Business & Labor
4:53 pm
Tue May 14, 2013

Utah’s Business Deals Topped $11B in 2012

Todd Pedersen will stay on as CEO of Vivint which was sold to Blackstone for more than 2 billion dollars.

Utah’s business mergers and acquisitions reached an all-time high last year. That’s according to a report from the MountainWest Capitol Network to be released on Thursday this week. 

The 2012 Deal Flow Report shows that there were 292 deals, topping 11 billion dollars.  Of those, 110 were mergers and acquisitions of Utah companies. Devin Thorpe is President of the MountainWest Capitol Network, and he says 2012 deals increased more than 60% over the year before.

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Politics
4:48 pm
Tue May 14, 2013

Utah House Not Yet Discussing Impeachment of Attorney General

Credit Brian Grimmett
File: Utah State Capitol

The Utah legislature is meeting this week for their monthly interim meetings but they don’t plan on discussing the fate or potential impeachment of Attorney General John Swallow.

Speaker of the House Rebecca Lockhart says she’s concerned about the recent allegations brought against Attorney General John Swallow and that they’re looking into how the legislature might address them.

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Politics
2:41 pm
Tue May 14, 2013

Police Integrity Crucial to WVC Mayor Candidate

Credit Dan Bammes
Former West Valley City council member Margaret Peterson

  Restoring the credibility of West Valley City’s police department is the top priority for Margaret Peterson, who announced her candidacy for mayor of Utah's second-largest city this week.

With its drug investigation unit disbanded, more than a hundred cases dismissed by prosecutors and several officers on administrative leave, Margaret Peterson believes it’ll take strong leadership from the mayor to bring the police department back.  But she says the city should stop short of a wholesale housecleaning.

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Gene Demby is the lead blogger for NPR's Code Switch team.

Before coming to NPR, he served as the managing editor for Huffington Post's BlackVoices following its launch. He later covered politics.

Prior to that role he spent six years in various positions at The New York Times. While working for the Times in 2007, he started a blog about race, culture, politics and media called PostBourgie, which won the 2009 Black Weblog Award for Best News/Politics Site.

Demby is an avid runner, mainly because he wants to stay alive long enough to finally see the Sixers and Eagles win championships in their respective sports. You can follow him on Twitter at @GeeDee215.

-KUER News Pod
11:47 am
Tue May 14, 2013

KUER News Pod: Tuesday May 14, 2013

The U.S. government tries to stop a new Utah law from going into effect, sequestration could have a large impact on wildfire season, and local fallen police officers are honored in Washington D.C.

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Public Safety
5:32 pm
Mon May 13, 2013

U.S. Attorney Sues Utah Over Restrictive Law Enforcement Bill

Credit U.S. Forest Service

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Utah filed a complaint against the state today and obtained a temporary restraining order to stop a law from going into effect tomorrow. They say the new law violates a clause in the U.S. Constitution.

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Public Safety
4:13 pm
Mon May 13, 2013

Federal Budget Cuts Weaken Wildfire Preparedness

Federal officials are preparing for what is expected to be a challenging fire season this year, specifically in the west. The forecast comes amid diminished federal firefighting dollars as a result of sequestration. 

Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the number of fires that have already burned across the U.S. this year are down from last year by about 5,000. But Vilsack warns not to be lulled into a false sense of security. He says droughts continue to plague much of the country and federal budgets are strained.

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Public Safety
4:03 pm
Mon May 13, 2013

National Recognition of Fallen Utah Law Enforcement Officers is Planned

Credit File: National Law Enforcement Fund
Memorial Wall with mementos. According to the National Law Enforcement Fund, over the last decade, an average of 160 officers a year have been killed in the line of duty.

Fallen police Officer Jared Francom’s name is to be added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial on Wednesday in Washington, DC. Francom was killed as the Weber Morgan Narcotics Strike Force attempted to serve a warrant. Five other officers were injured in a gun battle that ensued. Francom’s family as well as Weber County Attorney Dee Smith is in Washington for the ceremonies. Smith says people should not forget the sacrifices these officers make every day for their community.

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-KUER News Pod
11:35 am
Mon May 13, 2013

KUER News Pod: Monday May 13, 2013

Utah strikes a deal to split responsibility with the federal government for its health exchange, the Unified Fire Authority puts a deputy chief on administrative leave for prescription fraud, and the Utah fire season arrives.

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Rebecca Plevin is a reporter for Valley Public Radio. Before joining the station, she was the community health reporter for Vida en el Valle, the McClatchy Company's bilingual newspaper in California's San Joaquin Valley. She earned the George F. Gruner Award for Meritorious Public Service in Journalism and the McClatchy President's Award for her work at Vida, as well as honors from the National Association of Hispanic Publications and the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Plevin grew up in the Washington, D.C. area and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She is also a fluent Spanish speaker, a certified yoga teacher, and an avid rock-climber.

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