Summer is just around the corner for the United States, but winter hasn’t given up yet.
Residents of Alta, Utah were surprised with nine inches of snow on Tuesday. More snow is expected in parts of the Northern Rockies until Thursday morning. Meteorologists report winds will gust up to 30 miles per hour and visibility will be less than half a mile during the worst parts of the storm.
“Seeing this in June is crazy,” Utah resident, Jan Frazier said. “I’ve never seen it. You wouldn’t expect thunderclouds like this turning into snow in June, you know?”
State officials hope the weather is a brief anomaly. Local meteorologists predict the temperatures will increase to the lower 90’s by Saturday.
A Utah woman is behind bars and facing multiple murder charges after authorities found the bodies of seven babies within a garage at her former home.
In 2011, Meagan Huntsman, 39, moved out of a home in Pleasant Grove, Utah that was owned by her ex-husband’s parents. Her ex-husband went to the home Saturday to begin to clean up in preparation for moving into the home this summer when he found an infant’s body in the home’s garage.
Six more babies were found packed away in boxes in the garage.
According to reports from investigators, it appears at all of the children were full term and born alive between 1996 and 2006. The babies are currently undergoing DNA testing for paternity but it is believed the ex-husband is the father. Authorities say that he apparently had no idea what his then wife had been doing and is not a person of interest in the case.
Huntsman is facing six counts of murder and authorities have not said why it was six cases and not seven considering that seven babies had been found in the home She also reportedly moved out of the house in 2011 leaving behind her 18-year-old daughter to care for her two remaining teen daughters.
The top two made it back-to-back-to-back.
Mississippi and Utah finished first and second for the third consecutive year in Gallup’s annual survey of the most religious states in the United States. The survey has been conducted annually since 2008.
Vermont and its neighboring New England states continue to rank near the bottom.
Mississippi reported that 61 percent of residents classified themselves as “very religious” meaning they consider religion to be an important part of their lives. They also attend a worship service at least once a week, many more than once. Utah is close behind with 60 percent. Alabama was third followed by Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia.
Vermont was the least religious with 22 percent of residents saying they were “very religious.” Vermont was followed by New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and western state Oregon.
The poll showed the number of “very religious” Americans was up slightly at 41.4 percent while the number of “nonreligious” fell to 29.4, the lowest of any previous survey.
An April 2013 avalanche near Salt Lake City that registered a 5.0 on the Richter Scale has been confirmed to be the largest in recorded history.
Researchers with the University of Utah said the slide, which was large enough to bury New York’s Central Park under 66 feet of debris, sent 165 million tons of materials into a large open-pit copper mine.
“We don’t know of any case until now where landslides have been shown to trigger earthquakes,” Jeff Moore, assistant professor of geology and geophysics, told Fox News.
The blessing in the natural disaster is that the mining company that ran the copper mine noticed the shifting of the Earth and evacuated their workers. However, 14 giant trucks were buried by the slide and the company was forced to layoff a large part of their work force.
The force of the slide was strong enough to crack the bedrock under the mine resulting in 16 smaller earthquakes in the region.
Wildlife officials in Utah have solved a mystery revolving around a cluster of dead bald eagles.
The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources says lab tests confirmed that 27 bald eagles found in a small area all died from West Nile Virus.
The statement from the DWR guesses that the birds ate smaller birds who had been migrating through the area which were carriers of the virus. The cluster of birds infected include five other eagles who are being treated at a wildlife rehabilitation center.
The agency says the migration of the feeder birds is ending decreasing the likelihood of finding more dead birds. However, members of the public are encouraged to avoid contact with any dead or sick bird they may find.
A federal judge has thrown out parts of Utah’s state laws against bigamy.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups said that Utah’s law forbidding cohabitation with another person violated the First Amendment’s right to freedom of religion. The law said that it was illegal for a man or woman to claim they had more than one husband or wife.
Now, the only way bigamy can be prosecuted in the state is if someone tries to have more than one state-issued marriage license.
Kody Brown and his four “wives,” the stars of the TLC reality TV show “Sister Wives,” hailed the victory. They brought suit against the law in July 2011 and had to flee to Las Vegas last year after they were threatened with felony prosecution.
“Now that we’re no longer felons, that’s a huge relief,” Anne Wilde of the polygamy advocacy group Principle Voices told the AP. “They no longer have to be afraid that someone will knock at their door and take away their kids. This decision will hopefully take away the stigma of living a principle that’s a strongly held religious belief.”
The Utah Attorney General’s Office has not yet said if they will appeal.
A lighting sparked wildfire is raging near a Utah resort town where 13 homes have already been destroyed by the fast moving blaze.
The fire started in the Lake Rockport Estates subdivision near Park City, Utah. In addition to the homes, over 20 other buildings such as cabins and barns have been destroyed by the fire. Continue reading →
A new report is showing that a fungal infection called Valley Fever is up across the Southwest United States.
More than 22,000 cases were confirmed in 2011, a rise from 2,265 cases in 1998 according to the CDC. The report only looks at cases in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. Texas also houses the fungus that causes the disease but they do not report statistics to the CDC. Continue reading →
Thousands of acres of land have been destroyed due to wildfires raging across the western US according to wildlife officials. The US Forest Service reported 62 large and uncontained fires in Idaho, Nevada, Utah and California.
In Washington, a fire has burned 60 houses and 24,000 acres since it started on Monday. The town of Cle Elum in central Washington has been evacuated although civilians and firefighters have reported no injuries. Continue reading →