DEPARTMENT - The Salt Lake Tribune

Scott: Tenure case was not so troubling

Sat, 25 May 2013 01:01:07 MDT

Scott: Tenure case was not so troubling

By David W. Scott For The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 25, 2013 01:01AM MDT

In the May 18 Tribune, Scott Abbott, a professor of integrated studies at Utah Valley University, made his case for what he deemed was a flawed process concerning his friend Scott Carrier, a UVU employee who was recently denied tenure. Because Professor Abbott is a respected scholar at UVU, his opinion is valued. Generally, Abbott is a gifted thinker. But in this case, his analysis troubles to me. First, he makes a strong case that Carrier is an excellent journalist. I fully agree with this ass...

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Business events in Utah this week

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:25:02 MDT

Business events in Utah this week

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Updated May 24, 2013 04:25PM MDT

Convention Calendar Sunday Conduit 2013 Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention Radisson Hotel Salt Lake City downtown Attendance • 350 Runs through • Monday Tuesday Congress for the New Urbanism 2013 New Urbanism Congress The Grand America Attendance • 1,500 Runs through • June 3 Economic Calendar New economic numbers to be released this week include: Monday U.S. stock and bond markets • Closed for Memorial Day Tuesday S&P/Case-Shiller • Index of home prices for March and first ...

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Utah resource guide to help laid-off workers is released

Wed, 22 May 2013 22:47:53 MDT

Utah resource guide to help laid-off workers is released

By Steven Oberbeck The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 22, 2013 10:47PM MDT

Just in time for the layoffs expected later this month at Kennecott Utah Copper, the state’s Department of Workforce Services has introduced a new resource guide to provide Utahns who have lost jobs with all of the contacts they will need to survive a layoff, manage their finances and find new employment. The new guide is the brainchild of state Sen. Karen Mayne, D-West Valley City, who brought together the DWS, United Way of Salt Lake, the Utah Labor Commission, organized labor and Rio Tinto to...

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Wife: Man shot by West Valley City cops “didn’t have the guts” to kill himself

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:31:08 MDT

Wife: Man shot by West Valley City cops “didn’t have the guts” to kill himself

By Janelle Stecklein The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 23, 2013 12:31AM MDT

The wife of a man who allegedly prompted a shooting inside the West Valley City Police Department lobby in April told detectives her husband went to the police department with an unloaded handgun because he wanted “someone to kill him because he didn’t have the guts to do it himself.” James Kammeyer, who was wounded but not killed, has been charged with threat of terrorism, three counts of aggravated assault and one count of possession of a firearm by a restricted person, all third-degree felon...

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Analysis: Does religious freedom report need more ‘teeth’?

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:54:02 MDT

Analysis: Does religious freedom report need more ‘teeth’?

By LAUREN MARKOE Religion News Service

Updated May 22, 2013 12:54PM MDT

Washington • The Obama administration isn’t afraid to call out Republicans for playing politics on Capitol Hill or Wall Street for runaway profits or insurance companies for health care woes. But why, when it comes to protecting religious freedom abroad, is the State Department so hesitant to name names? Watchdogs say the State Department missed a key opportunity to put teeth into its annual assessment of global religious freedom, which was released by Secretary of State John Kerry this week. Co...

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Paul Rolly: Separating church, state and Twitter

Tue, 21 May 2013 22:12:58 MDT

Paul Rolly: Separating church, state and Twitter

By PAUL ROLLY Tribune Columnist

Updated May 21, 2013 10:12PM MDT

Utah state government’s Twitter account, @UtahGov, posted on May 12 a link to a spectacular seven-minute video journey through southwestern Utah’s Snow Canyon, produced by Jeremiah Barber. The scenery, accompanied by soft music, creates an enticing tourism lure to that part of the Beehive State. At the end of the video, right after a shot through an opening in a rock formation revealing a star-filled sky, a Book of Mormon scripture, from Jacob 4:9, appears. It reads: “For behold, by the power o...

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McEntee: West Valley police’s baggage mars end of Powell probe

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:00:56 MDT

McEntee: West Valley police’s baggage mars end of Powell probe

By Peg McEntee Tribune Columnist

Updated May 21, 2013 06:00AM MDT

If only a searing scandal about rogue cops hadn’t tainted the West Valley City Police Department, there may have been more sympathy for the officers who announced Monday that the active search for Susan Powell, and whoever is responsible for her disappearance, is over. Susan Powell vanished from her West Valley City home in December 2009 and has never been found. Her husband, Josh Powell, was the only person of interest ever named in the case, and he refused to cooperate with investigators. And...

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A federal ‘shield’ for reporters

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:01:05 MDT

A federal ‘shield’ for reporters

By XXXXXX The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 21, 2013 01:01AM MDT

President Obama may be engaging in political damage control in proposing that Congress resurrect legislation to protect the confidentiality of journalists’ sources. But his call for action on a federal shield law is welcome even if it is inspired by a desire to deflect criticism of the Justice Department’s seizure of the phone records of The Associated Press. Although described as a “reporter’s privilege,” protection for confidential news sources actually benefits the public by making it easier...

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Inspector General: Ex-U.S. Attorney retaliated in Fast and Furious

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:20:07 MDT

Inspector General: Ex-U.S. Attorney retaliated in Fast and Furious

By PETE YOST | The Associated Press

Updated May 20, 2013 10:20PM MDT

Washington • The U.S. Attorney in Arizona violated Justice Department policy by providing Fox News with information apparently aimed at undercutting the credibility of a federal agent who helped reveal the botched arms-trafficking probe called Operation Fast and Furious, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Monday. There was substantial evidence in the 2011 incident that then-U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke’s motive for disclosing a memo by federal agent John Dodson was retaliation, the i...

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

After Benghazi, U.S. presses forward on security upgrades

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:15:01 MDT

After Benghazi, U.S. presses forward on security upgrades

By ERIC SCHMITT The New York Times

Updated May 20, 2013 09:15PM MDT

By late this summer, the U.S. State Department plans to send dozens of additional diplomatic security agents to high-threat embassies, install millions of dollars of advanced fire-survival gear and surveillance cameras in those diplomatic posts, and improve training for employees headed to the riskiest missions. The price tag for the security improvements put in place after the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 has reached $1.4 billion to meet the most urgent needs...

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

State Department: Reports of anti-Semitism increase

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:10:30 MDT

State Department: Reports of anti-Semitism increase

By MATTHEW DALY The Associated Press

Updated May 20, 2013 01:10PM MDT

WASHINGTON • The State Department appointed a special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism Monday as a new report documents a global increase in incidents of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Ira Forman, former CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council, was named special envoy as the State Department released its annual report on religious freedom around the world. Forman replaces Michael Kozak, who had served in an acting role after Hannah Rosenthal stepped down last year. The 2012 r...

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

SLC honors 3 firefighters killed in 1943 blaze

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:09:58 MDT

SLC honors 3 firefighters killed in 1943 blaze

By Scott D. Pierce The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 19, 2013 11:09PM MDT

There is no marker where the Victory Theater once stood in downtown Salt Lake City. No indication the venue for the first Utah showing of a talking picture — Al Jolson’s “The Singing Fool” — on May 22, 1928, ever existed. No memorial to the three firefighters killed battling the blaze that destroyed the majestic theater on May 19, 1943. But on Sunday morning, 70 years to the day, the Salt Lake Firemen’s Relief Association (SLFRA) gathered in front of the century-old building that remains midbloc...

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Editor column: DOJ’s acquisition of AP phone records averted agency’s own rules

Sat, 18 May 2013 23:38:09 MDT

Editor column: DOJ’s acquisition of AP phone records averted agency’s own rules

By Lisa Carricaburu The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 18, 2013 11:38PM MDT

Good reporters build trust with key sources by making — and keeping — promises of anonymity in cases where matters of crucial public interest are at stake. That’s why we join journalists and other First Amendment advocates around the nation in our outrage over last week’s revelation that the U.S. Justice Department, without providing notice, subpoenaed two months of records for 20 telephone lines used by the Associated Press, a media cooperative of which The Salt Lake Tribune is a member. The r...

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Utah video contest zooms in on clearing the smog

Sat, 18 May 2013 23:38:09 MDT

Utah video contest zooms in on clearing the smog

By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 18, 2013 11:38PM MDT

When Emily Kam learned about the chance to do something good for the environment for her new hometown, she jumped on it. She enlisted her mother to shoot the video and made a spare-the-air public-service announcement just as hot, sunny weather threatens to plunge Utah into the high ozone days of summer. Her video, “Take the Time: Clean Salt Lake City’s Air,” is the first YouTube entry submitted so far in a Clean Air Month contest. A riff on taking mass transit, Kam’s short is part of a Utah Dep...

Univ. of Utah Ethnic Studies: Don’t leave us in the basement

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:24:01 MDT

Univ. of Utah Ethnic Studies: Don’t leave us in the basement

By Lindsay Whitehurst The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 17, 2013 05:24PM MDT

Faculty of the Ethnic Studies Program at the University of Utah say a move to a tucked-away underground floor threatens the health of their nascent major. The department’s current offices are in Carlson Hall, which is slated to be demolished this summer to make room for a new law school building. While planners say the move is temporary due to space constraints at the U., some in the department feels it’s symbolic of the “debased, marginalized spaces,” often designated to minorities in America...

U.S. Justice Department faulted over terrorist identities

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:04:53 MDT

U.S. Justice Department faulted over terrorist identities

By PETE YOST The Associated Press

Updated May 16, 2013 10:04PM MDT

Washington • The government allowed “a small but significant number” of terrorists into America’s witness protection program and then failed to provide the names of some of them for a watch list that’s used to keep dangerous people off airline flights, the Justice Department’s inspector general says. As a result of the department’s failure to share information with the Terrorist Screening Center, some in the witness protection program who were on a government “no-fly” list were allowed to trave...

Utah Senate confirms Pierpont to head Workforce Services

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:30:23 MDT

Utah Senate confirms Pierpont to head Workforce Services

By Cathy McKitrick The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 17, 2013 02:30PM MDT

Last August, Utah Governor Gary Herbert appointed Jon Pierpont as acting executive director of the state’s Department of Workforce Services. Pierpont took the reins at a time when caseloads were high, budgets were tight and employee morale was running low. On Wednesday, state senators voted unanimously to keep him on the job. “Thankful, humbled and honored,” Pierpont responded. At age 44, the Provo native has spent half of his life working in various capacities in the agency he now leads. After...

Paying for ACA

Thu, 16 May 2013 08:03:52 MDT

Paying for ACA

By XXXXXX The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated May 16, 2013 08:03AM MDT

This week’s furor over the Internal Revenue Service’s selective scrutiny of tea party groups and the Justice Department’s secret collection of phone records from the Associated Press has obscured what may prove in the long run to be a more troubling ethical breach. Unable to secure funding from Congress to carry out the Affordable Care Act, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has responded with a bizarre error in judgment. Sebelius has been soliciting donations from the healt...

A flood of scandal

Thu, 16 May 2013 08:03:52 MDT

A flood of scandal

Updated May 16, 2013 08:03AM MDT

Utah’s Rep. Jason Chaffetz is having the time of his life, throwing around words like “fired,” prosecuted” and “impeachment” as a disturbing flood of scandal flows from the Obama administration. As a member of the Loyal Opposition, and of the House Oversight Committee, he has a proper role in investigating matters such as alleged wrongdoing at the Internal Revenue Service and at the Justice Department. But if the American people are going to have any faith that Chaffetz and the rest of the Repu...

Petraeus email objected to Benghazi talking points

Wed, 15 May 2013 21:49:34 MDT

Petraeus email objected to Benghazi talking points

By NEDRA PICKLER The Associated Press

Updated May 15, 2013 09:49PM MDT

Washington • Then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points the Obama administration used after the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, because he wanted to see more details revealed to the public, according to emails released Wednesday by the White House. Under pressure in the investigation that continues eight months after the attacks, the White House on Wednesday released 99 pages of emails and a single page of hand-written notes made by Petrae...