Good Tuesday morning from Salt Lake City. There are 37 days left in 2015.
Utahns aren’t sure who is likely to win the 2016 presidential race. Osmond withdraws from consideration to head up UCAT. The fight over SB54 may be heading back to court.
The clock:
- 62 days to the opening day of the 2016 Utah Legislature – (1/25/2016)
- 69 days to the 2016 Iowa Caucus – (2/1/2016)
- 77 days to the 2016 New Hampshire Primary (tentative) – (2/9/2016)
- 108 days to the final day of the 2016 Utah Legislature – (3/10/2016)
- 119 days to the Utah Republican and Democratic caucus meetings (3/22/2016)
- 151 days to the Utah Republican and Democratic State Conventions (4/23/2016)
- 218 days to the 2016 Utah primary election – (6/28/2016)
- 350 days until the 2016 presidential election – (11/8/2016)
Tuesday’s top-10 headlines:
- Turkey shoots down a Russian jet after military officials say it violated its airspace near the border with Syria [Washington Post, CNN].
- Utah Republicans and independents aren’t sure who will win the 2016 election while Democrats say Hillary Clinton is most likely to win next year according to a new poll [Utah Policy].
- Sen. Aaron Osmond withdraws his candidacy to head up the Utah College of Applied Technology [Utah Policy, Deseret News, Tribune].
- It looks more and more likely that the fight over SB54 is heading back to court [Deseret News, Tribune, KUER].
- A legislative task force votes against a bill to put charter school funding on tax notices and approves a bill that boosts charter school funding by $9 million [Tribune].
- Salt Lake County is set to pass a small tax hike as part of next year’s budget [Tribune].
- Salt Lake County and Salt Lake City are teaming up to construct a series of smaller homeless shelters at a cost of $27 million [Utah Policy, Deseret News, Fox 13, Tribune, KUER].
- Utah officials may not have much say on whether Syrian refugees eventually make their way to the state [2 News].
- Donald Trump defends his claim that “thousands of people” in Arab and Muslim communities in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 attacks, claiming he has “the world’s greatest memory.” [The Hill]. Meanwhile, Ben Carson is walking back his support for Trump’s controversial claim [The Hill, New York Times].
- Ted Cruz is starting to surge in polls in Iowa [New York Times].
On this day in history:
- 1859 – Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was published.
- 1869 – Women from 21 states met in Cleveland to organize the American Women Suffrage Association.
- 1963 – Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was fatally shot by Jack Ruby in the Dallas police headquarters basement two days after Kennedy was slain.
- 1971 – A passenger who became known as “D.B. Cooper” hijacked a Northwest Airlines flight from Portland Oregon, parachuted south of Seattle with a $200,000 ransom collected from the airline – and disappeared.
