Good Tuesday morning from Salt Lake City. Celebrate some really short story telling as the "Twitter Fiction Festival" gets underway today. Follow along at #TwitterFiction.
Dan Liljenquist is considering a bid for the Utah GOP Chairmanship. A bunch of new laws go into effect today in Utah. Gov. Gary Herbert taps Alan Matheson to take over the Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
Countdown:
- Days to the 2015 Utah municipal primary elections – 91
- Days to the 2015 election – 175
- Days to the 2016 Iowa Caucus (tentative) – 252
- Days to the opening day of the 2016 Utah Legislature – 259
- Days to the 2016 New Hampshire Primary – 260
- Days to the 2016 Utah primary election – 414
- Days until the 2016 presidential election – 547
Tuesday's top-10 headlines:
- Former state Senator Dan Liljenquist is considering challenging James Evans for GOP Chair [Utah Policy].
- Nearly 400 new laws go into effect today in Utah [Tribune, Deseret News, ABC 4].
- Gov. Gary Herbert taps his environmental advisor Alan Matheson to head up the Department of Environmental Quality [Utah Policy, Tribune, Deseret News, KUER]. Matheson talks about his top priorities as he moves into the new job [Utah Policy].
- Salt Lake City Councilman Kyle LaMalfa is giving up his seat to continue a romantic relationship with fellow council member Erin Mendenhall [Tribune, Fox 13].
- Salt Lake County officials are pushing water conservation measures because of the prolonged drought [Deseret News, Tribune, KUER, Fox 13, ABC 4].
- Another massive earthquake measuring 7.3 on Richter scale rocks Nepal. 4 were confirmed dead as of Tuesday morning [Voice of America].
- Verizon makes a bid to buy AOL in a $4.4 billion deal [Washington Post].
- DABC is considering furloughing employees to meet a shrinking budget [Fox 13].
- A judge won't block a Utah law banning price fixing among contact lens makers [Tribune, Fox 13].
- Sen. Mark Madsen says he will bring his medical marijuana bill back to Utah's Capitol Hill during the 2016 session [Fox 13].
On this day in history:
- 1937 – King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
- 1949 – Soviet authorities announced the end of the Berlin blockade that lasted 328 days. The effects of the action were neutralized by the Allies' Berlin airlift.
- 2002 – Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter visited Cuba, becoming the first current or former president to visit the country since the communist takeover in 1959.
- 2003 – Fifty-nine Texas House Democrats fled to Oklahoma to prevent passage of a congressional redistricting bill.
