Access Utah

As a loving father, Paul Holton found it hard to reconcile his innate goodwill with his role as an interrogator for the Army National Guard. Until one day, deep in Iraqi territory, surrounded by the horrors of war, he realized how he could make a small but significant difference in the lives of the children all around him.

Author Ed Kociela has a knack for taking his readers behind closed doors and now walks you backstage to hang out with some of the biggest stars in rock 'n' roll history in "It Rocked! Recollections of a reclusive rock critic.

Two members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were recently notified that they potentially faced disciplinary councils which could result in excommunication from the church for apostasy. Kate Kelly is a human rights lawyer who founded Ordain Women, a group seeking access to the LDS church’s all-male priesthood.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that organizers of the Days of ’47 Parade have responded to the Salt Lake City Council, saying they will not reconsider a request by Mormons Building Bridges to participate. Parade organizers said they feared the entry would be too controversial for an event that honors Utah statehood as well as the Mormon pioneers.

We first met hardscrabble ranchers Renny and Ben Cross in Laura Pritchett’s debut collection, and now in in her novel Stars Go Blue, they are estranged, elderly spouses living on opposite ends of their sprawling ranch, faced with the particular decline of a fading farm and Ben’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.

In her memoir ”Year of No Sugar,” Eve Schaub recounts her family’s attempt to eliminate sugar from their lives. We’ll talk with Eve Schaub on Monday’s AU and we’re going to talk about your attempts (successful or not) to change your eating habits, whatever your goal is.

U. S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was recently freed in Afghanistan in exchange for five Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo. Some say that the United States should not negotiate with extremists and that this deal places American troops under increased danger, to say nothing of the harm the freed inmates could possibly do.

Beginning with her experience as a medical actor, paid to act out symptoms for medical students to diagnose, Leslie Jamison’s essays ask essential questions about our basic understanding of others: How should we care about one another? How can we feel another’s pain, especially when pain can be assumed, distorted, or performed? Is empathy a tool by which to test or even grade each other?

Recently, The League of American Bicyclists ranked Utah as the 8th most bike friendly state in the U.S., rising from the number 14 spot last year. With an increase in bike promotion, bike-related fundraising and commuting and an overall growth in bike culture across the state, biking advocates and anxious drivers alike are speaking up.

Utah State University biologist Zachariah Gompert asks questions about evolution that have been eluding scientists for decades and he and colleagues are using the flood of new genetic tools to find clues to one of their main questions - is evolution predictable and repeatable? Sheri Quinn talks to Professor Gompert about his study recently published in the journal Science.

This week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released proposed regulations which would cut carbon pollution from future and existing power plants. Since coal accounts for about 70 percent of Utah’s power generation (twice the national average) our state may be disproportionately affected.

The oil and gas industry has increased by 40 percent in the past seven years across the United States, leading to dramatic growth some areas. Duchesne County, for example, is the second fastest growing county in the U.S. compared to counties of similar size.

Last year, USU professors Alison Cook and Christy Glass tested the glass cliff phenomenon—the idea that women are more likely to get promoted to leadership positions when a firm is struggling, placing them in a precarious position from the start. The glass cliff is back in the news with the recent firing of Jill Abramson as executive editor of the New York Times. Cook and Glass found that merit alone doesn’t give women and minorities the key to the executive suite and that the composition of the board of directors can affect whether or not they succeed. Their analysis confirmed that the glass cliff theory also applies to minorities, a phenomenon they dubbed “the savior effect.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renounced the practice of plural marriage in 1890. In the mid- to late nineteenth century, however--the heyday of Mormon polygamy--as many as three out of every ten Mormon women became polygamous wives.

Stories of backyard bears and cat-eating coyotes are becoming increasingly common—even for people living in non-rural areas. Farmers anxious to protect their sheep from wolves aren’t the only ones concerned: suburbanites and city dwellers are also having more unwanted run-ins with mammalian predators.

“The principle of net neutrality guarantees a level playing field in which Internet users do not have to pay Internet service providers more for better access to online content, and content generators do not have to pay additional fees to ensure users can access their websites or apps. In other words all Internet traffic should be treated equally.” (Leticia Miranda, The Nation).

There was a time when the phrase "American family" conjured up a single, specific image: a breadwinner dad, a homemaker mom, and their 2.5 kids living comfortable lives in a middle-class suburb. Today, that is no longer the case, due to divorce rates, single parenthood, and increased out-of-wedlock births. Most Americans fail to identify the root factor driving the changes: economic inequality that is remaking the American family along class lines.

Concerned community members say that because of a new joint operating agreement between the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News, the Tribune is in danger.

With Memorial Day approaching, we’ll honor our military veterans on Wednesday’s Access Utah. Mark Lee Greenblatt, author of “VALOR: Unsung Heroes from Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front,” will join us along with Sergeant Buck Doyle, a Utah resident who is featured in the book. We'll also speak with WWII veteran Edgar Harrell who will recount his experiences in the sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the sharks, hypothermia and the struggle to survive one of the U.S. Navy's greatest catastrophes at sea. Edgar Harrell is author of “Out of the Depths.” Then Terry Schow, former Utah Director of Veterans Affairs will discuss how changes in health care are affecting those who fought for our country.

A new documentary from Greentech Films, “Scaling Wind,” looks at people championing the proposal of the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2008 report, “20 Percent Wind Energy by 2030,” the film profiles people working to overcome the challenges facing achievement of the 20% vision, including the need to modernize and expand the power grid and smarten the nation’s energy policy for a stable market.