More stories

  • in

    Utah Sets Restrictions on Transgender People’s Bathroom Use

    The NewsUtah will prohibit transgender people from using bathrooms in public schools and government-owned buildings that align with their gender identity, after Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill on Tuesday imposing the restrictions.Demonstrators protest the bill on the steps of the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City. Marielle Scott/The Deseret News, via Associated PressBackgroundThe bill, House Bill 257, which passed the Legislature last week, set sweeping restrictions for transgender people.Under the bill, also known as Sex-Based Designations for Privacy, Anti-Bullying and Women’s Opportunities, transgender people can use bathrooms that match their gender identity only if they can prove that they have had gender-affirming surgery and have had the sex on their birth certificates changed.In public schools, students can now use only a bathroom, shower room or locker room that aligns with their sex assigned at birth, with few exceptions. For government-owned buildings, including state universities, the restrictions apply only to showers and locker rooms.Violators may face charges for loitering, and government-owned institutions may face fines if they do not enforce the new rules. The state auditor will be required to establish a process to receive and investigate reports of violations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

  • in

    Kennedy Announces He Is on the Ballot in Utah

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as an independent, will be on the ballot in Utah, his campaign announced on Wednesday at an event in Salt Lake City, capping a weekslong signature-gathering effort.Utah is the first state to give Mr. Kennedy a spot on its ballot, and he has a lengthy and expensive path ahead to his stated goal of getting on the ballot in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. He left the Democratic Party in October to pursue an independent bid for the White House.Mr. Kennedy, who will turn 70 this month, is the scion of American political royalty and an environmental lawyer who has gained prominence in recent years for his promotion of conspiracy theories, including unproven claims about widespread governmental corruption and danger from vaccines.Mr. Kennedy has drawn support from some disaffected Democrats, Republicans and independents, many of whom are attracted to his anti-establishment message. A poll from The New York Times and Siena College released in November found that unfavorable opinions of President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump could leave an opening for independent candidates like Mr. Kennedy.Mr. Biden’s supporters have worried that Mr. Kennedy could siphon votes away from him, tilting the election toward the Republican nominee.States make their own rules governing ballot access. Independent candidates must navigate a labyrinthine network governing the collection of signatures and financial reporting requirements. The effort is time-consuming and expensive.Last month, a super PAC backing Mr. Kennedy said it would spend at least $10 million to get him on the ballot, focusing on 10 states. Two weeks later, the committee’s leaders said they would scale back that effort to seven states. Mr. Kennedy’s campaign is pursuing its own ballot-access efforts.The campaign met Utah’s signature threshold last week, but it signed the official paperwork on Wednesday, Mr. Kennedy said.In his remarks, Mr. Kennedy lamented “the undemocratic lock that the major political parties have on this process” and the “arbitrary and capricious” rules that states have in place for independent presidential bids.“It’s all designed to keep third parties from getting on the ballot,” he said. More

  • in

    Romney: A Reckoning review: must-read on Mitt and the rise of Trump

    McKay Coppins joined BuzzFeed in 2012, as its Mitt Romney reporter. The former Massachusetts governor won the Republican presidential nomination but lost the election to Barack Obama. Coppins wrote a postmortem, A Mormon Reporter on the Romney Bus. Its subtitle: How America Got Used to His Religion, and Mine.“I quickly found that my expertise in Romney’s religion posed a distinct advantage – not in access or sourcing, necessarily, but in understanding the elusive candidate as an actual person,” Coppins wrote.These days, Romney represents Utah in the US Senate. He has less than 14 months until he retires. His disdain for Donald Trump is legend. In February 2020, he sought to hold Trump accountable for abusing his power and strong-arming Ukraine, becoming the first senator ever to vote to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment trial. He voted to convict Trump again at his second trial, for inciting the January 6 insurrection.Coppins is now at the Atlantic. His new book is a must-read for anyone interested in how the Republican party morphed from the party of Lincoln into a Trumpian mess, picking up where Coppins left off in The Wilderness, his earlier look at the GOP.The 1960s set off a realignment in US politics. Over the past 60 years, resentment and tribalism have come to dominate, social issues come to the fore. In a Republican party once synonymous with the Union army and high-end suburbs, the south and evangelical protestantism now wield major influence.In the 1968 presidential race, the religion of George Romney – the Republican governor of Michigan and Mitt’s father – was a non-issue. His aspirations finally came undone after he said he had been “brainwashed” over the war in Vietnam.Mitt Romney first ran for the Republican nomination 40 years later, in 2008. Times and the party had changed. Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister as well as governor of Arkansas, went gunning for his rival’s religion.“Don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” Huckabee asked.Coppins offers an engaging read, the product of 30 interviews with Romney, interviews with aides and friends, and the senator’s emails and diaries. Chock-full of direct quotes, Romney: A Reckoning offers a window into the world of a private man who has darted in and out of the public eye.The book is also a scorching critique, singeing many. Coppins captures Romney strafing a heap of A-list Republicans. Trump and Newt Gingrich, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, Mike Pence and Chris Christie. All take direct hits. Coppins portrays their peevishness, pettiness and gutlessness – or worse – in Technicolor. Gingrich is a “smug know-it-all, smarmy, and too pleased with himself”. Cruz is “frightening”, “scary” and a “demagogue”.As for Ron DeSantis, in Romney’s estimation, the Florida governor is “much smarter than Trump”. But Romney also asks: “Do you want an authoritarian who’s smart or one who’s not smart?” Months before the primary, the party faithful have rendered their verdict. In poll after poll, Trump clobbers DeSantis.Onwards, to Pence: “No one had been more loyal, more willing to smile when he saw absurdities, more willing to ascribe God’s will to things that were ungodly.”Romney also recalls how Jared Kushner tried to convince him Trump’s erratic behavior was actually a manifestation of strategic savvy. Romney wasn’t buying. “I think he’s not smart,” he said. “I mean, really not smart.”Nonetheless, in 2012, Romney sought Trump’s endorsement. Beaten by Obama, Romney conceded on election night. Trump, though, unfurled his lie that the election was rigged. We had seen the future.To George Romney and his son, race relations mattered. The younger Romney parted with Trump after he was slow to disavow backing from David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader. Here, Coppins quotes Romney’s journal: “It is nearly certain that he will be the nominee. I am not tempted in the slightest to retreat. I will fight him on the beaches. I will fight him in the air.” Fine words – that didn’t alter the outcome.Romney then entertained the prospect of serving Trump as secretary of state, only to be publicly humiliated. He ascribes the failed gambit to “a mix of noble motivations and self-centered ones”. Said differently, he wanted the prize but refused to pay the price. “You need to say that you’ve come to the conclusion that I’m terrific,” Trump reportedly demanded. “That I’ll be a great president … We need to clear this up.”Romney would not bend the knee. But he admits: “I like being involved and being in the middle of things, and having something important to do. It’s like, you know, I wanted to be president. If you can’t be president, being secretary of state’s not a bad spot to come thereafter.”George W Bush tells Coppins Romney dodged a bullet. Now, he has little to lose. His time in the Senate ticks down. He has a fortune to enjoy. Published estimates peg him as the third-richest member of Congress, net worth hitting $300m. Yet he is not content. Washington crumbles from within. Violence and menace are coins of the realm. January 6 cemented a new political era.Jim Jordan’s run for House speaker, from the extreme right, triggered a barrage of threats for Republicans who refused to go along. Being primaried by the right is no longer the worst that could happen. On January 6, as the Capitol lay besieged, Ann Romney, Mitt’s wife, cried: “This is our country … This is our country.”
    Romney: A Reckoning is published in the US by Scribner More

  • in

    North Dakota state senator, wife and two children die in Utah plane crash

    A state senator from North Dakota, his wife and their two young children died when the small plane they were traveling in crashed in Utah, a senate leader said Monday.Doug Larsen’s death was confirmed on Monday in an email that the Republican state senate majority leader David Hogue sent to his fellow senators and was obtained by the Associated Press.The plane crashed on Sunday evening shortly after taking off from Canyonlands airfield about 15 miles (24km) north of Moab, according to a Grand county sheriff’s department statement posted on Facebook. The sheriff’s office said all four people on board the plane were killed.“Senator Doug Larsen, his wife Amy, and their two young children died in a plane crash last evening in Utah,” Hogue wrote in his email. “They were visiting family in Scottsdale and returning home. They stopped to refuel in Utah.“I’m not sure where the bereavement starts with such a tragedy, but I think it starts with prayers for the grandparents, surviving stepchild of Senator Larsen, and extended family of Doug and Amy. Hold your family close today.”The crash of the single-engine Piper plane was being investigated, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a post on X, the social media website formerly called Twitter.A phone message left with sheriff’s officials seeking additional information was not immediately returned on Monday.Larsen was a Republican first elected to the North Dakota senate in 2020. His district comprises Mandan, the city neighboring Bismarck to the west across the Missouri river. Larsen chaired a senate panel that handled industry and business legislation.He was also a lieutenant colonel in the North Dakota national guard. He and his wife, Amy, were business owners.Moab is a tourism-centered community of about 5,300 people near Arches and Canyonlands national parks. More