UTAH’S BEAR RIVER is an odd creature. Its headwaters and its mouth are only 90 miles (145km) apart. But the river takes its time spanning those points, flowing 500 miles over a tortuous path. It begins high in Utah’s Uinta Mountains, then spills north into Wyoming and Idaho, looping around the Wasatch Mountains. Near the town of Soda Springs, Idaho, the…
A new study finds that Texas is among the national leaders in “economic dynamism.” That’s a technical term: it means businesses starting and closing, workers changing firms or moving to new opportunities. According to the Economic Innovation Group, a think tank and advocacy group in Washington, D.C., dynamism is a more illuminating measure of economic health than typical metrics like the unemployment rate.…
Utah residents may have thought they were done fighting about Medicaid expansion last November. But when Utah lawmakers opened a new legislative session in late January, they began pushing through a bill to roll back the scope and impact of an expansion that voters approved in a ballot measure. That scaled-back version of Medicaid expansion passed the Utah House on…
(The Center Square) – As Arizona’s COVID-19 case growth rate increases, residents hoping to travel elsewhere may be required to quarantine for two weeks before they arrive. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment updated their list of locations where travelers would need to quarantine for 14 days after arriving in their state. In addition to Alabama, Arkansas, and Maryland, officials added…
A free online preschool pilot program is wrapping up in Mississippi, and program officials say early results are promising, indicating the new offering may boost kindergarten readiness. The pilot is run through the non-profit Waterford Institute, which launched the first online preschool offering in Utah in 2009. The program, UPSTART, received an $11.5 million Investing in Innovation (i3) grant from the…
It’s common for a news agency to request or require its journalists to use social media to promote their work and help market the company brand. Often, reporters, editors and columnists maintain two or more accounts on social media platforms to try to keep their professional lives separate from their personal ones. In many cases, journalists have a love-hate relationship with social…
Free speech, a staple of modern democracy, has become the focal point for political and cultural forces impacting the university. Universities thrive in an environment of open inquiry. But recent controversies in universities around the globe expose the difficulties of crafting a strong position on free speech in this polarized time. Partly these controversies are a demonstration of the external pressures created…