Salt Lake County | featured news

Utah regulators participating in a national, undercover crackdown on construction-related fraud have issued 45 administrative citations and assessed $23,000 in fines at locations throughout the state.
Those actions came at the conclusion of a two-week sting operation in which the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing (DOPL) took the in-state lead.
Utah’s efforts were under the umbrella of the National Association of State Contractors Licensing Agencies, which also sponsored si...

The last time Angie Rice traveled through Denver’s airport, her driver license was scrutinized and she had to endure a pat-down and search of her luggage that left her publicly embarrassed and feeling stripped of her dignity.
It’s just the kind of experience Rice said she braces for every day. A transgender woman, her driver license — along with health-insurance cards and a military ID — all list her name as Angie, but her gender as male.
Sean Childers-Gray is similarly mismatched. His name an...

Angie Rice
At age 8, Arthur Edward Rice would hide in his parents’ Vermont bedroom and hold a long braid of his younger sister’s hair up to the back of his head, sometimes tucking it into a baseball cap to hold it in place.
Then he would stare into a mirror.
“What I saw was the person I wished I could be,” said Rice, a transgender woman who now is named Angie.
Rice kept that secret through four years at the Air Force Academy and a 20-year career as a pilot, flying rescue helicopters and KC-13...

A highway that is a major shortcut across the northwestern corner of Utah has reopened after being closed for more than five months because of flood damage.
The Utah Department of Transportation says State Road 30 has reopened at the Utah-Nevada border, east of Montello, Nev. That allows traffic from Utah to travel west through Montello and on to Interstate 80 at Oasis, Nev.
The road, called State Road 233 in Nevada, closed near the border — about 80 miles southwest of Snowville — on Feb.

The Book of Mormon is coming to video.
No, not the raunchy-if-sweet Tony Award-winning Broadway smash musical, but rather a faith-promoting series that LDS leaders hope will inspire viewers to read their faith’s signature scripture.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is producing the live-action videos.

The hottest place I ever lived for any length of time was Fort Irwin, Calif., a desert warfare Army training post located just a few miles south of hell.
We moved there in 1966. I remember the first thought I had upon alighting from the overloaded station wagon in front of our quarters on Rhineland Drive.
“%&^@! Ow!”
I fell back into the barely air-conditioned car, where I slowly recovered from radiation burns. I wondered what treason the Old Man possibly could have committed to get orders for ...

West Jordan • Kayden Troff’s passion for chess began at age 3 and will reach new heights this weekend, when the 19-year-old competes for his second national championship.
But win or lose, the West Jordan native then will give up the game he loves while he serves a Mormon mission to Australia.
Troff also deferred a full-ride scholarship to play chess at St. Louis University to be an LDS missionary come October, a decision he said many of his peers don’t understand.
What they don’t realize, Trof...

At 70,589 acres and 75 percent containment as of Friday, southern Utah’s Brian Head Fire faced perhaps one more big challenge from Mother Nature this weekend: another surge of gusty winds, continued tinder-dry conditions — and lightning.
The National Weather Service’s “Red Flag” warning issued Friday covered the western three-quarter of the state, including the Dixie National Forest and the parched stands of beetle-killed timber, old growth mix-conifer and brushy mountains surrounding the Brian...

“Under the Dome.” That’s not just the title of a horror novel by Stephen King, it’s an apt meteorological metaphor for the superheated canopy baking Utah.
Record-setting temperatures could continue along the Wasatch Front through the weekend. The National Weather Service blames it on “strong high pressure aloft” over the western U.S. but centered on Utah.
The western three-quarters of the state were under a “Red Flag” warning through 10 p.m. Saturday.

A Cache County law enforcement dog has died, the Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday.
The K-9, Endy, died after an “unfortunate incident” over the weekend, according to a news release from the Cache County Sheriff’s Office.
The Sheriff’s Office didn’t detail what happened, but it said the Northern Utah Critical Incident Task Force will investigate. The Sheriff’s Office is also conducting an internal investigation, according to the release.