This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday, Aug. 4, 2019. You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below:

• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/08/01/bagley-cartoon-telling/#gallery-carousel-4773190" target=_blank><u>Telling Tales</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/31/bagley-cartoon-medicaid/"><u>Medicaid Contractions</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/29/bagley-cartoon-not-all/"><u>Not All Swamps Are In D.C.</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/26/bagley-cartoon-gop-secret/"><u>GOP Secret Weapon</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/25/bagley-cartoon-hard/"><u>Hard Brexit</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/23/bagley-cartoon-mulling/"><u>Mulling Mueller’s Meaning</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/22/bagley-cartoon-theres/"><u>There’s Always Room for Tolerance</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/19/bagley-cartoon-simpler/"><u>Simpler Crooked Times</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/18/bagley-cartoon-flim-flam/"><u>Flim-Flam</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/16/bagley-cartoon-one-big/"><u>One Big Mic Drop</u></a>

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Late last week, news broke that the Trump administration will not be approving Utah’s pending Medicaid waiver. This news is kind of confusing, so let me sum it up as briefly as possible.

For advocates of full Medicaid expansion, (i.e. the majority of Utahns who voted for Proposition 3 last year), this is good news! I know that praising anything the Trump administration has done on health care is a difficult concept for many — myself included — to comprehend. And in actuality, the administration’s reasoning behind not approving this waiver is really bad. But the results of that unapproved waiver are good, at least for now. So here we are.

The waiver that was denied, had it been approved, would have allowed Utah to break the federal rules for Medicaid expansion which, by the way, have never been approved for any other state that has asked. This waiver would have allowed us to pay only 10% of the costs while the federal government paid 90%, which is the match offered to every state that follows the rules. This match was initially available to Utah after Proposition 3 passed last year. However, Utah legislators wanted the same financial deal, but wanted to break the rules for how many people we could cover (they wanted to cover fewer), and they wanted to add harmful, illegal stipulations to that coverage and who receives it (neither stipulations were included in the people’s bill).

When federal officials made it clear to Gov. Gary Herbert and legislative leadership that we would not be receiving the partial expansion waiver, it sent the message to the Legislature that no, they can’t only expand Medicaid partially and get the same financial match. And in spite of the fact that, again, no other state had ever received this waiver, conservative members of the Legislature insisted earlier this year that we would be the exception to the rule. Spoiler alert: We weren’t.

The people of Utah voted for full Medicaid expansion and wanted to follow the federal rules to do it. Some conservative members of the Utah Legislature were opposed to full expansion for philosophical reasons that they attempted to disguise as fiscal reasons. They repealed and replaced the will of the people, even while advocates and voters knew it wouldn’t work — and said as much — and last weekend they were shut down. Now the people of Utah are left saying, “OK, you’ve made your protest, can we get what we wanted now?”

An interesting fact about this whole kerfuffle that is often glossed over is that, while the expansive health care impact of Prop 3 was repealed and replaced this past Legislative session, the tax that accompanied it was not. That’s right — since April you’ve been paying the tax to help 150,000 more low-income Utahns get health care, but the Legislature only allowed us to cover approximately half of those Utahns. We’re already paying the tax, it’s time for us to see the life-saving benefit it’s supposed to pay for.

And now, with this decision, there is a ray of hope for Utahns who have been frustrated, not only because they believe to their core in the importance of caring for the least of us through Medicaid expansion, but also because they feel unilaterally ignored by powerful forces in the Utah Legislature. In the Prop 3 replacement bill (SB96), there is a fallback plan that will go into effect should the waivers not be approved. This plan, written and implemented by the Legislature, stipulates that full Medicaid expansion — Prop 3 (with a couple small but really good financial fixes) — will go into effect in July 2020 if the waivers are not approved. And since the big waiver that all the other waivers are contingent on — this partial expansion waiver — was turned down, all the Legislature has to do is keep their hands to themselves and allow their own fallback plan — which is really the people’s plan — to go into effect.

That’s right. If the Legislature just gets out of the way, we can actually get what we’ve fought for years to get: health care to people who need it.

So if you’re frustrated by this rigmarole that these politicians put us through, what should you do? You should call your legislators, asking them to allow full expansion to go into effect now. And if they were a part of the problem on Prop 3, it’s up to you to be part of the solution by voting them out in 2020. Not just for the sake of health care, not just because of what they did, but because of what it would mean for the ballot initiative process in Utah. Our constitutionally-protected right is on the line, and we have to protect it.

Katie Matheson is the communications director for Alliance for a Better Utah.

Washington • The District of Columbia’s new Catholic leader — the country’s lone black archbishop — on Thursday issued his first public statement since his installation, lambasting President Donald Trump’s recent tweets about members of Congress of color as “diminishing our national life.”

Wilton Gregory, who came to Washington in May, is known through his long, prominent career for being nonconfrontational on hot-button issues in public, but working quietly behind the scenes — a model similar to the man he replaced, Cardinal Donald Wuerl. But on Thursday, Gregory signaled that he wants to use his higher-profile perch in the nation’s capital to challenge the use of identity — racial, national origin or otherwise — as a tool of attack.

“I have stressed that I am a pastor and fellow disciple of Jesus, not a political leader,” he said in the statement. “There are, however, sometimes, when a pastor and a disciple of Jesus is called to speak out to defend the dignity of all God’s children.”

He said in his statement, which drew attention from many prominent Catholic leaders for its direct address to Trump, that he has been meeting privately with major Catholic lay groups, including the massive Knights of Columbus, to press them to “promote respect” and to work to “reject racism, disrespect or brutality in speech and action.”

His comments come as other high-profile religious leaders in the Washington area, including those at Washington National Cathedral, have begun increasingly decrying Trump’s recent attacks on lawmakers of color.

Most recently, Trump ignited controversy by going after Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., by describing part of the African American lawmaker’s district, the majority-black Baltimore, as “disgusting, rat and rodent infested.” In the days before that, Trump tweeted attacks on four congresswomen of color by saying they should “go back” to their countries of their ancestors if they were going to criticize aspects of this country.

Polls show most Americans find Trump’s comments about the four women racist.

Earlier this week, leaders of Washington National Cathedral — the national cathedral of the Episcopal Church denomination — issued a striking critique of the president.

“As faith leaders who serve at Washington National Cathedral . . . we feel compelled to ask: After two years of President Trump’s words and actions, when will Americans have enough?” they wrote in an impassioned statement entitled “Have We No Decency? A response to President Trump.”

Also this week, faith leaders in Baltimore, including Catholic Archbishop William Lori, reacted to Trump’s tweets about Cummings.

“It was horrible, demeaning and beneath the dignity of a political leader who should be encouraging us all to strive and work for a more civil, just and compassionate society,” wrote leaders including Lori and the local heads of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “Cities, which bring together diverse races, languages, cultures, economic and social conditions, are frequent targets for those who cannot — or will not — see their beauty through the eyes of God and in their inhabitants. To their detractors, cities are seen only through the lens of social evils such as poverty, crime, violence and racism. To God, however, cities are seen primarily as vessels of hope, lights of God’s reign, and opportunities for living in blessed community.”

Gregory’s message will likely face a mixed greeting among Catholics. Recent polls show Catholic approval of the president is about 36 percent but among white Catholics the figure is around 44 percent, Pew Research said in March. About 60 percent of U.S. Catholics are white.

The letter by Maryland clergy was not signed by any evangelical Protestant pastors. Evangelical Christians — who tend to be more politically conservative — have supported Trump in high numbers throughout his administration.

Stephen Schneck, the former director of the Institute for Policy Research at Catholic University and an adviser to then-President Barack Obama on Catholic issues, said Thursday that while Wuerl and several other bishops have made recent public comments about a lack of civility, Gregory’s statement means more because he’s an African American speaking in the U.S. capital.

“That can’t be underestimated,” Schneck said. He said U.S. bishops have shifted since Trump took office toward critiquing specific policies — on immigration, capital punishment and climate, among others — but not regularly naming names, which Schneck said was more common under Obama.

“Where Obama was mentioned over and over in those statements, it’s a clear pattern now to speak in more general terms and there might be something telling there. Maybe they’re afraid of getting tweets from the president,” he said.

In an interview with The Washington Post on Thursday, Gregory said he decided to speak out a few weeks ago, after meeting with lay Catholic groups, where the topic of civil discourse came up as a cause of concern. Participants in the meetings had asked what specific things Gregory wanted them to focus on.

“And that’s the opportunity I had to share: I wanted them to stress in their business communities and parishes and neighborhoods to tone down the rhetoric,” he said.

Gregory’s statement was addressed broadly. It mentioned “President Trump’s tweets on some members of Congress, deploring Baltimore and related matters.” Asked if he was speaking about Cummings or the four congresswomen or anyone specifically, he said those were parts of a whole.

“It touches on all the recent conversations that have just heightened the level of hostility,” he said. The women, he said, “were not the focus although they are an example.”

Asked whether it’s possible to separate the morality of Trump’s comments with policies many religious conservatives like — such as his call to overturn Roe v Wade — Gregory said it is not.

“I don’t see how one can pursue a conversation with an individual that degenerates into character assassination and say, ‘Oh, that’s acceptable because we agree with their message.’ “

On the surface, dark-horse Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson and President Donald Trump could not be more different. The president tweets insults, stokes crowds into a rage and rattles the sword. He uses the often-jingoistic language of muscular Christianity (“In America, we worship God, not government”) to evoke the vision of a middle America made “great again.” Meanwhile, Williamson, a self-help spiritualist (and onetime adviser to Oprah Winfrey), preaches a gospel of “love” and “oneness,” blending a chipper New Age sensibility with progressive politics.

In the Democratic debate Tuesday, she condemned the “dark psychic force” of hatred that she said Trump has unleashed, saying it could be combated only by “something emotional and psychological” — which only she could bring forth — accompanied by a dose of “deep truth-telling” on the subject of race. She’s called for a “moral and spiritual awakening” in the United States.

But Williamson has more in common with Trump than she — and indeed many voters — might admit, and it’s not just that both have used personal celebrity as a springboard into politics. At their core, both are also prime representatives of one of the most important and formative spiritual trends in American life: the notion that we can transform our material circumstances through faith in our personal willpower. Trump’s authoritarian cult of personality and Williamson’s belief in the power of “self-actualization” both come from the quintessentially American conviction that the quickest and surest route to ultimate reality can be found within ourselves.

Williamson’s connection with this tradition is more obvious. She came to prominence popularizing and commenting on a four-volume 1975 metaphysical tome called “A Course in Miracles,” by Helen Schucman, a research psychologist in Manhattan who believed herself to be transcribing the words of Jesus. “A Course in Miracles” tells readers that reality is an illusion and that by changing their perception of it, they can alter their circumstances and achieve astonishing things, personally and professionally. Several of Williamson’s books elaborate on those themes. In “The Law of Divine Compensation” in 2012, for example, Williamson conveyed to readers a supposedly surefire universal principle: “To whatever extent your mind is aligned with love, you will receive divine compensation for any lack in your material existence. From spiritual substance will come material manifestation. This is not just a theory; it is a fact.”

Trump, whose egotism often appears self-taught, or at least instinctual, was also influenced by a variant of this quasi-theology, albeit one more palatable to East Coast business executives. He has spoken openly about his family’s long and close relationship with Norman Vincent Peale, a 20th-century writer best known for his best-selling 1952 book, “The Power of Positive Thinking.” While Peale was formally a Christian — he was the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in New York for more than 50 years — his writings were suffused with the idea that you can transmute and augment yourself through sheer mental exertion. “Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding,” he wrote. “Never permit it to fade.” By thinking it, his readers would make it true.

Trump and his parents attended Marble Collegiate Church, and both of his parents had their funerals there. Peale also officiated at Trump’s 1977 wedding to Ivana, his first wife, as well as that of one of Trump’s sisters. Trump has publicly referred to Peale as “the greatest guy” and someone you could listen to “all day long” — and he has attributed some of his business success to his adoption of Peale’s philosophy. In 2009, Trump told Psychology Today that he credited his father’s formative friendship with Peale with his own belated business success. “Defeat is not in my vocabulary,” he said. “ ... I refused to be sucked into negative thinking on any level, even when the indications weren’t great.” He’s a man who has never once publicly allowed failure to cross his consciousness.

Spiritual and faith traditions that emphasize personal introspection and emotional authenticity over doctrine, creed, “experts” or institutions are hardly new. Waves of what you might call “intuitional religion” have been washing across the American religious landscape since the first Great Awakening of the 18th century. In that movement, which lasted from the 1730s into the 1740s, fire-and-brimstone tent revivalists exhorted fair-weather Christians to receive a “new birth” in Christ. America’s separation of church and state made it easy for this self-focused pietism to flourish outside the aegis of established religious institutions.

But few iterations of this American intuitional religion have had such a long-lasting effect on today’s religious landscape as a little-remembered phenomenon called New Thought, a once-ubiquitous craze that, through its 20th-century heirs, came to deeply influence the thinking of Trump, Williamson and tens of millions of others.

New Thought, which flourished in the mid-1800s, was heavily shaped by the transcendentalist philosophers of the previous generation, writers like Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who believed that the human self was the closest thing we have to a reflection of the divine. For these thinkers, organized religion — indeed, every mainstream institution — inhibited people from trusting their divinely sanctioned intuition, which they saw as the most direct path to truth. “All that you call the world is the shadow of that substance which you are, the perpetual creation of the powers of thought,” Emerson wrote in 1842, in his essay “The Transcendentalist.”

New Thought took this transcendentalist trust in the self and commercialized it. Its originator, a New Hampshire-born clockmaker, mesmerist and faith healer named Phineas Quimby (1802-1866), preached a gospel of total psychic self-reliance, one largely shorn of Christian theology and trappings. There was nothing human beings couldn’t do, he asserted, so long as they believed fully in themselves. Physical illness, personal misfortune — these were results of an improperly aligned mental system. Both the success of Quimby’s traveling practice and the later writings of his numerous followers and imitators, including Prentice Mulford and Charles Fillmore, brought New Thought — also popularly known as the “mind cure” and the “Boston Craze” — to the masses.

Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, hundreds of thousands of Americans scooped up dozens of titles promoting the New Thought ethos: If you feel it, it will come true. There was Charles Benjamin Newcomb’s 1897 “All’s Right With the World,” which instructed readers not to wish for betterment but to summon it through force of will (“I am well.” “I am opulent.” “I have everything.” I do right.” “I know.”). There was William Walter Atkinson’s 1901 “Thought-Force in Business and Everyday Life” (“Anything is yours, if you only want it hard enough. Just think of it. ANYTHING. Try it. Try it in earnest and you will succeed. It is the operation of a mighty Law.”). Capitalists like Napoleon Hill advised readers to “Think and Grow Rich” (1937). And Christians, including Quimby’s onetime patient Mary Baker Eddy, sought to blend that faith with New Thought practice, as Eddy did in establishing Christian Science.

The “mind cure” was sufficiently popular that psychologist William James meditated on its ubiquity in American households. “One hears of the ‘Gospel of Relaxation,’ of the ‘Don’t Worry Movement,’” he writes in one of the lectures in his 1902 collection, “The Varieties of Religious Experience,” “of people who repeat to themselves, ‘Youth, health, vigor!’ when dressing in the morning, as their motto for the day.”

Peale was also a product of the New Thought tradition. Positive thinking, he argued, didn’t need to be constrained by reality. Rather, Peale told his readers to “make a true estimate of your own ability, then raise it 10 percent.”

The idea that one should adopt a magnified view of one’s talents and accomplishments, and that reality will reconfigure itself to match that heightened image, may help explain some of the otherwise confounding falsehoods that Trump retails continually. He rarely settles for a paltry 10 percent inflation of his ability — whether he’s sending Sean Spicer out to insist that he attracted “the largest crowd to witness an inauguration,” or asserting that construction of his border wall continues apace, or claiming that he has the “all-time record” for approval by a Republican president. It’s understandable that Trump leans into New Thought philosophy, given that such braggadocio propelled him into the White House and costs him little support among his followers.

To those encountering Williamson for the first time in this campaign, she comes across as a conventional New Age type - an eccentric aunt purveying essential oils. That side of her is real, as when she tweeted that “love IS the answer, and that is as relevant to public policy as to personal behavior.” But there’s a much more specific tradition she emerges from, which is typified by this darker comment in “The Law of Divine Compensation”: “Many people fail to manifest money because on some deep level they don’t think they should.” She has also argued that depression should be considered “a spiritual disease,” rather than “medicalized” and treated with antidepressants. (When challenged, she said antidepressants were justified in some cases.) And she’s suggested that people who are overweight may suffer from a deficit of “spiritual intelligence.”

You can see the legacy of intuitional religion all over the country. It’s in New Age and occult books, to be sure, but it’s also in pop-culture sensations like the 2006 self-help book “The Secret,” beloved by Oprah Winfrey. It’s in the mindset of the growing ranks of the “spiritual but not religious” — now about 20 percent of Americans — and in that of the even bigger numbers of the religiously unaffiliated, who are significantly more likely than their traditionally religious peers to agree with statements like “Whatever is right for your life or works best for you is the only truth you can know.” It’s in the relentless positivity of wellness culture, echoed in the Instagram mantras of SoulCycle and on Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop website (where osteopath Habib Sadeghi informs readers, “I can tell you that UNRESOLVED EMOTIONAL PAIN and UNEXPRESSED DESIRES are at the core of what I call ‘DIS-EASE’ or a body-mind that’s not at ease.”)

You can see it in the “prosperity gospel” — the idea that prayer and tithing can make you rich in the long run — which is taught in as many as a third of evangelical Protestant churches, according to a 2018 survey by LifeWay Research. (Prosperity gospel preachers like Kenneth Copeland and Paula White, who has asked her parishioners to send a sizable portion of their January salary to her church, have visited the White House.) And the idea that people’s attitudes , rather than economic or social structures, are largely responsible for their material or medical circumstances is now taken by many conservatives as gospel.

On the surface, Americans are more religiously divided than ever. White evangelicals overwhelmingly support Trump; meanwhile, the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated, who tend to lean left, continue to grow. But many Americans of almost every political and spiritual affiliation share the inheritance of New Thought ideology: a distrust of institutions and experts, a reliance on personal intuition and feeling, and a conviction that “self-actualization” will lead inexorably to a bigger house, a better job, a banging body.

While it’s highly unlikely that Williamson will win the Democratic presidential nomination, her presence on the campaign trail, and Trump’s presence in the White House, serve as reminders that the ethos of Quimby and Peale thrives on both sides of the political aisle.

It may not be the “oneness” Williamson has in mind. But it’s the closest thing we have to a civil religion.

Tara Isabella Burton, a columnist for Religion News Service, is the author of the forthcoming book “Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World” and the novel “Social Creature.”

A Unified Police officer with history of hitting large objects with her police cruiser won’t face criminal charges for running over and killing a woman who was lying down in a parking lot.

Since Officer Megan Franklin was unaware 23-year-old Cindreia Europe was lying on the ground in a dark parking lot on the night of March 5 when she was investigating a report of a “man down,” Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill reasoned Franklin could not be held criminally responsible for hitting the woman.

In a letter sent to Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera and Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown on Friday, Gill said he weighed whether or not he could charge Franklin with reckless conduct or criminal negligence.

Gill ultimately decided he could not because both charges require Franklin to be aware of the potential risks of her conduct — and he believes Franklin was not because 911 dispatchers apparently never told her to be.

LaToya Mack, Europe’s mother, said, “As you can imagine me and the family are completely devastated. What must the burden of proof be when a dead body doesn’t justify justice?"

Mack said she is planning to file a lawsuit against UPD, Franklin and the 911 dispatchers.

According to the letter, Franklin was working a patrol shift in Millcreek on March 5 when she was dispatched to a strip mall near 2300 East and 3300 South to check on a report of a person down in the area.

A caller reported that someone wearing dark clothing was lying in the parking lot, and they were worried that person could be run over.

“Unfortunately, in relaying the information from the 911 call, not all the information provided by the caller was communicated to patrol officers,” Gill wrote.

Dispatchers told officers there was a “man down," but provided the adjacent property’s address and didn’t mention the person was lying in the parking lot, nor the caller’s concern that person could be run over.

Franklin told prosecutors that dispatchers didn’t tell her the general area where the person could be found. Franklin said she scanned the parking lot and didn’t see anyone. When she turned her vehicle after searching some of the lot, she ran over Europe.

Europe was on the ground because a car she’d been staying in at the parking lot was towed earlier in the day, leaving her shelterless.

In his letter, Gill said the available evidence suggests Franklin didn’t know she should be on the look out for someone on the ground, and, thus, didn’t know the potential risk of running someone over.

“Officer Franklin was looking for a person in the parking lot. She was looking in places one would think to look: on a bench, by a store or building," Gill wrote.

Gill’s letter does not mention Franklin’s past driving history, and he said in a phone interview that prosecutors were aware of her record, but that it wasn’t relevant to their investigation.

Franklin has been involved in seven crashes in a police vehicle, according to records released to The Salt Lake Tribune through a records request.

The records show Franklin was prone to running over large objects — like rocks — with her police vehicle when she worked for West Valley City Police Department.

She resigned from West Valley City police in October 2017 and got a job at UPD after that. She has since also resigned from UPD, police spokeswoman Melody Gray said.

Gray did not know when Franklin left UPD, and declined to comment further.

Europe made her way to Utah after leaving her home in Georgia in September 2017. Mack told The Tribune soon after her daughter’s death that Europe drove away without saying anything to her on an otherwise normal day.

Mack said Europe was bright and loved science and experimenting. Mack said she was unsure why Europe left home, but that her daughter had always been unique and independent.

The Utah Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a portion of state law prohibiting same-sex couples from entering into a gestational agreements to have children is unconstitutional.

In the ruling, Chief Justice Matthew Durrant said “same-sex couples must be afforded all of the benefits the State has linked to marriage and freely grants to opposite sex-couples.”

According to FOX 13, the suit involved an unnamed same-sex couple from southern Utah and a heterosexual couple with whom a surrogacy agreement was made. The two couples filed a joint petition in the 5th District Court to validate the agreement.

The issue arose when the judge pointed out that Utah law uses gendered language and refers specifically to a mother. The law said explicitly that a gestational agreement could only be entered if “intended mother is unable to bear a child or is unable to do so without unreasonable risk to her physical or mental health or to the unborn child.”

Since neither member of the same-sex couple were women, the judge argued he had no choice but to deny the request. The couple then appealed to the Utah Supreme Court, arguing that since the U.S. granted marriage equality in 2015, the state law was unconstitutional.

The Utah Attorney General’s Office did not oppose the couple’s request, saying the statute should be interpreted to be gender-neutral. The Utah justices then struck down the gendered part of the law.

In his ruling, Chief Justice Durrant explained obtaining a valid gestational agreement to have children is one of the most important benefits to couples who are unable to have biological children. '

“The State has explicitly conditioned this benefit on a petitioner’s marital status; no unmarried couple may obtain one. It is therefore unquestionably linked to marriage," Durrant wrote.

Edwin Wall, the attorney for the couples, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from FOX 13 on Thursday night.

See more at FOX 13.

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

A Utah man claims an officer purposely struck him with a police cruiser as retaliation for not listening to commands, but the officer said he never hit the man.

Chad Scott Lockwood, 53, was riding his bicycle through an intersection July 28 when he alleges Unified Police Officer Christopher Schroeder came up behind him in his police cruiser and struck him with no warning.

Lockwood has filed a lawsuit against the officer in Utah’s U.S. District Court, alleging excessive force and illegal detention and arrest.

In audio of a news conference provided to The Tribune from FOX 13, Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera — who oversees Unified police — said that she hasn’t seen any evidence her officer did anything wrong, adding Schroeder’s version of what happened that day is different from Lockwood’s.

The two men came across each other at the intersection of 2300 East and Evergreen Avenue about 10:45 a.m. Lockwood said he was wearing headphones and saw the officer when he went through the intersection.

According to Lockwood, the officer waved him by, and Lockwood waved back, saying, “Thank you.”

He alleged he traveled about 200 feet before the officer came up behind him and hit him with the police cruiser, knocking him over.

Lockwood was pinned under his bike, he said, and couldn’t get up because he doesn’t have a full range of motion in his arm from injuries he sustained years ago when he was hit by a train.

He alleges Schroeder “pounced on” him while he was pinned to the ground, and repeatedly hit and kicked him when he didn’t cooperate with the officer’s commands to get up and put his hands behind his back.

Lockwood said the crash bent a metal plate in his arm, and Schroeder exacerbated the damage to that arm by yanking him up off the ground.

According to the lawsuit, Lockwood believes Schroeder lost his temper when Lockwood misunderstood the officer’s wave and didn’t pull over.

Lockwood said he also believes Schroeder misinterpreted the wave and “thank you” as offensive.

“[Schroeder] probably believes, incorrectly, that [Lockwood] had disrespected him by ‘flipping him off,’ and mouthing a vulgar expletive,” according to the lawsuit.

Yet, Rivera said, in Schroeder’s report, he makes no mention of hitting the bike.

Instead, the officer wrote that he turned on his warning lights to pull Lockwood over after Lockwood ran a red light. He said he pulled in front of Lockwood so the man would stop, but Lockwood tried to go around the cruiser and cussed at the officer.

That’s when the officer said Lockwood hit a curb and fell over on his bike.

Rivera said her department has begun an internal investigation into the officer’s conduct, but for now, she said she stands by Schroeder, a 14-year veteran officer and has not placed him on paid leave.

“We want to make sure that our officers aren’t out there using excessive force,” she said. “But we’re also going to stand up when and officer is accused of these type of allegations, and there’s no evidence to prove it.”

Lockwood was arrested for multiple outstanding misdemeanor warrants that day. He was later released.

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

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the need for a new U.S. ambassador to Russia during a short phone call regarding widespread wildfires in Siberia, CNN is reporting.

CNN quotes two senior administration officials who said the two leaders talked about a new ambassador, but didn’t name names.

Current ambassador Jon Huntsman is expected to leave his post and has reportedly been considering a return to Utah and a run for the governor’s mansion, multiple sources told The Salt Lake Tribune in April.

CNN also quotes an embassy source who says Huntsman and his wife, Mary Kaye, have been going on an apparent “goodbye tour” in Russia and visiting fellow diplomats and others before they leave the country.

Huntsman was elected Utah governor in 2004, and served until President Barack Obama tapped him to become ambassador to China in 2009. He has been the Russian ambassador since October 2017.

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Editor’s note: Ambassador Jon Huntsman is the brother of Paul Huntsman, Tribune owner and publisher.

President Trump has tweeted that Rep. Elijah Cummings’ district in Baltimore is “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place.”

Our family moved from Baltimore to Salt Lake in 1991 after working and living there for 18 years. Baltimore is a vibrant and beautiful city with wonderful and hardworking people that celebrates its diversity, and we loved living there.

It does have problems of poverty, racism and redlining that have been institutional for decades that need to be addressed. In my opinion, Mr. Trump has decided that he has nothing to lose by criticizing Baltimore, and Maryland, as it is unlikely that he will get Maryland’s 10 electoral votes in 2020.

I think Trump should carefully consider that the problems in Baltimore are shared by Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee and that without the electoral votes from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, he has no chance of being reelected.

A criticism of Baltimore is also a criticism of these other great American cities that suffer from poverty and job loss that are certainly no better than after Mr. Trump’s election in 2016. I stand by Cummings continuing to provide appropriate congressional oversight and share my love of Baltimore to those being attacked.

Gary M. Oderda, Holladay

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It’s amusing to see the self-serving lack of critical thinking when the topic of religious freedom is discussed. The July 28 Salt Lake Tribune article, “State has required schools to have ‘In God we Trust’ posted for 17 years” has several examples.

In referring to the legislation that then-Gov. Mike Leavitt signed requiring schools to post “In God We Trust,” he’s quoted as saying, ”I thought it would be consistent with the thoughts of the citizens of Utah.”

I can verify he didn’t talk to every citizen of Utah. Does the majority only count as “the citizens of Utah”?

But the best example of lack of grasp of what critical thinking and healthy debate should be in our pluralistic society was his comment on the recent renewed debate prompted by South Dakota’s legislation also requiring the motto “In God We Trust” to be posted in their school.

Leavitt is quoted as saying, “We’re at a time when people would like to make it difficult to acknowledge religious belief in America.”

True or not, he swung and missed on the critical issue. Should certain ideas, religious or otherwise, be privileged when establishing what “the citizens” are required to do?

I prefer the motto “In the Constitution We Trust.” It would look great on a license plate, don’t you think?

Charles Ashcraft, Cottonwood Heights

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Is the media interfering with our elections? The answer is, yes.

I was unable to watch this week’s debates, as I had for the first set. I am trying to evaluate the candidates and, when I looked in The Tribune TV schedule for July 30 and 31, there was no mention of the debates.

I discovered that an informed voter is dependent on paying to see the debate. CNN is not a free channel. I have basic cable, but it is not included. Those with only an antenna and no cable cannot watch either.

Are only the wealthy able to watch and inform themselves? All national, state and local televised debates, of either party, should only be on free and open channels so all can participate in our electoral process.

Suzanne Stensaas, Salt Lake City

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Rep. Ben McAdams spoke recently at the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City. He responded to a question about his support of legislation condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement pressuring Israel for its human rights violations against Palestinians.

McAdams condemned this nonviolent, pro-human rights movement and claimed that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

Israel most certainly is not a democracy for the non-Jewish population both in Israel (treated as second-class citizens) and the neighboring Palestinian territories militarily occupied by Israel for over half a century. Israel is a democracy as much as South Africa was during the apartheid regime.

Boycotts are a time-honored American political tradition, including the Boston Tea Party, boycotts of products made with slave labor, the Montgomery bus boycott, the United Farm Workers boycott of grapes and the boycott of businesses operating in apartheid South Africa (upon which the modern BDS movement is modeled).

To condemn this contemporary human rights movement and to subordinate Americans’ free speech rights to the interest of apartheid Israel is a disgrace for any politician, especially one as intelligent and informed as McAdams.

Bob Brister, Salt Lake City

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Downtown Salt Lake City is headed in a new direction — up.

More than half a dozen new high-rises are now planned or underway in the urban core and several of them will take their place among the city’s tallest towers. Other projects will offer a new brand of luxury living high off the ground, with rooftop pools and sweeping views.

“This city is in ascension economically, and that’s being manifested on the skyline,” said Dee Brewer, executive director of the Salt Lake Chamber’s Downtown Alliance.

In addition to these freshly minted office, hotel and residential skyscrapers, developers are putting up at least a dozen midsize apartment buildings, which will join more than 20 sizable complexes constructed in Utah’s capital since 2011 that are now full.

This apartment construction is helping Salt Lake City realize a long-held goal of boosting its permanent population (now above 200,000) — although a majority of the dwellings will be rented at luxury or market rates even as the city struggles from a dire lack of affordable housing.

The trends toward height, luxury and adding people are part of a remarkable upsurge in real estate development in the city, much of it led by out-of-state investors.

“Downtown is off the charts,” said Kip Paul, vice chairman of investment sales at Cushman & Wakefield, a leading Salt Lake City real estate brokerage.

Projects illustrating this trajectory include:

• A 28-story Convention Center Hotel, set to rise by 2022 on the southeast corner of the existing Salt Palace, at 200 South and West Temple.

This is a government-subsidized project, with Salt Lake County guaranteeing Atlanta-based developer Portman Holdings and DDRM in St. George nearly $75 million in post-performance tax incentives to build it in hopes of spurring new and bigger convention business.

Salt Lake City lifted its downtown height restrictions for the gently curving tower, which will feature 750 rooms, meeting halls and a grand ballroom. Plans also include several multistory digital screens at street level on 200 South, akin to the huge display in the lobby of the 24-story office building at 111 Main, which opened in 2016.

Across town, a Phoenix-based developer called The Athens Group is building the new Union Pacific Hotel. The eight-story, 225-room upscale hotel will be built into the historic Union Pacific Depot, with participation by Vestar, owner of The Gateway shopping and entertainment center.

• 95 State at City Creek, a 28-story office tower now going up at 100 South and State Street and set for completion in fall 2021. It’s being built by City Creek Reserve, a development arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which also put up 111 Main.

In recent pitches to the city’s commercial real estate brokers, church officials have said they intend to market much of 95 State’s nearly 498,000 square feet of new top-grade offices to technology companies, in addition to more typical tenants from the legal and financial sectors.

The tower is already under construction on the northeast corner of State Street and 100 South, just west of the Harmons Grocery store and south of the church’s Social Hall Heritage Museum. Blueprints for the building filed with Salt Lake City hinted the project could include a Latter-day Saint chapel on the ground floor, though that has not been confirmed by City Creek Reserve.

• Word is that developers behind another major office project called 650 Main are now set to proceed with the first of two 10-story office towers side by side at 600 South West Temple.

Between them, 95 State and 650 Main will bring new supplies of office spaces with large contiguous footprints, which the city has lacked. “We know that those building spaces will be absorbed as they come on line because there is a demand out there,” said Lara Fritts, Salt Lake City’s former economic development director.

• Liberty Sky, a new 24-story luxury residential tower at 151 S. State, being built by Cowboy Partners and The Boyer Co.

Along with a rooftop swimming pool and other luxury amenities, it’ll have about 300 studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments with rents near the top of the city’s market rates, developers have said.

• Chicago-area developer Brinshore intends to build two residential towers a few blocks away, at 255 S. State, at 14 and seven stories, respectively, in a project backed by nearly $11 million in loans by the city’s Redevelopment Agency.

This project will lean toward more affordable rents, RDA officials have said, with 60 percent or more of its 190 apartments set aside for residents making roughly half of the city’s median incomes.

Nearby, a Boston real estate firm called Kensington Investment is touting a 0.69-acre plot at 75 E. 200 South — currently home to a Carl’s Jr. restaurant — for what insiders say could be another apartment high-rise, this one some 23 stories tall.

• The Block 67 project — dubbed The West Quarter by developer The Ritchie Group — which would cover the block bounded by 100 South and 200 South from 200 West to 300 West, including what is known now as Royal Wood Plaza.

Several of the project’s four main buildings would be among the city’s tallest, at least as currently proposed.

Also backed by the city’s RDA, Block 67 would include roughly 650 dwellings, two hotels, an office tower, stores, a tree-rimmed street winding through the block and more than 1,000 underground parking stalls.

The development also would have the effect, according to city planners, of pushing some of downtown’s new building height farther west, with the potential to draw more pedestrian traffic toward The Gateway and Vivint Smart Home Arena.

• The Exchange, a two-building project now taking shape along 400 South, where the former Barnes Bank Building and Salt Lake Roasting Co. once stood.

Its two multistory, mixed-use buildings will have nearly 412 apartments between them, about 80 of which will be affordable to residents making half the city’s median income.

With its central location, The Exchange is one of the more visible of more than a dozen apartment projects underway across the city. These range from another RDA-backed project called Paperbox Lofts near The Gateway to the Sugarmont Apartments, along Highland Drive in Sugar House.

These are coming after a burst of apartment construction across the city since 2011, including major clusters in west downtown and the TRAX corridors along 400 South and North Temple.

New residents will mean more vibrancy and nightlife downtown, Brewer and others said.

“The addition of residential is needed for the talent we need to recruit and the workforce that we need in the growing economy,” Brewer said. “And it also is a part of the vibe.”

Overall, the city’s spate of new high-rise and apartment projects — and others like them still in negotiations and not yet made public — reflects a crucial financial turning point for the state as a whole, based on the sheer volume of projects.

Infill development in the heart of downtown faltered a bit about seven years ago, most notably on the blocks around the then-newly built City Creek Center. The 22-story 222 Main office tower on Main Street, for example, struggled to land tenants when it debuted in 2009.

Today, that tower and others like it are all but fully occupied.

Demand driven by years of job and population growth has pushed rents and office lease rates high enough so that erecting skyscrapers now makes sense to more investors. Brokers report avid interest from out-of-state developers hoping to do their first projects in Utah.

And in terms of city commerce, there are hopes that the new office and apartment buildings will have a combined effect of creating both new upscale workspaces and places for new employees filling them to live nearby.

The buildings could also put Salt Lake City in a better position to lure more technology companies to locate downtown instead of farther south in suburbs on the border of Salt Lake and Utah counties, in what is known as Silicon Slopes.

In addition to pushing buildings upward, the quest to make the most of available land close to downtown amenities such as nightlife and mass transit now appears to be guiding developers westward.

Several commercial and residential projects are already in the works clustered around the North Temple TRAX station, along the west end of the city’s 900 South corridor and into the west-side Granary District, with its acres of former industrial and warehouse properties.

So, in that sense, Salt Lake City is growing not just up but also out.

Editor’s note: This story discusses suicide. If you or people you know are at risk of self-harm, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24-hour support at 1-800-273-8255.

A Utah State University student reported several times that she was being bullied by classmates over the color of her skin in the months before she died by suicide — but the professors and department chairperson she told never stepped in to help, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday.

The posthumous case focuses on Jerusha Sanjeevi, who was a 24-year-old Ph.D. candidate. It alleges the university’s lack of response violated her civil rights, and contends that a pattern of favoritism and racism has played out for years within the psychology program at the northern Utah school. International students, in particular, have faced a hostile environment there while faculty members knowingly allowed abuse to continue, it said. And it criticizes the university for failing to intervene even after Sanjeevi’s death.

“It seemed so appalling when we first started to look at it,” said attorney Richard Kaplan. “And the more we looked at it, it didn’t get any better.”

Sanjeevi enrolled at USU in the fall of 2016. Almost immediately, two students in her cohort singled her out, the lawsuit said. They made fun of her “weird Asian name,” joked that she was bipolar, and called her “stupid.” They told their classmates that Sanjeevi wouldn’t have made it into the program if she hadn’t been “given a handout” as an international student from Malaysia.

One of those students, in particular, was relentless, the suit said. Sanjeevi worked with the classmate in a professor’s lab and as a teaching assistant. The other woman would discredit her while instructing classes, say she smelled like Indian food, talk about how dark skin was “a sign of inferiority” and spread rumors that Sanjeevi was mentally unstable because she was worried about being deported, it said.

As exhibits to the case, filed in U.S District Court, the suit includes several email and text conversations between psychology professors that showed they weren’t certain how to respond to Sanjeevi’s continuing complaints. The suit alleges they never directly addressed the allegations reported by Sanjeevi.

The lawsuit is filed against the university, the psychology department head, multiple professors and some students. Amanda DeRito, a USU spokeswoman, said Friday that Sanjeevi’s suicide was “a tragic event that had a huge impact on the psychology department and on our entire university.”

The school will not comment on the specifics of the case, she said. But she added, “We strongly dispute the facts and allegations in the complaint. We believe Utah State took all appropriate action to address interpersonal issues between students in the department.”

Sanjeevi died in April 2017. Kaplan is representing Sanjeevi’s boyfriend, Matthew Bick, and they filed the case on behalf of Sanjeevi’s parents, who still live in Malaysia where she was born and raised.

“The family in Malaysia can’t adequately be compensated for the loss of a life,” Kaplan added. “It’s altogether too devastating. But this is the only way we have of helping.”

The lawsuit includes claims for wrongful death and gross negligence, as well as constitutional violations for discrimination in an educational environment. Kaplan said they are seeking unspecified financial damages.

While Kaplan suggests the bullying and the school’s mishandling of Sanjeevi’s concerns led to her suicide, experts caution against drawing such a direct link and say typically, many factors contribute.

Utah State has been at the center of several lawsuits in recent years — including one that alleged a similar and pervasive atmosphere of discrimination within the piano department. The university has also come under fire for its handling of sexual assault cases.

‘I dread going to class’

Sanjeevi first reported her concerns about her student co-worker in September 2016, describing the comments to the professor who supervised them in her lab and as teaching assistants. The professor, though, had a close relationship with the other student, according to the lawsuit, which points to several Facebook posts and pictures of the two together.

The professor allegedly “dismissed [the reports] as a misunderstanding” and continued to show preferential treatment to the other student, giving her all of the research project assignments and none to Sanjeevi, it said.

On Sept. 19 — about a week after USU promoted a mental health awareness project — Sanjeevi told Bick, her boyfriend, that she was considering leaving the school.

Sanjeevi had applied to USU after graduating from Minnesota State University in spring 2016 with a master’s degree in clinical psychology. In her interview, she asked whether Utah State — where 83% of students are white — had an inclusive environment and felt assured that she would feel comfortable there, the suit said.

A few months in, she texted a close friend: “Every day I dread going to class now because I sit 3 feet from my white bully.”

Sanjeevi met with two other professors in the department in September, who convinced her to stay at the school and to try to work with the students harassing her. In October, Sanjeevi held a celebration of Deepavali, a Malaysian holiday also known as Diwali, and invited her classmates to try to bridge the gap.

After that, according to the lawsuit, the harassment got worse.

Sanjeevi’s research focused on rape and sexual pathology — which she wanted to study after being raped as child in Malaysia, the suit said. The other graduate assistant allegedly questioned whether Sanjeevi was actually assaulted. Later, during a discussion on rape in the course, Sanjeevi stepped out after feeling triggered. The student she worked with mocked her, the lawsuit alleges.

Some of the professors in the department recognized the concerns at that point and started talking internally about how they should handle the situation. They “knew Sanjeevi was struggling” and at risk, Kaplan said. “And they failed to act despite repeated pleas for help.”

Sanjeevi kept talking to faculty. By the end of the semester, they suggested possibly moving her to another research lab or possibly dismissing both her and the other student from the program. In their conversations, which Kaplan received through public records requests, the professors suggested both women were to blame. One said it was “getting messy and ugly.” No one ever investigated, the suit alleges, and the student who was Sanjeevi’s co-worker denied wrongdoing.

‘She was rejected and turned away’

Over the course of several months, Sanjeevi talked to at least five faculty members, as well as the school’s counseling center, student conduct office and affirmative action department. The psychologist she spoke to at the counseling center dismissed her concerns, according to the suit. He concluded Sanjeevi “rarely puts in the time required of a graduate student and tends to procrastinate," a report excerpt said.

Despite that, DeRito said in her statement, “We encourage students who are facing any mental health issues to seek help through Counseling and Psychology Services or USU Student Health Center.”

Sanjeevi’s grades started to slip, and she requested an “incomplete” in a class. She met with an employee at the equal opportunity office multiple times to file a report of harassment. She told them, according to the lawsuit, that she was depressed and wished she could just focus on school without the distractions.

She was concerned “that a person in the field of psychology was making disparaging and stigmatizing remarks about mental illness when [they] are being trained to help people who are suffering with those exact issues.” And she worried that student might attack her.

The graduate student found out that Sanjeevi reported her to faculty and began calling her a “slut” and a “whore” when they passed in the hallways, the suit said. The office had received previous complaints about that same student, the lawsuit alleges, and the school has heard from other international students in the psychology department who have reported similar harassment in the past.

One of Sanjeevi’s friends reached out separately to the school to say that she was worried about how Sanjeevi was being treated. Sanjeevi had told her that she felt dismissed and like she had nowhere to turn after reporting her concerns to so many people.

Another friend quoted in the lawsuit said: “It is especially mind blowing when you know the cultural differences between the U.S. and Eastern cultures, which made it nearly impossible for [Sanjeevi] to ask for help like this in the first place and then she was rejected and turned away.”

After Sanjeevi’s death, the department chair emailed the students in the psychology program. According to a copy of the message, she told them not to talk about the suicide publicly.

The lawsuit claims the school did nothing to investigate the bullying even then. When contacted by a school administrator asking if they should probe into the death, the department chairperson responded: “We will never be able to have all the ‘facts’ and information collection could be never-ending.”

Kaplan believes that shows a disregard for Sanjeevi’s death and an inclination to not examine any shortcomings. He hopes the lawsuit will spur changes. “Jerusha came there on a good trajectory,” he said. “None of this had to happen."

The idea of seeking a “solution” to the homeless problem at the community level is meant to get people thinking about homelessness in a challenging way. If we could solve the homeless problem, what would it look like? On a grand scale?

When a solution is sought at the community level, we are asking for something impossible, given the constant flow of homeless people in every city. But seeking a solution is to describe a set of ideals, some of which are achievable, some of which can only be goals to shoot for.

For example: Helping people get off drugs, which is extremely difficult, but necessary to get a job. For example: Overcoming each person’s specific reason for being homeless.

Asking for 240 low-cost apartments is meant to show what kind of government effort would be required if a full-court press were be applied to get 200 people off the street every year. This is more a plea to develop low-cost housing and arousing an awareness of our need, rather than a demand to achieve a difficult goal.

The Salt Lake Tribune has pointed out in recent articles the difficulties of transporting the homeless from the new resource centers to the Rio Grande area, where so many resources exist. There are many real problems to be worked out as we go forward. And each homeless person is a human being deserving of hope and dignity. Each homeless person faces difficulties unique to their situation. We can only wait to see how the new resource centers will work. But they deserve the full support of the public and can only hope that the homeless take advantage of them.

Having been homeless, I know that I spent days wandering Salt Lake streets, trying to figure out where I would get my next meal. I often felt lost, wondering if I could find another job, wondering how I could get more money to get through the week. The daily frustrations drained my emotions so that when I went to bed I sank into a deep sleep. The shelter was a refuge, but a dangerous refuge. Arguments sometimes broke out, spice was smoked in the middle of the night, sleep was broken by the staff waking up everyone early in the morning.

Yet the staff and volunteers worked tirelessly to put a small city of men to bed every night and provide for a peaceful sleep. Their dedication gave every one of us hope and help as we each experienced the worst time of our lives. It was only by accessing the available resources provided by the shelter, the free clinic and the St. Vincent food services that I could eventually get into an apartment.

But I had to seek out these resources, none was handed to me on a platter. I found some structure for my life in the shelter, along with hundreds of other men in the same situation. Eventually it was a matter of luck, friends, energy on my part and shelter resources that got me out of the homeless situation.

But I knew I had to maintain my moral integrity, avoid any kind of illegal drugs, avoid allowing myself to fall into laziness, cynicism, pessimism. Each person has to hold to specific standards to rise above homelessness. I know how difficult life is being homeless. It requires a constant effort to stay positive and work to get into a home.

Every homeless man, woman or family is in a unique situation. They have unique potentials, unique liabilities and unique hopes and dreams. It is of course misleading to think that Salt Lake as a community can “solve” the homeless problem.

But when a man or woman finds a job, and it becomes financially sustainable for them to get into a home and stay there, then the homeless problem is “solved” for that individual or family. This is a better way to think of solving the homeless problem: one individual at a time, one family at a time. I think that this is the real goal of all our community efforts.

Gary Leimback is a retired computer technical writer and Salt Lake City resident who now spends his time reading and writing philosophy.

It's not a coincidence that the House's lone black Republican, Rep. Will Hurd, Texas, is retiring in the weeks after President Donald Trump significantly ramped up his racially divisive rhetoric.

The Republican Party under Trump is becoming a party that is not welcoming to someone such as Hurd. He was one of four House Republicans who voted last month to condemn Trump's racist tweets that four minority lawmakers should "go back" home. That week, crowds at Trump's rally in North Carolina chanted "Send her back!" about one of them, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Two of those four GOP House members are retiring. (The other is Rep. Susan Brooks of Indiana.) Now there is just one black Republican in all of Congress, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.

That reality stings for the Republican Party, at least the section of it that still thinks racial inclusivity, not inflammation, is its future.

In an exit interview of sorts with Robert Moore of The Washington Post on Thursday, Hurd referenced Trump's outright racist tweets that four minority congresswomen should "go back" to their homes. It's possible he was considering retirement before this, but you don't have to read too much between the lines to understand this was the situation that helped push him out the door.

"When you imply that because someone doesn't look like you, in telling them to go back to Africa or wherever, you're implying that they're not an American, and you're implying that they have less worth than you," Hurd said.

Hurd represents the exact kind of district Republicans need to hold on to or win to retake the majority in 2020. His border district is 70 percent Hispanic; it's a battleground district in a state that has the potential to become a battleground state.

Hurd's district is an example of the places where many think the not-too-distant battles for power will play out. He doesn't seem to see much future there for his party, at least not under Trump.

"When you look at trends, the two-largest growing groups of voters are Latinos and young people. And we know what the broader trends are happening there," Hurd told Moore.

If Democrats can get a foothold in Texas congressional races, or even statewide, it could entirely change the balance of power in Washington; Texas is that big and important. (As 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke noted at the primary debate this week, Texas has 38 electoral votes.)

Last year, Democrats picked up two seats in Texas, and O'Rourke nearly unseated Sen. Ted Cruz, R. Hurd's district was always a top target for Democrats, but now, the seat gets that much more difficult for Republicans to keep without a popular incumbent. Another retiring Texas Republican, Rep. Pete Olson, could present a pickup opportunity for Democrats, too. And after O'Rourke's record-breaking Senate race, Democrats have recruited former viral congressional candidate MJ Hegar to take on Sen. John Cornyn, R, in 2020. The Fix has the race listed in the top 10 likely to flip seats.

But Hurd's retirement reverberates beyond Texas for Republicans. He is one of nine Republican House lawmakers to call it quits rather than try to run for reelection under Trump, opening up seats across the country for Democrats to try to seize.

Also unhelpful to Republicans: A disproportionate number of retirements have been of women. House Republicans are losing two of their 13 female lawmakers. One of them, Rep. Martha Roby of Alabama, struggled to win her primary in her 2018 reelection after voters in her district held a grudge against her for saying she wouldn't vote for Trump after he was caught on tape bragging about sexually harassing women.

Why are so many Republicans retiring? This is the first year in nearly a decade that Republicans have been in the minority, which is certainly one contributing factor. The House is a majority-rule chamber in every aspect (how committees spend their time, what bills you vote on, and whether your side's bills win or lose), so being in the minority isn't very fun.

But Trump has also been making life difficult for these lawmakers for the past three years. With very few exceptions, none of them want to be talking about how "dangerous and filthy" inner cities are, or trying to defend tariffs on China when Republicans have traditionally opposed tariffs, or why Trump gives Russian President Vladimir Putin the benefit of the doubt about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election over his own intelligence agencies, or any number of policy and political indignities Trump has put the party through.

The transformation of the Republican Party to the Party of Trump has not been pretty for many Republicans. And of the retirements, none highlights that more than that of Hurd.

Hurd may be waving the white flag on where the Republican Party stands today. But he may not give up on the party after Trump: Moore reported that Hurd could be considering a presidential run in 2024.

Amber Phillips writes about politics for The Fix. She was previously the one-woman D.C. bureau for the Las Vegas Sun and has reported from Boston and Taiwan.

@byamberphillips

Mark Palmer, a former Utah Transit Authority supervisor, says his superiors there essentially acted like Robin Hood in reverse — taking from the poor to give to the rich — by ordering unfairly small raises for underlings while upper managers pocketed much larger ones.

They ordered him not to tell his employees details that would suggest they were shortchanged, he said, adding that he complained to no avail. He has some documents to back his assertions.

“My guys actually saved UTA $1 million in extra work that they took on. So, I was furious over this whole thing,” and it was among the reasons he quit in May, Palmer said. “I was really frustrated.”

In a written response, the UTA said, “The notion that senior leaders took increases from employees to ‘enrich themselves’ is completely untrue.”

Palmer’s assertions come after high UTA executive salaries and bonuses have been a source of controversy for years. They were a main reason that the Legislature recently restructured the agency.

Palmer said he left UTA on good terms. He was the radio communications engineering supervisor for about four years and oversaw eight employees. His team was part of a large department that includes its information technology operations and the UTA Police Department.

Unfair shell game?

A month after he quit, when he “was out of danger of being fired,” Palmer filed an open records request for the types and amounts of raises awarded in his department in 2018 and this year. “I was more furious when I got that actual document.” He said it confirmed rumors that bosses received bigger raises than others.

Palmer said his superiors did that by playing what he sees as an unfair shell game with different pots of money set aside for raises.

For one pot, he said, UTA did a market survey that showed many workers in his IT area were underpaid by market standards, and the agency ordered “market raises” to close the difference.

As UTA Interim Executive Director Steve Meyer said in an interview, IT “is what we call a hot market. We’ve been challenged with keeping people — and getting people interested in the positions — because of our salary structure compared with all the technology companies that are growing rapidly here.”

Palmer said, “Every person on my team was given a market increase of at least 2% in 2018” to catch up to the market.

2019 UTA 2018-19 Safety Security IT Merit Cycle by The Salt Lake Tribune on Scribd

On top of that, UTA also set aside a pool of money to fund an average 3% raise throughout the agency in 2018 based on individual merit. High performers could get more, say 4%, while an average performer may get 2% — as long as the average came out to 3%.

Palmer said he used a computer tool provided by UTA to figure the merit raises for his team, which then automatically added the market increases. He then submitted them.

Once completed, “My manager told me that because my team received market increases, they needed to give back a portion of their merit increases so the director could redistribute where it needed to be.”

He objected that it was unfair to his manager, director and the human resources department. “I lost the battle.”

UTA chief Meyer said reducing merit raises for people who received market increases is common at UTA.

“I’ve had it done to me. I’ve done it to people,” he said. “I’ve had people get a 5, 8, 10% [market] increase in a year. I’m not going to give them another 3% [merit increase] when the person next to them may get 3% maximum” from all sources. He added that violates no UTA policy.

Hiding actions

“Just because it doesn’t violate policy doesn’t mean it’s right,” Palmer countered — especially when bosses received the biggest raises from the redistributed funds and ordered lower supervisors not to tell line workers how much their merit raises were.

At a meeting of IT managers, Palmer said their supervisor told them they could “not tell any of our subordinates that they had their merit increases taken away,” and “that our subordinates had no right to know what their true merit increase was, just the total increase in salary.”

Palmer added that documents he obtained showed that in his area “every individual that received a market increase also received less than a 3% merit increase” — with the exception of an office manager who is an assistant to the IT director.

“If this was all legitimate, then the IT director should not have banned us — supervisors and managers — from giving the results of the merit increases to our subordinates,” Palmer said.

UTA said that the average 2018 salary increase from all sources — merit and market — was 5.9% in radio communications overseen by Palmer, and 4.54% across all of information technology.

Bosses benefit

Palmer said two bosses received the biggest merit raises from redistributed money out of all IT workers in 2018.

Documents show that his immediate supervisor, Kyle Brimley, communications and deployment manager, received a 7% merit increase. His 2018 compensation after the raise was $172,817 ($122,262 in wages and leave, a $4,114 bonus and $46,441 in benefits), according to records.

One step up from him, Dan Harmuth, director of information technology, received a 6% merit increase. His 2018 compensation was $204,760 ($145,750 in wages and leave, a $3,255 bonus and $55,756 in benefits).

Palmer said Harmuth told him that a supervisor another step up — Dave Goeres, then chief of safety, security and information — had pushed for redistribution of merit raises from those who had market increases. Documents show Goeres received no merit increase. His 2018 compensation was $268,696 ($183,901 in salary and leave and $84,795 in benefits).

UTA’s written response said supervisors do not give themselves raises, and raises are reviewed and approved from a level above them. It also said senior leaders review and adjust salary boosts for their entire area, and merit increases go through multiple reviews.

It also noted that Palmer, who complained about the redistribution, “received a 4% merit increase, above the initial 3% pool amount.”

Palmer acknowledged that but said, “I did not ask for a higher-than-average increase and did not have a way to turn it back. I am not saying that because I am magnanimous; I just believe that if you take care of your people, they will take care of you, which in the end makes my job easier.”

Statement by UTA about raises by The Salt Lake Tribune on Scribd

With the announcement that Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., has qualified for the September debate we now are guaranteed a critical mass of center-left candidates who, for example, advocate building on Obamacare rather than scraping it for a single-payer plan. In addition to Klobuchar, Beto O'Rourke, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former vice president Joe Biden favor a public option while Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., seems to want to split the difference by aiming for Medicare-for-all but starting with a public option.

That group of center-left candidates would do well to make several points and force the advocates of Medicare-for-all to defend their plans:

• The goal is universal coverage and affordable healthcare. The dispute is about the means to getting there. The threat is President Donald Trump’s vow to dismantle Obamacare root and branch. There is no virtue in sticking with a plan so unattainable that it delays implementation of available solutions or, worse, is so unpopular that it increases the risk President Trump will win.

• Obamacare didn’t cover everyone in large part because Medicaid expansion was left up to the states, some Americans still found healthcare on the exchanges too expensive and employer-provided insurance also became more costly. Obamacare also did not cover illegal immigrants. (Giving illegal immigrants full Obamacare insurance coverage is a political nightmare; expanding free clinics and other means of accessing health care is another matter.)

• A public option to buy into Medicare (that may be expanded to cover dental care and hearing aids) at an affordable rate should address the main Obamacare defects if coupled with a plan to address prescription drug costs. The Center for American Progress’s plan (Medicare Extra) for example would give everyone (even those getting healthcare from employers) the option to enroll in Medicare. Someone not covered by any plan would be automatically enrolled in Medicare. People at or below 150 percent of the poverty line would have no deductible.

• Expanding coverage would come at a cost, but be vastly less expensive than a single-payer system. Candidates nevertheless should explain how they would pay for higher costs for new services (e.g. dental), for keeping premiums low and for new out-of-pocket limits.

• People get a choice to keep existing plans if they like them. Employers no longer get to dictate coverage (employees can choose a public-option) and the main concern for voters — cost — would be addressed.

Advocates of Medicare-for-all need to explain the following:

• Exactly how will they pay for the trillions of dollars in added cost? They need to explain how much money is needed and who gets taxed. If the wealthy avoid a new “wealth tax” where does the money come from? If a middle or working class person likes his plan what’s the justification for forcing him to pay higher taxes to support a single payer system that will make healthcare coverage cheaper or much richer people?

• Are they really going to give completely free insurance coverage to anyone who can cross the border? Won’t this incentivize illegal immigration?

• How will they ever get this through Congress if every Republican and a good number of Democrats object to a single-payer plan? Do they imagine whatever they put in a white paper is going to sail through Congress?

• What’s the benefit of outlawing private insurance if people have the option to choose a public option that controls costs?

• How do they address people who want to stay in generous union benefit plans?

• What happens to providers such as rural hospitals that cannot make ends meet on Medicare reimbursement rates? (The E21 web site explained, “Cutting all hospital and medical providers to Medicare rates — without the ability to recover those losses by charging higher insurance rates to others — would bankrupt many health providers. While some efficiencies can always be found, an immediate 40 percent reduction is not even remotely plausible. That is why the Urban Institute’s analysis of the Sanders 2016 single-payer plan insisted on more realistic payment rates — and concluded that the plan would raise national health spending by $6 trillion over the decade.”)

There can be a rational discussion of health care, but not until moderate Democrats do a better job explaining what is at stake and why their plan is better policy and better politics. Medicare-for-all advocates shouldn’t be able to flick away legitimate questions by ad hominem attacks on public-option advocates. Most important, the debate should reaffirm that Obamacare or any improvement on Obamacare would be vastly better than Trump’s goal of no Obamacare.

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post.

@JRubinBlogger

Gail Miller is the kind of leader who speaks when something needs to be said.

One of those moments came in March, when Miller took the microphone at center court prior to a Jazz game. She denounced a fan’s behavior that had triggered an exchange with then-Oklahoma City star Russell Westbrook on the sideline earlier that week.

Saying she was “extremely disappointed” about the incident at Vivint Smart Home Arena, the Jazz owner began her three-minute speech by saying, “This should never happen. We are not a racist community.”

Miller's statement was well received throughout the NBA and, importantly, by Jazz players including Donovan Mitchell. Her strong presence at a critical moment for the franchise makes Miller the Most Influential Person in Utah Sports in 2019, as judged by The Salt Lake Tribune sports staff. Miller also was ranked No. 1 in 2009.

“In this business, to have your owner [be] so forward and so out there to back us the way she did, and to back Russell, that's amazing,” Mitchell said. “She's been open and honest, and in my two years knowing her, that's one of the things I respect.”

[Read Rowland Hall senior Mia Vinding’s “Ten overlooked figures in Utah sports”]

The 2019-20 season will mark the 35th year of Miller's significant involvement in the franchise, starting with a 50-percent purchase in 1985 by her late husband, Larry H. Miller.

Gail Miller is credited by the team’s basketball operation for being highly supportive, signing off on player contracts and the expansion of the staff in an effort to build an NBA contender. She helped spearhead the recent renovation of Vivint Arena and the Zions Bank Basketball Campus, and was was the driving force behind putting the franchise into a Legacy Trust that will keep the franchise in Utah for generations to come.

2. Dennis Lindsey/Justin Zanik, Utah Jazz administrators

Previous ranking: No. 2

Recently promoted to general manager, Zanik joined Lindsey (now the vice president of basketball operations) in producing what is being heralded as one of the best offseasons of any NBA team. The Jazz traded for guard Mike Conley and signed free agent Bojan Bogdanovich moves designed to improve their offense. The Jazz generally are projected top-three finishers in the stacked Western Conference, along with the two Los Angeles teams.

3. Kyle Whittingham, Utah football coach

Previous ranking: No. 6

Whittingham delivered the program's first Pac-12 South championship in 2018, overcoming an 0-2 start in conference play and the loss of two key players in November. The Utes are the official preseason pick for the Rose Bowl, after four NFL prospects deferred their pro careers to make a major push for a Pac-12 championship this season. In February, Whittingham was awarded a new five-year contract, worth more than $4.1 million. He turns 60 in November.

4. Quin Snyder, Utah Jazz coach

Previous ranking: No. 3

The Jazz again overcame a slow start due to a front-loaded schedule and won 50 games in 2018-19, although they ran into a difficult first-round matchup with Houston and were eliminated in five games in he first round. Having built the Jazz into one of the NBA's top defensive teams, Snyder will have more offensive options than ever in his sixth season in Utah and his creativity should emerge.

5. Donovan Mitchell, Utah Jazz guard

Previous ranking: No. 1

Mitchell improved in his second NBA season and remained a face of the franchise and a community fixture. He’s known to attend college football and basketball and has become one of the foremost ambassadors of Utah among professional athletes who ever have played here. Mitchell also addressed fan behavior, endorsing the words of team owner Gail Miller and writing, “When we all stand up and speak up, change happens.”

6. Jeff Robbins/Fraser Bullock, Utah Sports Commission/Salt Lake 2030

Robbins and Bullock are at the forefront of Utah's latest Olympic bid, potentially making them important for the next decade. They co-chair the Olympic and Paralympic Exploratory Committee that has received the U.S. endorsement for 2030 Winter Games. Robbins is president and CEO of the Utah Sports Commission, a group credited with bringing 53 events to the state in 2018 with economic impact of $184 million.

Previous ranking: No. 7

7. Becky Sauerbrunn, Kelley O’Hara and Christen Press, Utah Royals FC

Previous ranking: NR

The U.S. women's soccer team captivated the country during its recent run to the World Cup championship, and three members of the Utah Royals FC were integral members. Nearly 16,000 fans attended the Royals' homecoming game for the three players. Sauerbrunn made the NWSL's Best XI team last season for the sixth year in a row and Press scored a goal in the Americans' semifinal victory over England.

8. Rudy Gobert, Utah Jazz center

Previous ranking: No. 8

Gobert repeated as the NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 2018-19 and made the All-NBA third team, further establishing himself as a unique performer in the league. Gobert is a Jazz fixture, anchoring one of the league's best defensive teams, and will have an even bigger presence in that regard now that the Jazz have traded forward Derrick Favors and built more of an offense-oriented roster. That will give Gobert more responsibility.

9. Dell Loy Hansen, Real Salt Lake owner

Previous ranking: No. 5

Hansen maintains a strong position in the sports landscape as the owner of the Real Salt Lake empire, featuring three teams — in Major League Soccer (RSL), the National Women’s Soccer League (Utah Royals FC) and the United Soccer League (Real Monarchs). Hansen’s organization responded to RSL coach Mike Petke’s recent on-field conduct by keeping him away from the team for two weeks, without pay.

10. Kalani Sitake, BYU football coach

Previous ranking: No. 10

Sitake responded to a 4-9 season, one of BYU's worst performances in nearly 50 years, with a bounce-back year of 7-6 that included an upset at Wisconsin and a bowl victory over Western Michigan. His hiring of coordinator Jeff Grimes and other offensive staff members had a positive effect and the Cougars appear positioned to keep improving with sophomore quarterback Zach Wilson. A front-loaded schedule will test BYU in Sitake's fourth season.

11. Tony Finau, PGA Tour golfer

Previous ranking: No. 14

Finau failed to make the weekend rounds in the U.S. Open, but otherwise has continued his strong performances in major tournaments with a third-place finish in the British Open and a tie for fifth in the Masters in 2019. He's the world's No. 13-ranked player. Finau's story of developing his game in Salt Lake City's Rose Park neighborhood has resonated with golf fans and the Polynesian community, as his charitable foundation makes an impact.

12. Mark Harlan, Utah athletic director

Previous ranking: No. 13

Harlan will always be able to say that the first head coach he hired at Utah, director of skiing Fredrik Landstedt, won a national championship in 2019. Beyond that, Harlan established a strong campus presence in his first year, following through on the expansion plans for Rice-Eccles Stadium, awarding pay raises to football coach Kyle Whittingham and his top assistants and expanding the athletic department's staffing.

13. Tom Holmoe, BYU athletic director

Previous ranking: No. 11

Holmoe oversees a broad-based athletic department that ranked No. 29 in the Learfield Directors' Cup standings in 2018-19. His hiring of basketball coach Mark Pope, the first newcomer to that position since Holmoe's first year on the job, appears to have rejuvenated a program that is dealing with NCAA sanctions related to impermissible benefits from boosters to former player Nick Emery, affecting the school's image.

14. Nathan Chen, figure skater

Previous ranking: No. 15.

Having grown up in Salt Lake City, Chen continues to bring attention to his hometown with his world-class skating achievements. He became a two-time world champion and three-time U.S. national champion in 2019, breaking records in the World Championships for free skating and total score. The 20-year-old Chen is attending Yale University, while building toward the 2022 Olympics in China, where he'll be a big story.

15. Craig Smith, Utah State basketball coach

Previous ranking: NR

Smith may have done more to revive interest in a program in his first season than any coach in the state since Urban Meyer with Utah football in 2003. The Aggies went 28-7, winning regular-season and tournament titles in the Mountain West and bringing big crowds back to the Spectrum. USU is positioned for another nice season in 2019-20 with sophomore center Neemias Queta deferring his NBA career and Sam Merrill as a senior guard.

16. Larry Krystkowiak, Utah basketball coach

Previous ranking: No. 12

Utah's basketball program claims the best record in Pac-12 play in three-year and five-year periods, while finishing in the top four of the conference each of the past five seasons. That consistency is offset by Krystkowiak's missing the NCAA Tournament for three straight years. Having lost or dismissed six scholarship players since the start of the 2018-19 season, he's in a rebuilding stage with seven freshman, three sophomores and one junior.

17. John Hartwell, Utah State athletic director

Previous ranking: NR

Utah State joined Michigan, Kentucky, LSU and Cincinnati as the only schools to finish in the AP Top 25 in both football and men's basketball in 2018-19. Hartwell's hiring of basketball coach Craig Smith from South Dakota turned out brilliantly; we'll see if the return of Gary Andersen as football coach pays off as well. Hartwell is starting his fifth as the Aggies' AD after working at Troy University in Alabama.

18. Tom Farden, Utah gymnastics coach

Previous ranking: No. 17

With the retirement of co-coach Megan Marsden in April, Farden received the title of head coach after nine years at Utah. Farden's program remains immensely popular, with the Utes having sold 9,830 season tickets in 2019 while averaging 14,892 fans for home meets, leading all of women's college athletics in attendance. Farden's 2020 roster likely will be missing star gymnast MyKayla Skinner, as she pursues a U.S. Olympic team berth.

19. Nick Rimando, Real Salt Lake goalkeeper

Previous ranking: NR

This is Rimando's 20th and final season in Major League Soccer at age 40, and he will retire as the best goalkeeper in the league's history He has won two MLS Cup titles, including one with RSL in 2009. He became a six-time All-Star this season and has made 22 appearances with the U.S. Men's National Team. Along with midfielder Kyle Beckerman, Rimando long ago became established as a face of the RSL franchise.

20. Heather Olmstead, BYU women’s volleyball coach

Previous ranking: NR

Olmstead is entering her fifth season as BYU's coach with a phenomenal .901 winning percentage, after leading the Cougars to the NCAA's Final Four last December in a 31-2 season. The former Utah State player was an assistant coach at USU, Utah and BYU before taking over the Cougar program. Mary Lake returns to BYU for her senior year as a second-team All-American with international experience this summer.

21. Fredrik Landstedt, Utah director of skiing

Previous ranking: NR

Landstedt’s job is underrated. The expectation for those immersed in supporting the ski program is for Utah to win national championships, and Landstedt delivered in his first year, earning the NCAA men’s and women’s title in Maine. “People care about the team and think it should win,” said Landstedt, a native of Sweden who moved to Utah last summer partly because New Mexico’s program was being eliminated after the 2019 season.

22. Mark Pope, BYU basketball coach

Previous ranking: NR

Pope is bringing his incurable enthusiasm up University Parkway from Orem, where he posted a 77-56 record in four years as Utah Valley University's coach, including a 34-24 mark in Western Athletic Conference play. His job is to provide a jolt to a BYU program that leveled off in recent years under Dave Rose. The return of forward Yoeli Childs, who had been expected to stay in the NBA draft, gives Pope a chance to succeed.

23. Jay Hill, Weber State football coach

Previous ranking: No. 21

Hill's impact at Weber State is best illustrated by how the Wildcats were disappointed to advance only to the FCS quarterfinals for a second straight year, losing to Maine in Ogden. The former Utah player and assistant coach has brought stability and success to WSU, with a 27-13 record in Big Sky Conference play over five seasons. The Wildcats are picked third in the league in 2019 and expected to earn another playoff bid.

24. Gary Andersen, Utah State football coach

Previous ranking: NR

Andersen did enough in his first four-year term as USU's coach and made enough influential friends to give himself another head coaching opportunity, only 14 months after leaving Oregon State in in the middle of the 2017 season, with a 7-23 record for 2½ years. With a 52-54 lifetime record at three FBS schools, he can move above .500 with a good season in 2019, when the Aggies will feature senior quarterback Jordan Love.

25. Beth Launiere, Utah volleyball coach

Previous ranking: NR

Entering her 30th season as Utah’s coach, Launiere has adapted well to Pac-12 competition, producing one of the athletic department’s most consistent programs. The Utes made a late surge to earn a 2018 NCAA Tournament bid and won a first-round match, and Launiere hopes to have a Top 25 team this season with stars Kenzie Koerber and Dani Barton returning. Launiere has become proactive in addressing her case of Crohn’s disease, encouraging others with a message of healthy living and life balance.

In an op-ed piece published In The Salt Lake Tribune last August, Mia Vinding criticized The Tribune’s 2018 list of the 25 Most Influential People in Utah Sports. She cited the absence of athletes, particularly in Winter Olympic sports, and of women in important positions.

The Tribune this year invited the Rowland Hall senior, a high school track and field athlete and competitive Nordic skier, to compile her own list of figures who deserve greater awareness for their influence in Utah and beyond.

[Read our most picks for Most Influential in Utah sports in 2019 list]

“By continuously reporting on the same athletes and sports teams, we perpetuate a lack of knowledge about other communities and cultures that I believe we have a responsibility to fix,” she wrote. “With this list I hope to continue a dialogue around these incredible, under recognized athletes and coaches. Each of these incredible people deserves to be on this list no more or less than any others, and they’re all influential in different ways.”

Mia’s List in some cases crosses over with The Tribune’s 2019 rankings; her selections are in alphabetical order.

Maame Biney

When she qualified at age 17, Biney became the first female African American speedskater to make the U.S. Olympic team. Before attending the University of Utah, Biney had moved from Virginia to Utah to train before the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang. The native of Ghana won the 500-meter short track event in the Olympic trials in Kearns.

Angel Collinson

Utah native Angel Collinson is a professional free-skier who regularly stars in Teton Gravity Research ski films that showcase her talent in treacherous conditions including “Almost Ablaze” (2014), “Paradise Waits” (2015), “Rogue Elements” (2017) and “All In” (2018). A two time free-skiing world champion, Collinson was the first woman to have an opening or closing segment in a ski or action sports movie, earning her awards such the “Best Line” award at the Powder Magazine annual industry awards in 2016 (as the first female recipient) and Freeskier magazine’s Skier of the Year in 2015. Collinson uses her platform to draw attention to climate issues and solutions.

Sam Gordon

After going viral in her 2012 You-Tube football highlight reel, Gordon is now at the center a lawsuit that aims to create girls high school tackle football programs in Utah. After winning the inaugural NFL game changer award in 2017, Gordon was featured in Nike’s “Dream Crazier” and the NFL 100 Super Bowl advertisements and was featured on a Wheaties box (the first female football player so honored). Sam Gordon and her father also founded the Utah Girls Tackle Football League, with over 460 players participating last year.

Sarah Hendrickson

In 2013, when women finally won the right to compete in ski jumping in the Olympics, one of the Winter Olympics’ most traditional sports, Park City native Sarah Hendrickson and her American teammates were considered some of the best in the world. At 17, Hendrickson won the first women’s ski jumping world championship. Wearing bib No. 1, she also had the honor of being the first ever woman to ski jump in the Olympics in Sochi in 2014. After four knee injuries between 2014 and ’18, she needed extreme tenacity to even compete in Pyeongchang in 2018. She was the top American in the event.

Fredrik Landstedt

In his first year as the University of Utah's director of skiing, Fredrik Landstedt coached the combined men's and women's Alpine and Nordic teams to an NCAA championship, the 13th title in school history.

Megan Marsden

Marsden recently retired as the co-head coach of Utah gymnastics after being a member of the Red Rocks’ coaching staff since 1985. Gymnasts coached by Marsden have won 11 NCAA titles and she has helped the Utes win six national titles. Utah is the only program to finish in the top three in every Pac-12 meet.

Heather Olmstead

Having coached the BYU women's volleyball team since 2015, Olmstead has led the Cougars to four West Coast Conference titles in four years and posted a 118-13 overall record. Olmstead was also the only female head coach in the 2018 NCAA Final Four. Olmstead was named the American Volleyball Coaches’ Association National Coach of the Year in 2018, and her team was the No. 1 offensive team in the country last season, winning 90 of 104 sets played. Olmstead was named the 2018 West Coast Conference Coach of the Year and the 2018 AVCA Pacific South Region Coach of the Year. She coached the U.S. Collegiate National Team that recently competed in Japan.

Jennifer Rockwood

Rockwood has coached BYU women’s soccer since 1995. She posted a a 13-5-1 record in 2018, when she became a three-time West Coast Conference Coach of the Year in 2012, 2014 and 2018. Rockwood has won six WCC titles in seven years.

Becky Sauerbrunn

The captain of Utah Royals FC, Sauerbrunn is is an Olympic gold medalist, a backbone for the defense of the U.S. National Team and a recent World Cup champion.

MyKayla Skinner

After three years of competing for the Utah gymnastics team, Skinner collected two NCAA individual-event titles and seven Pac-12 championships. The 2016 Olympic alternate is pursuing a berth on the 2020 U.S. team, deferring her senior year at Utah and intending to return to school in 2020-21.