Access Utah

To call these unsettling times is an understatement: our political leaders are less and less respectable; in the realm of business, cheating, lying, and stealing are hazily defined; and in daily life, rapidly changing technology offers permission to act in ways inconceivable without it. Yet somehow, this hasn’t quite led to a complete free-for-all—people still draw lines around what is acceptable...

NYU professor Mitchell Stephens’ recent article in “Politico” is headlined “Goodbye Nonpartisan Journalism. And Good Riddance.” Stephens says that “journalism in the United States was born partisan and remained, for much of its history, loud, boisterous and combative. He says that this changed in the 1930s and 40s beginning with influential radio newsman Lowell Thomas who “intuited that the best w...

UPR listeners are avid readers, so our periodic question to you isn’t if you’re reading, but what are you reading? We hope you’ll share your booklist with us and we’ll compile a UPR list and post it on www.upr.org You can share your booklist by email to upraccess@gmail.com or on Twitter @upraccess. We’re also asking if you have any suggestions for beach or camping or summertime reading. And what d...

With wildfires raging in Utah and other areas, we’ll turn to writer Gary Ferguson for a timely discussion about wildfires on Monday’s Access Utah. Wildfire season is burning longer and hotter, affecting more and more people, especially in the west. Ferguson’s book Land on Fire: The New Reality of Wildfire in the West explores the science behind this phenomenon and the ongoing research to find a so...

In The Evolution of Beauty, Richard O. Prum’s award-winning career as an ornithologist and his lifelong passion for bird-watching come together in a thrilling intellectual adventure. Scientific dogma holds that every detail of an animal’s mating displays—every spot on the peacock’s tail—is an advertisement of its genetic material superiority to potential mates. But thirty years of research and fie...

Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate have delayed a vote on their Obamacare repeal bill (the Better Care Reconciliation Act) until after the 4th of the July recess.

The 2017 Bennion Teacher Workshop and Literature of Protest: Civil Rights, Democracy, Social Justice is ongoing at USU. Sponsored by: The Mountain West Center for Regional Studies Utah State University.

Across Utah, nearly 70 mentally ill men and women who are supposed to be receiving mental health treatment are instead trapped in jail cells. They're getting sicker. They're being released without treatment. They're dying.

According to Colin Dickey, author of the forthcoming book about conspiracy theories called “The Unidentified,” such theories appear and spread at moments of upheaval and cultural anxiety. Dickey, writing recently in The New Republic magazine, examines the rise of conspiracy theories, long thought to be more the province of the right wing, on the left in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election as...

The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny.

Craig Jessop, Dean of Utah State University’s Caine College of the Arts, Director of the American Festival Chorus and Orchestra, and former Music Director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, has led an interesting life in the arts. He’ll join us today to talk about USU’s Year of the Arts which begins this month.

Cory Christiansen is a recording artist, writer, educator and performer. He has played and taught around the globe for the last decade alongside the likes of Dr. Lonnie Smith, Vic Juris, Danny Gottlieb, Jeff Coffin, James Moody, Steve Houghton, Jeremy Allen and other jazz greats. His last recording, "Lone Prairie" received critical acclaim for its blending of jazz, rock, blues and music of the Ame...

It’s Summertime! The kids are out of school and life slows down for some of us and speeds up for others. Trips to favorite vacation spots and into the backcountry ramp up. Today on Access Utah, we came together as a UPR community to share ideas for summertime trips, activities, traditions and stories.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has released his interim report on Bears Ears National Monument.

Having lost eight friends in ten years, Cooley retreats to a tiny medieval village in Italy with her husband. There, in a rural paradise where bumblebees nest in the ancient cemetery and stray cats curl up on her bed, she examines a question both easily evaded and unavoidable: mortality. How do we grieve? How do we go on drinking our morning coffee, loving our life partners, stumbling through a wo...

President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement was met with mixed reactions across the country and especially in Utah. While some climate scientists and government leaders including Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski called the decision a mistake, others argued the decision could have positive economic consequences for the United States.

Michael Patrick Lynch is featured in a TED talk about "Finding Common Reality." In his talk, Lynch explains the future of how we know information is true. Just because we can Google information does not mean the information is accurate. And even more surprising, Lynch explains how we are not just polarized in our opinions or values, but in the facts we learn.

After oil was discovered beneath their land in the 1920's, the richest people per capita were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. They rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is preparing a ruling to roll back net neutrality rules enacted under President Obama, to, in part, spur innovation and investment. President Obamademanded that the FCC reclassify the Internet as a public utility under Title II of the Telecommunications Act. He wanted rules to ensure “that neither the cable company nor the phone company [would] be able t...

The Colorado River is an essential resource for a surprisingly large part of the United States, and every gallon that flows down it is owned or claimed by someone. David Owen traces all that water from Colorado's headwaters, to its parched terminus, once a verdant wetland but now a million-acre desert. HE takes readers on an adventure downriver, along a labyrinth of waterways, reservoirs, power pl...

According to the Dessert News, "Some disaffected Republicans and Democrats who say extreme views are co-opting their parties have decided to carve out a middle ground in Utah politics. Taking a centrist approach, the group announced the formation of the United Utah Party.

NPR reports that “The World Health Organization has called on nations around the globe toenact taxes on sugary beverages. AndBloomberg Philanthropies says raising taxes on sugary beverages can be part of the strategy to ‘reduce consumer demand for unhealthy foods and beverages, improve the food environment, and make healthier choices easier for everyone.’”

Margaret Atwood’s influential novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” was published in 1985. The new Hulu series based on the book is creating quite a bit of buzz and some are saying the book’s themes are prescient in our times. Others are pushing back on that idea. Wednesday on Access Utah we’ll talk about it with Erin Webster Garrett, Professor of English at Radford University; and Sarah Jones, Social Media...

There are over 30 million birders in this country alone, according to the Cornell Institute of Ornithology. Why are so many people interested in birds and birdsong?

The words “Nixonian” and “Watergate territory” are being used increasingly in connection with the Trump Administration.