In the same week that Democrats announce they'll hold hearings to probe why Trump's Interior Department shrank Bears Ears National Monument by 85%, the internet is abuzz with this image. Archaeologists have identified this artifact as a 2000-year-old tattooing instrument, unearthed from Bears Ears in Utah.

New findings published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports this week show that this tool, found at the ancient Native American site, is a tattoo needle fashioned from cactus spines that was created between years 137–215 CE.

The findings reveal new information about how body adornment and tattooing were practiced among indigenous people in this region. Read the rest

An energy firm linked to uranium mining interests around Bears Ears National Monument in Utah met with a senior Department of Interior official just one month President Donald Trump issued a surprise request to review the monument's boundaries. When the review concluded, Trump shrank the monument by 85%. Some 100 uranium claims that were previously *inside* the monument's protected boundary were suddenly on the outside. Read the rest

I love this. Read the rest

We narrowly escaped the skeletal knights patrolling the darkness. We arrived to the relative safety of the Burrows where an angry hag was seated at the end of a long table, lost in her thoughts. We made this dangerous journey at the request of a Blackheart Hunter named Killian, who asked us to help find a cure for the darkness infesting the land. She gave us a pair of black river stones and told us to have Mother Nature, who had become the cursed hag, inscribe them with runes of protection for use in the cure. We swallowed our fear and stepped forward to ask for her help.

I've been anticipating Evermore since Ken Bretschneider, the CEO and founder, first announced it at Salt Lake Comicon in the fall of 2013. He told a packed panel room about his idea of a theme park for live-action role players and the room went nuts. Finally someone with vision who shared our passion for embodying a character and wanting to give it the environment it deserved. At each successive convention he had a little more to show, from concept sketches, to a park model, culminating this year in standing up an entire building in the middle of the show for his park. It's taken five years and a couple of pauses but he's delivered on that initial promise.

My own LARP experience began when I happened upon a Belegarth and Amtgard group at my city park. I built some flat boffer swords, a foam shield, sewed some tunics and wrap pants. Read the rest

The Mormon Church (AKA The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or LDS) is joining lawmakers and the governor of the state of Utah to support a deal to legalize medical marijuana, even if a legalization initiative that's on this November's ballot ends up failing.

This is the first time to my knowledge the Mormon Church has made a statement supporting medical marijuana if prescribed by a doctor and dispensed by a pharmacy.

I'm a Utah resident and a cancer survivor, and I'm writing this from my home in Utah.

I found real medical benefit from cannabis during my treatment for breast cancer. The deal described in today's news (I haven't seen the text yet) is great progress for all Utahns, especially for those with cancer and other serious illnesses. The LDS previously shunned any and all cannabis use. This deal isn't enough, IMO, because marijuana smoking would still be illegal. Whole flower combustion has its benefits, and it is a valid method of ingesting cannabis for medical purposes. Read the rest

After years of free-range kids campaigning, a state legislature has taken heed: Utah just passed the Child Neglect Amendments, affirming that common activities like letting your kid walk to school or leaving them in the car while you duck into a shop are not neglect or child abuse. Read the rest

Mitt Romney, former Republican presidential candidate and Trump "critic", is to run for the Utah senate seat vacated by Orrin Hatch's retirement.

Romney's run has already faced some resistance: the head of the state's Republican Party criticized him for not having deep enough ties to the state. Jenny Wilson, a Democratic candidate running for Senate in Utah, said this week that "Utah families deserve another Utahn as their senator, not a Massachusetts governor who thinks of our state as his vacation home."

If elected, the former governor would bring strong name recognition and influence as a first-term senator. While former aides expect Romney to push for conservative policies in the Senate, they also believe he will rebuke the president when necessary and potentially clash with him on some policies.

What ... what if he only votes with Trump 85% of time, like GOP rebel Jeff Flake? This could be revolutionary. Read the rest

A class action suit by some of the 3,500,000+ Wells Fargo customers defrauded in the company's fake account scam was foundering in Utah, thanks to the company's insistence that its binding arbitration clauses also applied to the accounts it fraudulently opened (that is, by agreeing not to sue the company for defrauding you over the accounts you opened, you were also agreeing not to sue them if it opened a bunch more accounts and forged your signature on the papers). Read the rest

In 2016, the deep-red, Mormon-dominated state of Utah had to choose between voting in favor of a rapist, or in favor of allowing women to control their own fertility, and they chose the rapist. Read the rest

White folk in Utah's San Juan County claim that districts drawn to actually represent the local demographics unfairly discriminate against them.

Via The Salt Lake Tribune:

Last year, Shelby ruled the voting districts in San Juan County, which today is home to 16,895 residents, are unconstitutional and violate the rights of American Indians. He ordered the county to redraw them.

Read the rest

Utah state senator Todd Weiler (@goptodd, (801) 538-1035) made his nutjob-religious-grandstander bones by proposing preinstalled mandatory porn-filtering software on all mobile phones, has found a new calling: calling for the revival of the state's moribund "porn czar" in order to stamp out the scourge of sexy women's magazines, especially Cosmo. Read the rest

Yesterday, Rep Jason Chaffetz [R-UT; DC office: (202) 225-7751; Utah office: (801) 851-2500; email; Twitter] defended his plan to take away the health insurance of 22,000,000 Americans by saying "rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care." Read the rest

Jason Chaffetz is a Republican lawmaker who led the Benghazi and Clinton email witch-hunts in his capacity on the Congressional Oversight Committee; when he returned to Utah for a town hall meeting, he was met by thousands of angry constituents who chanted "do your job" and called on him to investigate Trump's many irregularities, from foreign interference with the election results to his refusal to release his tax returns to his many conflicts of interest. Read the rest

The landlords at City Park Apartments stuck memos on their tenants' doors last week, outlining a "Facebook addendum" requiring tenants to Friend the building on Facebook or lose their lease. Read the rest

A Utah State House of Representatives bill would outlaw doxing—publishing someone's private info with the intent to facilitate harassment—but the EFF says the planned law's language is so broad it would target free speech.

At fault, Sam Machkovech reports, is the fact that the law doesn't clearly define its terms.

[Lead sponsor State Representative David E.] Lifferth's suggested amendment, on the other hand, offers no such specific, harassment-minded qualifiers in regard to "personal identifying information." The legislation as written would punish citizens for posting a laundry list of information about anyone if a court determined there was intent to annoy, alarm, or offend them, including names, birthdays, phone numbers, place of employment, photographs, or other realistic likenesses. The penalty for first-time offenders would be a class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a maximum $1,000 fine.

Among other things, such legislation might limit citizens' ability to hold public officials and other influential members of society accountable for their actions.

Lifferth has promised to fix the bill's language. Read the rest

Rocky Anderson is suing the agency for spying on him (and everyone else in Salt Lake City) during the 2002 Olympics -- he's added his name to a mass lawsuit against the NSA, FBI, George W. Bush, Michael Hayden, Dick Cheney and 50 "Does." Read the rest

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has published photos of what they claim is their prophet's talking magical rock.