The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Salt Lake City Weekly. “I guess you could call me a tree hugger,” said Washington state resident Tammy Crough on why she decided to install home solar power in 2023. “I love trees, the Earth, and I think solar is a good way to capture that energy,” she said. “But I guess you could also call me sort of a prepper.” While living in a small town “in the sticks,” 60 miles outside of Houston, Crough lived through Hurricane Ike punching her town’s lights out in 2008. She went 18 days without power, duri ..read more

LaMarr Walker’s decadeslong career teaching agriculture and shop in southern Utah came to an early end on the advice of his doctor with a diagnosis he believes may have been preventable. (Jason Strother) The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KSL.com MONTICELLO — Retirement isn’t shaping up to be quite how LaMarr Walker pictured it. Activities he still planned on enjoying for years to come — running, hunting with his kids or operating two side businesses — are no longer a given. Instead, Walker wakes up each morning with what feels lik ..read more

(Courtesy photo) Gordon McCreadie, a chief superintendent for the Renfrewshire and Inverclyde Division of Police, led a national task force to train Scottish officers when a new law against “coercive control” went into effect. The following story was supported by funding from The Alicia Patterson Foundation and the Fund for Investigative Journalism and was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Imagine a hostage situation. A woman is trapped in her home, and her life and the lives of her family members depend on how well she obeys her c ..read more

Join us for this free webinar on April 23, 12-1 pm where we will run through everything you need to know to file requests for public records in Utah. We’ll go over strategies for successful requests and how to fight records denials. This is a crash course on our public records law, the Government Records Access and Management Act. We’re calling it GRAMA 101, and with it you will learn how to file GRAMAs like a pro. With understanding of GRAMA you should be able to request countless records from police reports and government contracts to e-mails and text messages of public officials. The webin ..read more

(House of Vapes in Riverton is pictured on Saturday, March 30, 2024. Eric S. Peterson/Utah Investigative Journalism Project) The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Utah News Dispatch. Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs, one of a handful of candidates vying for the U.S. Senate seat soon to be vacated by Mitt Romney, welcomed Florida GOP Congressman Matt Gaetz to stump for him at a recent rally of several hundred enthusiastic attendees. Gaetz warmed up the crowd with jokes about attendees showing up in mild Utah spring weather of sleet and rain ..read more

(Eric S. Peterson| The Utah Investigative Journalism Project. The South Station Apartments in South Jordan are located near the Daybreak Parkway TRAX station.) The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KUER. In his U.S. Senate campaign ad, Republican Brad Wilson, former speaker of the Utah House, leans into his career as a real estate developer. He walks through a construction site and the camera cuts to Wilson swinging a sledgehammer into a pile of concrete blocks. They’re stenciled with the words “Biden’s Agenda” across them. “For over ..read more

(Utah Department of Public Safety; Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune) The fictional Carla and Jake are characters in a training video for Utah police cadets, used to help explain the longtime concept of a “cycle of violence” between intimate partners in abusive relationships. By Eric S. Peterson and K. Sophie Will The following story was funded by The Alicia Patterson Foundation and The Fund for Investigative Journalism and was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Carla feels like she’s “on a roller coaster” with her boy ..read more

The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Salt Lake City Weekly. The Utah Legislature is made up of part-timers whose day jobs shape their approach to lawmaking. In many cases, their expertise as doctors, educators, business owners and more offers insight into a myriad of issues affecting Utahns. But lawmakers’ professional interests can also open the door for conflicts of interest. Take the fact that 40% of House members and 51% of senators are involved in real estate, though few list it as their primary occupation. How does this impact ..read more

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Debbie Mayo, director of New Horizons Crisis Center, sits in one of the bedrooms at its shelter in Richfield. Mayo said her central Utah facility is able to occasionally take in people from other overcrowded rural shelters, but she also struggles to serve those in need in her service area — five counties and over 13,500 square miles. The following story was supported by funding from the Alicia Patterson Foundation and the Fund for Investigative Journalism and was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Trib ..read more

Tabby Mountain, a 28,500-acre block in eastern Utah owned by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration is pictured above. The land has been at the center of a controversy involving hunting interests, school trust principles and the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. (Photo by Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration)  The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Utah News Dispatch. Hunting interests could take precedence over the interests of Utah students and private parties like th ..read more