Bike Utah is offering free bike rack installation for local businesses. Some businesses also qualify to get the rack for free. This is great to see. Bike infrastructure is improving throughout Salt Lake and Utah valley, but most businesses still don’t have anywhere to park a bike. We need destination infrastructure if we’re going to get more people biking, which benefits everyone.

The announcement says: Email Jacob at [email protected] to get your FREE bike rack proposal, or suggest an establishment that might benefit from bike racks!

Utah Patriot Front member will be sentenced for child pornography charges

https://allevents.in/vernal/2024-02-23

FSC made a statement about the decision here: https://www.freespeechcoalition.com/blog/fsc-will-appeal-decision-in-utah

IANAL, but reading the court's decision, I think dismissal on 11th amendment grounds is a case study for why states are creating laws that allow for private liability -- the "vigilante enforcement" approach. It gives states the ability to create unconstitutional laws without consequence. States can easily create a chilling effect on speech, while preventing plaintiffs from proving standing due to sovereign immunity and no "real" damages having taken place yet.

I know I have wanted to see one, so for anyone else interested here

List of Symbols

Out in the Uintah Basin area, there is a festival coming up. Link to the poster on Basin Now site cause Im having issues uploading the picture.

Festival Poster

Extremely hot, dry conditions forecast across much of the West through the Fourth of July are heightening concerns about wildfires and the dangers of fireworks, including in Salt Lake City where officials are replacing their traditional explosive extravaganza with a drone light show.

An unusually wet winter and spring has allowed for the return of live fireworks shows in some other areas that canceled them in recent years due to drought, including parts of Nevada, California and Arizona.

But wildfire risks are growing with triple-digit temperatures forecast this weekend — up to 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 Celsius) in Phoenix, where a shortage of professional-grade fireworks prompted cancellations last year but red-white-and-blue bursts resume this Independence Day.

In Utah, Salt Lake City for the first time is replacing fireworks with a drone show. Fireworks are still planned in most suburbs and neighboring towns.

“As temperatures rise and fire danger increases, we must be conscientious of both our air quality and the potential for wildfires,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said this week.

A laser light show replaces conventional explosions again in Flagstaff, Arizona. And at Lake Tahoe straddling the California-Nevada line, communities on the north shore will celebrate with a drone show they implemented last Fourth of July due to lingering drought and wildfire risks....

Like monsters right out of your nightmares, and swarms fresh off weather radar, hundreds of thousands of grasshoppers have taken over in parts of Tooele County.

Farms are dealing with the destructive menace.

"Every bit of alfalfa that's in my fields is gone," rancher Michael Dow said. "I planted a pasture and all the seedlings were about 3/4 of an inch tall Sunday morning, and on Sunday evening, they were gone, it was bare dirt."

Dow said there are approximately 70 grasshoppers per square yard. They started showing up a couple of weeks ago but the infestation has just become worse.

"They'll take out a crop in a matter of days and you can poison them with a spray, you can create a buffer zone with poison, it's not a threat to pets or livestock. But you have to catch them early," he said. A grasshopper infestation is affecting some ranchers and farmers in Utah. A grasshopper infestation is affecting some ranchers and farmers in Utah. (Photo: Shelby Lofton, KSL-TV)

Utah's Department of Agriculture did give him poison for the grasshoppers.

"But we just didn't catch them in time, and they came on really quick," he said. "We're talking thousands of dollars in seed, in water, in time; not to mention, the lost feed," Dow said.

When Dow kicks up dirt, he is also kicking up insects.

"As we're driving through them with the side-by-side and they're jumping all over you, they land on your face. It's not a good feeling," he said. "They'll stick to your clothes and get in your pockets, they're just kind of nasty little creatures."

In a record water year, good for crops, Dow has faced the grasshopper infestation.

"We're just out here trying to make a living," he said.