At a Memorial Day speech given by President Donald Trump on an amphibious assault ship in Tokyo Bay on Tuesday, some of the nearly 1,000 sailors and Marines aboard wore round patches emblazoned with a likeness of the president and the words “Make Aircrew Great Again” — a play on his campaign slogan — on their flight suits. Images of the patch went viral and drew ire from some, leaving the Navy seemingly caught between enforcing uniform protocols and potentially creating conflict with the commander in chief. [NYTimes]
Happy Wednesday!
Topping the news: Despite criminal justice reforms, Utah’s prison population is growing faster than every state but Idaho — and at a rate far greater than the growth in the general population. [Trib]
-> After two terms as auditor, John ‘Frugal’ Dougall has earned bipartisan praise, while rocking many boats and says he is likely to seek another, final term in the position. [Trib]
-> The Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (DABC) is creating a new “lottery” system that will randomize how customers get access to rare liquors. [Trib] [Fox13] [DNews]
Happy birthday: To former Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker.
Tweets of the day: From @MEPFuller: I, for one, appreciate that — with all the things we have going on — we just agreed to ignore the credible story about UFOs like, ‘Nope, we can deal with this *after* the General Election.’
From @Ugarles: “My conspiracy theory is that the Trump White House is letting military pilots talk about seeing mysterious things at altitude in UFOish ways because they want to justify funding for Space Force.”
->From @chrislhayes: “We're a few days away from Kim Jong Un attacking Biden for how draconian the 1994 crime bill was.”
Also in the news: Operators of a Wellington coal-cleaning plant have abandoned the facility with coal waste and unpaid fines, leaving state and local authorities to clean up the mess and recoup taxes and fines. [Trib]
-> An axe-throwing business that was rejected for a beer license last month has found a workaround to a liquor law that blocked it from selling alcohol. [Fox13] [DNews]
-> Logan City Police say DNA evidence shows a missing 5-year-old girl is “hurt,” but officers are still unsure of her whereabouts. [Trib] [Fox13]
-> Utah Republican Rep. John Curtis began his “clean air tour,” on Tuesday, where he and Lt. Gov Spencer Cox are exploring ways to solve Utah’s air quality issues. [DNews]
-> A proposal by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, would give local land managers more freedom to regulate or allow non-motorized travel in wilderness areas. [DNews]
-> Days ahead of the 2019 Utah Pride Festival, LGBT pride flags are being stolen and vandalized across the Wasatch Front — and police are calling it a hate crime. [Fox13]
-> Cartoonist Pat Bagley depicts an “American tragedy.” [Trib]
Nationally: The U.S. Supreme Court reached a compromise on Indiana’s strict abortion regulations, upholding part of the law placing new restrictions on the disposal of fetal remains after an abortion but overturning a provision that would have prohibited abortions if the woman chose the procedure because of a diagnosis or “potential diagnosis” of disability or because of the fetus’s gender or race. [WaPost] [CNN] [NYTimes] [NPR]
-> Disappointing many conservatives who oppose such policies, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving a Pennsylvania school district allowing students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity, rather than their biological sex. [WaPost]
-> Tensions between the president and John Bolton, his national security adviser, have escalated as Trump publicly contradicted Bolton’s opinions on Iran and North Korea during his four-day visit in Japan. [NYTimes]
-> A Manhattan federal judge handling the congressional subpoena for Trump’s bank records has agreed to put the case on hold while the president appeals the ruling that required him to release them. [WaPost]
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-- Taylor Stevens and Alison Berg
Follow @sltribpolitics