After the explosions in Boston Monday, one Salt Lake City mother was relieved to find out that her daughter was safe at the Boston Plaza Hotel. But the family is still having trouble getting past the incident.

Rennly Williams says she didn’t see or hear the explosion at the finish line. Her boyfriend Tom Hickenlooper had finished the race 10 minutes before – faster than he expected because of a knee injury. Just a little slower, and he and Williams might have been there for the blast. 

The emergency medical and public safety communities in Salt Lake City are welcoming a new traffic system that allows faster, safety patient transport to trauma centers.

Troy Madsen is an emergency physician at the University of Utah. He says in a crisis situation, saving minutes and even seconds can be the difference between life and death.

The early estimates of the size of the Bingham Canyon mine slide show that more than 165 million tons of rock and dirt have slid into the bottom of the mine. That makes this slide the largest to ever happen there. Kennecott Utah Copper spokesperson, Kyle Bennett, says it will have a large impact on their yearly copper production.

"The 165 million ton slide does translate, unfortunately, into a reduced production of refined and mined copper of about 50 percent,” he says.

  Communities across Utah are planning for another statewide earthquake drill Wednesday morning – and each one has its own emergency planning issues to deal with. 

West Valley City, for example,  is miles from the Wasatch Fault, but it has unique vulnerabilities.  There are a couple of faults running under the city, and Fire Marshal Bob Fitzgerald says the lake bed soils over most of West Valley could liquefy in a strong earthquake

The Salt Lake City Police department re-evaluates security plans for the Salt Lake City Marathon, the Utah Legislature likely won’t reconvene to overturn the veto of HB76, and the Salt Lake County District attorney drops more drug cases involving the West Valley City Police Department.

Utah lawmakers are still in the process of deciding whether or not to override Governor Gary Herbert’s veto of House Bill 76. Some who voted for the bill have decided not to challenge the Governor.

In the aftermath of the explosions at the Boston Marathon today the Salt Lake City Police Department is clarifying their security plans for this weekend’s Salt Lake City Marathon.

The Salt Lake City Police Department says the Salt Lake City Marathon will proceed as planed this Saturday. Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank says they don’t anticipate a need to increase the security presence that has already been planned either.

Suicide is on the rise in Utah; and mental health professionals are at the Salt Palace Convention Center this week talking about how to improve prevention efforts. 

Utah had the 10th highest suicide rate in the nation in 2010 according to the Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health.

Division Assistant Director Doug Thomas says suicide is too often a permanent solution for a temporary problem. 

The Utah Foster Care Foundation held a Symposium Monday focused on the latest science of child brain development, and how neuroscience is helping foster families overcome trauma and attachment issues.

Foster parents need help and support, according to Mick Woolsey, Director of Education for Utah Foster Care.

Hundreds of migrating birds crash-landed at Utah’s Dugway Proving Ground overnight, apparently mistaking a parking lot in a snowstorm for water.  Al Vogel, a public affairs specialist with the U.S. Army, says these are eared grebes, a species that can’t take off from land.  Vogel says the Army’s own wildlife specialists and the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources are working to rescue the birds that survived.

"They’ll take the birds to a nearby pond on post, let ‘em rest there and then they’ll take off and continue their migration," Vogel tells KUER.

Work resumes at the Bingham Canyon copper mine, UTA opens its airport TRAX line, and the Utah legislature has only a few days left to overturn Governor Herbert’s veto of HB 76.

The Navajo Nation now has the authority to access the assessment data of Navajo students throughout Utah.  Navajo representatives joined state education officials this morning to sign a memorandum of understanding that will help the two entities cooperate in sharing the data. 

For years federal privacy laws barred Navajo Nation education officials from accessing student-specific achievement data because it wasn’t considered a state agency. But recent changes to the law have made tribal education agencies eligible.  

  The University of Utah College of Law is hosting the annual Stegner Symposium this week, focusing on Religion, Faith and the Environment. Increasingly, people of faith are citing their beliefs as a major motivation for protecting the environment and caring for those at the margins of society.

Utah’s Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee voted no today on a motion to proceed with legislation in the U-S Senate that could alter regulations for buying and owning guns. 

Utah’s first Microsoft store opened its doors Thursday at City Creek Center. Customers were greeted with high fives and cheers at the door. Some came for the giveaways and free concert tickets, but Kelly McClean of Salt Lake City says she came out of curiosity. 

“I’d never heard of a Microsoft store before, so I thought I’d come and check it out,” McClean says. 

More Salt Lake City residents are recycling glass since curbside pickup started last fall. Today city officials celebrated the grand opening of a new facility that will increase the city’s capacity to process the glass and yield a more sustainable end product. 

UTA debuts its new TRAX line to the airport, Chevron begins cleanup in Willard Bay, and a U of U researcher is getting an up close and never before seen view snowflakes.

The new TRAX line that transports riders to and from Salt Lake International Airport is scheduled to open this Sunday. Reporters were invited to ride the train this morning. 

Imagine flying into Salt Lake City for the first time, exiting the terminal, boarding a train and taking in a view of the Wasatch and Oquirrh Mountains at 60 miles per hour.  Steve Meyer, Chief Capital Development Officer for Utah Transit Authority says that’s a great way to enter the community.

A University of Utah researcher is taking pictures of snowflakes in a way that’s never been done before and the results could help forecasters better predict the weather.

If you’ve ever seen a picture of a snowflake it probably looked a lot like the paper cut-outs made every winter by thousands of first and second graders across the country: unique, but perfectly symmetrical and flat. But according to Tim Garrett, an atmospheric science professor at the U who helped develop a new way to photograph snowflakes, that image is a lie.

The Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce calls out Utah’s Senators for their inaction on immigration reform, Utah’s Attorney General sends a letter to Congress encouraging immigration reform, and the Ogden-Hinckley Airport control tower will stay open, for now.

The Ogden-Hinckley Airport Control Tower will stay in operation at least until June 15th following a last minute decision by the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday. Federal budget cuts due to sequestration are threatening 149 similar operations across the country because contractors run the towers. Royal Eccles is the airport manager in Ogden. He says his issue isn’t so much with Congress as it is with the FAA.

Utah Attorney General John Swallow is encouraging Congress to enact immigration reform.  Swallow is part of a bipartisan group of 35 Attorney Generals who sent a letter to federal leaders calling for reform that improves the immigration system, keeps communities safe and protects borders. 

Swallow says drug crime, identity theft issues, and gangs tied to illegal immigration are threatening Utah’s safety and economy.

Business leaders in Utah say they’re disappointed in the state’s two U.S. Senator’s for trying to delay comprehensive immigration reform while the economy suffers. But Republican Senator’s Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee say they’re not ready to back a catch-all bill, especially if it contains a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Congress returned from Spring break this week with immigration reform at the top of the agenda. Salt Lake Chamber President and CEO Lane Beattie says for members of Utah’s delegation to say they need more time is ridiculous.

Salt Lake City launches a new bike sharing program, outdoor businesses call on the president to protect land around Utah’s national parks, and a wind storm brings gusts up to 50 miles an hour to the Wasatch front.

Outdoor businesses and conservation groups are calling on the federal government to protect the land in and around Utah’s parks. 29 organizations sent a letter Monday to President Barack Obama calling for lasting protections for state and national parks from overdevelopment. 

Salt Lake City officially launched its much-anticipated  bike share program today. It’s called GREENbike and it offers unlimited short-term trips between stations scattered across the city. 

GREENbike is not quite a rental system. With memberships ranging from $5 a day to $75 a year, users pick up a bike at one of the solar-powered kiosks. But instead of chaining it to a corral or storing it at an office, the user returns it to the nearest kiosk for someone else to use.