Utah News

Feb. 10-16 has been designated as national "Random Acts of Kindness Week." According to Rebecca Glathar of The National Alliance of Mental Illness of Utah, simple kindnesses, such as a smile, can save a life.

"There have been studies that have shown something as simple a smile has changed the mind of an individual who's considering taking their own life," Glathar said.

Founder of 365Aware, Braden Thompson, says he is grateful for the little opportunities- like when he passed a man carrying groceries up a hill in the cold.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday that Salt Lake City-based Prime Snax Inc. is recalling about 90,000 pounds of beef jerky products which have shipped around the country.

The recall has been issued because the jerky was processed with soy lecithin, an allergen not declared on the label. Utah State University Meat Scientist Jerrad Legako said soy lecithin helps create the good jerky texture.

Due to citizen complaints, Heila Ershadi, a member of the Moab City Council, became aware that Moab’s two public water systems have been selling millions of gallons of culinary water to operators of oilfield tanker trucks.  

“Someone noticed the number of large trucks that were traveling down 500 West from a city operated station where there’s a filling station, and lots of trucks driving through this residential area. The concerns I have heard residents raise is that it’s too many trucks and that they drive quickly and recklessly down residential roads,”Ershadi said.

Moab has seen a drilling boom in the last two years, and many more wells are planned. The water trucks, along with tandem dump trucks full of drilling sand, are also creating dramatic new traffic on local highways that access Canyonlands. Moab is just one of scores of towns across the West where city water is being sold for industrial uses, including drilling and fracking, and cities sometimes even drill new wells to supply the water. The driller of nine active oil and gas wells near Island in the Sky says the wells are not being fracked, saving water. But Ershadi said she fears that could change sooner than the city has imagined.

State lawmakers are considering Medicaid expansion proposals after Utah Governor Gary Herbert  said he will push for some form of expansion to comply with the federal Affordable Care Act. State Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck (D- Salt Lake) is serving on a governor's committee assigned to evaluate the financial costs of expanding Medicaid.

About 15 percent of Utah residents are uninsured. Chavez-Houck said lawmakers must decide if Utah should participate in a full expansion program to offset the costs of extending health benefits to 111,000 of the state's poorest.

"And here we are, still unable to move and in the meantime people aren't getting covered and we are losing our portion of what should be ours," Chavez-Houck said.

Utah State University's club Handball team will join other clubs from throughout the world to compete for a national title this month.

This will be the second year Utah State University's Ryan Campbell will compete in the United States Handball Association's National Collegiate Championships.  

"I won the division I championship last year and we won the doubles championship as well," Campbell said. "I have really good serves that stay really low. I love it when they return it and I just kill it."

A recent USU graduate, Campbell will travel to Raleigh, North Carolina for this year's competition on Feb. 19.

"We are losing a whole generation of kids who will know an absolutely terrific sport," said Herm Olsen, USU Handball team adviser.

Though the James Webb Space Telescope is not set to launch for another four years, NASA is preparing to assemble and test the device that will be used to observe distant objects in the universe.

Engineers at the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan have made their final delivery of elements that will be used to direct heat away from vital instruments within the telescope.

Director of Civil Space at SDL, Jed Hancock, says the equipment must be both lightweight and flexible to be inserted into the intricate part of the telescope.

Count My Vote is holding a press conference Wednesday to encourage women to participate in the voting process and to persuade voters to sign a petition that would eliminate the caucus format.

Former first lady Norma Matheson, wife of the late Scott Matheson, is a part of the movement.

“We just want to emphasize how important the Count My Vote initiative is to increase the participation of all voters, but particularly women,” Norma Matheson said.

One person has been pulled from the snow after an avalanche occurred up Providence Canyon in Cache Valley.

The avalanche was reported at 4:15 on Tuesday. The victim is conscious and talking to rescue crews.

The terrain of the canyon made landing a life-flight helicopter difficult, according to scanner traffic. Rescue crews reached the victim by snowmobile and are transporting him out of the area on a sled.

There is a high risk of avalanches along the Wasatch Mountains after winter weather rolled through Utah over the weekend, according to the Utah Avalanche Center.

Avalanche danger across the state remains high after a wet weekend.

Extremely dry powder fell on top of old, faceted snow late last week. Then, over the weekend, heavy, wet snow and rain fell across the Northern portion of the state, creating dangerous conditions.

A Ferron man died in a Sunday avalanche in Sanpete County and a woman who was studying at Brigham Young University was caught in an avalanche in American Fork Canyon on Saturday and later died.

Utah Avalanche Center forecaster Toby Weed said conditions remain dangerous.

The American Red Cross has deemed February "Home Fire Prevention Month" and is raising public awareness of how to keep homes safe from fire.

Last year The Red Cross responded to over 150 disasters in Utah alone and Rich Woodruff, Director of Communications for the Utah Region of The Red Cross, said response to home fires is one of their most frequently-utilized services.