How to Sound Smart About Utah Politics – April 18, 2014

Utah’s population set to explode. The number of wildfires in the west is on the rise.

 

Countdown:

  • 7 days until the Utah State Republican and Democratic conventions
  • 67 days until Utah’s 2014 primary elections
  • 199 days to the 2014 midterm elections
  • 283 days to the start of the 2015 Utah Legislature
  • 563 days to the 2015 elections
  • 628 days until the 2016 Iowa Caucuses
  • 934 days to the 2016 presidential election

Today’s Utah political news highlights:

  • A new study says Utah will double its population by 2050 [Tribune].
  • A Republican candidate for Utah County Commission, who is likely to win, has several bankruptcies and a theft conviction in his background [Tribune, Daily Herald].
  • Researchers say wildfires are on the rise in the western U.S. [Tribune].
  • Gov. Gary Herbert says his recently completed trade mission to Mexico will pay dividends for the state [Tribune].
  • Herbert helps kick off the festivities at Salt Lake Comic Con [Utah Policy].
  • The new head of the IRS stops in Ogden and tells workers there they will have to do more with less [Standard-Examiner, Tribune].

On this day in history:

  • 1775 – Paul Revere began his ride from Charlestown to Lexington warning that the British were coming.
  • 1906 – A major earthquake hit San Francisco, killing more than 3,000 people.
  • 1946 – The League of Nations went out of business
  • 1955 – Physicist Albert Einstein died at the age of 76.
  • 1978 – The U.S. Senate voted to hand control of the Panama Canal to the Panamanians on Dec. 31, 1999.
  • 2007 – The Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on partial-birth abortion.
  • 2012 – American Bandstand host Dick Clark died at the age of 82.