Grant awarded to Utah to expand broadband internet
This week the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded a large grant to increase broadband access in Utah. The state of Utah will receive $317 million in a Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program grant. This grant is part of President Joe Biden’s initiative “Internet for All.”
The money comes from the $1 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This act was signed into law in November 2021. The broadband program will be overseen by the Utah Broadband Center at the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity.
Kathleen Riebe named Democratic nominee for special election
Wednesday, State Sen. Kathleen Riebe won the Democratic nomination to be the party’s candidate in the upcoming special election to replace Rep. Chris Stewart for the 2nd Congressional District. The party’s nominee was chosen using ranked choice voting. Riebe won 85.56% of the votes.
Riebe will be running against Celeste Maloy who received the Utah Republican Party’s nomination last week. Riebe beat out Guy Warner who received 12.67% of delegates’ votes and Archie Williams III who received 1.76%, for the party’s nomination.
Utah ranked ninth best state for hiking
Utah was ranked as the ninth best state for hiking in an analysis published by the travel guide and blog site “Why This Place.” In the analysis, Connecticut claimed the top spot, with Massachusetts in second and Hawaii taking third. The researchers who put together the analysis gave each of the country’s 50 states a score out of 100 in order to create the hiking index.
The factors considered in this ranking were the number of hiking trails and waterfalls relative to state area, the percentage of each state covered by national and state parks, and the average yearly temperature and rainfall.
Utah scored 61.22 out of 100. The site said that the state has 87 hiking trails per 1,000 square miles and one waterfall per 1,000 miles. According to “Why This Place,” Utah has the third-lowest annual rainfall at 13.5 inches.
