The cancellation of the classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” at Salt Lake City’s Grand Theatre may not be the last word, after a powerful Broadway producer faced a barrage of bad publicity and had a change of heart.

Cast members of The Grand’s production were in rehearsals on Feb. 16 when they learned that the production would be dropped because of a legal dispute. Producer Scott Rudin argues licensing company Dramatic Publishing Inc. improperly agreed to allow certain regional theaters — including The Grand — to stage the 1991 stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s classic novel. Dramatic Publishing holds the rights to that version.

Rudin has had a new adaptation on Broadway since December, written by Aaron Sorkin, the creator of TV’s “The West Wing” and “The Newsroom,” and an Oscar winner for “The Social Network.”

The Grand was one of at least eight regional theaters that were mounting productions of the 1991 version and had received letters from Rudin’s lawyers threatening expensive legal action if they didn’t cancel their productions. The Grand and several others, without the funds for a legal battle, decided to cancel.

On Friday, Rudin — facing bad publicity, an online boycott threat, and a story about the controversy on the front page of The New York Times — relented. Rudin made a stunning offer: The regional theaters that received his lawyers’ letters could produce “To Kill a Mockingbird,” with the new Sorkin script, without a fee.

Some of the theater companies — given a rare chance to stage a play that’s still on Broadway — are taking Rudin up on the offer, or contemplating it, The Times reported Friday. The Grand, for now, isn’t one of them.

Seth Miller, The Grand’s executive artistic director, told The Times it was too late to mount a new version of the play for the scheduled opening of March 21. Miller would like to try next season, but he’s not sure if Rudin’s offer would still be available then.

Miller told The Times that The Grand was going to lose about $20,000 because of the cancellation. The Grand has extended the run of its current play, the romantic musical “First Date,” to March 16, to recoup some of that money.

The race for 2020 is taking shape, although there are still significant unknowns, including whether Donald Trump will get a serious primary challenge.

His fiercest Republican critics say, "Yes — please, please, yes."

They are probably wrong, and it's certainly nothing to root for.

Trump's dominance of the party begins with his lockdown support of the right, forcing any primary challenger to the left. This isn't fertile territory. Self-identified moderates and liberals are only a fraction of the party, and it is grass-roots conservative activists who have fueled the most potent Republican primary challenges (Ronald Reagan in 1976, Pat Buchanan in 1992).

Because a primary challenge would naturally come from the left and is unlikely to succeed, it will tend to attract people who don’t have a future in GOP national politics and lack conservative bona fides — the wayward former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld; the centrist governor of Maryland Larry Hogan; the former Ohio governor John Kasich, who convincingly demonstrated his lack of national electoral appeal in 2016.

Trump is in a stronger position in the party now than he was then. He's been a rock on judges, abortion and religious liberty. Last time, many Republicans told themselves, "Well, at least compared to Hillary, we don't know what we're getting with Trump." Now, they are grateful for what they've gotten.

Could all of this change? It would require a torpedo to the bow from some enormous scandal and a significant ideological betrayal on something extremely important, like a Supreme Court nominee.

The promoters of a Trump primary challenge still haven't come to grips with how intertwined Trump's fate is with the party's.

If Trump becomes seriously vulnerable to a primary challenge, it's a sign that something very bad has happened that won't be constrained to him. Say it's proof of a criminal conspiracy with the Russians. Is the rest of the party that has defended Trump so vociferously in the Mueller probe going to emerge unscathed? Say it's a sudden economic downturn. What's the case that such an event wouldn't tank the GOP generally?

Indeed, a winning primary campaign against Trump would almost certainly be a catastrophic success. How would the winner put the party back together again for the general election?

Perhaps the hardcore Trump base and media will enthusiastically back whoever slays their champion. But why would they? Besides the inevitable hurt feelings and ideological disagreements, they will surely consider recent precedent — Never Trump would be the analogue to Never Hogan.

Of course, a primary campaign doesn't have to be about winning. Futile gestures can achieve a kind of grandeur. Bill Buckley was never going to win the 1965 New York City mayoral campaign, but he did promote his brand of conservatism. In their primary challenges, Reagan and Buchanan were movement-builders, not just candidates.

Does anyone really believe, though, that Weld, Hogan or Kasich is going to define the future of the post-Trump Republican Party? There are people out there who may well have significant say in the party's future — a Nikki Haley or a Tom Cotton — but for them, 2024 will come soon enough (if Trump loses, the presidential jockeying begins in less than two years; if he wins, in less than four).

There is obviously a character case to be made against Trump, although Republican voters are already aware of his flaws and strongly support him nonetheless.

The contradiction in the case for a primary challenge is this: If it's a bad thing that Trump is potentially a weak general-election candidate, as Trump's critics say, then why make him potentially weaker with a primary challenge? What many of Trump's GOP detractors won't say out loud is that when they talk of defeating Trump, they don't mean only defeating him in a nomination battle; they mean seeing him lose in a general election.

That Republican voters would sense this, and understandably recoil, is another reason a primary challenge is probably a box canyon.

Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. comments.lowry@nationalreview.com

Thanks to Robert Gehrke for pointing out the many reasons why political involvement by the predominant religion is not out of the ordinary in a state like Utah.

Having recognized that, those who belong to this church, and all other churches, should actively be contacting their church officials regarding HB220, the bill to allow EnergySolutions to bring hotter, more eternally toxic radioactive waste to Utah. This could literally be a matter of life or death for some Utahns.

It’s not Utah’s waste. It’s not our responsibility to store it. We don’t know if it can be safely shipped and stored. It is not in the best interests of 99 percent of Utahns.

Only two industries in Utah will benefit from HB220: EnergySolutions and Utah state legislators who take campaign money from EnergySolutions. Utah citizens have been fighting this fight for decades.

Please contact your state senators, the governor and your church leaders to work together to defeat this bill for the sake of our state, our families and our health and well-being.

Hasn’t Utah experienced enough devastation from nuclear experimentation? Ask yourselves why our legislators would even consider this proposal.

Candace Jacobson, Provo

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Thank you, Rep. Chris Stewart, for making a compelling case for limited American socialism.

In his Feb. 26 opinion piece, Stewart attempted to denounce socialism, not by citing failed instances, but by justifiably excoriating failed totalitarian regimes, namely those that have ruled the USSR, Cuba and Venezuela, which nationalized and then destroyed key industries. Amazingly, he immediately went on to praise Canada and what he called “the Nordic countries” for their social safety nets.

That he confused socialism with totalitarianism, or did not realize the safety nets he lauded constitute limited forms of socialism, is unlikely. Seemingly, Stewart’s true aims were threefold:

1. To dupe readers into believing limited socialism, exemplified by Social Security and Medicare, invariably leads to communistic totalitarianism;
2. To promote the libertarian view of freedom, which includes the right to pursue economic enterprise without being encumbered by labor laws, environmental and safety regulations, disclosure requirements or other forms of “pesky” government interference; and
3. To discredit progressive candidates for public office.

Regarding the last, Stewart surely knows that all credible progressive contenders for the presidency abhor totalitarianism, which is among the reasons they have spoken out vigorously against the incumbent.

Erhard K. Valentin, Layton

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With respect to The Salt Lake Tribune article “Utah water conservation plan falls short, critics say,” I believe that the Utah Division of Water Resources has no interest in water conservation, but wants to be “seen” as conserving water.

What I mean by that is they make plenty of marketing/PR claims about their efforts, but when a well-documented article puts the division’s efforts into context, the truth about the dismal efforts comes to light.

Utah is home to the cheapest water prices in the West and some of the highest water usages per capita, and yet this myth is being pushed that “we are running out of water” by certain stakeholders in the community. Simple water conservation efforts can vastly change the calculus of the future of water resources in Utah if actual conservation practices are incentivized.

This lack of effort to conserve water is always too clear on my walk up to the University of Utah campus. When I have to jump over puddles and step over streams of water on the sidewalk in the middle of summer, this is a clear sign that things must change. We live in an arid environment and need conservation goals that acknowledge this.

Eric Amerling, Salt Lake City

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For those of us who believe clear thinking and facts should govern our politics, Rep. Chris Stewart’s recent St. George town hall performance was appalling. Stewart’s countless lies, taken from the GOP/Fox News handbook, demonstrate why our nation is in deep trouble. Examples:

• Lie: Republican tax breaks for the wealthy boost our economy.
• Fact: In exchange for kickbacks, Republicans gave massive tax breaks to their paymasters and increased our national debt $1.5+ trillion. CEOs and stockholders have profited but not the general economy. Trickle-down economics, a Republican mantra, fail the vast majority.
• Lie: We must cut social programs to balance the budget.
• Fact: Instead of reducing benefits, we can increase revenues, by raising the cap on Social Security taxes and requiring wealthy corporations/individuals pay their fair share. Example: Amazon, which makes billions in profits, received a $137 million federal tax refund for 2017.
• Lie: Climate change is not a dire concern.
• Fact: Science and the National Climate Assessment prove we must take bold immediate action to avoid worldwide upheaval. Instead, Republicans place fossil fuel industry bribes above human welfare.

This is only the short list. Like most Republicans, Stewart is a sycophant who abdicates truth and rational judgment.

Andrew Kramer, Ivins

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In response to Tom Huckin’s Tuesday commentary regarding the GOP’s years long propaganda around the word “socialism,” and now Rep. Chris Stewart, et al., making it a Red Menace, why don’t we just rebrand socialism to what it has always been: humanism.

Susann Spencer, Millcreek

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How about a giant shredder as the ultimate legacy for Sen. Orrin Hatch? In the short term, it could take care of his papers and be left for community use, improving the environment for everybody.

If the senator insists, it could be housed in an impressive marble and granite structure.

E. T. Hebda, Sandy

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In March of 1910, the Second International Conference of Women was held in Copenhagen, where nearly 100 women, representing 17 countries, decided that the first “International Woman’s Day” would be celebrated the next year. March 8, 1911, marked the first time women’s rights and their contributions were recognized.

It took many decades, but the movement grew from a single day to a week of recognition. In 1978, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (Calif.) Commission on the Status of Women was disturbed by the lack of information on prominent women in history being taught in public schools. They pushed to expand Woman’s Day to Women’s History Week and saw more than 100 women step up to do classroom presentations. Their “Real Women” essay contest received hundreds of entries and the next year, their efforts caught national attention.

In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter declared the first National Women’s History Week, saying, in part: "From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this Nation. Too often, the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well.”

By 1987, Congress had declared the entire month of March as National Women’s History Month and now, more than 30 years later, we continue to recognize women’s achievements all month. (Although, let’s be clear, we shouldn’t limit that recognition to one month out of the year.)

Each year has a theme. This year's is: Visionary Women: Champions of Peace & Non-violence.

“This year we honor women who have led efforts to end war, violence, and injustice and pioneered the use of nonviolence to change society,” the National Women’s History Alliance said. “For generations, women have resolved conflicts in their homes, schools, and communities. They have rejected violence as counterproductive and stressed the need to restore respect, establish justice, and reduce the causes of conflict as the surest way to peace.”

Surely we see examples of that in Malala, who advocates for education as the ultimate “weapon,” and in the work of Dr. Valerie Hudson, former Brigham Young University professor and an expert on international security and foreign policy analysis. She is the co-author of the book “Sex and World Peace,” which connects the success of a country with the security of its women — a well-researched, fascinating and disturbing read I highly recommend. She is also the originator of the “Women Stats Project,” which uses data visualization to drive home the realities women face worldwide.

Locally, Better Days 2020 is doing a fantastic job of bringing the stories of many of Utah’s female change-makers to the forefront and into the classroom. Stories like Mignon Barker Richmond, an African-American leader in Utah, Alice Kasai, who “devoted her life to empowering, mentoring, and advocating” Japanese-Americans and Mae Timbimboo Parry, “Historian and Matriarch of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone” whose life story was written by her grandson. There are many other stories of some of Utah’s movers and shakers, most of whom are not well-known but should be.

Coretta Scott King has said: “Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.”

This month, our family will talk about the story of my great-grandmother Freda Billeter who fed hungry men during the Great Depression, and we will re-watch the movie “Hidden Figures.”

What stories about women and their achievements will you be sharing in your families this month?

Holly Richardson, a regular contributor to The Salt Lake Tribune, loves “her”story.

The following story was written and reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune.

Seven months after it was called out in a critical legislative audit for questionable spending of public dollars, the Utah Restaurant Association is back asking state lawmakers for more than $400,000 in appropriations.

The money is to run ProStart, a culinary education program for high school students looking for careers in the food-service industry. While the audit was fairly damning, its presentation to legislative leaders was limited to just two minutes and was overshadowed by separate discussions about the troubled UPSTART program and its problems delivering technology and services to needy prekindergarten students.

Not disclosed in the presentation was how the restaurant association has in the past tried to get taxpayer funds to reimburse it for Disneyland resort tickets, or how it did use public funds to pick up beer tabs, or cover a prime rib dinner costing more than $1,000 for a party of nine. Also left out of the discussion was how the association was reimbursed to buy expensive camera equipment for the production of a teen chef reality program directed by Katy Sine, daughter of Melva Sine, president of the restaurant association, or the conflict presented by the daughter’s company going on to receive more than $1 million in legislative appropriations for production of the show.

Receipts obtained by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project through an open-records request to the Utah State Board of Education show a program that had for years operated on its own terms and repeatedly clashed with the board over inadequate documentation of expenses and spending.

Neither Melva Sine nor her daughter responded to repeated calls for comment, or to answer written questions.

Powerful friends

The ProStart program itself is not unique to Utah but rather is a certificate-based culinary arts program administered by the National Restaurant Association, which runs the program in every state. Through it, students get hands-on skills training to prepare them to become top chefs and restaurateurs — and the opportunity to compete in state and national cooking competitions.

But as auditors discovered last year, the program in Utah puts on more costly training events and regional competitions than neighboring states. It is also unusual in its dependence on public dollars compared to Arizona, Montana, Nevada and New Mexico — states that fund their programs through grants and industry donations.

Another distinction: ProStart is not required curriculum in Utah schools, and it is not the only culinary program available; students also can receive culinary training through the state’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) program.

While CTE, like ProStart, receives money from the state education budget’s per-pupil funding formula and federal grant funding, CTE does not get any special legislative appropriations. That may be because the restaurant association is better at making inroads in the Legislature. Its lobbyist is Andy Stephenson, the son of just-retired state Sen. Howard Stephenson, a longtime powerful figure on the Public Education Appropriations Committee. In May 2011, the first ProStart awards banquet program singled out the senator for special thanks.

Howard Stephenson, who ended his 26-year run in the Legislature last month, is still a staunch advocate of the program. He says that ProStart students get a national certificate and training that is more rigorous than the standard CTE program. And he says the program is a boon to local restaurants and the hospitality and tourism industry.

“That’s why the ProStart program has been so important to these restaurant owners is that they’re looking for that quality and that high level of certification, so they don’t have to train them on the job,” Stephenson says. “The CTE level program is not equivalent in any way, and I think we ought to be looking for the best for our kids.”

Stephenson also says that his son’s work as a lobbyist for the restaurant association in recent years has had no bearing on his support for the program, and he says he has even opposed other clients and issues his son has represented on Capitol Hill.

Stephenson, longtime president of the business-backed Utah Taxpayers Association, also defends another practice the restaurant association has employed since it started receiving ProStart appropriations. ProStart students prepared and served sumptuous meals — paid for with public money — to the Public Education Appropriations Committee. The tradition, however, ended this year as Stephenson retired, but, in January 2016, for example, the committee feasted on a luncheon of potato fingerlings and salmon filets with fresh dill herb and demi-glace. The $742 cost for the legislative meal was reimbursed with tax dollars.

The show must go on

In March 2013, the restaurant association tried to expense more than $1,000 for film equipment for Reel People Productions, the company belonging to Katy Sine, daughter of the association president, and also for her company to film the ProStart state competition that year at the state Capitol.

This invoice was immediately flagged by a purchasing agent with the state education office, who wrote in an email to the association: "The equipment appears to have been purchased for the use of [Melva Sine’s] daughter who then invoices for her time. The purchase of the camera equipment furthers the business capabilities of her daughter’s business with public funds.” The agent also said that public bids should have been taken and that the filming actually could have been provided for free by staff of the education office.

The reimbursement for camera equipment was denied. But two years later, the education office did pay the restaurant association $1,627 for “ProStart Training Equipment” that appears to have helped cover the cost of GoPros, SD memory cards and other cameras used for Reel People Productions’ reality show “TeenChef Pro.”

Asked about the change, education board spokesman Mark Peterson replied, “USBE does not tell URA [whom] to hire and pay.”

By 2015 and 2016, the show was receiving more than $250,000 in annual appropriations.

Howard Stephenson said he’s heard the complaint before but defends “TeenChef Pro” for its educational value, having talked to ProStart teachers who have their students watch the shows as instructional videos. Besides, he says, Katy Sine’s company was able to deliver a quality production very inexpensively.

“They should be congratulated for doing it on such a shoestring,” Stephenson says.

Gov. Gary Herbert saw it differently when, in 2016, he vetoed the $275,000 appropriation for the show.

“The governor is supportive of the ProStart Culinary program, but prefers that taxpayer funds be used exclusively for the program’s educational endeavors,” his spokesman later told The Salt Lake Tribune. “Ultimately, it’s a matter of priorities, and Governor Herbert believes that future funding for this type of programming should come from private sources.”

Legislators pushed back, overriding the governor’s veto to restore full funding.

Katy Sine said much of the program costs are covered by donations and volunteered time. Most of the money appropriated by the state goes to rent studio facilities at Salt Lake Community College and to pay professional staff.

“If we had to pay for the show outright, it would be a $1 million production,” she told The Tribune in July 2016. “We are just operating on a shoestring.”

But last July, auditors renewed questions about “TeenChef Pro," recommending a review of the economic impact of the show, given its high cost and noted that its top prize is a scholarship to an out-of-state cooking program in Denver.

(Sine told The Tribune in her 2016 interview that the $80,000 tuition for the scholarship at prestigious Johnson & Wales University was donated.)

After years of being overseen by the Utah State Board of Education as part of the ProStart program, the restaurant association’s contract for production of “TeenChef Pro” last year was transferred to the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.

GOED says it has not received an official request to review the show’s economic impact, according to spokeswoman Aimee Edwards. She also said that the family ties between the association head and the show’s producer were never voluntarily disclosed to the agency.

Enrollment down, spending up

Last year’s legislative audit noted a strange trend in the ProStart program. Since 2011, student enrollment has decreased by more than a third while legislative funding has increased 48 percent — including a spike in administrative costs. The restaurant association has disputed the enrollment figures auditors gathered from the Utah State Board of Education, instead offering statistics from a “separate data source” that auditors could not validate.

By crunching state enrollment figures, auditors determined that the per-student cost for the program increased by 133 percent while student enrollment decreased by 37 percent. It’s a troubling trend for a program competing for scarce public education dollars. Even more troubling is the fact that the program has been repeatedly flagged for poor invoicing and suspicious expenses since the program first received legislative funding in 2011.

In 2012, a receipt submitted for reimbursement raised eyebrows. It was from the Black Bear Diner in St. George that, along with a ribeye steak and fries, included two beers. On another trip that year to a different steakhouse, a Coors Light showed up a submitted receipt. Despite being flagged, the expenses were nevertheless reimbursed by the board of education. Peterson says that policy has since changed so as not reimburse alcohol purchases.

Receipts were often challenged for inadequate explanation in the first years of the program but were subjected to closer scrutiny after 2015, when the restaurant association took a group of students to the national ProStart competition in Anaheim, Calif. That same trip they turned in receipts for Disneyland resort passes totaling $2,325, and also spent $1,039.59 on a single dinner at the chic Lawry’s The Prime Rib restaurant in Beverly Hills.

After 2015, it does appear expenses were reined in, and the association began to abide by state per diem allowances. Peterson says the state board also committed more oversight to ProStart expenses following the recommendation of the auditor’s report from last summer.

“Invoices are now reviewed by multiple staff and are checked specifically for these things,” Peterson says. But they didn’t heed the auditor’s recommendation — in light of declining enrollment and rising costs — that the contract between the restaurant association and the board of education "should have a budgeted amount for reimbursement of administrative personnel to ensure administrative costs are reasonable.”

The association “sets the administrative costs each year based on what their costs will be,” Peterson said. “We don’t tell them what their administrative costs should be.”

Melva Sine has since 2011 been reimbursed between $2,000 and $3,000 a month, and she and other ProStart administrators also had their cellphone bills paid and travel covered to ProStart competitions across the country.

Culinary conflict

The Utah Restaurant Association wears a couple of different chef hats in the state Capitol.

One is advocating for the state’s restaurants, letting legislators know how Zion curtains and 0.05 DUI limits and other laws will impact the big and small businesses of their members.

The other hat involves going to the Legislature, hand out, asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars in appropriations every year to run ProStart — this year seeking $403,100. This puts the industry association in the strange position of actually being more dependent on the Legislature for funding than its members. The association’s nonprofit tax forms show that for fiscal 2017, the most recent available, the restaurant association received $108,000 in membership dues and $380,000 from government sources.

Tanner Lenart is a lawyer in Salt Lake City with a specialty in dealing with Utah’s quirky liquor laws. She’s also a board member with the Salt Lake Area Restaurant Association and says it is unusual that the Utah Restaurant Association gets such a large legislative appropriation, but adds that it’s impossible to say if that has hamstrung the group’s ability to fight for the industry.

“At the same time the older establishments [like the URA] haven’t accomplished what we’ve wanted to see,” Lenart says. “That’s why there are some new organizations like the Salt Lake Area Restaurant Association, the Utah Brewers Guild and the Utah Hospitality Association. There’s just a bunch more of specialized interest groups because they felt the URA wasn’t representing them well.”

To be fair, Lenart says she can’t speak for all the various new hospitality groups that have sprung up but still says their presence does send a message.

“I wouldn’t want to speak on behalf of everybody,” Lenart says. “But I do know that the funding has remained the same for the URA, but all these new groups are cropping up in order to try and have more of a voice on the hill.”

For ProStart advocates like Stephenson, the restaurant association remains a trusted, welcome voice on Capitol Hill, and he is untroubled by ProStart’s practices — from the reality TV show to the elaborate, publicly funded meals the students provided to lawmakers.

For Stephenson, it’s not about “another” free meal for lawmakers but about being able to hold students accountable for the program funding by getting to sample their cooking.

“We don’t just throw money at things," Stephenson says. “We require accountability.”

Eric S. Peterson is the founding board member of The Utah Investigative Journalism Project.

Two linebackers, two kickers, an offensive tackle and a safety.

Utah's needs of personnel discoveries in spring football practice, beginning Monday, are conveniently packaged into selected position groups and align with the players the Utes sent to the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. The program lost only three other senior starters, also from the offensive line and secondary, so those are the obvious areas of interest in March and April for the Pac-12 South's defending champions.

Four projected starters will miss spring practice, due to injury: running back Zack Moss, receiver Britain Covey, defensive tackle Pita Tonga and linebacker Francis Bernard. Receiver Samson Nacua is the most prominent player among others who will be sidelined.

Quarterback Tyler Huntley is healthy after missing the last five games of the 2018 season with a broken collarbone and is listed as the starter, ahead of Jason Shelley. Texas transfer Cameron Rising will participate in the spring; Utah is petitioning the NCAA for him to be eligible in 2019, rather than having to sit out one season.

The Utes will stage three sessions prior to the school’s spring break, then practice three days a week from March 19 through the Red-White Game on April 13. Three new coaches will be on the field this spring, although Sione Po’uha (defensive tackles) was involved in Holiday Bowl preparations after being hired in December. The others are offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Andy Ludwig and linebackers coach Colton Swan.

Here’s how the Utes will look to replace their NFL draft prospects and other departed players:

Linebackers

Utah must find replacements for Chase Hansen and Cody Barton, possibly the best tandem in school history, in a defensive scheme that generally has two linebackers on the field. Penn State transfer Manny Bowen is listed as a starter in the spring. Bernard, who played a lot at the end of last season and started in the Holiday Bowl in Hansen’s absence, is the other probable starter. While he’s sidelined in the spring, sophomore Devin Lloyd will have a big opportunity, along with Stanford transfer Sione Lund.

Donavan Thompson, who was the team’s No. 3 linebacker last season before being overtaken by Bernard, has left the program.

Safeties

Julian Blackmon’s move from cornerback to free safety was among the Utes’ biggest offseason developments. That reflects the coaching staff’s belief in the other corners, including Tareke Lewis, and the need for help at safety, with vacancies left by Corrion Ballard and combine participant Marquise Blair.

Terrell Burgess is listed as the starting strong safety, backed up by Vonte Davis, with Philip Afia having left the program.

Offensive linemen

Left tackle Jackson Barton is at the combine, and right guard Jordan Agasiva and center/guard Lo Falemaka also must be replaced.

Darrin Paulo has moved from right tackle to left tackle, with junior college tackle Bamidele Olaseni coming to compete for a starting job in August. For now, Mo Unutoa is the right tackle, with Paul Toala at right guard. Part-time starters Orlando Umana (center) and Nick Ford (left guard) are the other first-team linemen on the depth chart.

Kickers

The Utes lost kicker Matt Gay and punter Mitch Wishnowsky, each a national award winner and combine participant. Chayden Johnston, who initially beat out Gay for the job in 2018, redshirted last season and has three years of eligibility. Ben Lennon, a 24-year-old freshman, is on campus. He’s expected to extend Utah’s tradition of Australian punters to more than a decade, by the end of his college career.

His mom called in the middle of team huddle... to tell him he’s officially on scholarship.

To the guy that does everything right, congratulations Kyle Lanterman! #UBoyz #WeArentCryingYouAre pic.twitter.com/4m4MMRySS9

— Utah Football (@Utah_Football) February 28, 2019

#tbt because who doesn't want to watch more Utah Football highlights from 2018? pic.twitter.com/yF3nDWiGcX

— Utah Football (@Utah_Football) February 21, 2019

Utah's @mitchwish showing off some Top Level Punter Speed pic.twitter.com/FIpnlMpgB0

— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) March 1, 2019

Over the past decade, teams from California, Florida or Texas have competed in more than half the championship series in the four major professional sports — including every NBA final.

That may be no surprise, considering the three states account for 27 percent of all franchises in those leagues. The sheer number of teams and their relative success make them fertile territory for legalizing sports gambling now that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed every state to offer it.

"These states are the brass rings given the size of the populations and the potential opportunity," said Sara Slane, a spokeswoman for the American Gaming Association.

So far, that ring remains elusive.

A 50-state review of sports gambling legislation by The Associated Press reveals that legalization efforts are nonexistent or very unlikely to happen anytime soon in the nation's three most populous states, which together hold more than a quarter of the U.S. population.

The reasons vary. In California and Florida, powerful tribal interests that control most casino gambling are reluctant to reopen their agreements with the state and potentially share the gambling market with other players, including card rooms and race tracks.

In Texas, a combination of political clout from out-of-state casino interests and social conservatives who are morally opposed to gambling have effectively killed any prospects for legalized sports betting.

In all three states, any attempt to allow sports gambling would likely require a statewide vote to amend the constitution — a high hurdle for any issue, much less an expansion of gambling.

"The dynamic at work here is the larger the state, the larger the market, the larger the opportunity — the more complex the stakeholder environment and the more political stasis sets in," said Chris Grove, managing director of gambling research firm Eilers and Krejcik.

Sports gambling is now legal in eight states, including Nevada, which had a monopoly before the high court ruling last spring.

Arkansas, New York and the District of Columbia also have legalized sports gambling in some form and are working on regulations before bets can be placed, while at least 22 other states are considering bills to legalize it. Advocates think the legislation has a realistic chance of passing in about half those states.

California, which alone accounts for one-eighth of the U.S. population and has 17 teams among the four major professional leagues, will not be joining the sports gambling states anytime soon.

Gambling there is largely controlled by casino-operating tribes that have compacts with the state. The tribes that are part of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association oppose an expansion of gambling even though it could bring more traffic to their casinos, said Steve Stallings, the group's chairman.

The group is in the midst of a dispute with the state's card rooms and doesn't want to see more competition for the tribes by opening a debate over sports betting.

"We feel like protecting the industry in California is more important," he said.

Just in case it does become legal, the United Auburn Indian Community struck a deal last year with a joint venture of casino company MGM and online gambling company GVC to run the sportsbook at its Thunder Valley Casino Resort, northeast of Sacramento.

Even so, the tribe doesn't want that to happen, said Howard Dickstein, the lawyer who negotiated the deal on the tribe's behalf.

"The tribe is not a strong advocate of legalizing sports betting under any circumstance," he said. "The agreement with MGM is an insurance policy to become allied with a leader if and when it becomes legal in California."

Dickstein said the tribe would welcome sports betting if it were clear that tribal casinos would control the market in California. But if betting is allowed at card rooms, racetracks or lottery retailers, it would not be so appealing for the casinos. Even if the tribes would receive a big piece of the action, it might mean renegotiating their agreements with the state that determine what is allowed at their casinos — and that could give the state an opportunity to insist on concessions.

A similar dynamic is in play in other states, including Arizona and Minnesota, where bills that would allow tribes to operate sports betting are in danger, partly because many of the tribes oppose them.

In Florida, a major casino-operating tribe also is a key factor.

Last year, voters agreed to make it tougher to expand gambling with a constitutional amendment that requires 60 percent voter approval for any future expansion of gambling in the state. The measure's supporters included Disney, whose Orlando resort is a major economic force, and the Seminole Tribe, which owns seven of Florida's eight tribal casinos.

State Senate President Bill Galvano, a Republican, said he believes sports betting could be legalized without voter approval, although he said he might ask for it, anyway. He said broader gambling legislation is being developed that would allow wagering, likely at racetracks, tribal casinos and perhaps in some form at sports venues.

"Sports betting has been taking place here, as it has other places, just not regulated and taxed," he said.

Any attempt to push through legalization in Florida without voter approval would hit opposition and likely trigger a lawsuit, said John Sowinski, who led the campaign for last year's constitutional amendment and leads the group No Casinos.

"Any sort of sober analysis of any type of gambling finds it doesn't add anything to the economy," he said. "It's basically parasitic."

In either case, Galvano said his bill is not likely to be a top priority during the 60-day legislative session that begins on Tuesday. Seminole Tribe spokesman Gary Bitner said in a text message that the tribe would not comment on the status of sports betting in Florida.

Texas, in addition to being home to eight teams in the four major professional sports, has hosted three Super Bowls, three NBA All-Star games and six NCAA men's Final Four basketball tournaments since 2004.

But the state is far less welcoming when it comes to gambling because of a mix of morality and money: Social conservatives assail it as a regressive tax on the poor, and the official Texas Republican Party platform opposes expanded gambling in any form.

A bill from a Democratic lawmaker seeking to legalize sports gambling has little chance this year in the Republican-dominated Legislature.

The biggest winners if Texas maintains the status quo are casinos in neighboring Oklahoma and Louisiana, whose operators are major contributors to Texas politicians.

Billionaire Tilman Fertitta, owner of the Golden Nugget casinos, has donated more than $500,000 to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Two Oklahoma casino empires, the Chickasaw Nation and Choctaw Nation, have given more than $5 million combined to Texas officeholders and candidates since 2006.

Rob Kohler, a lobbyist who opposes gambling as a consultant for the Christian Life Commission, said the consistently winning argument in Texas has been that gambling preys upon the poor.

"Dollars don't come from the sky," he said. "They're coming out of people's pockets."

___

AP writer Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this article.

One of the nation's largest neo-Nazi groups appears to have an unlikely new leader: a black activist who has vowed to dismantle it.

Court documents filed Thursday suggest James Hart Stern wants to use his new position as director and president of the National Socialist Movement to undermine the Detroit-based group's defense against a lawsuit.

The NSM is one of several extremist groups sued over bloodshed at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Stern's filing asks a federal court in Virginia to issue a judgment against the group before one of the lawsuits goes to trial.

Stern replaced Jeff Schoep as the group's leader in January, according to Michigan corporate records. But those records and court documents say nothing about how or why Stern got the position. His feat invited comparisons to the recent Spike Lee movie "BlacKkKlansman" in which a black police officer infiltrates a branch of the Ku Klux Klan.

Schoep did not respond Thursday to emails and calls seeking comment.

Matthew Heimbach, a leading white nationalist figure who briefly served as the NSM's community outreach director last year, said Schoep and other group leaders have been at odds with rank-and-file members over its direction. Heimbach said some members "essentially want it to remain a politically impotent white supremacist gang" and resisted ideological changes advocated by Schoep.

Heimbach said Schoep's apparent departure and Stern's installation as its leader probably spell the end of the group in its current form. Schoep was 21 when he took control of the group in 1994 and renamed it the National Socialist Movement, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"I think it's kind of a sad obit for one of the longest-running white nationalist organizations," said Heimbach, who estimates it had about 40 active, dues-paying members last year.

The group has drawn much larger crowds at rallies.

NSM members used to attend rallies and protests in full Nazi uniforms, including at a march in Toledo, Ohio, that sparked a riot in 2005. More recently, Schoep tried to rebrand the group and appeal to a new generation of racists and anti-Semites by getting rid of such overt displays of Nazi symbols.

It appeared that Stern, of Moreno Valley, California, had been trying for at least two years to disrupt the group. A message posted on his website said he would be meeting with Schoep in February 2017 "to sign a proclamation acknowledging the NSM denouncing being a white supremacist group."

"I have personally targeted eradicating the (Ku Klux Klan) and the National Socialist Movement, which are two organizations here in this country which have all too long been given privileges they don't deserve," Stern said in a video posted on his site.

On Wednesday, lawyers for the plaintiffs suing white supremacist groups and movement leaders over the Charlottesville violence asked the court to sanction Schoep. They say he has ignored his obligations to turn over documents and give them access to his electronic devices and social media accounts. They also claim Schoep recently fired his attorney as a stalling tactic.

A federal magistrate judge in Charlottesville ruled last Friday that Stern cannot represent the NSM in the case because he does not appear to be a licensed attorney. That did not deter Stern from filing Thursday's request for summary judgment against his own group.

"It is the decision of the National Socialist Movement to plead liable to all causes of actions listed in the complaint against it," he wrote.

Stern served a prison sentence for mail fraud at the same facility as onetime Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen, who was convicted in the "Mississippi Burning" killings of three civil rights workers. Killen died in January 2018.

In 2012, Stern claimed Killen signed over to him power of attorney and ownership of 40 acres of land while they were serving prison terms together. A lawyer for Killen asked a judge to throw out the land transfer and certify that Killen and his family owned the property.

New York • The latest parental panic on social media — over a purported challenge for kids to complete harmful tasks — elevates the importance of establishing an open dialogue with children and taking advantage of online parental controls.

Warnings about the "Momo challenge" swept Facebook and other social media in recent days, as parents worried about purported videos that encourage children to hurt themselves or do other harmful tasks such as turning on stoves without telling their parents. The parental warnings were accompanied by a disturbing image of a grinning creature with matted hair and bulging eyes.

But the challenge is believed to be a hoax. It's unclear how many videos exist or to what extent they have circulated, among children or elsewhere. Some of the videos might have been made in response to media attention surrounding the challenge. Meanwhile, the image of the grinning creature is reportedly from a Japanese sculpture.

Fact-checking site Snopes said the challenge first appeared in mid-2018 linked to suicide reports without actual evidence. YouTube said it hasn't received "any recent evidence of videos showing or promoting the Momo challenge" on its service.

So why the panic? Experts say internet hoaxes focused on children tap into fears that parents have about protecting their children online and elsewhere. In addition to anxiety about "screen time " in general, there is certainly plenty of problematic videos that children shouldn't watch. It's hard for parents to police everything children do online. Fears were compounded when some school systems, local media and even police sent out their own warnings, accompanied by fuzzy facts.

"All moral panics feed on some degree of reality, but then they get blown out of proportion," said Steve Jones, a professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

These hoaxes echo panics from decades past, like the false belief in the 1980s that teenagers were hearing Satanic messages in rock song lyrics, he said.

"Once the internet is involved in the mix, things get speeded up and they get more widespread," Jones said.

The most important thing parents can do is to establish an open dialogue with their children about what they're seeing online and hearing from other children, said Jill Murphy, editor-in-chief at Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group focused on kids' use of media and technology.

"Parents are increasingly frustrated with feeling surprised or caught off guard by what is being put in front of their kids," she said. Whether the "challenges" are real or not, she said, "they elevate the idea that they may or may not know exactly what their kids are absorbing through these platforms."

That's why talking to children is important, she said. "Take the right time to have an age-appropriate conversation, and help your kids understand not everything on the internet is real."

She said parents should also take advantage of parental settings built into many products and services. Most web browsers can block certain websites, limit what children can see and provide a report about what sites a child visited. Smartphones and tablets can limit screen time and access to apps. YouTube Kids lets parents disable search and turn off "autoplay." Murphy said these free tools are good enough; no need to pay for third-party parental apps.

Another option is to download apps from shows or channels directly rather than going through streaming services such as YouTube. PBS, Peppa Pig, Nick Jr. and other popular services for kids have their own apps, with pre-screened videos deemed appropriate for kids.

And though it may seem contradictory, going online to research the hoaxes could also help. The Momo hoax was debunked fairly quickly after people questioned it, Jones said. Give weight to trusted news sources and fact-checking sites like Snopes.com.

“Take a deep breath and go online as strange as that may seem in some sense,” he said. “Do some research and try to figure it out for yourself.”

If you were a superstar athlete, the question went, when would be the ideal time for you to retire?

I heard that question at the beginning of this season when it was announced that Dirk Nowitzki would be missing extended time due to injury. The question popped up again a week or so ago when Nowitzki was making what might have been the final Salt Lake City appearance of his career.

Everyone had their own best-case scenario: after winning a title at the tail end of your halcyon days; before a drop-off in talent and ability became significant.

My answer always has been and always will be the same: I’d retire either when I no longer felt the competitive urge to keep playing, or when no team thought I could be of any use anymore. And not a second before.

But — goes the inevitable rebuttal — what about your legacy? You don’t want to run the risk or being remembered like Willie Mays on the Mets, do you? Or Joe Namath on the Rams? You wouldn’t want to embarrass yourself, would you?

I’ve never really understood such arguments. And the whole idea of legacy is kind of silly to me anyway. I can just envision Nowitzki sitting at his locker saying, “You know, I feel a lot better now, and I’ve still got that competitive fire, and so I’d really like to play one more season, but it’d really damage the lingering memory that Eric from Utah has of me, so I’d better just call it quits instead.”

These athletes don’t owe our memories anything.

Besides, it’s a faulty premise anyway. If I invoke the name “Willie Mays,” does your first thought really go to the Mets iteration hitting below the Mendoza line? Or are you envisioning the Giants version making the basket catch? If I say “Kevin Garnett,” are you envisioning the broken-down guy averaging 6.5 ppg for the Brooklyn Nets? Or do you have the young double-double machine from the Wolves or even the defensive virtuoso from the Celtics in your mind’s eye?

Hey, what about “Karl Malone”? You’ve got him in a No. 11 purple-and-gold Lakers jersey, right? That’s what I thought.

Speaking of which, growing up as a Lakers fan, I wasn’t distraught at seeing a diminished, 42-year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar average only 10 points per game in his 20th season. He was my favorite athlete ever — I was exceedingly grateful I got a few more chances to watch him play. I was only distraught when, with the Lakers on the verge of being swept in the 1989 NBA Finals, he checked out for the last time, and I knew that was it, that he really was done and never coming back.

Lamenting a player hanging on is a selfish thing to do, besides.

Athletes have a finite amount of time to participate in their chosen profession. How hypocritical would it me for me (a 42-year-old rookie NBA beat writer with the potential to keep doing this job for a long time) to tell Dirk Nowitzki (a 40-year-old NBA player whose physical limitations will soon preclude his continued playing from being possible, regardless of desire) that he’s past his prime?

This is not a boxer taking too many punches. Or even a football player running the risk of developing CTE with one more concussion. That doesn’t mean Nowitzki continuing on is without risk — an avid NBA observer who works as a physical therapist explained to me in a Twitter conversation some of the long-term damage Nowitzki might do to his body by continuing. But if Nowitzki understands that, it’s not my place to try to convince him otherwise.

And he very much seems to understand all of this, for what it’s worth.

Commissioner Adam Silver noted he put the German in the All-Star Game because, as he told reporters, “I saw him painfully running up and down the court, and I think it was clear that this was going to be his last season.” The sweet-shooting forward, who’s never explicitly confirmed this season will be it for him, reacted to the series of on-court tributes in every city he visits by wryly noting, “They’re making the decision for me, I guess.”

Maybe not, though. He just told ESPN’s Tim MacMahon he was feeling much better physically now, and is strongly considering yet another season: “I’d love to be there for the young guys one more year, but I think it depends on how the body feels. … I feel like I have a little more pep in my step. My legs and my wind are a lot better than [earlier in the season]. I just feel better overall. I feel like I can actually contribute.”

Seeing him at Vivint Smart Home Arena, his running was definitely stilted and awkward. But when he drained a trifecta of 3-pointers against legitimate NBA players who were not sympathetically taking it easy on him, I didn’t care what his gait looked like.

Keep shooting, Dirk — until you decide you don’t want to.

There was music, laughs, chants and a few tears. Just a few, though.

Attendees at the “celebration of life” for Archie Archuleta, as the flyer promoting the event called it, included Latinos, blacks, Asians, Native Americans, whites, civil rights leaders and a swath of Democrats. They swapped stories about Archuleta, who died Jan. 25 at age 88.

The stories covered Archuleta’s days a teacher, principal, Utah civil rights leader, husband, father and grandfather.

“This is not a funeral. Make no mistake,” said Billy Palmer, a KRCL radio host and Saturday’s master of ceremonies at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center. “To Archie, funeral was an F-word.”

Palmer then lead the audience in a chant of, “Sí, se puede,” a motto used by Latino activists.

There was blessing from a Ute Nation spiritual leader, eulogies from three sitting Democratic politicians and two Latin musical numbers.

Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, read a proclamation from Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, naming Saturday as “Archie Archuleta Day.”

“I am who I am today because of Archie Archuleta,” Romero said after reading the proclamation. She used to live around the corner from the Archuleta family in Salt Lake City’s Glendale neighborhood.

Romero said the lesson she learned from Archuleta was that leaders are needed to improve their communities.

“That doesn’t always mean leading from the front,” Romero said.

Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski called Archuleta the Cesar Chavez of Salt Lake City, the Gandhi of Glendale and the padrano — which translates to English as godfather — of Popular Grove.

Biskupski remembered serving in the Utah Legislature trying to pass a hate crimes bill that offered protections to the LGBTQ community at a time when support for such groups was far less popular than it is now. Biskupski said she had been told the bill would not pass if it included protections for transgender people.

Archuleta told Biskupski not to remove them.

“No one gets left behind to gain a few steps forward for you,” Biskupski quoted Archuleta as saying.

Richard Jaramillo, president of the Utah Coalition of La Raza, recalled meeting Archuleta when he was a college student 16 years ago. At community meeting, Jaramillo said, Archuleta asked Jaramillo what he thought and made him feel a part of the group.

“I think that was just his universal way of treating everybody,” Jaramillo said, “being so welcoming and open. Later, the lesson I learned from him was when you’re organizing and you see new blood in the water, you go after them like a shark. You’ve got to get them engaged!”

The service had little discussion of standard Democrat versus Republican politics. One exception came near the end of the service, as one of Archuleta’s nephews, Marcus Sierra, gave his goodbye to his uncle. Archuleta’s given name was Robert.

“Via con dios, Uncle Bob,” Sierra said, “and to hell with that wall.”

A 19-year-old has been charged with murder after allegedly fatally shooting a man point blank with a shotgun Thursday at an Orem apartment complex near Utah Valley University.

Elbert Paule turned himself into police Saturday morning after running away from the Parkway Lofts, 1225 W. 1000 South, on Thursday evening. While charging documents filed Saturday in 4th District Court don’t elaborate on why 26-year-old Dominique Barnett was shot, it describes the moments just before and after the shooting.

The documents allege Barnett went to visit Paule at his apartment in the complex around 8 p.m., and when he knocked on the door, Paule “without warning” opened it and shot Barnett with a 12 gauge shotgun. Police allege Paule threw the shotgun off the balcony before running away.

A witness inside the apartment told police that just before Paule opened the door, he peeked through the peephole and yelled, “Ah, hell no!” Before leaving the complex, a witness told police that Paule said he shot Barnett and used a racial slur, according to the documents.

Barnett was taken to the hospital and declared dead about an hour after he was shot. An autopsy shows he bled to death from the shotgun blast, according to court documents.

Police had been searching for Paule since Thursday evening, offering a reward for his capture, although he turned himself in Saturday morning.

The suspect in the shooting, Elbert Paule, has turned himself in and is in custody. More information will be put out on the situation when it becomes available. @OremDPS

— Orem Police Dept. (@OremDPS) March 2, 2019

About 38 minutes after the shooting, UVU officials warned students to take shelter and stay where they were about. That order was in place until just before 11 p.m. Thursday.

If convicted of murder, a first-degree felony, Paule could spend 15 years to life in prison.

Oxon Hill, Md. • President Donald Trump told an appreciative audience of conservatives Saturday that he will win re-election in 2020 and by a bigger margin than his 2016 victory. He mocked Democrats for their framework to combat climate change and said House lawmakers pushing to expand their investigations of him are “sick.”

In a wide-ranging speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump rehashed his outsider campaign that overcame long odds and a crowded field of established politicians to claim the White House over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

When he made his prediction of a second term, the crowd responded with chants of "USA, USA, USA."

Trump praised the conservative movement, saying "Our movement and our future in our country is unlimited."

As he looked back to 2016, the president described himself as "probably more of a conservative than a Republican," but says people just didn't understand that.

Trump took aim at the Democrats’ Green New Deal, a policy proposal floated by some liberal Democrats in Congress and backed to varying degrees by several of the party’s 2020 presidential candidates.

"I think the New Green Deal or whatever the hell they call it — the Green New Deal — I encourage it," Trump said mockingly as he wound up for a round of exaggeration.

"I think it's really something that they should promote. They should work hard on it. ... No planes, no energy. When the wind stops blowing that's the end of your electric. Let's hurry up. Darling, is the wind blowing today? I'd like to watch television, darling."

The Democratic plan calls for a drastic drop in greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas, but in no way grounds airplanes or pivots the country to renewable energy only.

With special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation seemingly approaching its end, Trump spoke of the “collusion delusion” and lashed out at newly empowered House Democrats who are opening new inquires involving him.

"This phony thing," Trump said of the Russia probe, "looks like it's dying so they don't have anything with Russia there, no collusion. So now they go in and morph into 'Let's inspect every deal he's ever done. We're going to go into his finances. We're going to check his deals. We're going to check' — these people are sick."

House Democrats are undertaking several broad new investigations that reach far beyond Mueller's focus on Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion between Russians and the Trump campaign. So far, Mueller has not brought any public charges alleging a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and Russia; the investigation continues.

Their efforts increased this past week after Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, appeared before two House committees and a Senate committee. In his public testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cohen called the president a “con man” and a “cheat” and gave Democrats several new leads for inquiry.

Eldorado, Texas • A group of polygamists, with their blond child brides and 19th century doctrine of plural marriage being the pathway to heaven, were forced out their compound here in 2014, and scattered to the west.

The San Antonio Express-News reports their prophet and absolute leader, Warren Jeffs, 63, once on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List, is serving a life sentence in a Texas state prison for raping young girls at the site.

And for most residents of this one-stoplight farming town three hours west of San Antonio, the whole traumatic story that began 15 years ago is fading into history.

But just a few miles north of town, the abandoned Yearning for Zion Ranch looks much like it did when hundreds of followers of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints called it home.

The broad streets, orchards, water treatment plant and more than 40 large buildings, including a massive white temple, remain intact and functional.

After years of legal entanglements, the property soon will belong to ETG Properties LLC. The Dallas-area company intends to use it as a military and law enforcement training base.

On a recent flyover, James Doyle, 82, a pilot and former Schleicher County justice of the peace, noted important landmarks.

"That big house down there is where Warren Jeffs lived. He had 15 to 20 wives there," he remarked, pointing out an elongated structure that resembles a small motel.

He also pointed out a huge concrete amphitheater from which Jeffs reportedly planned to address the leaders of the free world after his prison walls crumbled.

And if the fear and anxiety triggered by the arrival of polygamists from Arizona and Utah has ebbed, the unnerving presence of the prophet lingers.

"He is terrible, horrible. He caused a lot of heartache for a lot of kids and other people. He separated wives from their husbands and all kinds of things," Doyle said.

The ranch and all of its improvements were forfeited to the state in 2014 after Jeffs and nine other men were convicted or pled guilty to bigamy and sex crimes committed on the property.

In October, ETG Properties, based in Addison, agreed to buy the ranch for $4.17 million. While waiting for the sale to close, ETG has been leasing the property for $5,000 a month.

Already Border Patrol and Department of Defense personnel have come for training, and neighbors are getting used to the sounds of helicopters and other aircraft moving after dark.

Repeated attempts to reach the principals of ETG Properties and related companies were unsuccessful.

Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran is the most eager for the story to end.

"This has consumed my life since 2004. There has not been a day that did not involve something to do with this bunch or this land," he said.

For a decade, Doran was the county's liaison with the polygamists and he still maintains contact with one of them.

After the group left in 2014, Doran and his wife Lenette moved into a two-bedroom apartment on the ranch as caretakers.

"It was the cheapest way for the county. At first it was creepy because of everything that happened there. Now there is nothing there that bothers me," he added.

He used inmate labor to maintain the property and structures, once valued at $34 million on county tax rolls.

During his watch there, the ranch has experienced flooding, a wildfire and scattered attempts to break into the property.

Along the way, he said, he had to learn how everything worked, including the municipal water system.

Before the YFC Ranch turned this small town upside down, people here talked more about cotton, cattle and high school sports.

Doran still remembers the shock of learning that the reclusive polygamists were building a community just to the north.

"It was baptism by fire. We were trying to wrap our minds around what this group was about," he recalled. "Me personally, I barely knew what polygamy was."

On March 25, 2004, as stunned townspeople gathered with Doran outside the courthouse to hear the news, one local woman held up a sign that read "The Devil is Here."

Flora Jessop, an apostate who had left the polygamist colony at Short Creek, Arizona, and Buster Johnson, an official from Mohave County, Arizona, spoke to the crowd.

"They are not a danger to your children. They are a danger to their own children," said Jessop, who said she had 28 brothers and sisters.

Johnson spoke graphically about how the FDLS women received almost no education and some begin bearing children as young teenagers.

Randy Mankin, publisher of the Eldorado Success, the paper of record for the story since 2004, likened the polygamist's arrival to that of a UFO.

"It's still fresh to me, like yesterday but I'm one of the old geezers," Mankin said.

"It just felt like a cloud was hanging over the town. No one knew what the future would be. Some people left because they were afraid a group would come and take over," he said.

Things reached a chaotic peak in April 2008, when the state raided the ranch, prompted by an anonymous complaint to Child Protective Services of child abuse. The call later proved to be a hoax, but not before hundreds of women and children were removed.

"There were 13 satellite television trucks parked at the courthouse," Mankin recalls.

More than 400 children were taken into temporary custody by the state. They were returned seven weeks later after the Third Court of Appeals ruled that the state had not met its burden for an emergency removal.

Still, the evidence obtained, including DNA from the children, led to indictments of Jeffs and 11 other men on charges of bigamy and sexual assault.

In August 2011, Jeffs was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and sexual assault of a child. His victims were 12 and 15 years old. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years.

In November 2012, the Texas Attorney General's Office began legal proceedings to seize the ranch. In April 2014, the last polygamists left peacefully and Texas authorities took possession.

As Eldorado's improbable polygamist ordeal is now finally ending, opinions about the place among community leaders differ.

Johnny Griffin, 74, who was county judge through 2008, still thinks the state was wrong to forcefully remove more than 400 children.

"I was really opposed to that whole operation. It was a political stand for (then-Attorney General) Mr. Abbott. He was going to run for governor. In my opinion, it was the worst of the state being Big Brother," Griffin began.

He also disagrees with the state using the criminal convictions of a handful of polygamist men to justify seizing the Yearning for Zion Ranch, and forcing everyone who lived there to leave.

"Why in the hell didn't they leave the mommas and the kids in there, and get rid of the men? When you see your momma get drug off, it's got to affect you. I thought it was terribly handled," he said.

Former County Commissioner Matt Brown, however, thinks that state officials handled the situation appropriately.

"We're just glad that they are gone. There was a lot of turmoil and unrest in the county. When they move in, they can certainly ruin a community," he said.

Brown said that the abuses that occurred within the polygamist community outweigh any arguments about religious liberty or criticism of the state's abrupt removal of the children.

"It was the child abuse and the brainwashing that goes on in that cult. And it's sad that it's still going on. It's pretty much a slave state," he said.

“We’re glad to have new owners. We’re glad someone was interested in the property and it’s being put to good use,” he added.

Utah legislators finally brought forth a bill to produce the most fundamental change in tax structure in more than a decade. At 257 pages, the complicated and far-reaching legislation touches the wallets of virtually all Utahns.

And those Utahns apparently get two weeks max to look it over before it becomes law.

The need for this legislation has been building for years. Sales tax collections have not kept pace with the economy as spending has shifted from goods to services.

We aren’t at any precipice, and this is exactly the kind of situation that would benefit from a long and deliberative public process. Yet, legislators still don’t want to be second-guessed, and that is a continuation of their recent theme:

“Thanks, Utahns, but we got this.”

As with the overhaul of two citizen initiatives that won at the ballot box, the Legislature is still looking askance at the public’s role. That’s too bad, because in this case it’s pretty good work they have to show the public. No plan is perfect, but this one can hold up to a lot of scrutiny.

House Bill 441 reflects a lot of outreach on the part of legislators. They have made an honest and credible effort to spread the pain.

Utah would become one of a growing number of states to have real estate transfer tax. This is basically a sales tax on real estate sales, but at a far lower rate than regular sales tax (less than a 10th of a percent). For a political body that has traditionally protected real estate interests, this is a big step.

A sales tax on water makes sense. It fits with the desire to put more of water costs on water users rather than general property tax obligations, creating more incentive for residents to conserve.

A tax on vehicle trade-ins is one of the single biggest sources of new tax money. In theory, this tax is paid by whoever receives the vehicle, usually a car dealer. But no doubt the dealers will recover that cost by setting trade-in values lower. In other words, everyone’s trade-in value will take a hit. But, to the extent that those with higher incomes tend to trade in higher-value cars than those with lower incomes, this tax is progressive.

As currently written, those new taxes are offset by an overall drop in the sales tax rate. It’s intended to be revenue neutral, which is important given the demand for public resources in our fast growing state.

Legislators should preserve that, but there is every indication they won’t. They’re talking big tax cuts, and that makes certain that little progress will be made in adequately funding our schools. We’ll still be at the bottom.

HB441 is a credible start on a tough problem, and lawmakers deserve credit for spreading the pain.

But the public — both citizens and businesses — deserve more time with it. There are too many possibilities for unintended consequences. Give the rest of us more than a two-week shot, or we might have to start more petitions.