Talking about Afghanistan, and the fall of the U.S.-backed government, with refugees in Utah and the widow of a Utah National Guard officer killed there

The end of a war will always produce stories, even far away from the fighting.

The end of the United States’ involvement in Afghanistan, with the collapse of the U.S.-backed government and the return of the Taliban, is no exception — and in the last couple of weeks, I’ve written three stories for sltrib.com about how those events have had an impact in Utah.

• I met Azim Kakaie, the first special immigrant visa holder from Afghanistan to arrive in Utah since the Taliban’s takeover. He was an air traffic controller at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan — and he tells a harrowing story of how he and his family got out of the country.

• I met several refugees from Afghanistan who have been in Utah for several years, and got their insights on what’s been happening in their former home.

• And I talked to Jennie Taylor, the widow of Maj. Brett Taylor, the former mayor of North Ogden, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2018 while on a deployment with the Utah National Guard.

Pioneer Theatre Company's managing director resigns, and reaches a settlement with the University of Utah.

In June, I wrote about Christopher Massimine, who was hired in 2019 to be managing director of Pioneer Theatre Company, Utah’s largest professional theater company. The subject was Massimine’s resumé and biography, which were riddled with fabrications and exaggerations — including claiming to win awards that didn’t exist, and credit for work on movies and video games with which he was not involved.

(Adam Herbets at Fox13 did the first investigative reporting about Massimine, and I added to it here. The day he issued his resignation letter, The New York Times wrote it own story about Massimine.)

After behind-the-scenes legal wrangling, Massimine resigned from Pioneer Theatre in mid-August. I wrote about the resignation, and the $175,000 settlement he made with the University of Utah that prompted that resignation, both for sltrib.com.

What would a gondola in Little Cottonwood Canyon do to the view? Environmentalists float balloons to demonstrate.

I spent a recent Saturday morning watching a group of environmental activists fly large balloons into the air.

They were trying to make a point — about what building 20 towers to run a gondola through Little Cottonwood Canyon would do to the views in the landmark canyon.

The gondola is one of two proposals the Utah Department of Transportation has proposed to improve traffic flow in the canyon, which is a haven for backcountry hikers and skiers, as well as home to two of Utah’s most popular ski resorts, Alta and Snowbird.

The gondola would start at a park-and-ride lot at the bottom of the canyon, and have stops at the two resorts — bypassing trailheads and other popular spots in between. The other proposal is to widen the road and add more shuttle bus service.

The environmental groups are opposed to both proposals. Their preference would be to enhance bus service, which could take people to the ski resorts and other stops, while limiting car traffic up the canyon.

My colleague, Salt Lake Tribune photographer Francisco Kjolseth, took some breathtaking photos of the canyon and the balloons. And the balloon launch itself was something of an adventure. Read about it here, at sltrib.com.

'The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City' drops a trailer for the second season, promising all the usual drama.

You never know what’s going to qualify as “breaking news” in Utah.

Earlier in August, the “breaking” news was that Bravo TV had dropped the trailer for season 2 of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.” And since my colleague, Salt Lake Tribune TV critic Scott D. Pierce, was busy on another story, I wrote up the first story on the show. (Scott, who knows more about TV than I ever will, came along later and added detail.)

It looks like a dramatic season — and drama is the reason to watch the show — with much of the action focusing on Jen Shah’s legal problems. (She’s been indicted on federal fraud charges.)

Read the story Scott and I wrote for sltrib.com here — the trailer is embedded in it.

Dr. Angela Dunn — Utah's voice of science during the pandemic — talks about her new job as Salt Lake County Health director, and why she left her old job

I have interviewed Dr. Angela Dunn several times since first encountering her in February 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But interviewing her last week was different, because she’s in a different job now.

Dunn left her post as Utah’s state epidemiologist in late May, to take over as executive director of the Salt Lake County Health Department.

She says the job’s largely the same, in that she collects the best scientific data and makes her best recommendations to elected officials about what to do to protect people from the coronavirus.

The difference, she told me in our interview, is that as the county’s health director, she has the authority to make orders for the sake of public health. She could order schools to make all their students wear face masks — though, thanks to the Utah Legislature’s pandemic “endgame” bill passed in April, the Salt Lake County Council could overturn that order with a majority vote. And in the majority-Republican council, that’s likely to happen.

That would create drama, Dunn said, but it wouldn’t be effective in helping protect kids and their families. So she’s not issuing such an order, and instead — as she said on July 22, in her first remarks to reporters since taking over at Salt Lake County Health — she’s recommending parents to get their children masked. That strategy is what helped kids stay safe last school year, and right now children 11 and younger can’t get a COVID-19 vaccine.

I talked to Dunn the same afternoon that dozens of anti-mask activists filled a county council meeting room, spending two hours repeating things they learned on the internet. I sat in that same meeting room, wearing my KN95 mask the whole time. When Dunn came in to deliver her presentation to the council, she stayed masked, too.

Read my interview with Dunn — in which she talks about the lessons she learned when she was advising state government leaders about the coronavirus — at sltrib.com. (It’s available to subscribers only, so become a subscriber.)

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Here’s what else I’ve been writing about COVID-19 recently:

• The Sundance Film Festival will be back in-person in Utah for 2022 — and if you want to go, you have to get vaccinated against COVID-19, according to festival director Tabitha Jackson.

• Masks are again required for anyone entering a Salt Lake City-operated building, after an order from Mayor Erin Mendenhall.

• A Logan doctor talked about the strain the surge in COVID-19 cases is placing on medical personnel.

George Takei, 'Star Trek' icon, talks about telling his family's story — in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II — in a chamber-music work to premiere in Moab.

Something I can scratch off my bucket list: I got to interview one of my childhood heroes, George Takei.

Yes, I’m a Trekkie (not a Trekker, thank you), old enough, barely, to have watched “Star Trek,” the original series, in its first run on NBC from 1966 to 1969. I was 4 1/2 years old when the show aired its final season.

Coincidentally, Takei was 4 1/2 when he and his family were forced to sell their Los Angeles home and relocate to an internment camp for Japanese-Americans. His family were imprisoned — call it what it was — in California and Arkansas during World War II. Even after the war, Takei said, his family dealt with hardships and more racism when they returned to L.A.

Takei has told his family story in many forms, including a memoir, a Broadway musical (“Allegiance”), and a comic book. On Sept. 4, his story will be told through a chamber-music work, “Lost Freedom: A Memory,” being composed by musician/composer Kenji Bunch, that will have its world premiere at the Moab Music Festival. Takei will be there in person, narrating portions of the work.

Read my interview with Takei and Bunch here, at sltrib.com. (Yes, one must be a subscriber to read the story — so this is the perfect time to become a subscriber.)

Why the Great Salt Lake isn't as great as it once was

Satellite images of the Great Salt Lake, focusing on Spiral Jetty on the lake’s northern arm, in 2011 and 2021, respectively — showing the distance the water has receded in a decade. (Photos courtesy of Planet.)

The Great Salt Lake isn’t what it used to be.

Since 1847, the year the Mormon pioneers first arrived in the valley, the lake’s water level has dropped 11 feet, and the lake bed is a third smaller than it was.

On July 24 — Pioneer Day — the U.S. Geological Survey declared that the Great Salt Lake hit its lowest level in recorded history, 4,191.3 feet above sea level, breaking the record set in 1963.

Looking at the lake from space — thanks to the geospatial data company Planet for helping The Salt Lake Tribune with that — one can see how much less of the lake there is these days.

The drought is part of the equation. So was a lower-than-normal snowpack over the winter. And the number of diversions of water heading to the lake through the Jordan, Weber and Bear rivers — to agricultural and municipal uses.

My story about the Great Salt Lake can be found here, at sltrib.com. It’s only available to subscribers — but why wouldn’t you want to subscribe and get great journalism (not just mine, but that from my colleagues)?

Weird weather: A thunderstorm gives northern Utah a soak, a dust storm leads to a deadly interstate crash, and wildfire smoke drifts in from the west

It’s been a weird summer, in terms of the Utah weather.

On August 1, northern Utah was hit with a sizable thunderstorm that caused flooding in the Salt Lake City streets. It was a good drenching, but not enough to completely alleviate the drought Utah is suffering, a University of Utah weather expert told me.

The state also has been seeing a lot of smoke in the air, blowing in from wildfires in California and Oregon. I wrote up a guide for what people should do when the air reaches unhealthy levels.

And I wrote about a freak dust storm that kicked up in Millard County, causing a 22-vehicle crash that left eight people dead, including five members of one family.

June Morris, who built a travel empire in Utah, dies at 90

June Morris started her travel agency at a desk in her husband’s photo-finishing business.

She grew Morris Travel into a Utah powerhouse, and spun off her own discount airline, Morris Air — which she sold to Southwest Airlines in 1993 for $128.5 million.

Morris died on July 23. She was 90.

Here’s the obituary I wrote for Morris, for sltrib.com.

A Brigham Young University researcher finds that kids who like Disney princesses may learn more progressive views about women

What do children get out of being fans of Disney princesses?

Five years ago, Sarah Coyne — now a professor in Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life — was lead author on a study that found preschool kids who were immersed in Disney princess culture picked up on female gender stereotypes, but not on the characters’ kindness and helpfulness.

In a continuation of that study, Coyne and her team interviewed those same kids, now in their tweens. What the team found is that those children tend to have more progressive views about women — and are less likely to harbor attitudes of toxic masculinity.

“Princess culture has some really deep and beautiful things about womanhood and relationships,” Coyne said when the study was published in the journal Child Development. “If we can grasp onto that, it can be truly healing for humanity.”

Read the details here, at sltrib.com.