I just read the letter from Michele Stuart, “My money is on Nancy Pelosi,” saying that the more time that passes, the more the truth will come out.

In fact, people all over the country are beginning to wake up to realize the emperor has no clothes, no decency, no common sense. From the Navy Seals who were horrified by the pardoning of their “evil” captain, to the farmers being crushed by tariffs, those who wish for America to be great are realizing that what Donald Trump is doing is quite the opposite. He’s making America worse.

The senators with consciences are beginning to realize this, even those from more conservative states like Utah. If the decent people of Utah contact their senators, Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, and urge them to speak the truth, that America has become worse under Trump, that he has no clothes, that they can see through the untruths, Mike and Mitt will have to do the right thing.

Life is not all about the money, the stock market highs. It’s about the currency of goodness, decency.

Yes, make America great again. Urge your senators to speak truth to power.

Jeffrey Goldsmith, San Francisco, Calif.

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In the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I always believed that Mr. Potter was the most evil character.

I was wrong. It was Potter’s aide.

In the movie, this wheelchair-pushing assistant watched Potter steal $8,000 from Uncle Billy. Yet he did nothing.

When Potter called the police on George Bailey, Potter’s aide stood there again, mute, doing nothing as Potter lied to the world.

Potter’s assistant had enough facts to implicate and denounce Potter because he saw the crimes firsthand. The evidence was overwhelming. Yet he ignored the facts and let Potter achieve his selfish motives by ruthlessly running roughshod over anyone who got in his way.

This stooge did not do the right thing. Maybe he was intimidated by Potter? Maybe he was afraid of losing his job?

Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, now is not the time to be beholden to Donald Trump or the Republican Party. Lead the way. Convince other senators to acknowledge the truth and finish what the House started.

You have compelling proof. Do not be like Potter’s aide and stand by and do nothing.

Peter Brooks, Lehi

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“Ten best” lists are great conversation (or argument) starters. If it’s a slow night in a sports bar, you can always liven things up by asking fans to list the 10 best baseball (football, soccer, badminton, bocce) players in history. Like all such lists, this one is subjective, but (I hope) not without a certain objective basis. One major difference between sports and architecture is that while, for example, batting and pitching are judged separately, good buildings have to “play both ways” and meet all of the following criteria:

• an interesting (if not beautiful) external appearance;
• spaces within the building that dignify the building’s functions;
• a design that enhances its surroundings;
• endowing its purpose with special meaning.

Also, I only included buildings open to the public so anyone can visit them. So here goes (in no particular order):

The State Capitol (1916, Richard Ketting) • With its beautiful proportions and overall composition, our Capitol is a near-perfect example of the neoclassical tradition in American public buildings. It provides impressive, dignified spaces for large numbers of people to take part in government. The rotunda is especially magnificent, both inside and out. The exterior spaces around it create the appropriate formal setting for the building while providing shaded paths for public enjoyment. Its placement on the hill at the head of State Street in Salt Lake City gives it prominence in the space of the city that reflects its importance to the people of Utah.

The City Library (2003, Moshe Safdie) • The main Salt Lake City Library carries on the tradition of American public libraries as the most egalitarian of institutions, embodying the idea that knowledge, as the key to opportunity, should be available to everyone. The airy, curving atrium is the best interior public space in Utah. The open stair, glass elevators and the many spaces that look out into the atrium further contribute to its public spirit. The sweeping exterior ramp invites visitors to climb the building as though it were a mountain in miniature. The plaza it creates with the old library (now The Leonardo museum) could be one of the best exterior spaces in the city were it not for the ill-conceived planting area that subdivides what should be a unified space.

Abravanel Hall (1976-79, FFKR Architects) • Sometimes simple is best. The large, plain brick front wall of this monument to the performing arts in Salt Lake City is unexpectedly dynamic, giving way to a glass curtain wall that seems to disappear at night, revealing the brilliantly illuminated lobby and Dale Chihuly’s glowing glass sculpture. The entrance plaza creates the necessary distance for appreciating this composition, heightening the visitor’s anticipation and providing a well-proportioned, lively urban space (although I’d like to see more shade and seating). Once inside, tiered balconies dramatically extend the lobby space upward and away from the visitor. The hall itself is elegant in its simplicity and its excellent acoustics are legendary.

The City and County Building (1891-94, Henry Monheim, Bird & Proudfoot) • Every time I enter this building I feel proud to live in Salt Lake City. This handsome example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style features an artful composition of arcades, towers and bay windows in beautifully executed stonework. The interior opens itself to the public with its elegant stairs and broad hallways. The latter receive daylight by the clever device of glazed offices at their ends. The rooms are enhanced by simple yet elegant woodwork and wisely preserved arched transoms above the doors. The grounds serve as a public park as well as framing the building without excessive formality. Topping it off is the clock tower, an essential symbol of American civic life and a prominent landmark in the city.

Ogden High School (1937, Hodgson and McClenahan) • How I would have loved to go to school in this beautiful Art Deco building! It is worth remembering that, at the time of this building’s construction, the Art Deco style was modern, an attempt to find a style that looked forward rather than backward as did traditional neoclassical architecture. In the depths of the Great Depression, the public found the resources to build a school that expressed the value and importance of education and inspired students to look to the future. It is ironic that now, when our country is so much wealthier, so many school buildings are merely functional boxes.

The Adobe Utah campus (2012, WRNS Studio) • If you work for a large corporation, this is your dream workplace. The building in Lehi was entirely designed to enhance the experience of workers. The interiors are open and brightly daylit with spectacular views from virtually every space in the complex. At its heart is a group of common areas that encourage interaction and collaboration, accommodating everything from dining to basketball. The deceptively simple arrangement of three elongated, slightly bent buildings makes comfortably scaled spaces amongst themselves. The contrast between the buildings’ linear geometry and the natural forms of the landscape is nicely mediated by a concrete base that takes on varied forms and allows the buildings to literally float above the ground in places.

Church of St. Joseph the Worker (2010, Sparano and Mooney Architects) • This small parish church complex in West Jordan manages to be monumental and modest at the same time. The complex includes a small chapel, offices and the sanctuary. Throughout the complex, humble materials are ennobled by superb craftsmanship, honoring the laborers who founded the parish. The exterior of the sanctuary is especially noteworthy, an exquisite piece of concrete construction that resulted from careful design by the architects and the consummate craftsmanship of the builder. The concrete was formed by wooden boards, which left an impression of every detail of the wood’s surface on the concrete. If you think concrete is an ugly material, you need to visit this church.

The Tabernacle on Temple Square (1867, William H. Folsom and Henry Grow) • This is a geode of a building in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City. Its plain exterior belies the spectacular space inside. When full, the space somehow manages to feel both intimate and monumental. The wooden benches and balconies define a terrestrial realm while the ceiling vaults high overhead, seeming almost limitless. The famous organ is like a building in its own right, enhancing this feeling. The space’s acoustics are famous as well, thanks to the elliptical shape of the ceiling and the balconies (added in 1870). The roof was a world-famous engineering marvel at the time it was built, spanning 150 feet and constructed entirely of wood.

The Rio Tinto Center — Natural History Museum of Utah (2011, Ennead Architects with GSBS Architects) • This building in Salt Lake City’s foothills clearly takes its inspiration from the surrounding landscape. Its overall form owes more to geology than to geometry. The facades are layered in imitation of geological strata with large areas of copper from the Bingham Mine providing a local reference. The multistory central space is conceived of as a “canyon.” Whether one accepts this metaphor or not, it is an exciting space with a certain natural feel, thanks to its terraced floors and irregular walls. The main display spaces are masterfully designed, rendered accessible by beginning on the top floor and ramping down. It is unfortunate that it was not built in a more accessible location.

Lassonde Studios (2016, Cannon Design in association with EDA Architects) • This building on the University of Utah campus is the result of a complete rethinking of the experience of going to college. Every aspect of it makes student collaboration and entrepreneurship the focus of their education. It combines work and living spaces. Its open, flexible plan allows any space to be reconfigured for any use. The work areas are like the proverbial tech guru’s garage — raw space where anything can happen. There are no classrooms or faculty offices; this is the students’ domain where they are free to explore. The building sits in the center of the campus, intentionally placed on the routes most taken by students to maximize its accessibility. The building’s overall form defies typical campus architecture with an irregular shape that is nevertheless logical given the interior functions.

I expect that many (most? all?) readers will have different ideas about the best buildings in Utah. I hope you will let me know what you think by writing letters to the editor, posting comments on The Tribune’s website or emailing me directly.

David Ross Scheer is an architect and urban planner based in Salt Lake City. His publications include "The Death of Drawing: Architecture in the Age of Simulation (Routledge 2014).

President Trump’s extended holiday vacation has given us a hiatus from his insistent and often juvenile tweets. This is likely because he is golfing at his resort at Mar-a-Lago. There has been little information on his golfing partners or his prowess.

There is a book, “Commander in Cheat,” written by sports writer Rick Reilly which recounts details of the President’s golfing style. Reilly, who has actually golfed with Trump, describes his cheating during an 18-hole round and the real estate machinations enabling him to purchase various courses throughout the world.

There is undoubtedly a new book being written entitled, “Commander Impeach,” which will collate his misadventures off the golf course. I can hardly wait.

Louis Borgenicht, Salt Lake City

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Well, take a look at these two emails that arrived in my inbox on the same day …

Dear Ann Cannon • I’m traveling to a foreign country with my know-it-all, 28-year-old daughter in a few months. How do we get along for two weeks?

— Concerned Mama

Dear Ann Cannon • I’m traveling to a foreign country with my sassy 61-year-old mother in a few months. How do we get along for two weeks?

— Concerned Daughter

Dear Mama and Daughter • Hahahahahahaha! I think you two must have had fun writing these questions together, right? But the question(s) are valid, so here goes.

1. I think it’s actually a good sign that you’re already aware there might be some tense moments on your vacation. That way you can prepare for them. Also, you won’t be overly disappointed if and when things DO get a little chippy (I LOVE that word chippy) between the two of you. You’ll take it in stride. It’s the people who expect perfection from an experience (and from one another) that I worry about, frankly.

2. Meanwhile, commit yourselves to practicing the fine art of compromise. Take turns giving the other person her own way.

3. And, finally, don’t be afraid to give each other a little space now and then. Slip away by yourself for a while. Take a walk. Go to a museum. Eat a little something. Alone. No matter how much you love being with another person, alone time can recharge your social battery.

But here’s my real advice: Have fun and be grateful for the opportunity you have to spend time with one another.

Dear Ann Cannon • We have an old, smallish dog. He’s a gentle soul who is very easy to be around. We have relatives with younger, more vivacious and exuberant dogs who come to stay from time to time. These other dogs are very upsetting to our poor old guy. How do we kindly tell our relatives to make other arrangements or to keep their pets under control? We enjoy their visits, but we feel sorry for our dear old pet.

— Old Pet’s Caretaker

Dear Caretaker • Oh, gosh. It’s the easiest thing in the world for me to sit here alone at my computer and tell you that you should have an honest, respectful conversation about your concerns with your relatives. Having that conversation in real life is a lot harder. Still, I think that’s the best solution.

If you’re worried, however, that sharing your concerns might genuinely offend your relatives, there are other options. You could isolate your pet when guests arrive — crate him or put him in a room away from the other dogs. It doesn’t really seem fair that he’s the one who has to be in “time out,” but there it is. My guess is that he probably won’t mind.

Dear Ann Cannon • How do you explain to your tween-age daughter (who wants to be a veterinarian) that to do an internet search for “wiener cat” could lead to serious problems?

— I’m Serious. Look up Wiener Cat.

Dear I’m Serious • Readers will probably think I made up this question. I didn’t. Also, I took your advice, and … yes, Virginia, there is a wiener cat.

Ann Cannon is The Tribune’s advice columnist. Got a question for Ann? Email her at askann@sltrib.com or visit the Ask Ann Cannon page on Facebook.

Grants, N.M. • A Texas-based company won’t resume operations at an inactive uranium mine and instead plans to begin an estimated 16 months of closure activity to reclaim the site in western New Mexico, officials said.

State officials on Friday confirmed Hobson, Texas-based Rio Grande Resource Corp. provided formal notice in early December of its plan to close the Mount Taylor Mine near Grants, the Gallup Independent reported.

Bill Brancard, general counsel of the state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, said company officials previously told state officials that the price of uranium meant Rio Grande couldn't justify anticipated capital spending to resume mining.

The mine and its 286-acre site has been on standby status since 1999, but a permit revision approved by the state in 2017 allowed it to go active again. The permit revision also required the company to notify the Mining and Minerals Division of the department 30 days before performing any closeout or reclamation activities at the site.

A plan filed with the state details how the company will reclaim the site.

Grants Mayor Martin “Modey" Hicks worked at the Mount Taylor site and said nine people were laid off Monday. He called the closing “a death blow to Grants and Milan."

Environmental groups have been fighting the state’s previous decision to allow uranium to be extracted again from the mine, and environmental activists hailed the closing announcement.

Staff attorney Eric Jantz, of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, said the mine wasn’t “viable economically or sustainable environmentally."

“We’re looking forward to a thorough reclamation of this mine that people have been living beside for so many decades," Jantz said.

Laura Watchempino, a member of the Multicultural Alliance and the Laguna-Acoma Coalition for a Safe Environment, said that closure is “heartening news for this very sacred and unique landscape.”

The mine operated from 1980 to 1982 and from 1985 to 1990, before the New Mexico Mining Act came into effect.

The mine's previous owner, Chevron Resources, sold it to Rio Grande Resources in 1991.

Grants was once called the uranium capital of the world. Millions of tons of uranium were mined from the region that includes Navajo Nation, which is still reeling from the decades that the federal government allowed the mining on and around its reservation.

Between the late 1940s and the mid-1980s, about 4 million tons (3.6 million metric tons) of uranium were extracted from mines on the reservation.

At the time, uranium was mined to produce nuclear weapons for World War II and the Cold War.

The ore was removed via conventional underground mining, a practice that allowed uranium to seep into the land and water in the surrounding area.

Rio Grande Resources is affiliated with San Diego-based General Atomics.

Las Cruces, N.M. • A good book can take a reader on a journey, but for migrants on an actual journey a book can also uplift, entertain and inspire.

New Mexico author Denise Chavez created Libros para el Viaje, or books for the journey, with that idea in mind.

"Our commitment is to deliver books to our children, young people and adults where ever they are housed," Chavez said.

That includes shelters on both sides of the border, camps near international bridges in Ciudad Juárez, where people are waiting for the chance to make an asylum claim, and a small library in Anapra, a working-class community that borders New Mexico.

Chavez came up with the idea at her Casa Camino Real bookstore in Las Cruces when a friend came in looking for English/Spanish dictionaries for migrants temporarily staying at the Peace Lutheran Church respite center.

Chavez began taking books to that temporary shelter last May and expanded to include other churches and nonprofits helping migrants and refugees in Las Cruces.

She ramped up the effort during the humanitarian crisis this year when thousands of migrant families released by Border Patrol briefly needed shelter in Las Cruces before making their way to other cities in the U.S. to stay with relatives or sponsors until an immigration judge decides their asylum cases.

"Each time we received families, Denise would come and do storytelling and lay out books so every single person, adults, youth and children got to take a book with them," said Kari Lenander, executive director of the nonprofit Border Servant Corps.

The books did more than help migrants pass the time.

"A dad would come and pick up a baby book and just start reading through. And it would be a bilingual book, and he would be practicing in both languages," Lenander said.

"One can't stop because you realize the power and the magnitude, the importance of a book to a child, somebody living in a tent, somebody who's just come out of confinement," Chavez said.

Now, she and volunteers with the Border Servant Corps are taking books to Ciudad Juárez to asylum seekers waiting weeks or months for a decision on their asylum cases under the Migrant Protection Protocol commonly known as the "Remain in Mexico" policy established by the Trump administration.

"The waiting is very hard and a book will help that," Chavez said.

The American Booksellers Association joined the effort to bring books to the border when the independent booksellers group held its conference in Albuquerque in February.

More than 50 bookstores nationwide have donated books, according to Chavez. Faculty and students in the Spanish and Portuguese departments at the University of New Mexico have also contributed to Libros para el Viaje.

The books can be new or used but in good condition – as was the case with an anthology of Walt Whitman's works translated to Spanish.

"I remember this young man from Honduras literally hugging that book," Chavez said.

Volunteers in Minneapolis-St. Paul launched Books for Border Kids to buy bilingual, Spanish and Portuguese reading material with the help of Red Balloon Book shop and Wild Rumpus books. During the two-month book drive about 3,000 donated books were shipped free of charge to Las Cruces, according to Chavez.

Writers have also donated their own books, including bestselling children's author Adam Rubin. The Barcelona-based writer sent 140 books, including his popular "Fiesta Secreta de Pizza" featuring a raccoon that loves pizza and "Dragones y Tacos" about dragons that love tacos but have to avoid hot salsa, which causes them to spew fire. The books are illustrated by Daniel Salieri.

Along with giving books to migrant children and their families, the book drive helps a small library that serves children in Mexico living in Anapra, a struggling community that borders New Mexico.

Chavez, Lenander and volunteers with the Border Servant Corps make monthly visits to the Biblioteca para La Vida to participate in Saturday morning storytelling sessions.

"The kids will come in their pajamas and just put blankets and pillows all over the floor," Lenander said.

In December, the children each got their own bookbag with a book and toy and celebrated the season with a piñata shaped like a big book. Chavez read from "Dragones y Tacos" during the Christmas party as the kids munched on tacos.

Stories are what bind, she said.

"We're on a journey, all of us together as human beings," Chavez said. "We're on that road and we need to reflect on the fact that we're all familia. We're all connected to each other."

To donate books or volunteer contact Casa Camino Real Book Store at 575-523-3988 or the Border Servant Corp.

To cope with explosive prescription drug prices, the state of Utah came up with an unorthodox option for the public employees it insures: Pay them to go to Mexico.

In other countries, specialty drugs can cost as little as half the U.S. price — which means the savings for taxpayers can be substantial. But the plan raised questions: Is it safe? Would Utahns be willing to make the trip over the international border to Tijuana, 700 miles away? And why are drug prices so much higher in America?

With the support of the Association of Health Care Journalists and The Commonwealth Fund, The Salt Lake Tribune sent a reporter to Tijuana to find out more.

Read the full story here.

On New Year’s Day, my 18-year-old granddaughter learned something unbelievable about her father, a matter so astonishing that she was both shocked and impressed.

Years ago, my son-in-law turned down a call to serve a mission in Costa Rica for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He decided at the last minute it just wasn’t for him, that he was going for everyone else but himself. He’d much rather stay home and marry my daughter. And I’m glad he did.

Granddaughter • “Really! Why haven’t I heard about this before?”

Him • [Shrugged] “Wasn’t a big deal by the time you came along.”

It was a big deal at the time. I was there. He endured a lot of family and social pressure to serve the Lord by doing something that had every possibility of being disastrous for himself.

My granddaughter — who isn’t a Latter-day Saint — understands. In the past couple of months, six of her friends have returned home early from missions. One because of an injury, but the rest because they discovered that the mission environment simply wasn’t for them.

It certainly wasn’t for me, but I went anyway. I don’t know what it’s like today, but 50 years ago, mission life in South America was stifling.

We had almost no contact with home. We talked to our moms by phone on Mother’s Day — if the lines were working. And we got mail once a week.

But no missionaries left unless they were sent home in disgrace for misbehavior. Dedication was a huge factor in staying out, but so was the reality of enduring shame if we went home early.

I was already familiar with shame. When word got out that I intended to go on a mission, supposed friends tried to shame me out of it, trivializing what I knew was going to be difficult. Only one of them bothered to look me up when I got home, and I don’t miss the rest.

Despite the genuine feelings of going insane at the time, I did the entire two years. But there were some who wished I had given up and gone home.

They expected I would be sent home after I told the mission president’s first counselor to consume something vile (and using the precise vile word to describe it) one morning when he tried belittling me in front of a bunch of other elders. But I was young and immature then. Do I regret my behavior today?

Nope.

Better missionaries than Elder Kirby were sent home. Out of 250 to 300 elders and sisters, I think we lost four during my two years. Oddly, it wasn’t the two who got shot, the one who was stabbed, the four who had a parent or sibling die, and the 40 or 50 who received “Dear John/Joan” letters.

Is shame a factor in young men and women deciding to stick with a mission? Yeah. Shame is probably one of the strongest emotions humans have next to love. It’s our go-to method for people who don’t measure up to our arbitrary standards.

Though the church has developed programs to help early returnees and the culture is becoming more welcoming, some stigma, unfair as it is, still exists. Missionaries know that their congregation and family may speculate about their worthiness and/or commitment to the gospel. Like it’s any of their business. But it’s the price of being true to yourself.

I stuck it out. But I wouldn’t be able to do it today. I’m older now and even less cooperative than I was back then. But it taught me a valuable lesson.

Given what I went through, I understand when young missionaries come home early. After all, if God called them to go, couldn’t he also call them to go home?

Robert Kirby is The Salt Lake Tribune’s humor columnist. Follow Kirby on Facebook.

Police early Sunday arrested 17 demonstrators who had been camping in the park that surrounds Salt Lake City Hall to protest the treatment of people experiencing homelessness.

The group, a subset of the activist group Civil Riot called the Take Shelter Coalition, set up tents in Washington Square Park on Thursday. Group members said demonstrators would stay there until public officials listened to their demands, which include opening a downtown shelter to replace the now-shuttered Road Home and to stop ticketing people for camping.

It took police in riot gear more than three hours to clear them all out.

Police have basically swept the park. They are encountering resistance from folks who've bunched up pic.twitter.com/bg6Xaicxbw

— Paighten🆒Harkins (@PaightenHarkins) January 5, 2020

Tensions between police and protesters had been escalating since the group arrived at the park. Activist Marvin Oliveros told The Salt Lake Tribune on Friday that police had been intimidating demonstrators. Officers went through the park Friday night and Saturday evening, leaving printouts of city ordinances outlining the park’s curfew and the camping prohibition, which upset many of the protesters.

Video of the Saturday evening encounter, which demonstrators characterized as an ambush, shows protesters shouting at the officers circulating the notices, with the person behind the camera telling other demonstrators they aren’t obligated to talk to police and not to accept any paper they’re offered.

Joe Peterson, who said he is homeless, was camping at Washington Square but followed police instructions to leave there 11 p.m. Saturday. Peterson said Sunday that he felt he had made his point about how Salt Lake City policies and Operation Rio Grande are keeping homeless people on the move and making it harder for them to find food and jobs.

“I think the folks that stayed [Saturday] night got more involved with their personal agendas than ours,” Peterson said.

At a Sunday afternoon news conference, Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown commended his officers and accused the group cleared from Washington Square of being not just protestors but agitators. He said the group had refused to meet with him, Mayor Jackie Biskupski and Mayor-elect Erin Mendenhall.

Brown also accused some of those cleared from Washington Square of being the same people who clashed with police at Inland Port meetings last year. He said the group is making allegations about the police that are inflaming tensions and putting officers in danger.

Homeless shelters had 74 available beds Saturday night, Brown said. “That is a narrative that these individuals do not want you to hear."

Salt Lake City police also played for reporters two videos. One was an interview with a witness who asserted someone associated with Civil Riot was encouraging homeless staying in Library Square to move to Washington Square. The second video was of officers trying to respond to a drug overdose in Washington Square and being slowed by the protesters.

A post on the Civil Riot Facebook page says that medics arrived at the park but wouldn’t go inside the campsite until police arrived to escort them. It said, ”This person was made unsafe by having to wait for cops in order to get to a [hospital]. … [W]e were all made unsafe by the presence of cops in camp. Cops anywhere make us all less safe.”

The overdose victim is recovering, Salt Lake City police spokesman Michael Ruff said Sunday.

On Saturday evening, about an hour after officers arrived to give their second and final warning to demonstrators, coalition organizer KC Fralick said she knew officers were going to come back later. Numerous people had already packed up and left because of it.

And while the group members initially said they planned to stay, perhaps, indefinitely, Fralick explained the coalition wouldn’t pressure any protesters to stay if they didn’t want to. “Everybody’s going to have to make some hard decisions,” she said.

Adding, “The work we are doing here is crucial. I think that unsheltered people in our community are so frequently cast aside, and we have a real opportunity to show that we will not quietly allow this continued systemic persecution of our friends and neighbors.”

Police returned about 10:30 p.m. Saturday. They shut down stretches of road around Salt Lake City Hall, set up floodlights and projected their voices on megaphones: After 11 p.m., police said, everyone in the park is violating curfew. Leave or face the consequences. Beds are available to those who need them.

Meanwhile, demonstrators linked arms and formed a chain around the campsite, shouting back protest chants and their demands that drowned out the commands.

“No police harassment!” a protester called. “No police harassment,” the group yelled back.

A majority of demonstrators left the park in a procession just after 11 p.m., chanting “Si se puede," in English: Yes, you can.

About an hour later, officers wearing riot gear began moving closer, incrementally, until they surrounded the demonstration campground on three sides.

The more than a dozen who remained gathered in the heart of the campsite, singing as police closed in. The two sides met. Police pushed in, demonstrators pushed back and onlookers, many with cameras trained on the clash, shouted in protest of what they saw.

“Leave now,” an officer called.

“You leave now,” a protester shouted back.

Shouting continued until about 2 a.m., when police were done. The campers were dispersed, and tents, pieces of clothing, bedding and bags left in their wake. Wilking said officers would collect personal belongings and store them until the owners could pick them up.

On its Twitter account, Salt Lake City Police Department posted that officers showed “great restraint." “We have planned and carried out a strategic removal of the protesters tonight. We have provided resources for those that are experiencing homelessness. We invite a civil dialogue to address concerns.”

Early Sunday, the police reported 16 arrests. That was updated to 17 by Sunday afternoon. Four were booked into Salt Lake County jail, according to a police news release; 13 others were cited.

Fralick was among those arrested. Jail records show she was booked and later released on suspicion of infraction-level curfew violation, disorderly conduct and a misdemeanor count of interfering with an arresting officer.

Marvin Oliveros also was arrested. Jail records show he was booked and later released on suspicion of disorderly conduct, interfering with arresting officer and failure to disperse — all misdemeanors.

On Friday, Oliveros said he and other activists had tried the “proper channels” (sending out a demand letter, asking for meetings, attending and protesting at a City Council meeting) to express their concerns, but the group members didn’t get the response they wanted.

This demonstration, he said, while set up just yards from City Hall, was not for the people who work inside the building. It was for the everyday folks who’d pass by the pop-up tent city and wonder why it was there.

“Whether it be people driving by just being curious, or people that might have noticed things here and there and now they see this [demonstration], and maybe that gives them enough interest to really dig in themselves,” he said.

The coalition has advocated to replace the 400 emergency shelter beds that disappeared with The Road Home’s closure, for police to stop writing camping tickets until those additional beds are created, to change the law to increase the occupancy caps at the three new shelter centers and provide free public transportation fare for everyone staying at a shelter.

Biskupski and Mendenhall released a joint statement that in part read: “As the mayor and mayor-elect of Salt Lake City, we acknowledge, understand, and share the public’s concern about people sleeping outdoors in winter conditions and their ability to access safe shelter. Salt Lake City has been working on and investing in solutions that treat those experiencing homelessness with dignity. It is our goal and responsibility to ensure that everyone is safe from harm.”

Their statement ended with, “We hope that future conversations will occur with all partners. These are challenges that require meaningful dialogue, support and effort from all of us.”

Amid concerns about capacity during the cold weather months, leaders in the transition to the new homeless services system have promised no one would be turned away and have made space available in a 24-hour warming room at the Weigand Center, which offers people a place to get out of the cold but is not meant for sleeping.

Saturday, after many of the coalition members dispersed, Oliveros said he and organizer Ethan Petersen were planning to meet police as they entered the campground.

Jail records say Petersen also was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor counts of interfering with an officer and criminal trespass.

Brown also rebutted accusations from some of the protesters that police have been stealing sleeping bags, tents and other winter gear. Brown said officers have taken such items as evidence when arresting someone for a crime or for outstanding warrants but is not taking them just because someone is homeless.

Brown made repeated references to the Washington Square camp being a public danger. He referenced the Occupy Salt Lake protests in Pioneer Park in 2011 and an episode in which a man in a tent, Michael Manhard, 42, died from carbon monoxide poisoning. His death spurred then-Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank to clear the park.

“I will not have another person needlessly die in an Occupy camp like the man that died at the Occupy camp in 2011," said Brown, who was then a captain with Salt Lake City police.

Baghdad • The U.S. military presence in the Middle East was thrown into jeopardy Sunday, as Iraq’s Parliament voted to expel U.S. troops from their country while the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said the U.S. military across the region “will pay the price” for killing a top Iranian general.

Hassan Nasrallah said that U.S. bases, warships and soldiers in the Middle East were all fair targets after the U.S. drone strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the architect of many of Iran's regional military campaigns in recent years.

The two developments were new signs of the backlash from Friday's killing of Soleimani and a number of top Iraqi officials at the Baghdad airport, and further heightened tensions in a region already on high alert and bracing for an Iranian retaliation.

Later Sunday, at least three explosions shook the Iraqi capital and sirens sounded across the Tigris River. The blasts appeared to be mortars or rockets that landed inside the heavily fortified Green Zone where the U.S. and other embassies are based, as well as the seat of Iraq's government. There was no immediate word on casualties. It was the second such attack in two days.

“The suicide attackers who forced the Americans to leave from our region in the past are still here and their numbers have increased,” said Nasrallah. It was not clear which suicide bombings Nasrallah was referring to. But a 1983 attack on a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killed 241 U.S. servicemen and led President Ronald Reagan to withdraw all American forces from the country.

"When American troops return in coffins, when they come vertically and return horizontally to the United States of America, then Trump and his administration will know that they lost the region and will lose the elections," Nasrallah said. He added that U.S. civilians in the region should not be targeted, because attacking them would play into President Donald Trump's hands.

Nasrallah spoke from an undisclosed location, and his speech was played on large screens for thousands of Shiite followers in southern Beirut, interrupted by chants of “Death to America!” The comments were Nasrallah’s first since Soleimani’s killing.

The stark warning by Nasrallah came as Iraq’s parliament voted in favor of a nonbinding resolution calling for the expulsion of U.S. troops from their country in a move that that could pave the way for a resurgence of the Islamic State group.

The resolution asks the Iraqi government to end the agreement under which Washington sent forces more than four years ago to help fight the IS extremists. The bill is subject to approval by the Iraqi government but has the backing of the outgoing prime minister.

Amid threats of vengeance from Iran, the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq said Sunday it is putting the battle against IS militants on hold to focus on protecting its own troops and bases.

In a strong speech before lawmakers in Iraq's parliament, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said that after the killing of Soleimani, the government has two choices: End the presence of foreign troops in Iraq or restrict their mission to training Iraqi forces. He called for “urgent measures” to remove foreign forces — including the estimated 5,200 U.S. troops.

Asked shortly before the parliamentary vote whether the U.S. would comply with an Iraqi government request for American troops to leave, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not answer directly, saying the U.S. was watching the situation.

But the added: “It is the United States that is prepared to help the Iraqi people get what it is they deserve and continue our mission there to take down terrorism from ISIS and others in the region,” using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State.

Abdul-Mahdi resigned last year in response to the anti-government protests that have engulfed Baghdad and the mostly Shiite southern provinces. Political factions have been unable to agree on a new prime minister, and Abdul-Mahdi continues in a caretaker capacity. Experts said such a government is not legally authorized to sign such a law.

American forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011 but returned in 2014 at the invitation of the government to help battle IS after it seized vast areas in the north and west of the country, including Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. A U.S.-led coalition provided crucial air support as Iraqi forces, including Iran-backed militias, regrouped and drove IS out in a costly three-year campaign.

A pullout of U.S. troops could could cripple the fight against the Islamic State and allow it to make a comeback. Militants affiliated with IS routinely carry out attacks in northern and western Iraq, hiding out in rugged desert and mountainous areas. Iraqi forces rely on the U.S. for logistics and weapons.

An American withdrawal could also enable Iran to deepen its influence in Iraq, a majority Shiiite country like Iran.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Fox News that the parliamentary vote is “a bit concerning.”

“The Iranian government is trying to basically take over Iraq’s political system. Iran is bribing Iraqi politicians. To the Iraqi people, do not allow your politicians to turn Iraq into a proxy of Iran," the South Carolina Republican said.

The majority of about 180 legislators present in Parliament voted in favor of the troop-removal resolution. It was backed by most Shiite members of Parliament, who hold a majority of seats. Many Sunni and Kurdish legislators did not show up for the session, apparently because they oppose abolishing the deal.

Killing Iran’s most powerful general — a step Abdul-Mahdi called a "political assassination” — marked a turning point in U.S. Mideast policy by elevating a conflict that had previously been more of a shadow war, and by putting in doubt the Pentagon’s ability to keep troops in Iraq.

Nairobi, Kenya • Al-Shabab extremists overran a key military base used by U.S. counterterror forces in Kenya before dawn Sunday, killing three American Department of Defense personnel and destroying several U.S. aircraft and vehicles before they were repelled, U.S. and Kenyan authorities said.

The attack on the Manda Bay Airfield was the al-Qaida-linked group's first attack against U.S. forces in the East African country, and the military called the security situation “fluid” several hours after the assault.

Five attackers were killed, Kenyan military spokesman Paul Njuguna said.

Al-Shabab, based in neighboring Somalia, claimed responsibility for the assault.

One U.S. serviceman and two contractors with the U.S. Department of Defense were killed in the fighting, according to a statement issued late Sunday by the U.S. Africa Command, or Africom.

The attack on the compound “involved indirect and small arms fire. After an initial penetration of the perimeter, Kenya Defense Forces and U.S. Africa Command repelled the al-Shabaab attack," said the AFRICOM statement. “Reports indicate that six contractor-operated civilian aircraft were damaged to some degree. Manda Bay Airfield is utilized by U.S. forces whose missions include providing training to our African partners, responding to crises, and protecting U.S. interests in this strategically important area.”

Al-Shabab claimed that there were 17 U.S. casualties, nine Kenyan soldiers killed and seven aircraft destroyed. The U.S. Africa Command dismissed the al-Shabab claims as exaggerated and said U.S. and Kenyan forces repelled the attack.

Kenya is a key base for fighting al-Shabab, one of the world's most resilient extremist organizations. A large plume of black smoke rose above the airfield Sunday and residents said a car bomb had exploded. Lamu county commissioner Irungu Macharia told The Associated Press that five suspects were arrested and were being interrogated.

An internal Kenyan police report seen by the AP said two fixed-wing aircraft, a U.S. Cessna and a Kenyan one, were destroyed along with two U.S. helicopters and multiple U.S. vehicles at the military airstrip. The report said explosions were heard at around 5:30 a.m. from the direction of the airstrip.

The Kenya Civil Aviation Authority said the airstrip was closed for all operations.

The military's Camp Simba in Lamu county, established more than a decade ago, has under 100 U.S. personnel, according to Pentagon figures. U.S. forces at the adjoining Manda Bay airfield train and give counterterror support to East African partners. A U.S. flag-raising at the camp in August signaled its change “from tactical to enduring operations," the Air Force said at the time.

According to another internal Kenyan police report seen by the AP, dated Friday, a villager that day said he had spotted 11 suspected al-Shabab members entering Lamu's Boni forest, which the extremists have used as a hideout. The report said Kenyan authorities didn't find them.

Al-Shabab has launched a number of attacks inside Kenya, including against civilian buses, schools and shopping malls. The group has been the target of a growing number of U.S. airstrikes inside Somalia during President Donald Trump’s administration.

The latest attack comes just over a week after an al-Shabab truck bomb in Somalia’s capital killed at least 79 people and U.S. airstrikes killed seven al-Shabab fighters in response.

Last year, al-Shabab attacked a U.S. military base inside Somalia, Baledogle, that is used to launch drone strikes but reportedly failed to make their way inside. The extremist group also has carried out multiple attacks against Kenyan troops in the past in retaliation for Kenya sending troops to Somalia to fight it.

This attack marks a significant escalation of al-Shabab's campaign of attacks inside Kenya, said analyst Andrew Franklin, a former U.S. Marine and longtime Kenya resident.

“Launching a deliberate assault of this type against a well-defended permanent base occupied by (Kenya Defence Forces), contractors and U.S. military personnel required a great deal of planning, rehearsals, logistics and operational capability,” he said. Previous attacks against security forces have mainly been ambushes on Kenyan army or police patrols.

The Sunday attack came days after a U.S. airstrike killed Iran’s top military commander and Iran vowed retaliation, but al-Shabab is a Sunni Muslim group and there is no sign of links to Shiite Iran or proxies.

"No, this attack was no way related to that incident” in the Middle East, an al-Shabab spokesman told the AP on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

One analyst, Rashid Abdi, in Twitter posts discussing the attack, agreed, but added that Kenyan security services have long been worried that Iran was trying to cultivate ties with al-Shabab.

“Avowedly Wahhabist Al-Shabaab not natural ally of Shia Iran, hostile, even. But if Kenyan claims true, AS attack may have been well-timed to signal to Iran it is open for tactical alliances," he wrote.

But a former member of the U.N. committee monitoring sanctions on Somalia, Jay Bahadur, said in a tweet that “the attack is far more related to AS wanting a do over on their spectacular failure at Baledogle four months ago.”

When asked whether the U.S. military was looking into any Iranian link to the attack, U.S. Africa Command spokesman Col. Christopher Karns said only that “al-Shabab, affiliated with al-Qaida, has their own agenda and have made clear their desire to attack U.S. interests."

The al-Shabab claim of responsibility said Sunday's attack was part of its “Jerusalem will never be Judaized" campaign, a rarely made reference that also was used after al-Shabab's deadly attack on a luxury mall complex in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, in January 2019.

Somalia’s government, which is fighting al-Shabab with the help of a multinational African force, The Federal Republic of Somalia joins the rest of the world in condemning the cowardly attack that targeted joint Kenyan and U.S forces based at Manda Bay Airfield, Kenya earlier today.

Washington • The U.S. military may strike more Iranian leaders if the Islamic Republic retaliates for the Trump administration’s killing of Tehran’s most powerful general last week by attacking Americans or American interests, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday.

As Pompeo conducted a round of TV interviews to explain President Donald Trump’s decision to target Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the repercussions from that attack played out: The Iraqi Parliament called on the 5,200 U.S. forces in the country to leave; the U.S. military coalition in Baghdad suspended training of Iraqi forces to concentrate on defending coalition troops; and in Beirut, the Lebanese Hezbollah chief said U.S. forces throughout the Mideast are fair targets for retaliation.

Even a Trump ally, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the move by Iraqi lawmakers “a bit concerning.''

[Read more: Al-Shabab attacks military base used by U.S. forces in Kenya]

In Tehran, Iranian state television reported that the country will no longer abide by any limits of the 2015 nuclear deal it signed with the United States and other world powers. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal in 2018 and stepped up economic sanctions on Tehran — actions that accelerated a cycle of hostilities leading to the Soleimani killing.

The State Department had no immediate comment on Iran reportedly abandoning the nuclear deal, a move that holds the prospect of Iran accelerating its production of materials for a nuclear weapon.

Trump continued issuing warnings to Iran by tweet. “These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner," he wrote Sunday afternoon. “Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!”

The tweet also appeared to serve as a warning to Congress – that Trump would respond quickly to any attack and without first gaining the approval of lawmakers. Democrats in Congress have complained that Trump’s order to kill Soleimani took place without first consulting with or informing top lawmakers, noting that Congress still holds sole power to declare war. Trump did meet the 48-hour deadline required by the War Powers Act to notify Congress of the deadly drone strike, though the document provided Saturday was entirely classified and no public version was released.

The White House faced a barrage of questions about the killing's legality. On Sunday, Pompeo said the administration would have been “culpably negligent” in its duty to protect the United States if it had not killed Soleimani, although he did not provide evidence for his previous claims that Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on American

Instead of arguing that an attack had been imminent, Pompeo said it was inevitable.

"We watched him continue to actively build out for what was going to be a significant attack – that’s what we believed – and we made the right decision,” he said, adding later: “We continue to prepare for whatever it is the Iranian regime may put in front of us within the next 10 minutes, within the next 10 days, and within the next 10 weeks.”

[Read more: Iraq’s Parliament calls for expulsion of U.S. troops]

Congressional Democrats were skeptical.

“I really worry that the actions the president took will get us into what he calls another endless war in the Middle East. He promised we wouldn't have that,” said Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate's top Democrat.

Schumer said Trump lacks the authority to engage militarily with Iran and Congress needs a new war powers resolution “to be a check on this president.” To which Pompeo said: “We have all the authority we need to do what we’ve done to date.”

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said the administration violated the Constitution by not consulting with Congress in advance.

“It's also important because one, you potentially get members of Congress to buy in ahead of time, and two, they may ask that hard question that's not asked in an insular group,” Warner said.

Congressional staffs got their first briefings from the administration on Friday, and members are expected to be briefed this week.

Pompeo appeared on six news shows while Trump kept silent on the final day of his holiday break in Florida. The appearances by the top American diplomat appeared aimed at dissuading Iran from launching a major retaliation for the Soleimani killing. The Iranians have said the U.S. should expect a strong response. They have a range of options, from cyberattacks to military assaults.

It was unclear whether the administration would attempt a back door communication with Iran in pursuit of its stated goal of “de-escalation” of tensions. Retired Gen. David Petraeus, an ex-CIA director and former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said he believes the administration needs a strategy for tamping down the chances of all-out war.

“I think the real question for the United States is, will there be a diplomatic initiative that says, OK, look, this is not headed in a good direction. We truly do want to de-escalate. Everyone is going to lose if this continues to ratchet upward. Can we now sit down and talk,” Petraeus said.

Pompeo declined to say whether he had sought to communicate with Iran since Friday. He stressed the U.S. resolve to hold Iran accountable for its interventions in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Mideast.

Pompeo said the Obama administration had tried to “challenge and attack everybody who was running around with an AK-47 or a piece of indirect artillery. We've made a very different approach. We've told the Iranian regime, 'Enough. You can't get away with using proxy forces and think your homeland will be safe and secure.' We're going to respond against the actual decision-makers, the people who are causing this threat from the Islamic Republic of Iran."

He said the cost to Iran if it uses proxy forces to hit American targets will come down on no just those proxies, which are present in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere.

“They will be borne by Iran and its leadership itself,” Pompeo said. "Those are important things the Iranian leadership needs to put in its calculus as it makes its next decision.”

Pompeo tip-toed around questions about Trump's tweet Saturday threatening to attack Iranian cultural sites, a military action that likely would be illegal under the laws of armed conflict and the U.N. charter.

Trump wrote that if Iran were to strike “any Americans, or American assets, we have targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD."

Pompeo said any U.S. military strikes inside Iran would be legal.

“We'll behave inside the system,” Pompeo said. “We always have and we always will.”

One U.S. national security official said Trump’s threat had caught many in the administration off guard and prompted calls for others in the government, including Pompeo, to clarify the matter. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly to the issue, said clarification was necessary to affirm that the U.S. military would not intentionally commit war crimes.

Oona Hathaway, an international law professor at Yale and a former national security law official in the Defense Department's legal office, said in an interview that Trump's threat amounted to “a pretty clear promise of commission of a war crime.” She said the Soleimani killing likely also was illegal because the administration has not shown the threat he posed was imminent in the sense that it was so urgent that action was required without consulting Congress.

She cited legal problems with both of Trump's Saturday threats — the threat to hit 52 targets in Iran for symbolic reasons, and the threat to strike Iranian cultural sites. Both, she said, would be war crimes — the targeting of 52 sites because Trump justifies it on symbolic grounds of retribution for Iran's hostage-taking 40 years, and the hitting of cultural sites because that would be illegal under the 1954 Hague Convention for the protection of cultural sites.

The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, referred questions about the Trump tweet to the White House.

Some of the Democrats running to challenge Trump in November questioned whether he had a long-term plan for the Mideast.

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Trump was ill-prepared for the repercussions of the strike on Soleimani and had alienated allies by not alerting them of the plans. “I think we need a president who could provide steady leadership on Day One,” he said. “The next president is going to inherit a divided nation and a world in disarray.”

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind. said: “When you’re dealing with the Middle East, you need to think about the next and the next and the next move. This is not checkers. And I’m not sure any of us really believe that this president and the people around him'' are “really going through all of the consequences of what could happen next.”

And Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a juror in Trump's upcoming impeachment trial, wondered about the timing of the attack on the Iranian general.

"I think the question people reasonably ask is, ‘Next week Donald Trump faces the start potentially of an impeachment trial. And why now?’ I think people are starting to ask, ‘Why now did he do this? Why not delay?’ And why this one is so dangerous is that he is truly taking us right to the edge of war,'' she said.

Pompeo appeared on ABC’s “This Week," CNN’s “State of the Union,” NBC’s “Meet the Press,”' CBS’ “Face the Nation,'' ”Fox News Sunday" and Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” Schumer was on ABC, Warner and Warren were on NBC, Petraeus was on CBS, Buttigieg was on CNN and Graham was on Fox News Channel.

Tehran, Iran • The blowback over the U.S. killing of a top Iranian general mounted Sunday as Iran announced it will no longer abide by the limits contained in the 2015 nuclear deal and Iraq’s Parliament called for the expulsion of all American troops from Iraqi soil.

The twin developments could bring Iran closer to building an atomic bomb and enable the Islamic State group to stage a comeback in Iraq, making the Middle East a far more dangerous and unstable place.

Iranian state television cited a statement by President Hassan Rouhani's administration saying the country would not observe the deal's restrictions on fuel enrichment, on the size of its enriched uranium stockpile and on its research and development activities.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran no longer faces any limitations in operations," a state TV broadcaster said.

In Iraq, meanwhile, lawmakers voted in favor of a resolution calling for an end to the foreign military presence in the country, including the estimated 5,200 U.S. troops stationed to help fight Islamic State extremists. The bill is subject to approval by the Iraqi government but has the backing of the outgoing prime minister.

[Read more: Iraq’s Parliament calls for expulsion of U.S. troops]

In yet another sign of rising tensions and threats of retaliation over the deadly airstrike, the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq said it is putting the battle against IS on hold to focus on protecting its own troops and bases.

The string of developments capped a day of mass mourning over Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad on Friday. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets in the cities of Ahvaz and Mashhad to walk alongside the casket of Soleimani, who was the architect of Iran's proxy wars across the Mideast and was blamed for the deaths of hundreds of Americans in suicide bombings and other attacks.

The U.S. State Department had no immediate comment on Iran's announcement.

As for the troop-withdrawal vote in Iraq, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said the U.S. is awaiting clarification on its legal meaning but was “disappointed” by the move and strongly urged Iraq to reconsider.

“We believe it is in the shared interests of the United States and Iraq to continue fighting ISIS together,” Ortagus said.

The leaders of Germany, France and Britain issued a joint statement on Sunday calling on Iran to abide by the terms of the nuclear deal and refrain from conducting or supporting further “violent acts.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson specifically urged Iran to “withdraw all measures” not in line with the 2015 agreement that was intended to stop Tehran from pursuing its atomic weapons program.

Iran insisted that it remains open to negotiations with European partners over its nuclear program. And it did not back off from earlier promises that it wouldn't seek a nuclear weapon.

However, the announcement represents the clearest nuclear proliferation threat yet made by Iran since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018 and reimposed sanctions. It further raises regional tensions, as Iran's longtime foe Israel has promised never to allow Iran to produce an atomic bomb.

Iran did not elaborate on what levels it would immediately reach in its program. Tehran has already broken some of the deal's limits as part of a step-by-step pressure campaign to get sanctions relief. It has increased its production, begun enriching uranium to 5% and restarted enrichment at an underground facility.

While it does not possess uranium enriched to weapons-grade levels of 90%, any push forward narrows the estimated one-year “breakout time” needed for it to have enough material to build a nuclear weapon if it chose to do so.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations watchdog observing Iran's program, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, Iran said that its cooperation with the IAEA “will continue as before.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi earlier told journalists that Soleimani's killing would prompt Iranian officials to take a bigger step away from the nuclear deal.

“In the world of politics, all developments are interconnected," Mousavi said.

In Iraq, where the airstrike has been denounced as a violation of the country's sovereignty, Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said that the government has two choices: End the presence of foreign troops or restrict their mission to training Iraqi forces. He called for the first option.

The majority of about 180 legislators present in Parliament voted in favor of the troop-removal resolution. It was backed by most Shiite members of Parliament, who hold a majority of seats. Many Sunni and Kurdish legislators did not show up for the session, apparently because they oppose abolishing the deal.

A U.S. pullout could not only undermine the fight against the Islamic State but could also enable Iran to increase its influence in Iraq, which like Iran is a majority-Shiite country.

Soleimani's killing has escalated the crisis between Tehran and Washington after months of back-and-forth attacks and threats that have put the wider Middle East on edge. Iran has promised “harsh revenge" for the U.S. attack, while Trump has vowed on Twitter that the U.S. will strike back at 52 targets “VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. ”

The U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia warned Americans “of the heightened risk of missile and drone attacks.” In Lebanon, the leader of the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said Soleimani's killing made U.S. military bases, warships and service members across the region fair game for attacks. A former Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader suggested the Israeli city of Haifa and centers like Tel Aviv could be targeted should the U.S. attack Iran.

Iranian state TV estimated that millions of mourners came out in Ahvaz and Mashhad to pay their respects to Soleimani.

The casket moved slowly through streets choked with mourners wearing black, beating their chests and carrying posters with Soleimani's portrait. Demonstrators also carried red Shiite flags, which traditionally symbolize both the spilled blood of someone unjustly killed and a call for vengeance.

The processions marked the first time Iran honored a single man with a multicity ceremony. Not even Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic, received such a processional with his death in 1989. Soleimani on Monday will lie in state at Tehran’s famed Musalla mosque as the revolutionary leader did before him.

Soleimani's remains will go to Tehran and Qom on Monday for public mourning processions. He will be buried in his hometown of Kerman.

At a quick glance, BYU pulled a repeat during the 2020 football season — a 7-6 record, identical to the previous year. But there was growth this season, even if it looked like another middle-of-the-pack finish.

Peel away some layers, and there were some milestone wins for Kalani Sitake’s program — at Tennessee in Week 2, over USC at home the following week and, maybe most impressively, a heart-stopping victory over Boise State at LaVell Edwards Stadium in late October. That’s three wins over teams that eventually went to bowls. The Cougars also were the only team to beat the Broncos during the regular season.

Additionally, BYU reclaimed the Old Wagon Wheel, storming to a 42-14 victory over Utah State in Logan the week after upending Boise State. The Cougars were never better as a complete team than during that two-week stretch.

And yet ... it was a pair of maddening back-to-back losses as September turned into October — at Toledo and South Florida — a no-show performance at San Diego State in the regular season finale and the wild bowl loss to Hawaii that kept the Cougars from accomplishing bigger things.

Could this team have gone 9-4 or even 10-3? You could make that argument. But inconsistency was the calling card of these Cougars.

Injuries certainly played a role. The Cougars lost their A-list running back, Ty’son Williams, early on, in the loss to Washington, with a torn ACL. His backup, Sione Finau, suffered his own ACL injury in late November. BYU went to running back-by-committee the rest of the way — with Jackson McChesney emerging as a real spark down the stretch.

Then there was quarterback Zach Wilson, who went down late in the game at Toledo with a thumb injury to his throwing hand. He was out for five weeks. And finally, standout linebacker Zayne Anderson only played in two games before being sidelined again with his ongoing shoulder injury.

Wilson wound up topping his freshman year, throwing for 2,382 yards and 11 touchdowns while completing 62 percent of his passes, but his propensity for turnovers (nine interceptions), especially in the bowl game, raised questions.

The Cougars showed resiliency, for sure. With Wilson’s backup, Jaren Hall, shelved by a concussion that stayed with him for much of the rest of the season, freshman Baylor Romney stepped up and acquitted himself well in guiding BYU to wins over Boise, USU and Liberty. He gave way to Wilson late in the year, but made it clear he will be a factor in the 2020 battle for the Cougar QB job.

There were also season-long issues that had nothing to do with who played quarterback.

BYU, simply, could not stop the run in 2020, giving up 2,178 yards and 14 TDs on the ground. That’s a glaring shortcoming for a program run by a guy — Sitake — who earned his keep as a defensive coordinator before taking the Cougars’ head coaching job in 2016.

BYU’s defense did become adept at forcing turnovers — 15 picks alone, with many of them coming from the linebackers — but they couldn’t force them when really needed. Three of the four games that BYU let slip out of its hands were decided by a single touchdown or less.

Statistically BYU made huge improvements on offense from 2018. After averaging just 365 total yards that season, BYU jumped to an average of 444 yards in 2019, ranking a more-than-respectable 28th nationally.

With the rushing attack in constant flux, the offense was carried by the passing game. Even though BYU started three different quarterbacks throughout the season, the Cougars averaged 284.7 yards per game on 296 of 468 passing.

Where the Cougars struggled the most, however, was in the red zone, where only 10 FBS teams fared worse. BYU converted 73.3% of its red zone attempts.

But if the almost-weekly injuries kept the Cougars from being more consistent, they also revealed some depth at multiple positions, which bodes well going forward.

With the way Hall and Romney led the offense during Wilson’s absence, the competition at quarterback should be interesting when spring practice picks up in March.

And with many key players returning next year, BYU should be able to build off the 2019 season.

Although Williams could have possibly returned next season, having only played in four games before getting injured, the grad transfer didn’t think he stood the best chance to receive an NCAA medical waiver for a sixth year. Instead, he declared for the NFL draft.

Two other Cougars that were believed to leave BYU early to enter the NFL draft – tight end Matt Bushman and defensive lineman Khyiris Tonga – have announced they will stay in Provo for their senior seasons.

But fourth-string quarterback Joe Critchlow — who saw minimal action this year — and kicker Skyler Southam have entered the transfer portal.

Then there’s another key piece that could help unlock the Cougars’ potential next season: Sitake’s contract extension.

Since the start of the season, players made it clear they were aware of Sitake’s situation. The 2019 season would play an important role on whether the four-year coach would get a contract extension, or instead become a lame duck.

When the Cougars lost three straight, the players’ loyalty never wavered. Instead, they were more vocal about trusting Sitake in response to fans’ reactions on social media. After it seemed the Cougars had turned their program around, athletic director Tom Holmoe offered Sitake a contract extension in mid-November.

The decision to offer a contract extension should provide some stability to a program that appears to be on the right path, even if progress has been incremental.

Now, it’ll be up to Sitake to provide results in his fifth year leading the program.

You may have heard an old crank in a big house ranting about appliances and unflushable toilets the other day. “Remember the dishwasher, you’d press it, boom — there’d be like an explosion,” he said, apropos of nothing. “Now you press it 12 times.”

The bathroom is another battleground. In the shower, “you turn on the faucet, you don’t get any water.” It gets worse. “People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once.”

Of course, that was our own President Donald Trump, who will be 74 on Election Day, and would like to be known for “my great and unmatched wisdom,” even if he seems flummoxed by the great obstacle facing a toilet-training 2-year-old.

But had it been Joe Biden who muttered such gibberish, it would have prompted another round of age-shaming. Imagine if Biden had made up a country that doesn’t exist (“Nambia”), or gave a new name to his secretary of defense (“Mark Esperanto”) and the chief executive of Apple (“Tim Apple”)? Dare I mention “covfefe”? As Trump wrote, what comes out of his mouth is “unpresidented.”

Biden will be 77 on Election Day and would be the oldest person ever elected president. He mixes up places, people, dates and decades. He still shows signs of his struggle to overcome a childhood stutter, which is not to be confused with age.

Yet, compared with the tongue-tangled, fact-mangling, grammar-assaulting, nonsense-spewing, hate-and-grievance-filled current occupant of the White House, Biden is Churchill.

Which brings us to the question of how Uncle Joe should handle his age. Answer: He’s already done it, which is to signal that he would be open to serving only one term. For the record, Biden has denied what was initially leaked by his own camp and reported by Politico.

Most political pros think it’d be crazy for Biden to give himself lame-duck status from Day 1. What they miss is that such a pledge, telegraphed subtly, could be just the thing that gets him in the position to have a Day 1.

A one-term president can be unhinged or liberated or both, but is certainly not powerless. Free from overreacting to the swings of daily tracking polls, the lame duck can fly to great heights.

Nothing in a one-term president’s powers keep the executive from nominating Supreme Court justices, signing life-changing legislation, vetoing terrible bills or renewing the United States’ role as a global citizen in the existential fight against climate change.

By executive order, a one-term president can keep poisons out of rivers, forbid family separation at the border and restore the honor of the military code of justice. He can order his Justice Department to back efforts in court to ensure that people with pre-existing medical conditions are not dumped by their insurance companies. He can welcome science, civility and culture back into the White House. He can protect children from lunatics who now have easy access to military-style weapons.

And all the while, people can look to a younger and farsighted vice president as the logical next step. Perhaps the quickest way to get a President Stacey Abrams or President Pete Buttigieg is to first elect a President Biden.

Voters are exhausted by the vulgarian in chief. They want a day, a week even, when their president doesn’t lie to them, shout at them or call members of his own party or federal law enforcement “human scum.” They want their children to come out from hiding when the president appears.

Trump is retro in the worst ways, far beyond his hatred of energy-efficient light bulbs, windmills and new appliances. He’s also a remarkably lazy old man. His mornings are consumed by tweeting and bathing in the Dear Leader affirmation of Fox News. He spent one in five days last year at a golf course, and he has made 236 visits overall to golf clubs since he took office, costing taxpayers $115 million.

Biden’s support has not wavered, especially among people of color and disaffected whites — a coalition no other candidate can match. Once the nominating process gets past the white and unrepresentative states of Iowa and New Hampshire, the new America will show its power: States representing one-third of the U.S. population will vote on Super Tuesday, March 3. Biden is well positioned.

Biden’s closest rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, will be 79 on Election Day. He still has a lot of steam left in the engine. But the engine smells too much like 19th-century socialism, a failed economic system repackaged under Sanders’ slogan of a “political revolution.”

At times, Biden can sound like he’s stuck in a time warp, an era of record players and malarkey and push-up challenges. He likes to hug. But his politics are not static; he was ahead of President Barack Obama on marriage equality and the futility of the Afghan war. If an emboldened Congress were to send him a piece of substantive progressive legislation, he’d sign it.

Trump promotes, and lives in, an actual time warp — the America of white dominance and energy gluttony and butt-groping by men in power. At the dawn of a year when we all need a long convalescence from the craziness, a one-term Joe may be just the restorative.

Timothy Egan is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times.

A decomposing body was found Sunday on a hiking trail near Victory Road in Salt Lake City, according to FOX 13. Victory Road runs northwest behind the Utah Capitol Building.

Salt Lake City Police Lieutenant Brett Olsen told FOX 13 that a hiker called to report the body around 10 a.m. Sunday.

Police and representatives from the medical examiner’s office are investigating the scene.

See more at FOX 13.

This is a developing story. The Salt Lake Tribune will add more information once it’s available.

Editor’s note: The Salt Lake Tribune and FOX 13 are content-sharing partners.

New Orleans • While Jazz fans have embraced the explosive offensive capability brought to the team this season by Bojan Bogdanovic, many still can’t help but miss the man Bogey replaced — Derrick Favors.

Actually, that goes for the Jazz players, too.

Though the team and the big man who spent more than eight years of his career in Utah were first reunited in a preseason game back on Oct. 11, their first regular-season meeting was delayed when back spasms forced him to stay home and miss a scheduled return trip to Salt Lake City on Nov. 23.

And so, barring something unforeseen in the next little while, they’ll finally face off in a meaningful game for the first time Monday night at the Smoothie King Center.

“I’m definitely looking forward to it. Derrick was one of the greater teammates that I’ve ever had in the NBA,” said forward Georges Niang. “He’s just an awesome dude.”

Georges Niang, on Derrick Favors: “Derrick was one of the greater teammates that I’ve ever had in the NBA. He’s just an awesome dude. ... He always had a cool, calm, collected vibe about him. He’s an amazing person.” pic.twitter.com/ZZZPsl6ndR

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) January 5, 2020

While this year’s Jazz roster obviously has a significantly different composition than last year’s, that sentiment is pretty universal among those who remain.

“I miss my guy, for sure,” said Donovan Mitchell.

“Derrick is like a brother,” added longtime frontcourt compatriot Rudy Gobert. “We were together for six years — since I got here.”

Once it became apparent this summer that the Jazz’s major offensive overhaul would entail bringing in Bogdanovic, Favors’ days with the franchise he’d been a part of since being traded midway through his rookie season were numbered, owing to salary constraints.

Out of respect for his time here, the front office worked to get him to his landing spot of choice — New Orleans — by dealing him to the retooling Pelicans for a pair of second-round draft picks in 2021 and 2023, respectively.

Nevertheless, it has been a trying season for Favors. Ostensibly brought in to be the Pellies’ starting center, he was eyeing an expanded on-court role, but instead has been in yet another time-share situation — this time with rookie lottery pick Jaxson Hayes, veteran Jahlil Okafor and even European import Nicolò Melli.

His 23.9 minutes per game this season are similar to what he played last year with the Jazz. His scoring has dropped almost three points per game from a season ago (11.8 to 8.9), though his rebounds have jumped by almost the same amount (7.4 to a career-high 10.3).

Derrick Favors’ mom died suddenly on the week of Thanksgiving. He’s re-joined the team and is in Milwaukee today, but won’t play. During shootaround, he takes me through learning the news. “I was in place where I didn't know if I can continue to play or continue to do anything." pic.twitter.com/DB7mZ2sFYf

— Eric Woodyard (@E_Woodyard) December 11, 2019

Meanwhile, beyond the games he missed with the back spasms, he took a leave of absence from the team when his mother, Deandra, died on Nov. 25.

While his former Jazz teammates keep in regular contact with Favors via text, they also know there’s nothing quite like seeing some friendly faces, especially in the aftermath of such a tragedy.

“I’m excited to see Fav, talk to Fav,” Mitchell said before Saturday’s game in Orlando. “Ever since his mom passed, I’d love to just see him and talk to him in person and see how he’s doing.”

Donovan Mitchell, on facing Derrick Favors: “I’m excited to see Fav, talk to Fav. Ever since his mom passed, I’d love to just see him in person and see how he’s doing. I miss my guy, for sure. It’ll be exciting to play against him.” pic.twitter.com/j1S2a1hULX

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) January 5, 2020

Still, while there will be good feelings between the Atlanta native and his former compatriots, everyone recognizes this is also a business trip, and that Favors can hardly be taken for granted.

As it turns out, his play is on an upswing of late. He’s topped 30 minutes of play in four of New Orleans’ past six games. He’s scored in double digits in four straight contests, and in six of the past seven. He’s reached double-digit rebounding totals eight times in a row.

And so, Gobert — who once started alongside Favors and was spelled by him in games — is now relishing the chance to face him.

“It’s gonna be a battle — he’s playing great,” said the Frenchman. “They haven’t won a lot of games lately, but every game they play is a close game. We know that it’s gonna be a battle.”

Rudy Gobert, on Derrick Favors: “Derrick is like a brother. We were together for 6 years — since I got here. So it’s gonna be a battle — he’s playing great.” pic.twitter.com/aeyOH2LwPk

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) January 5, 2020

Though nostalgic Jazz fans now lament the absence of Favors’ rim protection and pick-and-roll chemistry with Joe Ingles, those he played with remember him more for the intangible qualities he brought.

“Came to work every day, never complained; no matter what his role changed to or what it was, he was just always ready to work. And he always had a cool, calm, collected vibe about him,” Niang said. “He’s an amazing person. I can’t wait to get down there and see him — I’ve texted with him a bunch of times since he’s left. He’s just a great dude.”

A person who is poor often is placed in situations where they make what seem to them to be reasonable decisions, decisions that to others are clearly mistakes.

They may take out high-interest loans to stay temporarily afloat. They may skip college, or even high school, so they can start bringing in full-time — if minimum-wage — paychecks right away. They may engage in criminal or other self-destructive activities seeking immediate gratification, economic and otherwise.

A community that is poor can also be moved to make bad decisions because, like an individual of limited means and few obvious prospects, they may think they have no other choice.

Such cities, counties and states may, in order to provide needed jobs and increase a minimal tax base, decide to welcome — even subsidize — business operations that clearly damage, degrade and pollute both the natural environment and the human landscape, perhaps for generations to come, in return for a sometimes sketchy promise of short-term financial gain. Because they see no alternative.

Such is the question facing local and state officials in Utah’s San Juan County.

The giant jurisdiction at the southeast corner of the state is both the poorest in Utah, figured by per-capita income, and the highest taxed, in terms of property tax burden carried by a small populace. So it is no surprise that many people there, in and out of public office, would take as good news word that the new owners of what would be Utah’s second largest copper mine are floating plans to start producing the commodity again.

The downside of the plan is that the would-be new operators of the Lisbon Valley Mine plan to use methods that involve sulfuric acid. The result will be a diluted acid effluvium that will be pumped into the area’s already scarce underground water supply.

And, if that’s not scary enough, area residents are asked to accept the operators’ promise that after an estimated 25 years of productive operations, the mine will be reclaimed and the area left as good as new.

This coming from the current owners of a mine that is already five years behind on property taxes totaling $1.4 million, and in the process of seeking the county’s forgiveness of $125,000 in interest and penalties it already owes.

Such an operation may well create decent-paying jobs and help fill the depleted county coffers. For awhile.

But in a county that lacks the means, in a state that lacks the will, to inspect and enforce environmental and remedial regulations, there are serious risks. Risks that, like other extractive industry operations before them, the current owners of the mine, or the ones who come after them, or the ones who buy it out of bankruptcy after the next crash in commodity prices, may not be willing, or even able, to keep their promises.

Leaving a community that already has little in the way of prospects to clean up the mess.

San Juan County should think more of itself than to settle for such a future.

Kearns • Kristen Santos waited for her competitors to get greedy.

For most of the 1,000-meter final at the US Speedskating Short Track National Championships at the Utah Olympic Oval on Sunday, the cagy elder member of Team USA held back. She glided along in third or fourth place, ready to make her move.

It came when Maame Biney, who was in second, tried to pass leader Corrine Stoddard with less than two laps to skate. The two got tangled and Santos, 24, took the inside track to slip into the lead. She then made a mad dash to the finish, claiming the national title in the distance.

After two runner-up finishes, Olympian Kristen Santos breaks through for the 1000M win @USSpeedskating nationals. pic.twitter.com/Q2Lz4xI7vQ

— Julie Jag (@julie_jag) January 5, 2020

Combined with a runner-up finish in the 500 and the 1,500, Santos made a strong case to be given one of the nation’s four berths — two per gender — to the FIS Short Track World Championships in Seoul, South Korea, in March.

Santos said the win was the bright spot in her weekend.

“While I’m glad I won overall, I honestly had a fairly disappointing weekend,” she said. “Honestly (I) just didn’t feel like myself out there. Obviously the goal is always to win, but to skate safe was the main priority of the last race.”

Biney felt she had nailed down the other women’s spot Saturday by winning the 500 and 1,500 titles, but officials from US Speedskating said worlds selections won’t be announced until later in the season. In the 1,000 final on Sunday, she crossed the finish second but was penalized for her contact with Stoddard, who took the silver. Hailey Choi placed third.

Exciting, fast-paced men's 1,000M final at the @USSpeedskating national championships. pic.twitter.com/CMFqLfEtOU

— Julie Jag (@julie_jag) January 5, 2020

Thomas Insuk Hong claimed his second national title of the weekend by winning the men’s 1,000 national title in a race that was heated from the start. Junior racers Andrew Heo and Brandon Kim finished with silver and bronze, respectively, after Ryan Pivirotto and Aaron Tran both suffered penalties.

Hong won the 500 on Saturday and Pivorotto won the 1,500.

While the world championship competitors weren’t announced, World Cup teams were. Heo and Choi both made both the senior and junior teams.

“[This weekend] I learned that I skate my best when I take each race one by one, and I always have more in me at the end of races than I usually think,” Heo said. “I just need to be more confident once I’m at the world level.”

The final two senior World Cup stops will be in Germany and The Netherlands in February.

Senior World Cup Team Men

Thomas Hong

Ryan Pivirotto

Andrew Heo

Brandon Kim

Aaron Tran

Joonhwa Hong

​Senior World Cup Team Ladies

Kristen Santos

Maame Biney

Corinne Stoddard

Hailey Choi

Shreya Arun

Julie Letai

​

Junior World Cup Team Men

Andrew Heo

Jonathan So

Brandon Kim

Joonhwa Hong

Junior World Cup Team Ladies

Corinne Stoddard

Hailey Choi

Kamryn lute

Shreya Arun