Free Republic

Mia Love, bidding to become the first black Republican woman to win a congressional seat in 160 years of the Grand Old Party, was trailing Democrat Doug Owens in early unofficial returns Tuesday evening in Utah’s 4th District race.

She is barely up by less than 1,000 votes, very tight race but after Owens being up all night, she is finally up 954 votes with just a handful of precinct

White, white, white. In nearly every room Love enters as she stumps her way across Utah’s 4th District on a quest to become the first black female Republican in Congress, she is not just the only black person there. She’s the only person of any color, unless you count farmer tans. This 39-year-old, Brooklyn-born daughter of Haitian immigrants and former mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, seems completely at home in a crowd of mostly old white dudes. What’s more, she gets a warmer reception here than when she made a speech at the University of Chicago Law School in 2013....

A risque video featuring bikini-clad beauties firing high-powered guns and riding in tanks has landed four Utah National Guard soldiers -- and veterans of war in Afghanistan and Iraq -- in hot water. The guard members face discipline for unauthorized involvement and use of military vehicles in a video promoting a "behind the scenes" look at the making of this year's "Hot Shots Calendar." The company behind the calendar claims that a portion of the proceeds go to help wounded soldiers, but the video shoot, conducted at Camp Williams and at a private gun range near Salt Lake City, violated...

SALT LAKE CITY -- A Utah couple and three of their children found dead in their home last month were likely poisoned, their bodies found together in a locked room with cups next to each of them, and empty bottles of methadone and nighttime cold medicine in a trash can. Police in Springville aren't saying who killed the family or whether one of the parents might have been involved. Toxicology results have not determined an exact cause of death, but search warrants obtained Wednesday say the family was likely poisoned.

A man accused of killing two sheriff's deputies and wounding two other people in a bloody chase through Northern California was arrested nearly a decade ago in Utah, but authorities didn't connect him with his criminal past or previous deportations. The man known as Marcelo Marquez and his wife were scheduled to make their first court appearances on Tuesday in a Sacramento County courtroom. Prosecutors in that county and neighboring Placer County were trying to sort out what charges to file after Friday's rampage and said they would announce the counts. No attorneys were listed for either suspect in jail...

Students at a Mapleton Junior High School in Utah County were asked to take inventory of the things inside their family medicine cabinet and then turn that list into their health teacher. A parent, Onika Nugent, was not pleased with the assignment, so she posted the assignment on Facebook and sent a note to the teacher and the principal. She shared a portion of the letter she sent school officials: “I said, ‘Although it may be a good idea for parents to do an inventory of their medicine cabinet, I believe it is inappropriate for students to counsel their parents,...

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected gay-marriage appeals from Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin, in essence allowing lower courts to legalize same-sex couples. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an institution that has vigorously opposed gay marriage for some time now, conceded that the political battle over marriage is over. “As far as the civil law is concerned,” the Mormon church admitted, “the courts have spoken.” Actually, nothing is over until God says it’s over. At least, this is my understanding of how religion operates. So though I don’t want to accuse Mormons of being a...

SALT LAKE CITY — A risque video shot in conservative Utah featuring bikini-clad women firing high-powered weapons and riding in tanks for a pinup calendar has raised the ire of a pair of law enforcement agencies who suspect some of their equipment and officers may be in the film.

The 4th Congressional District race between Mia Love (R) and Doug Owens (D) is tightening a little with about 3 weeks to go until election day. The latest UtahPolicy.com poll conducted by Dan Jones and Associates finds Love with a 9-point lead over Owens. 9% are undecided.

A group of horseback riders drew stares, honks and a few handshakes and high-fives along Redwood Road Thursday, hooves clattering on pavement in a protest ride of federal land management policies. The Utah trek of the Grass March Cowboy Express hit Salt Lake City and continued east up Parleys Canyon, with Tooele County Commission Chairman Bruce Clegg and Utah Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan, riding in tandem. With them they carried a mail pouch sporting a letter demanding the resignation of a BLM field office manager who ordered grazing reductions in Battle Mountain, Nevada, and petitions from rural Utah counties...

A federal appeals court will review a ruling that struck down parts of Utah's anti-polygamy law and was hailed as a landmark decision removing the threat of arrest for plural families in Utah. The Utah's attorney general's office filed an appeal Thursday with the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, two weeks after it ended speculation by announcing it would challenge the ruling. The lawsuit was brought by the family on the TLC reality TV show "Sister Wives." In December, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups ruled in favor of reality show star Kody Brown and his four wives, saying...

Another son of the couple found the bodies on Saturday night, the Springville Department of Public Safety said. Preliminary autopsy results have ruled out any sort of violent assault. "The Medical Examiner has indicated that the next step is to continue the investigation through analysis of blood samples to determine what may have caused the deaths," the Springville DPS said. All five bodies were found in one bedroom of a duplex, CNN affiliate KUTV reported. Firefighters entered the home wearing special equipment to test for carbon monoxide, but there was no indication of a buildup of the odorless poisonous, gas,...

“Same sex marriage leads away from polygamy, not for it,” said the Brookings Institution’s Jonathan Rauch in 2012. Joining him was the Economist, which wrote just last year that “gay marriage” to polygamy was “A not-so-slippery slope.” But more and more it seems that these and other crystal-ball watchers have slipped on their own prognostication. Headline Aug. 28, 2014: “Federal Judge Opens Door Further to Group Marriage.” That’s from Breitbart’s Austin Ruse, who reports: The Utah ban made it illegal and punishable by up to five years in prison for anyone to cohabit with someone they are not legally married...

Two armed “polygamist women” dressed like “ninjas” were subdued by a sword-wielding man during a home invasion, according to police in suburban Utah. Police said the two women, aged 18 and 22, were attacking the home of a witness and victim in a criminal child sex assault case against a man the women called their “husband”. The women “violently attacked one of the adult males in the house who came to see who was coming,” Ian Adams of the West Jordan police department told the Guardian. “Another adult male joined the fray in defense of the first male victim. He...

The Senate approved a continuing resolution for the budget which included a provision authorizing President Obama to arm and train Syrian rebels for the purpose of combating Islamic State terrorists. The legislation passed 78-22. Of the 22 Senators that voted no, here are the 12 Republicans that voted against the provision: John Barrasso (WY) Tom Coburn (OK) Michael Crapo (ID) Ted Cruz (TX) Mike Enzi (WY) Dean Heller (NV) Mike Lee (UT) Jim Moran (KS) Rand Paul (KY) James Risch (ID) Pat Roberts (KS) Jeff Sessions (AL)

SALT LAKE CITY — Five Utah men have been slapped with federal charges for taking part in an ATV protest ride in southwestern Utah earlier this year that the group said was to call attention to the federal government’s overreaching control of public lands. Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday they have charged the five southern Utah men with misdemeanor conspiracy and illegal use of all-terrain vehicles Wednesday in connection with a ride organized to show displeasure with the federal government. Prosecutors say the May ride through southwestern Utah’s Recapture Canyon was an illegal protest. “We respect the fact that the citizens...

Eighty legislators from Utah have submitted an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in which the legislators warn the Court that legalizing same-sex marriage would lead to the legalization of incestuous and polygamous marriages. The brief comes following the request for a writ of certiorari from both Utah's Attorney General, Sean Reyes, and the plaintiffs in Kitchen v. Herbert, the case that found both both a district court and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of marriage equality in Utah. As Joe.My.God points out, "the brief is signed by 22 of the 29 members of the state...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, Utah – A woman has criticized police in the Utah County city of Saratoga Springs over the fatal shooting of her 22-year-old son, saying she believes the outcome would have been different had he not been black. Susan Hunt of Saratoga Springs said her family wants answers about what happened leading up to Wednesday's shooting by officers of her son, Darrien Hunt.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah elementary school teacher who was carrying a concealed firearm at school was struck by fragments from a bullet and a porcelain toilet when her gun accidently fired in a faculty bathroom on Thursday, officials said. The sixth-grade teacher at Westbrook Elementary School, in the Salt Lake City suburb of Taylorsville, was injured when the bullet struck a toilet and caused it to explode, Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley said. Authorities initially thought the teacher had accidently shot herself. They now believe she was injured when the bullet and toilet fragments struck her lower...