Category Archives: Utah

112m-year-old dinosaur tracks damaged in Utah by construction machinery

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Damage evaluated as minor, but fractures to the rims of several prints cannot be repaired at the Mill Canyon track site

They survived intact for 112m years through scorching summer heat and freezing winters at Utah’s Mill Canyon. But several of the world’s most important and historic dinosaur footprints were damaged beyond repair earlier this year when a construction crew arrived to build a new boardwalk for tourists.

The extent of the harm to the footprints – and those of an ancient crocodile crossing in the canyon near Moab – was detailed in a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) report into the January incident published last week.

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Utah governor vetoes ban on trans students playing girls’ sports

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Spencer Cox is second Republican governor to overrule lawmakers who have taken on youth sports as part of political debate

The Utah governor, Spencer Cox, vetoed a ban on transgender students playing girls’ sports on Tuesday, becoming the second Republican governor to overrule state lawmakers who have taken on youth sports as part of a political debate over how Americans view gender and sexuality.

Cox joins the Indiana governor. Eric Holcomb, who vetoed a statewide ban on Monday. Holcomb said Indiana’s legislature had not demonstrated that transgender kids had undermined fairness in sports.

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Utah company halts sales of Lego handgun case kits after cease and desist

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Culper Precision said on Instagram of the kits: ‘We wanted the second amendment to simply be too painful to tread on’

A Utah company has stopped selling a kit that encases Glock handguns in Lego blocks, amid uproar and after the Danish toymaker demanded it cease and desist.

Marketing the “Block19” as a “a childhood dream come to life”, Culper Precision introduced it on Instagram, saying: “We wanted the second amendment to simply be too painful to tread on, so there was only one logical solution.”

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Fish dropped from planes as part of annual aerial lake stocking in Utah – video

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The Utah division of wildlife resources has released video footage showing planes dropping small fish from the air into the lakes below.

The fish – which are usually between 1 and 3 inches (2.5cm-7.5cm) long and include rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, brook trout, tiger trout, splake and Arctic grayling – are specifically raised for fishing. They are dropped into fishless lakes that do not have any natural reproduction, and they are often sterile. 

Utah’s DWR says this allows the state to control their numbers and does not affect any native fish populations. This method of stocking, in which the small fish can survive the high fall because of their size, has been used since the 1950s

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Covid cases fall across US but experts warn of dangers of vaccine hesitancy

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Health experts emphasize need for even those who have had disease to get inoculated

New cases of Covid-19 are declining across most of the US, even in some states with vaccine-hesitant populations.

But almost all states where cases are rising have lower-than-average vaccination rates and experts warned on Sunday that relief from the coronavirus pandemic could be fleeting in regions where few people get inoculated.

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Two Utah girls, 9 and 4, steal parents’ car to ‘swim with dolphins’ in California

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Girls sideswiped a car and then collided with a semi-truck but were both wearing seatbelts and no one was harmed

Two young girls in Utah stole their parents’ car so they could drive to California to go to the beach and “swim with dolphins”, authorities said.

Related: Can a piece of software look after your elderly parent?

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Utah woman missing for five months found alive in tent in a canyon

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  • Woman, 47, reportedly survived winter on grass, moss and water
  • Authorities found her during aerial search of canyon

A Utah woman who disappeared in November was discovered alive in a tent at a campsite, having reportedly subsisted off of grass, moss and water from a nearby river for more than five months.

The 47-year-old woman, who authorities did not identify, was first reported missing after US Forest Service employees preparing for seasonal canyon closures found her car abandoned in a trailhead parking lot about 50 miles (80km) south-east of Salt Lake City on 25 November.

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Mitt Romney booed and called ‘traitor’ at Utah Republican convention

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Only Republican to twice vote to impeach Trump gets hostile reception as censure motion narrowly fails

Mitt Romney was loudly booed at the Utah Republican party convention on Saturday – and called a “traitor” and a “communist” as he tried to speak.

Related: Bush: ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ideals show pro-Trump Republicans ‘want to be extinct’

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Tyrannosaurs may have hunted in packs like wolves, new research has found

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Paleontologists say a mass grave in Utah shows the dinosaurs may not have always been solitary predators as previously thought

Tyrannosaur dinosaurs may not have been solitary predators as long envisioned but more like social carnivores such as wolves, new research announced on Monday has found.

Paleontologists developed the theory while studying a mass tyrannosaur death site found seven years ago in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, one of two monuments that the Biden administration is considering restoring to their full size after former president Donald Trump shrank them.

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A Utah monolith enchanted millions and then it was gone, leaving mysteries behind

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For many following the story of the monolith, crucial questions remain unanswered: who made it? What was it for?

In a year of uncertainty and peril, one three-sided mystery metal structure provided a glinting moment of distraction, or even hope – and then it was gone.

Before the public had moved on from the monolith, the monolith had moved on from us.

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‘I guess this is a thing now, right?’: monolith appears on California mountain – video report

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A new mysterious metal monolith has appeared atop a mountain in California, just a week after a similar structure captured the imagination of the world when it was discovered in the deserts of Utah – before disappearing. Amid mounting international attention of the mystery, a similar structure was reportedly found in the mountains of Romania - before it disappeared as well

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New mystery metal monolith appears on a California mountaintop

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Not long after a similar structure was discovered in a Utah desert, a silvery column has been found in Atascadero

A new mystery metal monolith has appeared atop a mountain in California, just a week after a similar structure captured the imagination of the world when it was discovered in the deserts of Utah – before being taken down and disappeared.

The local newspaper in the small town of Atascadero, on the central California coast, reported that the silvery column had been found atop Pine mountain where dozens of local hikers made the trip to view it – and post their pictures on the internet.

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Mystery metal monolith vanishes from Utah desert

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Metal structure that prompted multiple theories about how it came to be was removed by ‘an unknown party’, officials say

The tall, shiny, metal structure, now famously known as a “monolith” was discovered in Utah last week, and had prompted multiple theories about how it had come to be there ranging from TV show set leftover, to art work, to aliens.

Related: Theories abound over mystery metal monolith found in Utah

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Visitors track down mystery desert monolith in Utah

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Two days after a helicopter pilot revealed its existence, people began sharing their own shots of the unexplained piece

Some intrepid visitors have been flocking to a remote part of southern Utah in a bid to be among the first to see the mystery metal monolith.

The structure in the Red Rock desert was first discovered last week from the air by a helicopter pilot and wildlife officers who were carrying out an annual count of bighorn sheep.

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Theories abound over mystery metal monolith found in Utah

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Structure compared to monolith featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey while John McCracken gallerist says object is not sculptor’s work

A giant, metal mystery slab has captured the attention of millions, as people speculate over how such a structure came to be in a remote part of southern Utah.

The object was first spotted last week by a helicopter pilot and wildlife officers who were flying above the rugged area to conduct an annual count of bighorn sheep for the state. It immediately drew comparisons to the monolith featured in 2001: A Space Odyssey as well as inviting suggestions it could be the work of extraterrestrials.

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‘This is wild’: state employees find mysterious monolith in Utah desert – video

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A mysterious monolith has been discovered in a remote part of Utah after being spotted by state employees counting sheep from a helicopter. The structure, estimated to be 3 metres high, appears to be made from metal. The helicopter pilot, Bret Hutchings, told the local news channel KSLTV: 'That’s been about the strangest thing that I’ve come across out there in all my years of flying'

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Helicopter pilot finds ‘strange’ monolith in remote part of Utah

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State employee spotted mysterious metal structure amid red rocks while counting bighorn sheep

A mysterious monolith has been discovered in a remote part of Utah, after being spotted by state employees counting sheep from a helicopter.

The structure, estimated at between 10ft and 12ft high (about 3 metres), appeared to be planted in the ground. It was made from some sort of metal, its shine in sharp contrast to the enormous red rocks which surrounded it.

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Paris Hilton leads protest calling for closure of Utah school

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Socialite and reality TV star organized demonstration near Provo Canyon school after saying she suffered abuse at boarding school

Socialite and reality TV star Paris Hilton has been speaking out about abuse she said she suffered at a boarding school in Utah, and on Friday took her push nearly to the school’s front doors.

Hilton organized a protest in a park near Provo Canyon school, along with several hundreds of others who shared stories of abuse they said they suffered there or at similar schools for troubled youth. She is calling for the closure of the school.

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Winds fuel wildfires in California as blazes rage across US west

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Region sees amber skies while Washington state faces more acres burned in a day than typically burn in a year

Large, fast-moving fires raged on across the American west on Wednesday, destroying hundreds of homes in the Pacific north-west and sending a dense plume of smoke that turned skies amber across parts of the region.

Related: California, Oregon and Washington battle dozens of fires – live updates

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