In its push to address affordable housing, the Salt Lake City Council voted Tuesday to loosen zoning rules on so-called mother-in-law apartments with hopes of opening up new, smaller dwellings across the city’s residential neighborhoods.

A common feature of the city’s housing stock decades ago, so-called accessory dwelling units — basement apartments, ones inside or above garages and those in separate buildings in yards — have for years been limited in Utah’s capital to locales a half-mile or less from Salt Lake City’s TRAX stops.

But after years of debate and public input, the City Council voted 5-1 late Tuesday to approve zoning changes that essentially allow such dwellings citywide, although with some conditions on permitting in certain areas dominated by single-family homes. Only Councilman Charlie Luke was opposed, calling the new rules “unenforceable.”

The city’s new approach also eases some requirements on entrances and setbacks for ADUs, as well as rules for parking by letting driveways and available street parking spaces suffice.

The new rules would require that a property owner live in either the accessory dwelling or the main residence, a move planners said was designed to curtail private absentee owners from buying up ADUs as commercial rentals. Accessory dwelling owners also would be licensed by the city.

The changes are welcomed by many city residents as a way of easing an ongoing housing crunch and helping give homeowners new flexibility. But many other residents have been deeply opposed, warning that large numbers of new pocket dwellings could disrupt parking and the quality of life in established residential areas.

Council Chairwoman Erin Mendenhall urged passage of the changes and praised her colleagues for the “blood, sweat and tears” in analyzing city policy on ADUs over the years. She said the issue not only centered on housing affordability but also would allow residents to “age in place” and not be forced to move as their housing needs change.

“This is not about cheap apartments created overnight, but rather access to housing for the longer term,” Mendenhall said.

After hearing public testimony Tuesday, Councilman Derek Kitchen rejected staff recommendations to delay final approval of the ADU changes for further review. He asked colleagues to overlook uncertainties and approve the measure, “see how it shakes out in our community” and then revisit the ordinance in a few years.

“This will not fix the affordable housing crisis,” but it was worth trying, Kitchen said, even if the dwellings it added to the housing market pushed down rents “only nominally.”

Councilman Chris Wharton said new ADUs spurred by the changes could also provide housing for students, young professionals and lower-income residents in “higher-opportunity” neighborhoods that were safer, had better schools and offered historic character.

Based on a study of similar zoning changes in Denver and Portland, planners estimate they could spur construction of between four and 25 new ADUs per year in Salt Lake City neighborhoods. Officials expect the first ADUs created under the new ordinances to be in homes, although the new rules cover attached and detached dwellings.

But Luke said that after years of discussion, the new rules remained too vague and “had the potential to drastically change the look and feel of neighborhoods.”

“In nine years [of debate],” Luke said, “nobody has been able to tell me how this is going to be enforced and how we’re going to protect the neighborhoods we have.”

LOS ANGELES - Cody Bellinger singled home the winning run in the 13th inning, lifting the Los Angeles Dodgers over the Milwaukee Brewers 2-1 on Tuesday night and tying the NL Championship Series at two games apiece.

Bellinger grounded a 3-2 pitch from Junior Guerra into right field, scoring Manny Machado, who slid home and touched the plate with his left hand to beat the tag and finally end an October thriller that took 5 hours, 15 minutes.

Game 5 in the best-of-seven series is Wednesday afternoon at Dodger Stadium, with Wade Miley going for the Brewers against fellow lefty Clayton Kershaw. The teams return to Milwaukee for Game 6 on Friday.

With one out in the 13th, Machado had a broken-bat single to left field and went to second on Guerra's wild pitch. With first base open and slumping Yasmani Grandal on deck followed by the pitcher's spot, the Brewers chose to pitch to Bellinger — and it cost them.

"Honestly, I didn't think he was going to throw me a strike," Bellinger said. "And then once I noticed he was attacking me, I just tried to put the ball in play and hopefully find a hole this time."

Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said: "I thought it was worth the risk of trying to expand to Bellinger, and if the at-bat goes to Grandal, we walk Grandal."

Bellinger, who entered as a pinch hitter in the sixth, also had the defensive play of the game. He made a diving catch on his belly of a ball hit by Lorenzo Cain leading off the 10th, spreading his arms out and sliding like a snow angel in right field.

"I haven't been out there much," Bellinger said. "But I played right field in the minor leagues a little bit, so it was kind of second nature to me, and I just saw it up in the air, so I just tried to run and grab it."

Both teams used all their position players and wasted numerous chances. Los Angeles went through its entire bullpen.

The Dodgers struck out 17 times — all against Milwaukee relievers — and have whiffed 49 times in the series. The Brewers fanned 15 times.

Utah’s ACT scores inched up again this year — edging closer to but still falling below the national average.

“The needle is moving in the right direction,” said Mark Peterson, spokesman for the Utah Board of Education. “We just wish we could move it a lot further and faster.”

The state’s 2018 graduating class scored an average of 20.4 points on the college readiness exam, which has a 36-point scale. The national average, which dipped slightly this year, was 20.8.

Utah administers the test to 100 percent of its public-school seniors, which means its average score tends to be lower than states where the ACT is voluntary and more likely to be completed by only high-achieving or college-bound students.

Because of that, its performance ranks 28th nationwide. But it places second among the 17 states that also give the exam to every graduating student (coming in behind Wisconsin and ahead of Ohio).

“You’re testing not only students who are going to college but also those who aren’t necessarily preparing for that outcome,” said ACT spokesman Ed Colby. “The scores tend to be lower — and in most cases significantly lower.”

But Utah’s average, he added, has ticked up for the past two years. In 2017, the state’s average composite score was 20.3. In 2016, it was 20.2.

One-tenth of a point may not seem like much, Colby said, but it’s actually a significant gain for a year’s difference. And it continues an upward trend. “That’s a really good sign. The numbers are encouraging.”

Meanwhile, the nation’s average composite went from 21 last year to 20.8 this year. That’s likely due to more students taking the test and causing a small dip.

Utah’s ACT data include 43,791 students — about 1,600 of whom attend private school or are home-schooled, Peterson said, and tend to bring the score up slightly.

Among demographic groups, white and Asian students in Utah scored the highest, with an average of 21.4 points. Black and American Indian students scored the lowest, with 16.2.

“We need to continue to focus on closing achievement gaps and ensuring each student is academically prepared to succeed after high school,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sydnee Dickson said in a statement.

ACT also sets college-readiness benchmarks, which indicate the likelihood that a student would earn a B grade in an entry-level university course. In Utah, 24 percent of students met that for all four test subjects — English, reading, science and math. Nationally, 27 percent did.

The state saw the highest average scores in English: 58 percent. But the majority of students fell below the benchmark in reading at 43 percent, science at 34 percent and math at 36 percent.

“We’re not hiding this,” Peterson said. “There’s plenty of work to do.”

The national score fell to its lowest point in the past 14 years for math, as well, with 40 percent meeting the mark. The results released Wednesday show more than 1.9 million students completed the ACT, amounting to about 55 percent of seniors who graduated in 2018.

The majority of Utah students sent their scores to schools in the state. The top three were the University of Utah, Utah Valley University and Utah State University.

By a 2-to-1 margin, Utahns support Proposition 4 to create an independent commission to redraw the state’s political boundaries in its once-every-decade redistricting, a new poll shows.

Even a plurality of Republicans support it, although Democrats charged for decades that big-majority GOP legislators unfairly gerrymandered boundaries here — and Prop 4 grew largely out of that.

“It’s those Ronald Reagan ads they are running,” said Utah Senate Majority Leader Ralph Okerlund, R-Monroe, a Prop 4 opponent. Supporters’ ads show a video of the late president pushing for independent, bipartisan redistricting commissions to combat “un-American” gerrymandering.

“That has a lot of Utah Republicans thinking they are supporting something that is Republican,” Okerlund said. But he contends Prop 4 aims to help Democrats create a safe Democratic congressional district in Salt Lake County and give unelected officials who are not beholden to voters control of drawing districts.

A new poll by the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics for The Salt Lake Tribune shows likely Utah voters favor Prop 4 by a 58 percent to 22 percent margin, with 20 percent undecided.

That is up from a June poll, which showed a 50-28 percent margin with 23 percent undecided.

Republicans now favor Prop 4 by a 48-27 percent plurality, while Democrats favor it by a 76-10 spread and unaffiliated voters give it a 63-21 margin.

Supporters have raised big money to put Prop 4 on the ballot and campaign for it — while no organized groups are running ads against it. Utahns for Responsive Government, a political issues committee for supporters, raised $1.46 million this year, with 67 percent of the group’s money coming from out of state.

Jeff Wright, co-chairman of the Better Boundaries group that gathered signatures to put it on the ballot, is a former GOP congressional candidate. Ralph Becker, a Democrat who was two-term mayor of Salt Lake City and a state legislator, is the other co-chairman.

“We’re excited to see an uptick with undecided voters [moving to support Prop 4],” Wright said in a written statement. “As Utahns continue to learn about what Proposition 4 does to improve accountability with the redistricting process, they overwhelmingly support it.”

In official arguments for Prop 4 on the state’s election website, vote.utah.gov, Wright and Becker wrote, “Voters should choose their representatives, not vice versa. Yet under current law, Utah politicians can choose their voters.”

They complain, “Legislators draw their own districts with minimal transparency, oversight or checks on inherent conflicts of interest.”

They say examples of problems that creates include that Holladay “is splintered into four state House districts, two state Senate districts and two congressional districts. Who benefits from this? Holladay voters don’t, but politicians do.”

The proposed commission would be appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, and at least two of its members must be politically unaffiliated. The Legislature could reject any plan proposed by the commission and adopt its own, but would need to outline why — and that could become problematic with voters.

Okerlund, who was co-chairman of a joint redistricting committee in 2011, said members “held over 30 public, open and transparent meetings throughout the state. They received and considered hundreds of public comments and even provided a dedicated website for citizens to draw, submit and comment on maps.”

But the GOP was criticized for holding much of its debate on maps behind closed doors.

Okerlund contends in written comments on vote.utah.gov that Prop 4 “is a cleverly disguised partisan plan to stifle the voice of the people of Utah as represented by the Legislature” to “create an overwhelmingly Democrat congressional district around Salt Lake City.”

He also says gerrymandering is in the eye of the beholder. “Every map that isn’t drawn by me is gerrymandering,” he joked, but said many groups actually feel that way.

Prop 4 comes amid persistent allegations of gerrymandering, including the last time the state redrew boundaries after the 2010 Census — including charges that Democratic areas in Salt Lake County were diced and sliced to dilute that party’s power.

Then-Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson accused GOP legislators of splitting up his old district three ways to make re-election impossible in the district where he lived — so he chose to run in an adjacent one that included more of his old constituents.

With the unusual move, Matheson barely won re-election — by 768 votes — over GOP challenger Mia Love in 2012. Two years later, he chose not to seek re-election, and Love won the seat. Now Utah’s all-Republican U.S. House delegation has no member from Salt Lake County, the state’s most populous.

Last year, a nationwide Associated Press analysis said Utah Republicans won an average of 64 percent of votes in each legislative district, but gained 83 percent of the seats. It concluded Utah Republicans won three more seats than they likely would have had districts been drawn more objectively.

The new poll was conducted Oct. 3-9 and surveyed 607 likely voters. Its margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Those with juvenile offenses on their record have a shot at getting them removed Thursday during Utah’s first ever juvenile expungement clinic.

The clinic will run from 3 to 6 p.m., beginning after the Utah Board of Juvenile Justice’s Clean Slate event for Juvenile Justice Awareness Month. Both events will be held at Weber Valley Youth Services, 1305 S. 700 West, in Ogden.

A person’s juvenile record can affect their ability to get a job and keep custody of their children — even if the charges have been dismissed, according to a news release from the Utah Board of Juvenile Justice.

To qualify for expungement, the applicant must be at least 18. In addition, one year must have passed since they were released from custody or since the case’s termination from juvenile court jurisdiction.

The clinic will put those with juvenile offenses in contact with attorneys, judges and advocates who can help them navigate the expungement process. Records from all judicial districts are eligible for review, according to the news release. Those who apply for expungement at the clinic will have all application fees waived.

Those interested must come to the event in person and provide a valid form of government-issued photo ID. Utah Driving Privilege Cards won’t be accepted. No appointments are necessary.

For more information on the Clean Slate event visit bit.do/cleanslate.

When a person dies by suicide, those left behind are “catapulted on an emotional journey,” says Ronnie Walker, an advocate for survivors of suicide loss.

Walker — whose stepson, Chan, a promising Stanford student who struggled with bipolar disorder and died by suicide at 21 in 1995 — said that when it happens, often the first kind stranger a family member encounters is the person arranging the funeral.

“The grief is bigger than, say, the grief I felt when my mother passed [at 91],” said Walker, founder of Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors, an online resource. She spoke at a seminar Tuesday during the National Funeral Directors Association’s international convention, held this week at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City.

A suicide in the family can often make people feel anxious, agitated, numb, confused, sad or dissociated from what’s going on around them, Walker said. She cited statistics that people close to someone who has died by suicide are 10 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than other people — and are 80 percent more likely to drop out of school or quit their job than those grieving over someone who died of natural causes.

“You really do have to be quite delicate,” said Kurt Soffe, co-owner of Jenkins-Soffe Funeral Chapels in Murray and South Jordan. “The families will experience this explosion of emotion — they’ll get this raw, suffocating emotion. … You walk very slow with that family. If that family is not in a place to make decisions, you invite them to come back the next day.”

Soffe, who is a national spokesman for the convention, said his mortuary may handle around 40 suicide cases a year, among the 650 families for whom it provides funeral services. That number may be low, he said, because often the funeral director is at work before a medical examiner has made an official ruling if, for example, a drug overdose was accidental or deliberate.

“There are times we don’t know the cause of death until the family walks in the door,” Soffe said.

Walker asked people on the forums of Alliance of Hope’s website for comments to pass along to funeral directors, and most expressed gratitude for how directors handled the funeral. Some praised the funeral directors for their professionalism, their calm compassion, and for acting as a go-between for the media and badly behaved family members.

The two suggestions suicide loss survivors made, Walker said, were to ask funeral directors to help decrease the stigma of suicide and to provide specific resources for suicide loss survivors — like the resources Walker’s nonprofit provides.

Soffe said funeral directors understand they are dealing with families often at the lowest point in their lives.

“The No. 1 thing,” he said, “is to reassure them that the manner of death has no bearing on how to pay tribute to a life that’s lived.”

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts is asked to call the 24-Hour National Suicide Prevention Hotline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Utah also has crisis lines statewide and the SafeUT app offers immediate crisis intervention services for youths and a confidential tip program.

In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, political insiders talked about a permanent realignment of the political map. After years in the blue column, the Rust Belt and Upper Midwest were now going to move toward Republicans, we were told. Older white, working-class voters were easy pickings for President Donald Trump’s brand of politics — built on resentment and aimed at retaliation against urban elites, immigrants and globalization itself. Well, it worked once — with a seriously flawed Democratic presidential nominee — and only barely (a shift of fewer than 80,000 votes in three states would have spared us from the entire Trumpian ordeal).

The 2016 results nevertheless prompted Democrats to agonize over their failure to represent the interests of white, working-class voters, especially men. Should they dump cultural issues? Maybe they, too, should start talking about putting the brakes on immigration?

It seems that the freakout was unnecessary and overwrought, and the GOP's grip on formerly blue states was illusory.

“Democratic Senate incumbents in Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan — all states won by Trump — now appear solid favorites for re-election,” Ronald Brownstein writes. “The party is favored for the governorships in Michigan and Pennsylvania and locked in close races in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa — the fifth Midwestern state key to Trump’s 2016 victory. And it could pick up as many as four House seats combined in Iowa and Michigan.” He surmises that Trump “appears to have suffered genuine erosion among working-class white women, largely because of his attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and a sense among many that the improved national economy hasn’t provided them appreciably more security. If that crack in Trump’s armor persists to 2020, it would arguably provide the single most important advance for Democrats in the midterm election.”

Several other factors are likely at play.

First, we cannot stress enough that Hillary Clinton simply was not an option for many voters. It's why Trump keeps bringing her up almost two years after she lost. The Republicans' supposed inroads in the Midwest were in fact just as much a rejection of Clinton, personally and as a representative of the Washington status quo. The voters who switched from President Barack Obama to Trump in the Midwest might have been misguided in their expectations for Trump, but their votes had an internal consistency: They hate professional politicians and feel that the global economy has left them behind. Remove Clinton and find some solid candidates, especially first-time candidates, and Democrats are back in the game.

Second, Trump’s populism was a canard from the get-go, and now it’s obvious even to those who supported him in 2016. When you pass tax cuts for the rich, propose cutting Medicaid, support repeal of the ACA that would hit rural communities hardest, inflict tariffs and defend an administration rife with corruption, good luck trying to convince working-class voters that you are “on their side.” Democrats' bread-and-butter economic appeal — which works for white, working-class voters as well as for suburbanites and urbanites — worked for Obama and still can resonate with many voters.

Third, Trump's misogyny and male grievance crusade come with a cost. Republicans face a problem not just from Democratic and independent women who have been energized, but also from women who are no longer Republican. E.J. Graff writes:

“Fewer and fewer American women identify as Republicans, and that slow migration is speeding up under Trump. ... Trump’s election put this gender shift “on steroids,” [Democratic pollster Anna] Greenberg says. According to Pew, the share of American women voters who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party has dropped 3 percentage points since 2015-from 40 percent to 37 percent-after having been essentially unchanged from 2010 through 2014. By 2017, just 25 percent of American women fully identified as Republicans. That means that when, say, 84 percent of Republican women say they approve of Trump and his actions, or 69 percent of Republican women say they support Kavanaugh, or 64 percent say they, like Trump, don’t find Ford very ‘credible,’ those percentages represent a small and shrinking slice of American women.”

In short, without adopting spurious positions (e.g. limiting legal immigration) or abandoning support for its traditional issues (e.g. gun safety, women's rights), Democrats seem poised to win back what they lost in the Midwest in 2016. The lesson they should take away is simple: Get good candidates and articulate an effective economic message. This really isn't rocket science.

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion from a center-right perspective for The Washington Post.

As hard as it is to resist writing about the fact that today the president of the United States called the porn star to whom he paid hush money "Horseface," I want to focus on a different aspect of this presidency that we're seeing play out right now.

As the apparent murder of Saudi journalist and Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi complicates our relations with Saudi Arabia, we have to ask what the implications are of having a fully transactional presidency, one not just built on "deals" but where policy is determined by what is financially beneficial to the president.

We should begin by reminding ourselves that as awful as Khashoggi's apparent murder is, it's only the latest in a long list of Saudi abuses that administrations both Democratic and Republican have chosen to overlook for decades. The country is a cruel dictatorship that embodies none of the values we as a nation hold dear, like democracy, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, or freedom of religion. But we decided long ago that since the Saudis have a great deal of oil and they provide us with a strategic ally in the Middle East, we'll overlook all that.

There is something unsettling about the fact that Saudi intervention in Yemen's civil war, in which they have reportedly killed thousands of civilians, has received steady American support, while the murder of a single journalist threatens to upend the relationship between the two countries.

Or so you might think. But here's the reality: This will blow over, not only because of the complex relationship between the two countries, but because everything in foreign policy is personal with Trump, and he likes the Saudis.

And why does he like them so much? Because they pay him.

This is not something Trump has been shy about saying. "Saudi Arabia, I get along with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million," he said at a rally in Alabama in 2015. "Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much."

Trump says so many shocking things that it's sometimes easy to slide right past the most appalling ones, but read that again. Here you have a candidate for president of the United States saying that he is favorably disposed toward a foreign country because they have given him millions of dollars, and all but promising to shape American foreign policy in their favor for that very reason.

"Am I supposed to dislike them?" he asks. How could I possibly dislike them when they pay me?

We should note that it's more than just apartments. Trump has sold many properties to Saudis, and Saudis have invested in Trump projects. And as David Fahrenthold and Jonathan O'Connell report:

"Business from Saudi-connected customers continued to be important after Trump won the presidency. Saudi lobbyists spent $270,000 last year to reserve rooms at Trump's hotel in Washington. Just this year, Trump's hotels in New York and Chicago reported significant upticks in bookings from Saudi visitors."

This is precisely the reason the Framers put in the Constitution a provision saying that neither the president nor other officials could "accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." If a foreign country is putting money in the president's pocket on an ongoing basis, how in the world can we trust that the decisions he makes will be based on the best interests of the United States and not on his bank account?

This is of more concern with Trump than with any other president in American history. His entire life has been devoted to the accumulation of wealth, as though there were no other goal anyone should consider seeking ("My whole life I've been greedy, greedy, greedy. I've grabbed all the money I could get. I'm so greedy," he has said). He made sure that upon assuming office his businesses would continue to operate and continue to provide avenues for those wishing to further enrich him to do so. And he refuses to release his tax returns, so we have no idea exactly how much money he's getting and from whom.

But today, Trump tweeted this:

"For the record, I have no financial interests in Saudi Arabia (or Russia, for that matter). Any suggestion that I have is just more FAKE NEWS (of which there is plenty)!"

This is the same claim Trump has made with regard to Russia, and it's the same dodge. The point isn't whether Trump has interests in Saudi Arabia, it's whether Saudi Arabia has interests in him. And just as is the case with Russia, they do.

If you're the Saudis, the nice thing about Trump is that he lacks any subtlety whatsoever, so you don't have to wonder how to approach him. He has said explicitly that the way to win his favor is to give him money. He has established means for you to do so - buying Trump properties and staying in Trump hotels. And with his combination of narcissism and insecurity, if you invite him to your country and give him a gold medal, he'll forever be your friend.

Every president has to balance the desire to honor American values with more crass interests like whether a country will buy weapons from us, which Trump also cited as a reason we shouldn’t punish Saudi Arabia for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder (even though they aren’t actually buying what Trump claims). But only Trump gets direct and significant payoffs from other countries, and only Trump is so clear that if you pay him he’ll do what you want. That may not have changed the American stance toward Saudi Arabia too much yet, but we have no idea what’s to come.

Paul Waldman is an opinion writer for the Plum Line blog. @paulwaldman1

There's a particular hell we are all dragged back to with nearly every thoughtful #MeToo conversation, and that hell is Bill Clinton. Whether he was an abuser. Whether he was just a horndog. Whether women can still support him (Do they still support him? Which women? Support how?).

On Sunday morning, those questions came up again via the morning news shows, when CBS correspondent Tony Dokoupil asked Hillary Clinton whether her husband should have resigned after the Lewinsky affair.

"Absolutely not," replied the former senator, presidential candidate and secretary of state.

"It wasn't an abuse of power?" Dokoupil pressed.

"No, no," she said. And as Dokoupil raised a skeptical eyebrow at the notion of "the president of the United States (having) a consensual relationship with an intern," she hastened to interject that Lewinsky, 22 at the time, "was an adult."

This, of course, is a preposterous sidestep. Most big-name harassment cases over the past year have involved adult women and adult men. That's what abuse of power in the workplace looks like. Ashley Judd was an adult woman; so were all of Leslie Moonves' alleged victims and all the women Louis C.K. called into a room and whipped out his penis for.

And if you read the preceding paragraph and thought, "Bill Clinton is no Les Moonves, he's more like ____" and if you were then unable to fill in the blank, well, welcome to Bill Clinton hell. Because figuring out how to feel about Bill Clinton seems instrumental in figuring out how to process the current moment, and the discussions always get slippery.

Particularly, I think, for the supporters who looked approvingly at the Family Medical Leave Act, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and other things Clinton had done for women in general, and who then politely averted their eyes when it came to what he might have done to women in the specific.

Bill Clinton conversations get slippery because he's not in office anymore, so if he was a monster, he's a defanged one now (albeit a former president with a global platform).

Bill Clinton conversations are slippery because 20 years later, we are still wrestling with how to judge the events of less-woke eras.

As Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation dragged on excruciatingly last month, Bill Clinton's own misdeeds were the whataboutisms brought up by every conservative pundit who wanted Kavanaugh on the bench.

It was a bad-faith argument - what, because we've had sketchy dudes in power in the past, we're now committed to accepting them for all time? - but still: What about Bill Clinton? What kind of psychic reckoning are we overdue to confront?

If the man deserves redemption, he hasn't done much to help his own case. In June, he told NBC's Craig Melvin that he's never apologized to Monica Lewinsky, and that he wouldn't approach the situation any differently today. "I don't think it would be an issue," he said, growing increasingly flustered that the topic was raised at all: "Two-thirds of the American people sided with me," he insisted.

I don't know a single woman who hasn't spent the past year privately litigating every uncomfortable sexual experience of her life - what she did or didn't do, or should or shouldn't have done. So the fact that Clinton apparently hadn't given America's biggest sex scandal much thought made him look like he was either shockingly clueless or a liar.

Or, like he was so hopelessly entitled that he ended up making #MeToo's point even better than its most vocal activists. Yes, Bill. Two-thirds of the American people might had sided with you then. That's because our problems with misogyny are systemic, and not the fault of individual bad men. A large percentage of the American people have been wrong for a very long time.

In today’s Democratic Party, Bill Clinton’s past almost certainly would have ruined him. Multiple allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct, including a rape accusation by Juanita Broaddrick — today, those would be investigated and taken seriously. We would talk about Monica Lewinsky as a human and not as a fat joke.

And many of the people who voted for him in 1992 and 1996 would not vote for him today. That's the refrain I kept hearing from liberal friends and acquaintances, all through the Kavanaugh hearings, and the Donald Trump "Access Hollywood" tape saga, and the wave of powerful men revealed to be serial harassers: If Bill Clinton were running for office now, I would not vote for him.

Add JFK to that list. Add Thomas Jefferson. The list of men we would not vote for now is long.

But the hell of Bill Clinton is that he won't go away. He won't account for his own actions, so we have to account for him.

Bill Clinton conversations get slippery because, at the end of the day, feelings about his guilt or innocence, or his goodness or badness, often came down to whether a person liked him in office.

How much did that cloud our judgment and lower our standards? How did it pave the way for where we are now, where opinions about harassment cases live or die based on whether the accused had a D or R after his name?

The hell of Bill Clinton is the hell of this whole moment in time: Plenty of Americans might make different choices now, but we’re still paying for the choices we made then.

Monica Hesse is a columnist for The Washington Post’s Style section and author of “American Fire.” @MonicaHesse

There’s a question I’ve been asked several times since voters received their ballots in the mail: Why on earth are we being asked to raise the gas tax to pay for education?

It does seem odd. Gas taxes usually pay for roads. Hiking the tax at the pump to pay for schools makes about as much sense as taxing liquor to help pay for school lunches (which, by the way, we also do in this state).

So voters are, perhaps justifiably, a little wary. As one reader who called me recently wondered, if she voted for the gas tax increase, would all the money just end up going to road construction?

Understand this: At its core, a vote for Question 1, while technically nonbinding, is a vote to support infusing about $120 million into our lagging education system. A defeat would doom any chance for a major boost to our schools.

That’s the big picture. The mechanics are a little more complicated — and opponents have used the complexity to their advantage. So, let me break it down.

For decades, Utah lawmakers bent over backward to avoid raising taxes. It forced them to play a shell game, taking money meant for one purpose and using it to try to meet other demands.

Let’s start with the gas tax. Historically, the idea behind the gas tax has been that it should fund construction and maintenance of roads. And for decades, that worked. But as demands increased, legislators resisted increasing the gas tax to keep up with inflation.

By 2013, Utahns were paying a lower percentage of their income toward the gas tax than they had at any time since its inception in 1929, when Studebakers and Ford Model A’s ruled the road, according to a report by the nonpartisan Utah Foundation.

Instead of raising the gas tax, lawmakers would siphon money from other programs, and that got a lot easier in 1996. Until then, K-12 education was paid for exclusively by income tax revenue, and higher education was paid for by sales tax. But voters approved an amendment to the constitution that allowed income tax money to pay for both public and higher education.

The 1996 amendment meant that all that sales tax money that had been paying for colleges and universities could suddenly be spent on other things — things like, you probably guessed it, roads.

On top of that, the Legislature passed a substantial income tax cut under Gov. Jon Huntsman that eroded the education fund, right in time for the state to be walloped by the recession.

Higher ed became the Legislature’s piggy bank as lawmakers pulled money out and spread the education money thinner and thinner.

Nowhere was this diversion more evident than in 2011, when the Legislature adopted SB229, sponsored by Sen. Stuart Adams, which earmarked sales tax money to cover a shortfall in the road construction needs.

In 2015, the Legislature finally found the courage to raise the gas tax, but just by a nickel. With Utah facing a projected $11 billion shortfall in road funding, it’s not nearly enough.

Utah’s shell game of a tax system is broken and unsustainable. And the blame for that falls squarely on state legislators who are more concerned about political fallout than making smart choices about balancing the state’s needs and the state’s revenue.

Senate President Wayne Niederhauser said that a few years ago education advocates came to him proposing an increase in the income tax. The solution, he suggested, wasn’t income tax; it was raising the gas tax and rebalancing the entire tax structure.

Which brings us back to Question 1, the ballot question asking voters to support a 10-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase.

If we vote for this, then legislators have said they would put the $120 million in gas tax money into roads, and all that money that had been diverted to asphalt can go back into education.

It won’t simply go back into some giant pool of education dollars — it will go directly to local schools, where local councils can decide how it can best be used. On average, per-pupil spending will increase by $150. If you want, you can go to ourschoolsnow.org and see exactly how much will go directly to your child’s school.

“I think it’s a giant step in the right direction to create a better balance for both our infrastructure and education,” Niederhauser said. “We have limited funds, and we need to address that.”

Unfortunately, opponents of the education increase, namely the Koch Brothers-bankrolled Americans for Prosperity, are using the complexity to confuse voters. And it may be working.

The poll by The Salt Lake Tribune and Hinckley Institute of Politics out this week showed that 51 percent of registered voters oppose the gas tax increase — a really bad spot for proponents to be in, since typically undecided voters end up voting no on ballot propositions, especially tax hikes.

Theoretically, the Legislature could still boost education funding if the ballot question fails.

“They won’t. I guarantee it,” said Niederhauser, who is retiring at the end of the year. It would be better not to have put it on the ballot at all, he said, than have it fail, “because then you have a public opinion of voters that don’t want the increase … almost a mandate not to do more.”

It would relegate Utah schools to the bottom of the pack for the foreseeable future; it would mean years of graduates unprepared for college or the job market; and it would leave businesses without a qualified workforce.

We can’t let that happen. Don’t let the opponents muddy the waters. Understand the issue and talk to your friends and neighbors; encourage them to vote for Question 1. It’s the best way — the only way, really — we will see a measurable improvement in the state’s starved school system.

This year’s midterm elections are more vigorously contested than those in the past — mostly because more Democratic women are running for office. Another trend shows Democrats are challenging Republican incumbents far more often than Republicans are challenging Democratic incumbents. Among the 435 House seats, Democrats are running in 428, while Republicans are running in only 393. The number of contested seats has increased even more dramatically in state legislative elections, where this year’s uncontested rate is the lowest it’s been in 46 years. [WaPost]

Happy Wednesday.

Topping the news: Four women who say Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill’s office mishandled their sexual assault cases want the Utah Supreme Court to assign a special prosecutor to bring their cases to court — a way to remedy what sexual violence prevention groups describe as systemwide reluctance to charge sex crimes. [Trib] [Fox13]

-> Support for Proposition 2, Utah’s medical marijuana ballot initiative, has declined in recent weeks, according to a new poll by the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah. The survey found that 51 percent of people said they were voting for Prop 2 — a significant decline in popularity likely caused by a new compromise proposal pitched for a special legislative session in November. [Trib]

-> The Federal Election Commission did not back a claim U.S. Rep. Mia Love made during a debate on Monday night, saying it had not made a statement that the House candidate hadn’t violated any laws or rules by raising $1 million for a primary election that never occurred. [Trib] [Fox13]

Tweets of the day: From @kylegriffin1: “TORONTO (AP) — Retail marijuana sales begin in Canada, now largest country with legal national pot marketplace.”

-> From @RobynUrback: “I have a feeling that the legalization of marijuana will follow the Extremely Canadian™ path of things that we talk about ad nauseam until just after it happens and then just largely forget about (aside: BRING BACK THE PENNY)”

-> From @sgj3: “#utpol In a matter of days I will be asked to vote for Justice Himonas, Judge Griffin et al. How am I supposed to know if any of them ever threw ice at someone else whilst in school?”

Happy Birthday: To state Rep. Michael Noel, lobbyist Steve Barth and Kelli Lucero, constituent services director for Gov. Gary Herbert.

In other news: The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah is critiquing Operation Rio Grande, which seeks to reduce lawlessness around Salt Lake City’s homeless shelter, for making too many arrests without improving other programs to decrease homelessness and drug abuse. [Trib] [DNews]

-> The Utah Department of Workforce Services is planning to reallocate funds for underutilized after-school programs to help families on the brink of homelessness. [KUTV]

-> The fate of the Utah Science, Technology, and Research initiative — which helps support the pipeline that carries research innovations into for-profit commercialization — is still in question after the Legislature temporarily delayed a vote on the program on Tuesday following concerns about its efficacy. [DNews]

-> A measure passed in March that would make it possible for pharmacists to give birth control over the counter, provided that a patient has a two year standing order from a doctor prescribing it, still needs to be approved by the executive branch before it can be officially implemented. [DNews]

-> A private sector group is one step closer to resurrecting the Wingpointe Golf Course near the Salt Lake City International Airport, thanks to a bill signed into law recently by President Donald Trump. [Trib]

-> The Salt Lake City Council is considering a new ordinance that would prohibit pet stores from selling animals obtained from puppy mills, in the hopes of preventing animal cruelty and pet overpopulation. [Trib]

-> With a 5-1 vote, the City Council voted Tuesday to loosen rules on so-called mother-in-law apartments, which have been welcomed by some Salt Lake residents as a way of easing an ongoing housing crunch but opposed by others, who warn large numbers of new pocket dwellings could disrupt parking and quality of life in established residential areas. [Trib]

-> Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch joked in a tweet that he is 1/1032 T-Rex after Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, released her DNA test results on Monday in an effort to prove her Native American heritage. [KUTV]

-> The owners of The Complex, a well-known concert venue in downtown Salt Lake City, have been accused by federal prosecutors of drug trafficking and using the money earned to pay for concerts. The trial is set for December. [Trib] [ABC4] [KUTV]

-> The Unified Fire Authority took its next step Tuesday in determining whether to attempt recovering hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds that state auditors last year concluded were misused by its top administrators. [Trib]

-> Pat Bagley illustrates a member of the GOP indulging in incentives brought by stripping government programs away from those in lower income brackets. [Trib]

Nationally: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met Tuesday with the Saudi Arabian king, the crown prince and other top officials to discuss the death of a prominent Saudi journalist in the country’s consulate in Turkey. Trump said that serious punishments would result should it be proven that the journalist was killed by the Saudi throne, but he doesn’t want it to affect U.S.-Saudi trade agreements. [NYTimes] [BBC] [CNN] [WSJ]

-> In key congressional races, Democratic candidates have been raising more funds than their GOP rivals, out-financing Republicans in 32 out of 45 of the closest House races. But conservative candidates have a lot of big checks coming in as well, keeping them financially competitive going into the midterm elections. [NYTimes]

-> Defense Secretary Jim Mattis sought to dismiss reports that his job is in danger and said he identifies as neither a Democrat or a Republican, one day after Trump suggested Mattis is a democrat. The defense secretary said he is “proudly apolitical” and was brought up to obey the elected commander in chief — “whoever that may be." [NYTimes]

Got a tip? A birthday, wedding or anniversary to announce? Send us a note to cornflakes@sltrib.com. And if you want Cornflakes to arrive in your email inbox each morning, subscribe here.

-- Taylor Stevens and Cara MacDonald

https://twitter.com/tstevensmedia and Twitter.com/carammacdonald

A Utah Valley University wrestler has been charged with rape and suspended from the team.

Dayton Lee Racer, 22, has been charged with first-degree felony rape after a 20-year-old woman reported on June 24 that he sexually assaulted her at the Bonanza Campount Music Festival at River’s Edge Resort in Heber.

According to the probable cause statement, the victim told police she was attending the event with friends when entered a tent Racer’s. She told him “multiple times that she was not there for anything sexual.” She said the two of them took the drug Molly and drank alcohol, and “the next thing she remembered was waking up in the tent in the morning” with Racer sexually assaulting her.

A UVU spokesman confirmed that Racer is a student there and joined the wrestling team this season. He spent the previous two seasons wrestling at Iowa Central Community College, where he won a NJCAA national championship in 2017, and Oregon’s Clackamas Community College.

UVU said in a statement that Racer has been suspended from the team, adding “We are aware of the allegations, but can’t comment on a pending investigation.”

Racer’s initial court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 7.

Albuquerque, N.M. • A popular language-learning app is adding Navajo to its portfolio.

KOB-TV reports that Duolingo has begun offering Navajo, or Dine, as a language option for learning on the mobile app.

Clayton Long, who is the head of the bilingual education for San Juan School District in Utah, tells the station that he and his students collaborated to develop the language lessons on the app.

The first of the courses were unveiled last week.

Long says a total of nine lessons he and others developed will be released in the coming months as part of the ongoing Duolingo project.

A new poll shows the incumbent Republican congressmen in Utah’s 1st and 3rd districts appear safe as they head into the final weeks of the election, with what seem to be insurmountable leads over their opponents and strong job approval ratings.

A Salt Lake Tribune-Hinckley Institute of Politics poll, conducted Oct. 3-9, shows Rep. Rob Bishop, who serves northern Utah’s 1st District, with a 32-point lead over his opponents. In the 3rd District, Rep. John Curtis is ahead by an even wider margin of 54 points.

That doesn’t come as a surprise to Jason Perry, director of the Hinckley Institute at the University of Utah, who said incumbents always have a “considerable advantage” in an election.

“They have a platform,” he said. “They have the podium to push their issues forward. They usually have had a chance to raise some money. Their name ID has had a chance to increase in the state. And the reality is it’s just hard to take on an incumbent — particularly an incumbent that has a high approval rating.”

The poll, with an average of about 150 registered voters in each district, has a margin of error of plus or minus 8 percent. It shows Curtis and Bishop each with a 57 percent approval rating among registered voters in their areas.

Curtis, who has been seemingly nonstop campaigning since before he took over former Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s seat in last year’s special election, said he’s happy to see his approval numbers trending “in the right direction.”

But because 23 percent of the respondents said they didn’t know enough to rate his performance, and with a 20 percent disapproval rating overall, Curtis said “there’s still a lot of work to do” to reach out to voters who haven’t heard his message yet.

Still, the poll shows he’ll likely earn his first full term in November, with 67 percent of respondents expressing support for the former Provo mayor. Those numbers are “gratifying,” he said, but they won’t change his campaign strategy.

“I think as a candidate you never take it for granted, no matter what the polls say,” he said. “You still keep your head down and work hard and keep working like every vote matters.”

Curtis faces a challenge in November from Democrat James Singer. The sociologist and millennial may also be the first Navajo candidate to run for the U.S. House in Utah, and he and Curtis remain split on a number of issues — from public lands to the president and reproductive health rights.

Just 13 percent of the voters polled in the 3rd District said they would support Singer. But he said those numbers are not reflective of “the kind of responses that I’ve been getting talking to people” in the field.

He thinks a number of competitive ballot initiatives, a national desire to flip Congress blue and a distaste in Utah for President Donald Trump among both conservatives and liberals may work in his favor to bring people to the polls.

“I’m more concerned with making sure we have a good get-out-the-vote campaign,” he said. “So this kind of poll doesn’t take that into account. I’m curious to see how it will turn out in the end and if it ends up being how the polls say, well, that’s where the cards will fall, and that’s fine.”

But Singer raised concerns about the accuracy of polls, pointing to numbers in the 2016 presidential election that incorrectly projected Hillary Clinton would win and, more recently, predicted socialist New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would lose to the incumbent.

Even so, Perry said he doesn’t predict there will be a blue upset in this reliably red district.

“The reality is having 67 percent of the voters say they would vote for [Curtis] today shows he has really hit his stride,” Perry said. “He’s tackled some of the very difficult issues head on and he even has four significant pieces of legislation going in Congress. I think people right now that are getting to know him seem to be happy with what he’s doing.”

‘Conservative Utah values’ in 1st District

Some candidates may see a 32-point lead from an incumbent candidate as insurmountable — but not Lee Castillo, the Democrat running against Bishop in the 1st District. Some 20 percent of the voters surveyed said they plan to throw their support behind him, and Castillo said “that excites the heck” out of him.

Like Singer, Castillo predicts that a wave of previously unregistered or disenfranchised voters will come out to the polls in November to throw their support behind him.

“We’re going to win,” he said. “I’m excited. Those numbers are… it’s a good outlook. We have people coming out that haven’t voted in so long because they’re inspired by our campaign.”

In an unexpected twist, United Utah Party candidate Eric Eliason qualified at the beginning of last month for the Utah Debate Commission’s 1st Congressional District debate with the support of 6.6 percent of the district’s voters. He was the only third party candidate in any major race to make the commission’s cut.

The Tribune-Hinckley poll has Eliason positioned similarly, with the support of 10 percent of the district’s voters. The majority of those are Democrats or independents, which is consistent with the way the party — which only formed last year — has polled so far, according to Perry.

“The United Utah Party is starting to have more consistent candidates,” he said, but noted “they will need some time to establish their brand.”

Eliason, a Logan businessman, said that his campaign had almost half its sizable budget still available for campaigning at the beginning of October and has “considerable dry powder left.”

“We think it’s great that we’re polling higher than any third party has polled before,” he said. “Every vote is a statement that we need more bipartisan government that puts country before party and we think that’s a good thing.”

Even facing two candidates who have earned enough support to stand in the debate, Bishop — chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and an eight-term member of the House — is still best positioned for November’s election, Perry said.

“At this point, Rob Bishop is sitting with a 57 percent approval rating,” Perry said, with 28 percent expressing disapproval. “He’s a very well-known commodity, and 52 percent of Utahns said they would vote for him today. That is a considerable lead and he is in a very good position.”

Bishop, who told The Deseret News last week that he has “no idea” how his re-election campaign is going, was traveling and was not available for comment. But his campaign manager, Kyle Palmer, said he was pleased with the results of the Tribune’s poll.

“Congressman Bishop is honored with the support that his constituents, once again in this poll, have shown him,” Palmer said in a message. “He is the only person in this race who shares their conservative Utah values and they recognize that.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is expected to issue findings on core aspects of his Russia probe soon after the November midterm elections as he faces intensifying pressure to produce more indictments or shut down his investigation, according to two U.S. officials.

Specifically, Mueller is close to rendering judgment on two of the most explosive aspects of his inquiry: whether there were clear incidents of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, and whether the president took any actions that constitute obstruction of justice, according to one of the officials, who asked not to be identified speaking about the investigation.

That doesn't necessarily mean Mueller's findings would be made public if he doesn't secure unsealed indictments. The regulations governing Mueller's probe stipulate that he can present his findings only to his boss, who is currently Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The regulations give a special counsel's supervisor some discretion in deciding what is relayed to Congress and what is publicly released.

The question of timing is critical. Mueller’s work won’t be concluded ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to take control of the House and end Trump’s one-party hold on Washington.

But this timeline also raises questions about the future of the probe itself. Trump has signaled he may replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the election, a move that could bring in a new boss for Mueller. Rosenstein also might resign or be fired by Trump after the election.

Rosenstein has made it clear that he wants Mueller to wrap up the investigation as expeditiously as possible, another U.S. official said. The officials gave no indications about the details of Mueller's conclusions. Mueller's office declined to comment for this story.

With three weeks to go before the midterm elections, it's unlikely Mueller will take any overt action that could be turned into a campaign issue. Justice Department guidelines say prosecutors should avoid any major steps close to an election that could be seen as influencing the outcome.

That suggests the days and weeks immediately after the Nov. 6 election may be the most pivotal time since Mueller took over the Russia investigation almost a year and a half ago. So far, Mueller has secured more than two dozen indictments or guilty pleas.

Trump's frustration with the probe, which he routinely derides as a "witch hunt," has been growing, prompting concerns he may try to shut down or curtail Mueller's work at some point.

There's no indication, though, that Mueller is ready to close up shop, even if he does make some findings, according to former federal prosecutors. Several matters could keep the probe going, such as another significant prosecution or new lines of inquiry. And because Mueller's investigation has been proceeding quietly, out of the public eye, it's possible there have been other major developments behind the scenes.

Mueller only recently submitted written questions to Trump's lawyers regarding potential collusion with Russia, and his team hasn't yet ruled out seeking an interview with the president, according to one of the U.S. officials. If Trump refused an interview request, Mueller could face the complicated question of whether to seek a grand jury subpoena of the president. The Justice Department has a standing policy that a sitting president can't be indicted.

At the same time, Mueller is tying down some loose ends. Four of his 17 prosecutors have left the special counsel's office in recent months. Three are going back to their previous Justice Department jobs, and the fourth has become a research fellow at Columbia Law School.

After several postponements, Mueller’s team has agreed to a sentencing date for Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, who pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements last year. The Dec. 18 date comes more than a year after Mueller secured a cooperation deal with Flynn, suggesting that Mueller’s team has all it needs from him.

Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, struck his own cooperation agreement with Mueller last month, after being convicted at trial in Virginia on eight counts of bank fraud, filing false tax returns and failure to file a foreign bank account. The plea agreement let him avoid a second trial in Washington. The judge in the Virginia trial, who wasn’t part of the plea agreement, has scheduled a sentencing hearing Friday, which could complicate Manafort’s cooperation agreement with Mueller.

Mueller’s prosecutors also have met with Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer. Cohen pleaded guilty in New York in August to tax evasion, bank fraud and violations of campaign finance laws. That separate investigation, headed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, is one of several New York probes involving the Trump Organization, and could ultimately prove to be more damaging to the president than Mueller’s work.

Former federal prosecutors said that Manafort's plea deal probably advanced Mueller's timeline for determining whether there was collusion.

Manafort could be assisting Mueller’s team on questions related to whether the Trump campaign changed the Republican party’s stance on Ukraine as part of an understanding with the Russian government, and whether the Russians helped coordinate the release of hacked emails related to Democrat Hillary Clinton with members of Trump’s campaign, said another former prosecutor who asked not to be named.

Manafort is also key to understanding a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr. and a group of Russians who had promised damaging information concerning Clinton, the former official said.

Manafort appears to have good material to offer, said Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Duke University School of Law. "He's not going to get that deal unless he can help Mueller make a case against one or more people," Buell said. Cooperators can't expect leniency unless they provide "substantial assistance in the prosecution of others," Buell added, citing sentencing guidelines.

Although the days and weeks after the election might test Mueller in new ways, he has confronted pressure before to shut down.

Trump's lawyers have attempted to publicly pressure Mueller into wrapping up his investigation, setting artificial deadlines since the early days of the probe when they predicted it would wrap by the end of 2017. In August 2017, then-White House lawyer Ty Cobb said he would be "embarrassed"if the investigation dragged on past Thanksgiving.

Even if Mueller's probe stretched through 2019, the timeline wouldn't be unprecedented. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr spent four years investigating President Bill Clinton before releasing his report on the Monica Lewinsky affair, which spun out of a probe into an Arkansas land deal known as Whitewater.

It took almost two years for Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to indict Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, for lying to investigators and obstruction of justice in October 2005 in the investigation into the public outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Seattle • The Army Corps of Engineers has revived an environmental review of a controversial coal-export project in Washington a year after state environmental regulators denied the project a key permit.

Washington Ecology Director Maia Bellon expressed concerns about the Corps' decision to restart work on the federal permitting process while some U.S. senators in the coal-producing states of Montana and Wyoming have urged the federal agency to push ahead with permitting the $680 million terminal along the Columbia River to export coal to Asia.

The state agency last fall denied Millennium Bulk Terminals-Longview a key water quality permit needed for the project. It cited significant and unavoidable harm to the environment, including damage to wetlands and increased vessel traffic. The proposed port would handle up to 44 million metric tons of coal per year.

The ongoing fight over the coal-export facility in Longview comes as the Trump administration considers using West Coast military installations or other federal properties as it seeks to pave the way for more U.S. fossil fuel exports to Asia. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told The Associated Press that it's in the interest of national security but officials in West Coast states have rejected private-sector efforts to build new coal ports.

Corps spokeswoman Patricia Graesser said that staff is proceeding with the permit evaluation process "while still recognizing that there are actions and outcomes outside of the Corps' control yet to be resolved, including the state's denial of the water quality certification."

But Bellon told the Corps last month that it is prevented under the federal Clean Water Act from issuing a permit after a state has denied a water quality certification. In her letter to Col. Mark Geraldi, the Corps' Seattle district commander, she urged him to follow "long-standing Corps procedure and precedent by respecting Washington's decision."

Four Republican U.S. senators, including Steve Daines of Montana and Wyoming's Mike Enzi and John Barrasso, have asked the Corps to complete its environmental review and process the permit, while also determining the state has waived its authority to issue a water quality permit.

The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians last month passed a resolution opposing the Corps continuing the federal permitting process for the coal-export facility in Longview.

Millennium Bulk Terminals and its parent company Utah-based Lighthouse Resources have filed multiple lawsuits in state and federal court to challenge the decision to deny key permits. They have accused state officials, including Bellon and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee of being anti-coal and basing decisions on political considerations. State regulators have dismissed those claims as nonsense, saying they followed state and federal laws to protect the state's people and environment.

Wendy Hutchison, Millennium's senior vice president of external affairs, said the Corps' "ongoing permit and design review work demonstrates the Millennium project is continuing to move forward."

She added: "We are confident the Army Corps of Engineers will conclude that Millennium will build the terminal the right way."

The state and federal government worked separately on environmental reviews of the project. The Corps released a draft report in September 2016 and took public comments soon afterward but never finalized that report.

Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky with the Power Past Coal coalition, opposed to new fossil fuel terminals, said the Corps is “attempting an end-run around state laws.”

Woodstock, Conn. • The puppeteer who has played Big Bird on “Sesame Street” is retiring after nearly 50 years on the show.

Caroll Spinney tells the New York Times that Thursday will be his last day on the program, which he joined from the start in 1969. In addition to Big Bird, the 84-year-old was also Oscar the Grouch.

Spinney says "I always thought, how fortunate for me that I got to play the two best Muppets?"

Spinney says the physical requirements of performing the characters had become difficult and he developed problems with his balance. He stopped doing the puppeteering for Big Bird in 2015 and now only provides the voices for him and Oscar.

His apprentice, Matt Vogel, will succeed him in the Big Bird role. He also plays Kermit the Frog.

The West Jordan Jaguars were losing by 35 points late in the game, but defensive lineman John Penisini kept playing so relentlessly that the opposing coach became frustrated enough to order one more touchdown pass.

The coach apologized afterward to West Jordan’s Danny DuPaix, using the illogical explanation that Penisini’s unwavering effort “got me fired up.”

Label that episode an unintended consequence of Penisini's drive, the trait that has made him a valuable defensive tackle for Utah. He ranks third on the team with five tackles for loss in six games, and that statistic only begins to describe how well he's doing his job as a junior.

The website Pro Football Focus, with an army of analysts studying every play for FBS teams, made Penisini one of the Pac-12's five highest-graded defensive players through six weeks of the season. PFF labeled him “dominant” during his 32 snaps per game as part of Utah's rotation of tackles.

“You watch him practice, and it’s no surprise,” said Utah defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley. “He gets after it. Those guys are usually productive — high-motor guys that care and have the power and explosion he does, they’re going to make plays.”

That's what he did in West Jordan's program, then in a rebuilding stage. “He was a monster for us,” said DuPaix, who's now the offensive coordinator at Southern Virginia University. “You could tell that he was something special.”

Penisini played for WJ only as a senior in 2014, but DuPaix credits him with influencing the program even now. His presence in the weight room made an impact on future Jaguars, as coaches would bring junior high students to the school in hopes of encouraging them to stay in their boundaries.

Gary Andersen, then Oregon State's coach and now Penisini's position coach at Utah, was among the first recruiters to discover him. Andersen and Ilaisa Tuiaki, then OSU's defensive coordinator, offered him a scholarship but hoped to keep him a secret, knowing Penisini initially would have to attend a junior college for academic reasons.

But after Penisini posted OSU’s offer on social media, Scalley immediately called DuPaix to ask about him. Utah was where he wanted to go, and he stuck with the Utes through two years at Snow College. Penisini redshirted in his second season in Ephraim, having injured his shoulder and wanting to preserve a year’s eligibility at Utah. “He had a mature plan,” DuPaix said.

“I got myself back on track,” said Penisini, who thrived academically in Snow’s program for first-generation college students. “It’s a blessing.”

Ute defensive lineman John Penisini talks about his position group and the USC offense. pic.twitter.com/CqgyTJ1WxM

— Kurt Kragthorpe (@tribkurt) October 17, 2018

Penisini played regularly for Utah last year and blossomed this season, after Ute coach Kyle Whittingham suggested he lose about 15 pounds. “He’s a svelte 315 now, which is prime weight for him,” Whittingham said. “He’s tough, he’s active, he plays with great pad level. He’s got great, natural use of hands. He’s strong at the point of attack, he’s a slippery pass rusher. I think he’s one of the most underrated defensive tackles in the conference.”

Penisini is not one of the Utes' most glamorous defensive players, and he's not even a starter. He's not a self-promoter, either. Requested for a post-practice interview this week, he brought the other defensive tackles: starters Leki Fotu and Pita Tonga and backup Hauati Pututau. Tonga and Pututau have two of Utah's five interceptions and end Bradlee Anae leads the team with 6½ sacks. But no defensive tackle has made nearly as many tackles as Penisini's 18.

And the linebackers appreciate how he occupies blockers, freeing them to make plays. “He's fun to play behind, because he holds double-teams,” said Cody Barton, who made a point of watching him during Monday's film session. “He does a great job. He's super strong. It doesn't look like he moves fast, but he's really quick.”

And he never stops competing. These days, that attribute is only helping his team.

A word for young people, people of color and, in particular, young people of color:

The Republicans are scared of you.

Maybe you find that hard to believe. Maybe you wonder how the party can be scared of you -- or of anybody -- given that it controls all three branches of the federal government and most of the nation's state houses. You're worried about paying your student loans, putting food on the table, getting home without becoming some cop's mistake, and the GOP is scared of you?

In a word: Yes.

See, the party knows that if everybody votes, it can't win. That's simple math. The Republican electorate skews sharply older and white. Polling from The Roper Center at Cornell University says whites went for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 57 percent to 37 percent, while people of color strongly supported her, African Americans giving her 89 percent of their vote. Trump also lost big among young voters, but won big among their elders.

This dependence on older whites is a problem for the GOP, given that the United States is fast moving toward a younger, non-white majority. The Census Bureau predicts that, well before mid-century, America will be a nation where no racial group enjoys a numerical advantage. And the authoritative FiveThirtyEight blog reports that the white median age in this country is 43, while for Asians it's 36, for African Americans, 34 and for Hispanics, 29.

As the trend lines are clear, so is the party's solution: keep you from voting. Thus, as we approach a critical midterm election, the GOP is embracing voter suppression with a brazenness not seen since Bloody Sunday in 1965.

In Bismarck, North Dakota, lawmakers have passed a photo ID law that requires residents to show a current street address. And surely it's only unfortunate coincidence that many Native Americans live on reservations that don't use street addresses, only P.O. boxes, which the law doesn't recognize.

In Georgia, secretary of state and GOP gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp is being sued over the state's so-called "exact match" law, in which voter registration applications are flagged if the voter's identifying information fails to match state records, down to such picayune matters as missing hyphens and transposed letters. Over 53,000 people are said to have been impacted, most of them people of color.

In Tallahassee in July, a federal judge decried "a stark pattern of discrimination" against young people in Florida's blocking of early voting at colleges and universities. Across the country, nearly a thousand polling places have been shut down in recent years, many in Southern black communities. In Cuthbert, Georgia, in August, the elections board beat back a plan to close seven of the nine polling places in a county that just happens to be majority black. Meantime, Stacey Abrams just happens to be running to become Georgia -- and the nation's -- first black woman governor.

If you are a young person, a person of color or a young person of color, then, you may well face long lines, paperwork and other headaches as you seek to exercise your constitutional rights next month. Please persevere. That's the only way to elect people who understand that access to the ballot is a fundamental principle of democracy. It is the only way to rescue this country.

Don't let anyone tell you your vote doesn't matter. Ask yourself: If your ballot wasn't important, would Republicans work so hard to keep you from casting it? Of course not. And I'll say it again: They are scared of you.

Please show them that they have reason to be.

Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald. lpitts@miamiherald.com.)

WASHINGTON -- Poor Elizabeth Warren.

She took President Trump's bait and submitted to a DNA test to demonstrate her Native American genealogy -- and, in so doing, may have doomed her presidential campaign before it began. Now the Massachusetts senator is not only enduring Trump's "Pocahontas" insults (at least when he's not calling another woman "Horseface") but also being disparaged by Indian tribes.

"Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage," proclaimed the Cherokee Nation, decrying her "inappropriate and wrong" use of a DNA test, a "mockery" that dishonors "legitimate" tribal citizens.

Ouch. But I can understand why the Cherokees -- and indeed all people of good taste -- might wish to disavow Warren: It's the crab mayonnaise.

Among the many unfortunate results of Warren's recent DNA test suggesting she's somewhere between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American by ethnicity: It inevitably draws attention to her contribution to the '80s cookbook, "Pow Wow Chow: A Collection of Recipes from Families of the Five Civilized Tribes." Under "Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee," it lists five recipes, three of which were apparently cribbed from the New York Times and Better Homes and Gardens.

Worse, one of the recipes she submitted: "Crab with Tomato Mayonnaise Dressing." A traditional Cherokee dish with mayonnaise, a 19th-century condiment imported by settlers? A crab dish from landlocked Oklahoma? This can mean only one thing: canned crab.

Warren is unfit to lead.

Yet it is difficult not to feel sorry for Warren. Though she doesn't claim tribal membership, she clearly wants to be embraced. And so I extend an invitation to the senator to join my tribe. Warren should become a Jew. As Trump said when asking for African-American votes shortly before praising Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee: "Honor us."

The Tribes of Israel have little to do with Native American tribes beyond the Yiddish-speaking Indians in Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles." But no DNA test is required. A stickler might require Warren to ask three times before becoming a Member of the Tribe -- "MOT" -- but for many, being Jewish is a state of mind, as comic legend Lenny Bruce explained decades ago:

"If you live in New York or any other big city, you are Jewish. It doesn't matter even if you're Catholic; if you live in New York, you're Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you're going to be goyish even if you're Jewish. Evaporated milk is goyish even if the Jews invented it. Chocolate is Jewish, and fudge is goyish. Spam is goyish, and rye bread is Jewish. Negroes are all Jews. Italians are all Jews. Irishmen who have rejected their religion are Jews. Mouths are very Jewish. And bosoms. Baton-twirling is very goyish."

The same applies to current politics. If you work in the Trump administration, you are goyish even if you are Jewish. The House is goyish, the Senate is Jewish. Jeff Flake: Jewish. Dianne Feinstein: goyish. Sonia Sotomayor: very Jewish. Steny H. Hoyer: crazy goyish.

Warren would have some work to do. Her demeanor screams white bread and Jell-O molds. But a few adjustments might help: Stop calling herself "an Okie to my toes." (Even Jews who live in Oklahoma are goyish.) And, for heaven's sake, stop with the crab mayonnaise.

Of course, I don't actually desire to have Warren join my "tribe" -- which, in any event, is only part of my heritage. Like most in the American melting pot, I'm a mutt: a stew of English and German, western pioneers and sharecroppers, immigrants from the shtetl and a great-great-great-grandfather who died fighting for the Iowa 39th Infantry in the Civil War.

This is why Warren's DNA stunt was such a blunder: She took Trump's DNA-test dare and let him divide us -- again -- by race and ethnicity, just as he did when he goaded President Barack Obama to prove his legitimacy by producing his birth certificate.

It's sad that the Cherokees responded by noisily rejecting Warren, but that's their right.

It's disgusting that the episode has also set off the worst in some, such as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C., who joked on Fox News that it would be "terrible" if a DNA test found he had Iranian ethnicity.

No, Senator. What's "terrible" is that Trump has found a new, high-tech way to stoke tribalism and division. And Warren fell for it.

Follow Dana Milbank on Twitter, @Milbank.

Video: President Trump on Oct. 15 said he did not owe $1 million to a charity of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) choice because he did not ‘personally’ test her DNA. (The Washington Post)