Free Republic

Legislation that would move the ownership and management of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in New Mexico to the state has been introduced at the Roundhouse. The Transfer of Public Lands Act is sponsored by Rep. Yvette Herrell, R-Alamogordo, and Sen. Richard C. Martinez, D-Espanola... Herrell said New Mexico has a rich history of farming, ranching, hunting, fishing and oil drilling. "In our past we have also had a thriving timber industry that is unfortunately near nonexistent ... ... A healthy timber industry, managed responsibly by New Mexicans, would not only help our economy by creating...

LAYTON — A burglary suspect who was fired upon by a homeowner has been taken into custody by police in Layton. The suspect was identified as Robert Santos Cruz, 47, of the Salt Lake City area, said Lt. Shawn Horton. The incident happened around 4 p.m. at a home at 2536 E. Gentile, near Valley View Golf Course. Neighbors identified the homeowner as Clare Niederhauser. Around 4 p.m., the homeowner came home and saw a green four-door vehicle parked in front of the house. The driver was a woman, and there was an older male passenger. The driver began honking...

SALT LAKE CITY - David Morales was on a Greyhound bus near Las Cruces, N.M., when Border Patrol agents stopped the bus for a routine check. Morales, 21, rose up and informed his fellow passengers of their rights. That, he says, landed him in detention for nine hours before immigration agents decided to cut him loose. The experience, he says, was his inspiration for developing an app to inform undocumented people of their rights in a wide array of scenarios ranging from traffic stops by city police officers to a workplace raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. "I can't...

01/23/13 From HuffPo: Dead weight? A business owner in Utah has become the latest employer to blame President Obama's health care reform bill for layoffs and has doubled down on his public disdain for the current administration by admitting he singled out Obama supporters. Terry Lee, owner of Cedar City-based Terry Lee Forensics, told the Salt Lake Tribune that he was so impressed by a Vernal, Utah, smoothie bar's policy of asking liberal patrons to pay more, that he, too, took action to recoup losses he said were incurred by Obamacare. George Burnett, owner of I Love Drilling Smoothie &...

Sheriffs vs fedsGrandstanding is useless exercise First Published Jan 24 2013 01:01 am • Last Updated Jan 24 2013 01:01 am http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/55677972-82/law-constitution-federal-gun.html.csp

In a court settlement with the EPA, Edge Products, a manufacturer of electronic power modules for diesel engines, has agreed to pay a $500,000 fine for manufacturing and selling electronic devices that allowed owners of Chevy, GMC, Ford and Dodge/Ram diesel pickup trucks (2007 and later) to remove the programming for diesel particulate filters from their vehicles. The Ogden, Utah, company is reported to have sold more than 9,000 units from January 2009 through April 2011. This is said to have resulted in an estimated 158 tons of excess particulate matter emissions — the equivalent of 422 new long-haul semitrailers...

HEBER CITY Utah (ABC 4 News) - Utah's sheriffs are prepared to take on the president when it comes to guns. Last week they sent him a letter stating they would not enforce any new gun laws they believe are unconstitional. "We are prepared to trade our lives in defense of the constitution of the United States," says Summit County Sheriff David Edmunds. 28 of Utah's 29 sheriffs signed off on the letter. Edmunds says it's meant as a preemptive strike in case the president enacts tougher gun laws like limiting assault rifles or restricting the amount of ammo in...

The Utah Sheriffs’ Association has sent a letter to President Barack Obama warning him its members will not allow guns to be taken from the state’s residents. No government jurisdiction has made such a threat, however, the association acted in response to Obama’s recent proposals about ways to reduce gun violence in the nation, said Grand County Sheriff Steve White, one of 28 sheriffs who support the Jan. 17 letter. White said the association wants to send the message that any changes in gun laws should be done through legislation, not by executive order. Approving the letter is an example...

OGDEN, Utah -- Emilie Parker, a 6-year-old victim of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, was laid to rest next to her grandfather Saturday in the town where she was born. Burial at Evergreen Memorial Park followed a private funeral for family and close friends at a Mormon church across the street from Ben Lomond High School, where Emilie's parents, Robbie and Alissa Parker, met.

RIVERDALE — Pictures of a man carrying a rifle inside a big box store in Riverdale are raising a lot of eyebrows. The woman who took them tells KSL the man had no business bringing the gun where he did. It was supposed to be just a regular trip to the JC Penney. Wednesday night, Cindy Yorgason was in line to return something when she saw a man with some pretty heavy fire power. "He had the assault rifle over his shoulder," Yorgason said. "He had a handgun on the right side of his belt along with at least one...

SALT LAKE CITY - A book about a lesbian couple raising children has returned to a Utah school district's library shelves, amid a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union. Officials with the ACLU of Utah say they were informed of the district's decision Monday, two months after the suit was filed.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ... has proposed designating 1.7 million acres in southwest Colorado and southeast Utah as critical habitat for the bird ... The designation sometimes, but not always, means restrictions on human activities on that land. The public and the scientific community have until March 12 to comment before the agency makes a final decision on whether to list the Gunnison sage grouse as endangered.

Embattled St. George businessman Jeremy Johnson says new Utah Attorney General John Swallow helped broker a deal in 2010 in which Johnson believed he was to pay Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid $600,000 to make a federal investigation into Johnson’s company go away. But when the federal government filed a lawsuit Johnson thought he had paid to quash, he demanded Swallow return some of the $250,000 initial payment. Then, just days before the Nov. 6 election, Johnson engaged in a frenetic but unsuccessful effort to get Swallow to drop out of the race, saying information about what Johnson called a...

A Utah businessman accused of running a fraudulent $350 million software scheme says the state attorney general arranged a deal to pay Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make a federal investigation into the software business disappear. ... Johnson says be believed that Reid, a Nevada senator, might intervene in the Federal Trade Commission's investigation.

Officials in a small Utah town want to make sure every head of household has a firearm and knows how to use it, and they want to give school teachers training with guns too.

State troopers put their lives on the line every day. And the act of pulling someone over on a highway can be a deadly experience for any cop not following the best protocols. But police are also under great pressure to generate ticket revenue for their cities, counties and states, and their zeal to hit revenue targets can lead them to do the wrong thing. So says a class action suit filed against the State of Utah and a specific state trooper who is accused of writing "driving under the influence" tickets when they weren't impaired. State trooper Lisa Steed...

VERNAL — A man says Vernal police disrupted an intimate moment of mourning with his deceased wife of 58 years when they searched his house for her prescription medication without a warrant within minutes of her death. -snip- Ben D. Mahaffey, 80, said he was distraught and trying to make sure his wife's body would be taken to the funeral home with dignity, when he says officers insisted he help them look for the drugs. "I was holding her hand saying goodbye when all the intrusion happened," he told the Deseret News. -snip- Mahaffey said he was treated as if...

SALT LAKE CITY — Ten years after her kidnapping, Elizabeth Smart is preparing her story of being held captive by a homeless street preacher, her improbable rescue after nine months, and how she advocated for children after the ordeal. St. Martin's Press bought the rights to the memoir from the now 25-year-old senior at Brigham Young University. Smart married a fellow Mormon missionary, Matthew Gilmour, in February. The account is being written by Utah Congressman-elect Chris Stewart, who has authored books with religious and patriotic themes. He was elected in November to serve in the 2nd Congressional District, replacing Jim...

Demographics buffs get a special Christmas present every year courtesy of the Census Bureau: its annual estimates of the populations of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This gives demographers a chance to see where the nation is growing and where it is not, and to get an idea of the destination of immigrants and of the flow of people into one set of states and out of another. Nationally the Census Bureau estimates that the United States has grown from 308 million people when the census was conducted in April 2010 and to almost 313 million in...

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah has had one of the nation's highest birth rates for quite a while, but over the last four years couples have chosen to have fewer children. One big reason for that: money, and the lack thereof. Most any parent will tell you having a child is their greatest blessing ⁸ the more than 51,000 infants born in Utah this past year are living proof of that. But the number of Utah births is decreasing. "We have seen a decline since 2006, 2007 — those were our biggest years. Those years we had about 60,000 babies...