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Ten Things You Need to Know Today – Friday, February 19, 2016

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Good Friday morning from Salt Lake City. Today is the 50th day of the year. There are 316 days left in 2016.

Trump gets into a feud with Pope Francis. Joe Biden will visit Utah next Friday. Urquhart says the LDS Church torpedoed his hate crimes bill.

The clock:

  • The Nevada Democratic Caucuses and South Carolina Republican Primary elections are tomorrow (2/20/2016)
  • Four days to the Nevada Republican Caucuses (2/23/2016)
  • Eight days to the South Carolina Democratic Primary (2/27/2016)
  • 20 days to the final day of the 2016 Utah Legislature – (3/10/2016)
  • 32 days to the Utah Republican and Democratic caucus meetings (3/22/2016)
  • 64 days to the Utah Republican and Democratic State Conventions (4/23/2016)
  • 130 days to the 2016 Utah primary election – (6/28/2016)
  • 150 days to the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland (7/18/2016)
  • 157 days to the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia (7/25/2016)
  • 263 days until the 2016 presidential election – (11/8/2016)

Friday’s top-10 headlines:

  1. Of all the unlikely things I thought would happen in the 2016 election, I never in my wildest dreams imagined Donald Trump would get into a feud with Pope Francis. Francis called Trump’s proposal to build a wall on the border with Mexico “not Christian” [Associated Press, Reuters]. Trump’s response was very, very Trump [Donald Trump, The Guardian].
  2. Sen. Steve Urquhart, a Mormon, lashes out against the LDS Church’s opposition to his hate crimes legislation [2 News, Fox 13, ABC 4, Associated Press, Tribune, Deseret News].
  3. Vice President Joe Biden will visit Utah next week to speak at the Huntsman Cancer Institute [Tribune, Deseret News].
  4. A new poll shows most Utahns want schools to teach comprehensive sex education rather than the current abstinence-only curriculum [Utah Policy].
  5. Sen. Mark Madsen is making some changes to his medical marijuana bill to blunt opposition to the legislation [2 News].
  6. Legislators look to make some fixes to the state’s open meetings regulations because they may have been inadvertently breaking the law for the past two years [Utah Policy].
  7. Rep. LaVar Christensen‘s “marriage sovereignty” bill could step on the rights of legally married couples in Utah [Fox 13].
  8. Sen. Urquhart is proposing the state do away with the death penalty [Deseret News].
  9. Lawmakers hold a bill requiring parents who choose not to vaccinate their children to watch an educational video [Deseret News].
  10. The State Board of Education names Sydnee Dickson as interim state superintendent after Brad Smith resigned [Tribune].

On this day in history:

  • 1878 – Thomas Edison patented the first gramophone.
  • 1881 – Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.
  • 1942 – The government began relocating Japanese-Americans living in coastal Pacific areas to internment camps in several states.
  • 1945 – Marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima, opening one of the major battles in the Pacific during World War II.
  • 2008 – Cuban President Fidel Castro stepped down permanently after 49 years in power. His brother, Raul, succeeded him.