liberty of our citizens,” Gill said in a prepared statement. “Our office will not violate anyone’s constitutional rights without absolute clarity.”

The ACLU and Planned Parenthood contend that HB136 is unconstitutional because it goes against case law protecting the right to abortion before a fetus is viable outside the womb. Opinions differ about exactly when this point occurs in a pregnancy, but most experts peg it at around 24 weeks.

Attorneys on both sides of the suit met in federal court Thursday to schedule the case and discuss the injunction.

After the brief hearing, Rep. Cheryl Acton, a West Jordan Republican who sponsored HB136, said she supports the state in agreeing to an injunction.

“Hopefully, by forfeiting the battle we’ll win the war,” she said. “We want to focus not on fighting the injunction ... but on the arguments that we’ll make further down the line.”

Even while pushing HB136 through the Legislature, Acton acknowledged it would almost certainly be challenged in court and could cost the state $1 million to $3 million to defend. However, she says she hopes this law and abortion restrictions under legal challenge elsewhere in the nation will ultimately convince the U.S. Supreme Court to give the states control over the practice.

Chayden Johnston will be remembered in Utah football history as the kicker who initially beat out a Lou Groza Award winner. The field goal attempt that Johnston missed in the 2017 season opener will remain his only kick in college football.

Five days after concluding spring practice as Utah’s No. 1 kicker, according to Kyle Whittingham, Johnston announced he is giving up football with three seasons of eligibility left. The move promotes freshman walk-on Jadon Redding to the top position on the depth chart after a back-and-forth competition with Johnston during the spring.

Redding hit the left upright from 31 yards in his only field goal attempt of last Saturday’s Red-White Game. Johnston missed from 43 yards. Each kicker was inconsistent in terms of accuracy during Utah’s two major scrimmages, although Johnston displayed a much stronger leg than Redding. Johnston had been named one of Utah’s five captains for the spring, representing the specialists.

Whittingham said Saturday that Johnston had moved ahead of Redding, as charted by the coaches through 15 days of practice. Their kicks in the Red-White Game were “both very makable, obviously,” Whittingham said. “And that’s disappointing, but it’s still a work in progress.”

In his social media post Thursday, Johnston said, “For myself and my family it is in my best interest to move on to my next chapter as I pursue my goal to work as a health care professional.”

Redding is from Fredricksburg, Va., where he kicked a 52-yard field goal in high school as a senior in 2017. He said last year that he intended to enroll at a community college for the 2018 fall semester to improve his grades, while sitting out of football, and seek an opportunity at a four-year school. He enrolled at Utah in January.

Johnston, from Bingham High School, joined Utah’s program in 2017. He won a preseason competition with Matt Gay and got to attempt a 45-yard field goal in the season opener vs. North Dakota. The kick was wide left, by “maybe a foot,” Johnston said later. Whittingham gave Gay the next opportunity and Gay kept the job for two seasons, winning the 2017 Lou Groza Award as the country’s best kicker. He’s expected to be picked in next week’s NFL draft.

Johnston redshirted in 2018, not appearing in any games, while Whittingham endorsed him as Utah’s kicker of the future.

Whittingham is expected to look for another kicker to compete with Redding between now and the start of practice July 31.

Washington • All sides found something they wanted on Robert Mueller Day.

The long-anticipated report from special counsel Robert Mueller landed Thursday, and this town, full of policy wonks, political activists and journalists, was obsessed. People gathered around office TVs to watch the unveiling. They pulled up the report on their iPhones on the bus and the train.

Even cabdrivers were talking about it.

“No Collusion — No Obstruction!” President Donald Trump tweeted minutes after Attorney General William Barr described the report as absolute proof that there was no “collusion" between the president’s campaign and Russia.

Responded House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.: Mueller’s “report does not exonerate the president. Indeed, the report indicates that President Trump tried on multiple occasions to obstruct justice, only to be thwarted by advisers who knew better.”

Unsurprisingly, despite few people having read the entire 448-page report (sans its plentiful redactions), everyone had an opinion within hours. Or minutes.

"I am pleased that special counsel Mueller was able to complete his investigation and is helping bring to justice those who allowed Russian meddling in the 2016 election,” Rep. Ben McAdams, D-Utah, said in a statement that came 20 minutes before the actual report was released.

McAdams said he looked forward to reviewing it and the public deserved to see it.

“If the conclusion remains that there is no further criminal wrongdoing," McAdams said, “I think we should, as a country, move on and ensure that Russia cannot interfere again.”

Depending on which side folks found themselves Thursday, there was plenty of information to back a case.

Did the campaign collude? There wasn’t proof.

Did the president obstruct justice? He tried.

Was Russia trying to help Trump? Yes.

Did Trump’s associates want that help? Yes.

Nearly two years and tens of millions of dollars spent by the special counsel’s office confirmed reporting that the public had already seen, but it wasn’t swaying the stalwarts who have accused the president of wrongdoing or his defenders who backed Trump’s assertion that the whole thing was a witch hunt.

“The Mueller report is finally available and it is definitive: there was no collusion,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, tweeted.

The Mueller report is finally available and it is definitive: there was no collusion.

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) April 18, 2019

Mueller’s findings back that up, though don’t ever use the word collusion: “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

That said, the 22-month investigation brought charges against 34 people and three entities — a total of 200 criminal counts. That includes convictions or guilty pleas by Trump’s former campaign manager, his former national security adviser and his former lawyer. Longtime adviser Roger Stone is still awaiting trial and denied the charges.

While the president and allies claimed victory, the report was far from the clean bill of health the White House wanted.

The president, the report says, directed aides at times to take actions — like firing Mueller, for instance — and they refused out of concern they might be breaking the law.

“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” the report said. “Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime," the report adds, “it also does not exonerate him.”

That was not a line Republicans used in commenting on the report.

“I am encouraged that we may now turn the page on this distracting chapter of U.S. history,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah. “The office of the attorney general and the special counsel have concluded that there was no collusion and no obstruction. I am satisfied with these conclusions and ready to move forward. I urge all my congressional colleagues to return their attention to legislating and serving our constituents.”

In fact, the report says that multiple members of Trump’s team lied to investigators or to Congress and the president had attempted to stymie the Mueller probe but was saved by aides from crossing the legal line.

Though it was clear the report would not be the end of the Russia investigation and probes of Trump — there are ongoing investigations in New York and Congress is likely to call Mueller to testify soon — the message from the right flank on Thursday was it’s time to move on.

"Mr. Mueller conducted a detailed and thorough investigation that mirrors what we found in the House Intelligence investigation — no collusion or conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and Russia,” said. Rep. Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who sits on the House Intelligence Committee and has been a staunch defender of Trump in the Russia probe.

pic.twitter.com/O0bUPyNSst

— Rep. Chris Stewart (@RepChrisStewart) April 18, 2019

“Now that the American people know the truth," Stewart continued, “I look forward to moving beyond the political theatrics and coming together to work on behalf of the American people.”

But, first, interested people will likely try to finish reading the report.

This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Friday, April 19, 2018. You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below:

• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/18/bagley-cartoon-ruinous/" target=_blank><u>The Ruinous Green New Deal </u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/04/16/bagley-cartoon-cross/"><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>

Want more Bagley? Become a fan on Facebook.

Houston • Fumbling the ball out of bounds, then failing to rotate and allowing a lob for a dunk. Losing control of the ball again the next time down, yielding a transition layup, and committing a silly foul for a three-point play to top it off. One missed shot, two missed shots, three missed shots in a row to follow.

That’s how the Jazz started Game 2 on Wednesday. That’s how they fell behind almost immediately.

It not only didn’t get better in the subsequent minutes, it somehow got worse. More inability to handle Houston’s pressure. More coughing the ball up. More missed shots from the perimeter. And more missed defensive assignments.

After all the talk in the days following Game 1’s 32-point blowout about the need to impose their will early, how did the Jazz manage to come out so flat and lifeless in Game 2?

“They’re playing more aggressive than we are. We’re a little too nice. If you’re going to be nice, you’re going to get your ass kicked every night,” said center Rudy Gobert. “It’s just mental. We can say whatever we want, but if we’re too nice, they’re not going to respect us — they’re going to kick our ass.”

Yeah, after losing the first two games of the series by a combined 52 points (and it was really only that close because Houston played a somewhat disjointed second half Wednesday night), it’s fair to say that’s what’s happened so far.

Why, though? How has it gone so wrong for a team that’s universally regarded for its toughness?

Donovan Mitchell said Utah simply didn’t have it from the start: “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. … 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.”

Coach Quin Snyder lamented that they didn’t play with more impact: “We weren’t strong enough with the ball, and we have to play with more force offensively to get where we want to go. When we did that and were able to get in the paint and were doing some things we want to do, good things can happen.“

Ricky Rubio, in a fiery postgame news conference, said the team lacked any presence until it was too late: “In the second half … they felt us for a second. They didn’t feel us at all the first two quarters [Wednesday] and in the first game for most of the time. It’s just about us competing.”

The point guard wasn’t done there, though.

While he credited the Rockets for playing well, he also said there were plenty of issues with the Jazz’s own play, starting with what he perceived as a lack of conviction.

“I think it was more us not playing with confidence. We have to play with confidence — on both ends of the floor,” Rubio said. “We haven’t had any good stretch where we feel like [we’ve shown] the team we are.”

Finally, asked how he felt about the team’s strategy for defending James Harden and whether a change was necessary, he suggested the scheme was not working optimally because of insufficient investment from the players.

“I think we haven’t been buying in 100%. And if you’re not 100%, you’ve already lost the battle,” Rubio said. “So we just have to really be the team that we are. We’re a pretty good team with great guys. But it’s about, ‘Man up and play defense.’ ”

Whatever their issues, the Jazz are running out of time to fix them.

Still, they’re not yet to the point where they’ve given up hope they can do just that.

Rubio said he was envisioning the Jazz returning to Houston in a week with the series tied 2-2. Snyder, meanwhile, pointed out the Jazz have overcome so much adversity all season due to a slow start and an assortment of injuries that the team is already well-versed in resilience.

“Our group has been a group that’s always responded, and that’s what we have to do. We played poorly and we’ve got to be better.” he said. “… Sometimes you go through things in order to come out the other side and be better. Things like this.”

Search and rescue crews looking for a 35-year-old man who went missing in Zion National Park earlier this week found his body Thursday at the bottom of the park’s iconic Angels Landing rock formation.

The body was found Thursday morning, and investigators later confirmed it was Pradeep Beryl Solomon, spokeswoman Aly Baltrus said in a news release.

Solomon, who lived in northern Utah, was reported missing Wednesday after he didn’t return home from a trip to the park, where he planned to hike Angels Landing.

Baltrus said the park didn’t receive any reports of a man falling from the trail in the last few days, but it was raining Tuesday and there were fewer visitors in the area.

The trail, which includes steep sections and has exposure near long drops-offs, also gets slick when wet, she said, and the injuries the man received were consistent with a long fall.

A 13-year-old girl died when she fell from the trail in February 2018. A 45-year-old man died after a suspected fall from the trail in March 2017. That was the first death on the trail since a California woman fell to her death in 2010.

“Our deepest condolences go out to the Solomon family and friends,” park superintendent Jeff Bradybaugh said in a statement. “We are all deeply saddened by this outcome.”

As The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints prepares to unveil plans Friday to renovate its most iconic edifice, the Salt Lake Temple, its leader has extended sympathy to Pope Francis and hundreds of millions of Roman Catholics around the world after the devastating fire at Notre Dame in Paris.

President Russell M. Nelson, who met with Francis last month at the Vatican in the first-ever private audience between a Latter-day Saint prophet and a Catholic pontiff, wrote the pope a personal note expressing “profound sadness at the damage done to this sacred structure that has stood for more than 800 years,” according to a news release Thursday from the Utah-based faith.

Nelson, leader of more than 16 million Latter-day Saints across the globe, said he is “heartbroken by the tragedy to such an ageless symbol of faith,” the release said, “and shares his feelings of grief.”

In a tweet, Nelson said “Latter-day Saints are remembering our Catholic brothers and sisters” and praying that Notre Dame “will rise again in newness of life.”

Upon learning of the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral, I wrote @Pontifex Pope Francis to express that Latter-day Saints are remembering our Catholic brothers and sisters. We pray that Notre Dame will rise again in newness of life.

— Russell M. Nelson (@NelsonRussellM) April 18, 2019

The release also noted Latter-day Saint authorities have written similar letters to the archbishop of Paris, stating their “hope both for the people of France and the entire Christian world that Notre Dame will be restored as a symbol of faith," and to Bishop Oscar A. Solis, whom Francis appointed in 2017 to lead the Diocese of Salt Lake City.

Latter-day Saints partner with Catholic charities in many developing nations. They also team up on religious liberty and family issues.

Said Nelson after his historic encounter with the pope: “What a sweet, wonderful man he is and how fortunate the Catholic people are to have such a gracious, concerned, loving and capable leader.”

The 2018 version of Real Salt Lake’s offense was all over the place. It scored 12 goals in two weeks at one point, while also giving up at least three goals in 10 games, including the playoffs. It was fourth in the league in shots on goal during the regular season, but also had the worst goal differential of any playoff team in either conference.

Through seven games of the 2019 season, those trends appear to have continued and look slightly worse. While RSL has played well in spurts and is coming off a win over Orlando City SC in which it put away its most goals in open play, the team still ranks at the bottom of Major League Soccer in several key offensive categories.

RSL is last in the league in corner kicks (20), shoots the highest percentage of shots from outside the 18-yard box (57%), and is tied with three other teams for the lowest percentage of time spent in the attacking third of the field (22%). Those seem like nerdy numbers, but they point to the possibility that Real hasn’t yet found its attacking swagger.

Forward and designated player Jefferson Savarino said Tuesday that he thinks the team hasn’t yet reached its level of sharpness when it comes to its attack. He pointed a lack of movement as the possible culprit.

“I think we haven’t had much movement,” Savarino said. “But I think game after game, we’re going to find the rhythm and the attack that maybe, for the moment, we have [not] had in previous matches.”

Corner kicks, possession in the attacking third and shots inside the 18-yard box all generally indicate how much pressure the offensive team puts on the defense. The higher the numbers in any those measures, the better chances a team has to score.

Coach Mike Petke, when told Thursday of those statistics, said they tell him “we have to improve on corner kicks, we have to improve on possession in the opponent’s half, we have to improve on opportunities in the 18-yard box.” But he also said it’s too early in the season to give too much credence to those numbers. The fact that RSL has accumulated four red cards and played in three of the most difficult stadiums in the league also play a part, he said.

“We have 27 games left,” Petke told The Salt Lake Tribune. “Those numbers right now — our environment, where we’ve been, playing down a man if not two men — those numbers are obviously going to go lower.”

Midfielder Albert Rusnák said the low attacking numbers can be attributed to RSL having played four of its first seven games on the road. That causes Real to be “under it” for the majority of the game, he said.

The numbers prove Rusnák’s point, but only slightly. Of the 20 corner kicks, nine have been on the road. RSL shoots 54% of its shots from outside the 18 at home (second in the league) compared to 59% on the road (first). And it sits in the bottom three teams in MLS in possession in the attacking third both home and away.

Defender Donny Toia said regardless of where the shots come from, the only thing that needs to improve is capitalizing on those opportunities.

“We create a lot of chances,” Toia said. “Now it’s just a matter of finishing — whether it’s outside the 18 or inside the 18. So I think that’s one thing we have to focus on is now just finishing our chances, the ones that we create.”

Rusnák, in regards specifically to corner kicks on the road, said the team shouldn’t necessarily focus on getting more of those opportunities because the players don’t have the collective size to score much from those plays. But he would like to see RSL find a way to put pressure on the opponent’s third more when they’re away from Rio Tinto Stadium.

Petke said that team is not yet at the point yet where it stops being “early” in the season. To that end, he reiterated that are many games left to become a better attacking team.

“At the end of the day, of course, you always want to raise those numbers and you always want to improve,” Petke said. “We have a hell of a lot of time to go to improve.”