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Behind the Headlines

How the LDS church tracks abusers, water usage, and more on Behind the Headlines

By Tom Williams
Published May 29, 2026 at 3:31 PM MDT
Two buildings, one high-rise and the other chunkier.
Trent Nelson
/
The Salt Lake Tribune
The Church Administration Building, foreground, and high-rise Church Office Building in Salt Lake City. The global faith maintains a massive database on members that enables it to track those with a history of threatening behavior. But tracking abusers and preventing harm are two different things, experts say.

Salt Lake Tribune reporters Brooke Larsen and Tamarra Kemsley, along with data columnist Andy Larsen, join host UPR’s Tom Williams to talk about the social aspect of water usage, the LDS church tracking system for abusers, and one Utah county ‘putting the brakes’ on new data centers.

Every Friday at 9:00 a.m., stream "Behind the Headlines" at upr.org or tune in to Utah Public Radio for the broadcast. Join the live conversation this week by email to upraccess@gmail.com.

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Behind the Headlines UPRStratos Data Center ProjectThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsWater IssuesData Centers
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Tom Williams
Tom Williams worked as a part-time UPR announcer for a few years and joined Utah Public Radio full-time in 1996. He is a proud graduate of Uintah High School in Vernal and Utah State University (B. A. in Liberal Arts and Master of Business Administration.) He grew up in a family that regularly discussed everything from opera to religion to politics. He is interested in just about everything and loves to engage people in conversation, so you could say he has found the perfect job as host “Access Utah.” He and his wife Becky, live in Logan.
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