Access Utah

On opening day of the 2019 Utah Legislature we’re at the State Capitol. We’ll speak with Utah Governor Gary Herbert; Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers; Senate Minority Leader Karen Mayne; House Executive Appropriations Chair Brad Last and House Minority Leader Brian King. We’ll discuss propositions approved by the voters last year on medical marijuana, medicaid expansion, and redistricting. We’l...

An event titled the “Southern Utah Clean Air Forum” was held recently in St. George. It was billed as “a discussion of proposed federal, state & local legislation focused on reducing energy emissions to improve our health and our children’s futures.” As we head toward the opening of the Utah Legislature next week, we’ll talk about clean air and the climate with three of the panelists from the foru...

In this fresh and introspective collection of essays, Julia Corbett examines nature in our lives with all of its ironies and contradictions.

Here’s what organizers of the national Women’s March are saying: “The 2017 Women’s March inspired hundreds of women to run, millions more to vote, and dozens to win elected office. The 2019 Women’s March marks two years of resistance to the Trump presidency, two years of training new activists, and two years of building power. And this time, we're coming back with an agenda. … The #WomensWave is c...

Witty, inspiring, and charismatic, Oscar Wilde is one of the Greats of English literature. Today, his plays and stories are beloved around the world. But it was not always so. His afterlife has given him the legitimacy that life denied him. Making Oscar Wilde reveals the untold story of young Oscar's career in Victorian England and post-Civil War America. Set on two continents, it tracks a larger-...

If you are a bystander and witness a crime, should intervention to prevent that crime be a legal obligation? Or is moral responsibility enough?

Utah Valley University professor Susan Madsen has been focusing for several years now on helping more women graduate from college and helping more girls and women in Utah become leaders in their organizations and communities. She is the founder and director of the Utah Women & Leadership Project at UVU.

On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By th...

Every American is co-owner of the most magnificent estate in the world—federal public forests, grazing lands, monuments, national parks, wildlife refuges, and other public places. The writer Wallace Stegner famously referred to public lands as “America’s best idea,” but there have always been some who oppose the idea for ideological reasons, or because they have a vested economic interest. In the...

Today on Access Utah: As the federal government shutdown continues with no end in sight, we talk about its effects in Utah. We look at effects on government employees and how the shutdown is affecting Utah’s national parks, among other topics. And we want to hear from you. Is the shutdown affecting you? What do you think should be done? Continue the conversation at upraccess@gmail.com.

Though photographers Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams were contemporaries and longtime friends, most of their work portrays contrasting subject matter. Lange’s artistic photodocumentation set a new aesthetic standard for social commentary; Adams lit up nature’s wonders with an unfailing eye and preeminent technical skill. That they joined together to photograph Mormons in Utah in the early 1950s for...

It’s the top Digital Trends of 2018, from the fun to the profound, on the next Access Utah. We’ll talk about the “Me Voting in 2016 vs. Me Voting in 2018” and “My Culture is Not Your Prom Dress” memes along with explorations in the digital world of #MeToo and toxic masculinity and, yes, we’ll probably end up talking about cats as well. Our guests are the co-directors of the USU Digital Folklore Pr...

New York Times bestselling historian H. W. Brands’ latest book is “Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, The Second Generation of American Giants” It tells the riveting story of how, in nineteenth-century America, a new set of political giants battled to complete the unfinished work of the Founding Fathers and decide the future of our democracy.

The holiday season is time for special music old and new. It’s also time for wonderful stories humorous and poignant. We’ll hear music for the season performed by the Lightwood Duo (Mike Christiansen on guitar and Eric Nelson on clarinet). We’ll also hear readings for the season by the author of The Christmas Chronicles, playwright Tim Slover.

Walter Link and Miriam Wollaeger, a young geologist couple in 1920s Wisconsin, set out to find oil to supply the surging U.S. demand. This exciting work will allow them to build their lives in South and Central America, Indonesia, and Cuba. But from the first posting in Columbia, they quickly discover that no women are working in the field in these places. While Walter faces the hardships and thri...

At a recent Climate Change Town Hall in Logan, USU physicist and climate researcher Dr. Rob Davies invited audience members to share their stories of environmental change and activism. He encouraged brainstorming possible solutions to climate change and acknowledged the power of an individual to effect change in the world, even though “often we’re paralyzed, we’re passive because we don’t see the...

This is a unique moment for Utah. Five colleges and universities in the state now have women presidents, several for the first time. These institutions include Utah State University, University of Utah, Utah Valley University, Salt Lake Community College, and Westminster College. As a part of our UPR Original Series Utah Women 20/20, we’ll talk with three of those presidents on Monday’s Access Uta...

When we encounter conflict with another culture, we get confused, frustrated, offended, or even angry.

As we head into the holidays we want to know what you’re reading. What’s on your nightstand or device right now? What is the best book you’ve read this year? Which books would you suggest as gifts? We’d love to hear about any book you’re reading, including in the young adult & children’s categories. One suggestion or many are welcome.

In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America’s lakes and rivers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. Today,...

Throughout its history, America has been defined through maps. Whether made for military strategy or urban reform, to encourage settlement or to investigate disease, maps invest information with meaning by translating it into visual form. They capture what people knew, what they thought they knew, what they hoped for, and what they feared. As such they offer unrivaled windows onto the past.

Over the next several decades, as human populations grow and developing countries become more affluent, the demand for energy will soar. Parts of the energy sector are preparing to meet this demand by increasing renewable energy production, which is necessary to combat climate change. But many renewable energy sources have a large energy sprawl—the amount of land needed to produce energy—which can...

Daniel James Brown’s bestseller “The Boys in the Boat” is a story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times—the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant.

Patty Rayman was born with the ability to communicate with animals and has helped thousands of people resolve many types of behavior, health, attitude and relationship issues with their animal companions. In working with all types of animals, she has developed techniques to help people move from conflict to cooperation in their relationships.

Coral reefs around the world are vanishing at an unprecedented rate. We’ve lost 50% of the world’s coral in the last 30 years. Scientists say that climate change is now their greatest threat and it is estimated that only 10% can survive past 2050. In a new documentary film, “Chasing Coral,” a team of divers, photographers and scientists set out on a thrilling ocean adventure to discover why coral...