Utah News

Lehi • Two new sacred additions were made to Holy Cross hospitals in Lehi and Layton.

Both CommonSpirit hospitals finished their chapels for visitors and patients to use as places of prayer and had these spaces dedicated this week.

A faith-based health care organization, CommonSpirit requires all of its hospitals to have an on-site dedicated chapel.

Bishop Oscar Solis, leader of Utah’s 300,000 Catholics, performed the dedicatory Mass for the chapels in Layton (on Monday) and in Lehi (on Wednesday).

In the Lehi ceremony in Lehi, Solis expressed the importance of providing a place of prayer and comfort to those who are sick. He blessed the space, a former hospital mail room, to be a “house of salvation and praise” to aid in the healing of patients.

“The beautiful thing about all this is that the chapel has never been locked,” Solis said. “It is a place of refuge. It is a place of quiet. It’s a place to pour your soul out to God.”

Solis blessed the space, walls, altar and sacred objects, explaining the spiritual and theological significance.

Given the relatively small size of the chapel, visitors attending the Mass sang hymns and prayers in the overflow next door.

Chris Stines, president and CEO of Lehi’s Holy Cross Hospital — Mountain Point, emphasized the importance of health care and its legacy, in both body and spirit.

“This chapel will be an important part of the services we provide here at this hospital,” Stines said. “As we stand here today … we call ourselves small but mighty. And so this chapel, too, I think, takes on that spirit of small but mighty.”

The chapels will be available to all hospital patients and visitors. A weekly Mass will also be held at each location with the first weekly Mass in Lehi taking place Friday.

Note to readers • Dylan Eubank is a Report for America corps member covering faith in Utah County for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps to keep him writing stories.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — After a mostly dry start to the month of December, the weather pattern is quickly changing to a rainy one. Thursday’s rain showers will mark the first in a series of wet storm systems lining up over the Pacific Northwest. The stormy weather is expected to carry well into next week, […]

The University of Utah has launched a program called “The Dignity Index” that rates how statements sound during political or social disagreement on an eight-point scale. 

Formally announced in October, according to The Daily Utah Chronicle, the Index is expected to cost $400,000 every year for equipment as well as personnel for the program. 

According to the University of Utah, the Index is an “eight-point scale that measures how people talk to each other when they disagree—ranging from ONE, which shows total contempt for the other side, to EIGHT, which shows dignity to everyone, no matter what.”

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The University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Getty Images)

Tami Pyfer, chief external affairs officer and co-creator of the Dignity Index, said on a university page that the program was started “as a pilot to establish the validity of the Dignity Index itself has grown into an initiative with touch points in 25 states.”

The partnership between the University of Utah and Project UNITE, a nonprofit which created The Dignity Index, initially began in 2022 when the University of Utah used the Index “to use the Dignity Index to score political speech in Utah’s congressional mid-term elections.”

A “youth edition” of The Dignity Index talks about “building skills for dignified disagreement” and also scores speech on an eight-point scale, with a one being, “We have to hurt those people; they deserve it,” a four progressing to, “We’re better than those people; they don’t really belong,” and an eight being, “Each one of us is precious and irreplaceable, so we should treat each other with dignity, no matter what.” 

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The University of Utah has launched a program called “The Dignity Index” that rates how statements sound during political or social disagreement on an eight-point scale. (Javi Sanz/Getty Images)

According to Meghan Monroe, senior program associate of K-12 Education at Project UNITE, which created The Dignity Index, the youth edition of the Dignity Index “can be applied to the programs and practices already happening in schools, like those promoting Active Listening and Empathy, which encourage open dialogue where everyone – educators, students, and parents – feels heard, affirming the dignity of each person.”

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“Formally announced” in October, according to The Daily Utah Chronicle, the Index is expected to cost the university $400,000 every year for equipment as well as personnel for the program. (Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)

She also said it can be used in “Restorative Practices, which help rebuild relationships and address conflicts with dignity, compassion, and understanding; and Inclusive Resources, which recognize the diverse perspectives and cultural backgrounds students bring to school.” 

Natalie Gochnour, director of the Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah, said in a statement to Fox News Digital that the university “prioritizes dignity. As stated in our core values, ‘We care deeply about our students, patients, society and world, and recognize the inherent dignity of all people.’ In addition to dignity, we simultaneously affirm the bedrock value of freedom of expression and the pursuit of truth as fundamental and non-negotiable rights on campus and in the community.”

Gochnour added, “Together, these three ideals – the inherent worth of all people, the pursuit of truth, and right to express opinions and ideas — create an environment for speech to flourish and society to prosper.”

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“We often pair these ideals together because too often, contempt – the opposite of dignity – suppresses speech and learning. When people experience contempt, they often self-censor, or worse, bite back with even more disdain,” Gochnour said. “When people self-censor or fall into a spiral of contempt, communication falters. People eventually stop talking, listening, and learning. Without communication, problems worsen; civil society suffers. There’s a better way and the University of Utah stands ready to lead out. The Dignity Initiative is a privately funded endeavor at the University of Utah to reduce contempt and inspire free speech. In partnership with UNITE, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, the U prepares research on dignity scholarship, shares insights on dignity practices, and pioneers a tool known as the Dignity Index to measure how we treat each other when we disagree.” 

Gochnour also said that participation is “entirely voluntary.”

A Utah mom accused of fatally poisoning her husband with fentanyl is scheduled to have a court hearing on Friday ahead of her murder trial next year.

Kouri Richins, a 35-year-old realtor and mother of three who wrote and self-published a children’s book on grieving following her husband’s death, was arrested in 2023 following a lengthy investigation. She was charged with aggravated murder in connection with the 2022 death of her husband, Eric Richins. Prosecutors allege she spiked his cocktail with a lethal dose of fentanyl. 

She is also charged with attempted aggravated murder, with prosecutors alleging she gave him a sandwich laced with fentanyl on Valentine’s Day two weeks before his death in an initial, failed attempt to kill him.

Prosecutors allege that Kouri Richins fraudulently secured a life insurance policy on her husband’s death in January 2022 and had financial incentive to kill him. She is also accused of texting a paramour on Feb. 15, 2022, the day after the alleged Valentine’s Day incident, that “if he could just go away … life would be so perfect.”

Eric Richins, 39, was found dead in the couple’s bedroom on March 4, 2022. An autopsy determined he died from fentanyl intoxication, and the level of fentanyl in his blood was approximately five times the lethal dosage, according to the charging document. The medical examiner determined the fentanyl was “illicit fentanyl,” not medical grade, according to the charging document.

A pretrial conference in the murder case is scheduled for Friday afternoon in a Park City courthouse, ahead of the February 2026 trial. Kouri Richins has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Kouri Richins also faces over two dozen charges in a separate case filed earlier this year alleging she committed mortgage fraud in 2021. The charging document alleges she submitted falsified banks statements in support of mortgage loan applications for her realty business, committed money laundering and issued bad checks. 

The charges in the case also allege she murdered her husband for financial gain as she “stood on the precipice of total financial collapse.” According to the charging document, at the time of Eric Richins’ death, her realty company owed lenders at least $1.8 million and his estate was worth approximately $5 million.

She is scheduled to make an initial appearance in that case Friday afternoon as well. She has not yet entered a plea to the charges.

Kouri Richins has remained in Summit County Jail since her arrest, after the judge last month denied a defense motion to reconsider bail and release.

She proclaimed her innocence in an audio recording released in May 2024.

“The world has yet to hear who I really am, what I’ve really done or didn’t do,” Kouri Richins insisted in the audio, provided to ABC News through a trusted confidant. “What I really didn’t do is murder my husband.”

A month prior to her arrest in May 2023, the mom of three appeared on a “Good Things Utah” segment on Salt Lake City ABC affiliate KTVX to promote her book. In the segment, Kouri Richins said her husband of nine years died “unexpectedly” and that his death “completely took us all by shock.”

Utah for decades has billed itself as having the “Greatest Snow on Earth.”

Tom Korologos, an editor at the Salt Lake Tribune, coined the phrase in a headline for a special ski edition of the newspaper’s Home magazine in December 1960, shortly after Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus passed through town.

“Intermountain folk will tell you that the winds blowing from the west leave the wet, sticky snows in the Sierras. When the storms reach the Intermountain ranges, only the most perfect dry powder is left. That’s just a sprinkling of what you’ll find in the vast, scenic country that is the Intermountain area. And what an area. It’s some 600 miles long and 2.5 miles high. That’s the extent of the Intermountain’s big top which supports this real, true Greatest Snow on Earth,” the article proclaims.

The state trademarked the slogan in 1975. It started showing up on Ski Utah! license plates in 1985 and later the state’s Life Elevated plate.

Ringling Bros. sued Utah for trademark infringement in the late 1990s. But a federal judge found the company failed to prove that consumers were confused by the similar slogans.

So, step right up. Get your tickets to the greatest snow on Earth. Or is it?

Becoming a powderhound

Many skiers and snowboarders live for powder days where the world seems to stop. There’s no better feeling than gliding through a fresh layer of pristine pow. And Utah’s tall and jagged mountain ranges, including the Wasatch, with their long vertical drops and steep slope angles are made for powder lovers. Steep and deep, as they say.

Longtime skier Paula Colman, a regular contributor to Visit Utah and Ski Utah among others, put it this way:

“Shake it! Now, put it down. That’s what skiing a powder day in Utah looks and feels like. It’s akin to being inside a life-size snow globe, one which dampens sound, alters perception and, for a few loose turns, seems to slow velocity and time.”

And as she notes in the piece for Visit Utah, “Every skier and snowboarder eventually becomes a powderhound in Utah!”

OnTheSnow meteorologist and avid skier Evan Thayer can attest to that. To him, when conditions are right, powder skiing is an art form.

“It is beautiful in both its simplicity and grace. Only the subtlest movements are necessary as your skis glide effortlessly through the fluff. The mountain, the snow, and gravity work in concert to give you an exhilarating feeling of flotation — total weightlessness. It’s a feeling so intoxicating — so freeing — that powderhounds such as myself devote their entire lives to experiencing it again and again,” he wrote for Visit Utah.

The greatest snow on Earth?

While the Beehive State is renowned for its light, fluffy snow, is it really the greatest snow on Earth?

According to the man who literally wrote the book on powder snow and who Backcountry magazine dubbed the “Professor of Powder,” the answer is a qualified yes.

Jim Steenburgh is a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah, avid skier and author of the book “Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth.” Backcountry calls it “the greatest book (about snow) on Earth.” Steenburgh’s X handle is @professorpowder.

“What I usually tell people is the greatest snow on Earth is in the eye of the beholder. It’s a subjective thing. Science really can’t answer that question,” said Steenburgh, who tracked down the origin of the Utah slogan for his book.

But, he said, Utah ski areas, particularly Little Cottonwood Canyon, have the three ingredients that go into making great powder snow: frequent storms, a soft underlying surface of snow and right-side-up-snowfall, meaning lighter snow sits on top of heavier snow.

“As a skier who’s also a meteorologist, when we look at a place like Little Cottonwood Canyon there are a lot of things that line up to make that a great place for snow,” said Steenburgh, adding that it’s the birthplace of deep powder skiing. “I look at Little Cottonwood as one of the great meccas for powder skiing anywhere in the world.”

Utah’s mountains typically receive more than 500 inches of snow above 8,500 elevation. And the snow climatology in Little and Big Cottonwood canyons favors what he calls “Goldilocks” storms. They aren’t too big and they aren’t too small.

“If you want to have good powder skiing, you want to have storms that produce at least 10 inches of snow because that’s what allows for bottomless skiing,” Steenburgh said. “But you don’t want storms that produce 25 inches frequently because those get to be too problematic for getting the resorts open or skiing in the backcountry.”

Frequent Goldilocks storms produce what are called right-side-up snowfalls. Those storms start out with higher density snow that gets lower density or drier with time making them optimal for ski or snowboard flotation, he said.

Steenburgh said there’s a strong argument to be made about Utah having the greatest snow on earth but all of Utah is not Little Cottonwood Canyon. “The reputation of Utah for powder skiing is based strongly on the Cottonwoods,” he said. The snow outside those canyons, he said, is still really good but there are fewer powder days.

Much is made of Utah’s lake effect snow, primarily as a result of the Great Salt Lake. But Steenburgh said it’s not much of a factor, accounting for about 6% of the total snowfall in the Cottonwoods.

Where else to find deep powder

Also, Utah doesn’t have the driest snow on the planet. Mountains in Montana, Idaho and western Colorado have snow with lower water content.

“We don’t have the driest snow on Earth but that’s a good thing in many ways because the best deep powder skiing is not in the driest snow,” he said. In low density snow, a skier or snowboarder settles to the bottom rather than floating.

Outside of the Cottonwoods, Steenburgh lists the Tetons, interior British Columbia and Hokkaido Island in Japan as outstanding powder skiing locales.

Sukayu Onsen in the Hakkoda Mountains is the snowiest inhabited area in the world with an average annual snowfall of 694 inches. In January, the average snowfall is 181 inches. There is no surer climatological bet for deep powder skiing than northwest Honshu and western Hokkaido in late January, he wrote in his book.

“I call Japan the greatest snow climate on Earth and I say Utah has the greatest snow on Earth. Scientifically, that’s how I get around getting people upset,” he said.

“It’s a great slogan. I think it’s one of the best slogans in the outdoor industry. It definitely has helped the brand for Utah. And I think there’s definitely some truth to it.”

How Utah snow is changing

Steenburgh also notes that Utah snow is changing because of climate change. It’s shifting to high density, which means snowfall is getting a little heavier, he said.

A greater fraction of winter time precipitation falls as rain instead of snow, mainly at lower elevations such as the Salt Lake Valley. It still snows but there are more wintertime rainstorms. Steenburgh said it will creep up in elevation in the coming decades.

Right now, the effect in the upper elevations and north facing slopes is “almost zero,” he said. “But it’s coming. It will come to the mid and upper elevations eventually.”

A safety volunteer accused of fatally shooting a man taking part in a “No Kings” protest last June in Salt Lake City while firing at another man he believed to be a potential mass shooter has been charged with manslaughter, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Matthew Alder allegedly fired three shots — one hitting a man who had been seen assembling an AR-15 rifle near the crowd and a third inadvertently killing the rally participant, Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, according to Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.

Gill told reporters at a news conference that the facts surrounding this case were “very nuanced and complex,” with Utah’s complicated gun laws among them. As CBS affiliate KUTV reported, the district attorney said that the state requested a grand jury from a panel of five judges, in accordance with Utah’s protocols, in order to bring charges. The panel denied the grand jury in early November, but Gill said a similar case in Massachusetts ultimately helped guide his office’s next steps.

While Alder had a right to use lethal force to stop a perceived threat and a right to carry a gun under Utah law, his third shot, fired over people’s heads at a large gathering, was reckless and constituted a crime, Gill said.

“In this case our argument is that the third bullet was reckless and, if it is reckless, it is manslaughter,” Gill said at a news conference. He noted that another safety volunteer with Alder did not think it was safe to open fire at the time because the man with the rifle was moving toward the crowd.

An email and a telephone message left for Alder’s lawyer, Phil Wormdahl, seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Ah Loo, known as Afa, was a successful fashion designer and former “Project Runway” contestant who devoted his life to celebrating artists from the Pacific Islands.

His widow, Laura Ah Loo, who has demanded accountability for her husband’s death, said Gill’s decision to charge Alder was “moral and just.” Fighting back tears, she described her husband as “an incredible father, advocate, creative and champion for others.”

“The grief of losing him has been profound and overwhelming,” Ah Loo said.

Utah is an open-carry state, meaning people who can legally own a firearm are generally allowed to carry it on a public street.

The man who was seen assembling the rifle, Arturo Roberto Gamboa, was initially arrested on suspicion of murder and accused of creating the dangerous situation that led to Ah Loo’s death, police said at the time.

Gill said Gamboa would not be charged. In a letter explaining the decision, prosecutors noted there was not enough evidence to show Gamboa had broken any law even though his actions could “reasonably be perceived as alarming and irresponsible.”

A telephone message left for Gamboa’s lawyer was not immediately returned.

The lawyer, Greg Skordas, has previously said Gamboa was walking with the rifle unloaded pointed at the ground before he was shot. Skordas has said he does not believe that Gamboa heard anyone tell him to drop the weapon.

Alder told investigators that he fired at Gamboa after Gamboa began moving toward the crowd and did not respond when he yelled at the man to stop, according to Alder’s charging document. He told detectives that Gamboa’s behavior “scared the hell out of me,” the document said.

The “No Kings” protests were nationwide demonstrations in the U.S. earlier this year that opposed the administration of President Donald Trump, citing perceived authoritarian and anti-democratic actions.

Lehi • Two new sacred additions were made to Holy Cross hospitals in Lehi and Layton.

Both CommonSpirit hospitals finished their chapels for visitors and patients to use as places of prayer and had these spaces dedicated this week.

A faith-based health care organization, CommonSpirit requires all of its hospitals to have an on-site dedicated chapel.

Bishop Oscar Solis, leader of Utah’s 300,000 Catholics, performed the dedicatory Mass for the chapels in Layton (on Monday) and in Lehi (on Wednesday).

In the Lehi ceremony in Lehi, Solis expressed the importance of providing a place of prayer and comfort to those who are sick. He blessed the space, a former hospital mail room, to be a “house of salvation and praise” to aid in the healing of patients.

“The beautiful thing about all this is that the chapel has never been locked,” Solis said. “It is a place of refuge. It is a place of quiet. It’s a place to pour your soul out to God.”

Solis blessed the space, walls, altar and sacred objects, explaining the spiritual and theological significance.

Given the relatively small size of the chapel, visitors attending the Mass sang hymns and prayers in the overflow next door.

Chris Stines, president and CEO of Lehi’s Holy Cross Hospital — Mountain Point, emphasized the importance of health care and its legacy, in both body and spirit.

“This chapel will be an important part of the services we provide here at this hospital,” Stines said. “As we stand here today … we call ourselves small but mighty. And so this chapel, too, I think, takes on that spirit of small but mighty.”

The chapels will be available to all hospital patients and visitors. A weekly Mass will also be held at each location with the first weekly Mass in Lehi taking place Friday.

Note to readers • Dylan Eubank is a Report for America corps member covering faith in Utah County for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps to keep him writing stories.

Dec. 4, 2025, 5:04 a.m. ET

A safety volunteer accused of fatally shooting a man who was participating in a “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City in June has been charged with manslaughter, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

Matthew Alder allegedly fired at a man who was holding a rifle during the demonstration, injuring that person and killing Arthur Folasa Ah Loo.