Utah News

Utah's Department of Natural Resources is updating the Great Salt Lake Comprehensive Management Plan and its mineral leasing plan and is taking public comment on the plan until April 26. In addition, Great Salt Lake Mineral applied for a permit for evaporation ponds on 91,000 acres of the lake. The Army Corp of Engineers is working on a draft environmental impact statement.

Shirley Erickson Gorospe is Director of Evaporating Shorelines, a nonprofit organization responsible for producing a documentary of the same name.

It was the largest earthquake drill in state history and one that students and the staff at the Edith Bowen Laboratory School have been preparing for.

As 10:15 rolls around, Tyler Rasmussen of River Heights and his classmates at the Logan elementary school wait for the announcement from counselor Clint Farmer that the drill has begun. He and other students in Mrs. Moeller's class take cover as she tells them:

"The best things to hold onto are going to be the legs of the desks because that's the sturdiest part of your desk."

A recent warning by Animal Control officials in Mesquite, Nevada, has dog owners in Southern Utah and Nevada on the lookout for signs of the very dangerous, even fatal, canine parovirus.

Tuesday is Equal Pay Day across America, a day recognizing an ongoing wage gap among men and women in the U.S., and Utah has the 3rd largest pay disparity in the country.

The study, performed by the Washington D.C.-based advocacy group National Partnership for Women and Families, shows women in Utah earn 69 cents for every dollar paid to a man, compared to 77 cents on the dollar nationwide.

Sara Crawford, Director of Workplace Fairness at the National Partnership for Women and Families says this isn’t good for Utah’s economy.

If you waited until the last minute to do your taxes, don’t worry: you’re not alone.

Bill Brunson, spokesman for the IRS, told Jessica Gail that 92,500 Utahns were expected to request an extension to file their 2012 tax return and that those people should know that:

“If you have a balance due, if you know you owe Uncle Sam money and you request the extension to file you will only have the late payment penalty which is one half of one percent. You won’t incur the late filing penalty which is five percent on the taxes due.”

Big questions still remain in the investigation of several Secret Service members who allegedly brought prostitutes into their room while on assignment in Columbia and Utah Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz is helping to find answers.

Chaffetz serves on the Government Oversight and Reform Committee in Washington D.C. which is already looking into the situation: