Happy Monday!
The former Ukraine prosecutor general says he repeatedly declined to investigate Joe Biden and his son, despite being pressured to do so by President Donald Trump’s personal attorney. Yuri Lutsenko, the former prosecutor, said he had no evidence that the Bidens had broken any Ukrainian laws and told Rudolph Giuliani as much. “I told him I could not start an investigation just for the interests of an American official,” Lutsenko said. [LATimes]
Topping the news: In the Ballpark neighborhood, four homicides in the past year have people asking for change and paying attention to vacant buildings. [Trib]
-> The Utah attorney general’s office is defending its motion to dismiss the lawsuit over the killing of University of Utah student Lauren McCluskey. [Trib]
-> At a posh fundraiser in Park City for 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the former vice president spoke of the damage done by Trump but didn’t mention the impeachment inquiry. [Trib] [DNews]
Tweets of the day: From @daveweigel: “An underrated day of Internet was after some De Niro anti-Trump comment when a bunch of Staten Island guys filmed themselves burning Goodfellas posters.”
-> From @ashleyfeinberg: “Just chiming in to make sure everyone knows that I, too, know what a hyphen is”
-> From @AllisonLCarter: “Reminder: A fair media is not one that simply tells you what people said. A fair media helps you understand what is said, which sometimes means explaining that someone isn’t telling you the truth.”
Happy Birthday: State Rep. Joel Briscoe.
Also in the news: According to Ballpark community residents, Operation Rio Grande has pushed a drug problem into their neighborhoods, yet they remain receptive to a new homeless resource center that opened earlier this month. [Trib]
-> Utah Sen. Derek Kitchen on Sunday announced he and his husband are ending their marriage. The couple was among three that brought a landmark marriage equality case in Utah. [Trib]
-> A state lawmaker wants to restore an insanity defense in Utah courtrooms that would expand the definition to allow more treatment rather than prison time. [DNews]
-> The proposed annexation that would bring a 1,100-unit development to nearly 400 acres of farmland south of North Salt Lake was rejected by the Salt Lake County Council in a 6-3 vote against the proposal. [DNews]
-> Salt Lake Valley has seen a reduction in the amount of fine particulate matter in the air over three years, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. [Trib]
-> “We started thinking about it two years ago,” Jared Esselman, Utah Department of Transportation aeronautics director, said about how to include flying cars in Utah’s long-range transit plans. [Trib]
-> Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed on-air that Sen. Mitt Romney told House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that there was Senate support to remove President Donald Trump from office. [Trib]
-> Without public input, the National Park Service made a major policy shift that could open Utah’s national parks to ATVs. [Trib]
-> An event Tuesday at the O.C. Tanner headquarters and hosted by Utah State University Research Landscapes will focus on how to manage the expected population growth over the next three decades in Utah. [DNews]
-> In Bluff, tribal members from around the Colorado Plateau gathered for a festival with talks centered around the impact of uranium production around the Four Corners area and Bears Ears National Monument. [Trib]
Nationally: A new poll shows most Americans were “not surprised” when they heard that President Trump asked a Ukrainian foreign leader to investigate the son of Joe Biden, Trump’s political opponent. [WaPost]
-> Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been subpoenaed by House committees after failing to produce documents on communications with Ukraine. [CNN]
-> A U.S. official who left the State Department in 2012 received a letter in August notifying him that dozens of his emails sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were being recategorized as classified. [CNN] [NYTimes]
-> Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said his panel would receive “unfiltered testimony” from the whistleblower who called attention to Trump’s questionable phone conversation with a Ukrainian foreign leader, pending security clearance. [WaPost]
-> A majority of Americans also say an impeachment inquiry into Trump is necessary. [CNN]
-> Trump says that “he’s entitled to meet” the whistleblower whose complaint prompted an impeachment inquiry into his presidency. [Politico] [CNN]
-> Ellen L. Weintraub, a Federal Election Commission chairwoman, released on Twitter an entire draft of a memo addressing foreign election interference following its disputed publication in the agency’s weekly digest. [WaPost] [NYTimes]
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-- Bethany Rodgers and Clara Hatcher
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