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The 392-acre Water Tower Fire in Utah County was officially 60 percent contained as of Tuesday morning, but most crews assigned to the blaze had been pulled off for other duties.
“This fire is pretty much out, but we’re being cautious, making sure,” Fire Information Officer Shayne Ward said.
The fire, sparked Saturday by a hot 50-caliber bullet casing fired from a makeshift gun range site about 1 mile northeast of Alpine, should be declared 100 percent contained by Thursday. Ward said.
About 25 ...

It was just after midnight when Juan Linares, 72, woke up soaked in sweat. The room was silent and still. Linares struggled to breathe as he reached for an inhaler on his bedside table.
“It’s terrible at night,” Linares said. “It feels like I’m choking, like someone has me by the neck and is putting pressure.”
Without a fan, air conditioner or swamp cooler in his one-bedroom apartment in South Salt Lake, Linares had only one option to cool down on that June night.

A building high pressure ridge will bring monsoonal moisture into Utah Wednesday, punctuated by scattered afternoon and evening thunderstorms and rain showers.
However isolated and brief, the storms should bring some relief to portions of the our desert state that have endured near-record, and well above normal heat for the past week.
It’s the kind of rain the late poet John Gould Fletcher wrote could bring “showers [that] surround the mesa like a troop of silver dancers: shaking their rattles, ...

Finding the best fishing spots in Utah or studying for a state driver’s test is now as easy as saying “Alexa.”
The Beehive State is one of two states nationwide to use Amazon’s voice-controlled devices to make government information available to residents who use the home appliances. A handful of state agencies, including the Utah Division for Wildlife Resources, now offer content for devices such as the Amazon Echo or Echo Dot — and state officials are looking add more.

As members of the Millcreek City Council prepared to approve figures for their own pay, the city manager and some residents said the compensation they were considering was too low — but it’s more than the nothing the council has been working for over the past seven months.
The council unanimously approved an annual compensation package for $40,000 plus benefits for part-time Mayor Jeff Silvestrini and $15,000 plus benefits for council members. Those pay rates are set to take effect Aug.

A wildfire burning on more than 1,000 acres near Elko, Nev., burned at least eight homes Monday and caused evacuations in at least two areas, officials said.
The blaze, dubbed the Oil Well Fire, was burning dangerously close to White Rock and Osino, where residents had been issued evacuation orders, according to Annette Kerr, support service manager with the Elko County Sheriff’s Office.
Eight homes on the west side of White Rock were “affected” by the fire, according to the Sheriff’s Office Fa...

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Zion National Park closed the Narrows and all slot canyons Monday night after the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning.
Radar indicated that there was a thunderstorm producing heavy rain over the northern fork of the Virgin River, north of Zion National Park, according to a post from the park on Facebook.

Thousands of Venezuelans living in Utah voted in a referendum Sunday, joining millions of their countrymen in rejecting President Nicolas Maduro’s plan to rewrite the constitution and eliminate the country’s congress.
The National Assembly, Venezuela’s congress, asked on the ballots whether voters support the constitution and do not want to rewrite it (as Maduro plans to do), whether they want national security forces to protect the people and congressional politicians elected by the people and ...

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Mike Lee may sink this iteration of Senate GOP’s health care bill.
The Republican senator from Utah is joining Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, in opposing the bill, they tweeted Monday night.
“I cannot support the current version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act,” Lee said in a news release Monday night. “In addition to not repealing all of the Obamacare taxes, it doesn’t go far enough in lowering premiums for middle class families; nor does it create enough free space from the most costly Obam...

Utah homeowners and businesses are paying higher property taxes to make up for unfair discounts that the state is giving to the airline industry, five counties contend in a new lawsuit.
Salt Lake, Weber, Washington, Duchesne and Uintah counties filed the lawsuit Monday in 3rd District Court seeking to overturn two recent laws enacted by the Legislature that they say gave an unfair 39 percent discount to airlines.
It says the Legislature forced changes that “cause property tax assessments in the ...

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