Utah News

Friday May 4, Southern Utah University conducts its 113th annual commencement. Every graduating class, of course, has its valedictorian, the SUU class of 2012 is no exception, but its valedictorian is…  exceptional in every sense of the word.

Gwen Knight graduates with a degree in psychology, having maintained a 4.0 grade point average throughout her academic career at SUU. And that while working fulltime as directing case coordinator with the Utah court-appointed special advocate program and juggling her duties as a mother of 11 and grandmother of 22.

Utah Governor Gary Herbert has a new energy advisor and at least one environmental group is already calling foul. Herbert announced today that Cody Stewart, who’s currently serving as Lieutenant Governor Greg Bell’s Chief of Staff, will help the governor increase energy development in the state. But as Whittney Evans reports, HEAL Utah says his interests are with big oil and gas.

Cody Stewart says his number one priority as energy advisor to the governor will be to increase the development of energy in the state of Utah.

Workers at Hogle Zoo are busy are putting the final touches on Rocky Shores. The three and a half acre exhibit is scheduled to open next month and will house sea lions, seals, river otters, three young grizzly bears, and of course, Rizzo the polar bear.

“We hear she’s quite the swimmer. We’re excited because this water - we have the ability to cool it, so in July and August ...Where she is now they can’t cool the water so she doesn’t swim much in the summer because it’s hot water.”

Utah's U.S. Senator Mike Lee held town meetings throughout Northern Utah this week. UPR's Kerry Bringhurst was at Wednesday night's meeting in Logan and spoke first hand with some of Lee's constituents, who are concerned about the growing federal deficit, federal control of public lands, and the future of Northern Utah's Hill Air Force Base.

Former Political Science professor at Utah State University and Nibley resident, James Waite remembers when the Richard Gebaur Military Base closed while he was living in Kansas City, Missouri:

For the second time in two days a human-caused wildfire has erupted in southern Utah—this time just west of St. George in an area called Anasazi valley.

The fire is on mostly public land west of St. George, and south of old Highway 91.

The fire started on Wednesday around 3:30 in the afternoon. Like the Toquerville fire there is not threat to structures. The Anasazi valley fire has not yet been mapped for its size.

Utah's Washington County has joined Mohave County, Arizona and other Uranium mining concerns in filing a lawsuit against the Federal Government.

The lawsuit is directed against Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, the Department of Interior, the BLM and BLM Director Robert Abbey.

It calls for the reversal of Salazar's 20-year ban on new mining claims in one-million acres of public land adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park, announced in January.

“There are so many people who were so instrumental in the early days
of AIDS in particular who really made a difference,” said Stan Penfold, Utah AIDS Foundation Director.

Three St. George high school students have been arrested and charged with kidnapping. UPR's Chris Holmes tells us that the serious charges in this case are hardly typical for juvenile arrests.

The victim, a middle school-aged girl, was jogging on Monday evening when cut off by a pick-up truck. Three masked boys emerged and forced her into the bed of the truck, closing the bed lid and locking her inside.

The Bill of Rights celebration is an annual fundraiser for the ACLU Utah.  Anna Brower is the Development Director for the ACLU of Utah. She spoke with UPR's Ashley Tolman about the organization's Bill of Rights Celebration taking place this week in Salt Lake City.

Brower explains the choice of this year's theme, "Power of the People":

This year, chronic homelessness is down 9%.

Lieutenant Governor Greg Bell says this can be directly attributed to low cost housing options that have been made available over the last few years as part of the state’s “Housing First” initiative:

“Those are not all the same kind of facilities but the real success has been the intermingling, not just of housing and lodging, but creating a spectrum of housing for transitional up to permanent and integrating that with social and human and health services.”