Good Tuesday morning from Salt Lake City. There are 354 days left in 2016.
Barack Obama gives his final State of the Union Address tonight. Utahns approve of the most recent efforts to kill ObamaCare and defund Planned Parenthood. Hatch says he hasn’t yet decided if he’ll try for another term, but he’s got lots of people asking him to run.
The clock:
- 13 days to the opening day of the 2016 Utah Legislature – (1/25/2016)
- 20 days to the 2016 Iowa Caucus – (2/1/2016)
- 28 days to the 2016 New Hampshire Primary – (2/9/2016)
- 58 days to the final day of the 2016 Utah Legislature – (3/10/2016)
- 70 days to the Utah Republican and Democratic caucus meetings (3/22/2016)
- 102 days to the Utah Republican and Democratic State Conventions (4/23/2016)
- 168 days to the 2016 Utah primary election – (6/28/2016)
- 301 days until the 2016 presidential election – (11/8/2016)
Tuesday’s top-10 headlines:
- President Barack Obama delivers his final State of the Union Address tonight [The Hill, New York Times, Politico].
- Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina are dropped from the main stage for the next GOP debate on Thursday night [New York Times]. Paul is not happy about it at all! [Gawker].
- Polls show some very real warning signs for Donald Trump‘s chances in the Iowa Caucuses [Washington Post].
- A new poll finds a majority of Utahns support the recent effort by Congress to repeal ObamaCare that was coupled with a measure cutting off funds for Planned Parenthood [Utah Policy].
- Former Rep. Justin Miller is sentenced to 18-months probation and community service for communications fraud [2 News, ABC 4, Deseret News, Tribune].
- Sen. Orrin Hatch says he hasn’t decided whether to run for an eighth term in Washington, but he has plenty of people asking him to mount another campaign [Utah Policy].
- Gov. Gary Herbert begins the 2016 election year with his campaign coffers full [Tribune].
- If you call Herbert’s office to lodge a complaint, he just might call you back [2 News].
- Legislators seem ready to wade into the sticky briar patch of taxing online sales [Tribune, Deseret News].
- A proposed bill for this year’s legislative session would eliminate smoking lounges inside Salt Lake International Airport [Fox 13].
On this day in history:
- 1773 – The first public museum in America was established in Charleston, S.C.
- 1932 – Hattie Caraway, a Democrat from Arkansas, became the first woman elected to serve a full term as a United States Senator.
- 1948 – The Supreme Court ruled that states could not discriminate against law-school applicants because of race.
- 1991 – A deeply divided Congress gave President George H.W. Bush the authority to use force to expel Iraq from Kuwait.
- 2010 – A magnitude-7 earthquake hit Haiti and its capital Port-Au-Prince, killing tens of thousands of people.
