A friend of Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, tells me the lawmaker was driving from southern Utah to Salt Lake City recently when, just outside of Scipio, he noticed an old, rusted car stopped on the side of the road with several people inside.

He stopped to see if they needed help and learned it was a Latino family that did not have enough money for a room, so they were sleeping in the car. At the risk of getting in trouble with the more strident immigration enforcement element of his party, he did a Christian, humanitarian act, rather than suspecting their legality and turning them into the authorities.

He found a motel in town, purchased a room, then drove back to the family's car and gave them the key to the room. He let them know it was all paid for and they could sleep there for the night.

Show me the money: Four months after physician Warren Stack pleaded guilty in federal court to charges related to the unlawful distribution of controlled substances, the city of Cottonwood Heights is still trying to get its hands on some of the $800,000 in assets the government seized from Stack under the Asset Forfeiture law.

I wrote in June about Cottonwood Heights' claim to some of the money because the two Salt Lake County sheriff's investigators who were critical to obtaining Stack's arrest became Cottonwood Heights investigators after the city created its own police force. The change occurred while the Stack investigation was in progress.

Under the law, investigating agencies can share in the seized assets.

At the time, U.S. Attorney spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch told me the U.S. attorney would recommend all the seized assets should go to victims of Stack, which mostly would be insurance companies and public health agencies he defrauded.

That apparently has dissuaded Cottonwood Heights, which is still pushing an application for a share of the assets.

Rydalch said Thursday that the recommendation will still be to use the assets as part of victim restitution.

Hey, me too: I would like to publicly apologize to the Utah Farm Bureau for making fun of its claim that climate change denier Tom Tripp, a featured speaker at the Farm Bureau's convention, is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Tripp is one of thousands of members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Çlimate Change, which won the award for its work to combat human-caused global warming. It seemed to me to be disingenuous to claim that honor for a member who disagreed with the premise that got the organization the award in the first place. And I was chastised for that by officials of the Farm Bureau who pointed out that the IPCC said all its members were Nobel Peace Prize winners.

But now I've been humbled. President Barack Obama recently said all Americans should share in the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to him.

So, like Tripp, I too am a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Paul Rolly is a political columnist. Reach him at prolly@sltrib.com