Month: July 2025

Utah County’s Republican clerk is pressing the brakes on his controversial “Fast Cast” voting method meant to discourage casting a ballot through the mail, his office announced Wednesday.

A statement from Clerk Aaron Davidson said he was “unable to reach agreement with the Lt. Governor’s Office before the primary election.”

After the county used the process in last year’s primary election, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson’s office, which oversees Utah’s elections, found 19 more ballots had been cast at polling places throughout the county than the number of people who had checked in.

The system also likely contributed to lengthy waits to cast a ballot in Utah’s second-largest county in November.

“Signature verification has been shown in recent legislative and state audits to be a subjective process, which is something I have raised concerns about since taking office,” Davidson said in a statement, referring to a portion of the verification process for by-mail ballots.

He added, “Fast Cast Voting was our innovative solution to let voters prove their identity in person and have their ballot counted without waiting in line or relying on signature verification.”

Davidson, in a news release Wednesday, said he believes recent changes to election laws “had the unintended consequence of affecting” the use of Fast Cast. “Rather than risk complications so close to the election,” he said, “Fast Cast Voting will be paused until further process changes can be agreed upon [with the lieutenant governor’s office].”

Davidson’s change in plans comes just a few weeks before Utah County’s Aug. 12 municipal and school board primary elections. Tuesday — one day before the announcement — was the first day clerks could send ballots by mail to active, registered voters.

The lieutenant governor’s office did not respond to questions about its recent correspondence with Davidson regarding “Fast Cast,” but provided a statement from Elections Director Ryan Cowley.

“Under Clerk Davidson’s fast cast voting last year, more votes were cast than voters who had a record of voting. County clerks are free to implement any programs in their counties as long as they are in compliance with the law,” Cowley said.

In their news release, Davidson’s office described the method as “a program created to strengthen election integrity by encouraging in-person voting and reducing reliance on the subjective signature verification process.”

It allows voters to bring the ballot they receive in the mail to a polling place after they have filled it out, rather than sending it back through the postal service, and wait in a line separate from other in-person voters. Those voters then must show their ID and sign a check-in list before scanning it directly into a tabulator.

For that to work, according to Henderson’s office, it required that Davidson disable a security measure in vote-counting machines — “creating the potential for multiple ballots to be scanned in by a single voter,” the review read.

“It’s that quick and easy!” the Utah County clerk’s website said prior to a revision notifying voters of the pause on that option.

“Utah County still experienced significant delays in ballot processing,” said state officials’ post-primary review.

It continued, “The way Fast Cast was implemented also could create long lines in the polling places in November. Long lines in polling places can discourage voters from casting a ballot and would delay statewide results on election night.”

That prediction proved accurate, as Utah County voters queued for as long as three hours, with some Election Day lines stretching outside buildings into the cold.

Efforts to curb voting by mail

As he competed to run elections for the hundreds of thousands of voters in Utah County, Davidson was outspoken about his doubts regarding the results of the 2020 presidential election. On his campaign website, without evidence, he wrote, “Based upon the stories I’ve been receiving from the delegate and the ballot irregularities that they have received and heard of, I would venture to say, the voter rolls are nether [sic] up to date nor accurate.”

Davidson has continued to make unfounded allegations of election fraud while in office. He’s repeatedly clashed with Henderson’s office over Utah’s voting laws.

The lieutenant governor publicly criticized Davidson’s decision last year to stop providing already-budgeted prepaid postage on mail-in ballots. And Davidson leveled unsubstantiated allegations at Henderson in a letter shared with public officials and political allies that she and Gov. Spencer Cox had broken the law in qualifying for reelection, and said she should be criminally prosecuted.

Among his efforts to discourage voting by mail, Davidson began experimenting with the “Fast Cast” method during the first election cycle he administered in 2023. In 2024, Utah County saw the lowest turnout of any of the state’s 29 counties in the primary election, and second-lowest participation in the general election.

The University of Utah had eight sacks in its 31-17 win over Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl. The fifth one that night in New Orleans did not make most fan-made highlight reels on YouTube. But it was the most compelling.

For three seconds, No. 56 took on three SEC offensive linemen on his own before making a last-ditch, right-handed arm tackle of the quarterback.

It was both the final official tackle of Greg Newman’s football career, and everything he represented every time he pressed his fingers into the turf.

The Utes went on to cap a historic 13-0 season, helping elevate the program and university to a power conference just 18 months later.

Greg, a former walk-on who was taller and much less hefty than prototypical defensive tackles, was essential to that season’s perfection, coaches and former teammates said. Earlier in the season, he snagged an interception in a win against Wyoming even after his helmet was dislodged. Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said Greg’s success was due to his “sheer hard work and determination.”

Many of Greg’s teammates on defense went on to make tens of millions of dollars in the NFL. A couple won Super Bowls. For most fans, the Sugar Bowl was the last time they heard about Greg — who, like the estimated 98 percent of all college football players who don’t go pro, would have to learn to live a life beyond game days.

Newman playing for Utah in the 2009 Sugar Bowl. (Courtesy of Ty Cobb)

The game that gave him everything he wanted early on would play a significant role in keeping him from fulfilling his other goals: to have a family of his own. To work on Wall Street. To dig his snowboard into the powdery mountains above Park City. To live what he would often describe as a normal life.

Football, where family members said Greg “found his place in the world,” was also the stage on which he suffered irreversible damage.

Greg became one of the several hundred former football players diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease caused by repetitive head trauma, for which football players are at a substantially higher risk.

Fifteen years after Greg left football, on the evening of May 21, 2024, The Ventura County Star published a news roundup  identifying a local man who, four days earlier, had been found dead near the Highway 101 South onramp near Thousand Oaks, Calif., about 45 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

The 38-year-old, described in the article as homeless, was Greg.

There were no signs of foul play, authorities reported. He was found face down with a sizable bruise on his forehead, believed to be a result of a fall. The summary of the end of Greg’s life in the local newspaper totaled 139 words. An autopsy would eventually reveal the cause of death was multiple organ failure, caused by kratom, a stimulant supplement he believed would help him get his life back on track.

Greg’s only sibling, Laura Dyer, a nurse who works in home health and hospice, had long suspected that his football career was the primary reason for his decline into an eventual state of mania. CTE symptoms range from mood changes and aggression to memory loss and confusion. He may also have had, she would eventually learn, a genetic predisposition for psychotic breaks.

“He just started changing,” Greg’s mother, Yvonne, said, “and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong.”

The family would turn to the stacks of journals Greg left behind, which detailed his tortuous decline but left much unanswered. Laura needed to know if she was right. Less than 48 hours after Greg’s body was discovered, in search of understanding, she made a call.

Always oversized for his age, Greg played with older age groups in youth football. But the big guy with a goatee was “a gentle giant” off the field, as Yvonne put it. He volunteered as Prince Charming, using his 6-foot-4, 250-pound frame at a fundraiser, where he danced with children who used wheelchairs. Another time he dressed up as Batman.

“Greg was always intense,” Yvonne said. “But on the football field, he compartmentalized everything. Off the field, he loved to make you laugh. He’d do anything for you.” 

Newman poses as Batman with a young fan at an event. (Courtesy of the family of Greg Newman)

In the early 2000s, Greg starred as a linebacker for football powerhouse Westlake High School, often featured in the local paper that would inform the public of his death years later.

“I love contact,” he said in a December 2003 profile.

Greg spent one season at Colorado before transferring to Utah in 2005. He was soon asked to move from linebacker to the defensive line, where he eventually thrived. Two years after his arrival, he was placed on scholarship.

Greg’s senior year was his best. He had 50 total tackles and 9.5 tackles for loss. On a Utah defense that had seven starters drafted, it was Greg who was voted the team’s most inspirational player by his peers after an undefeated season.

“It didn’t matter what it was,” former Utah defensive coordinator Gary Andersen said, “he was going to keep fighting and clawing until he won his matchups. That’s what carried him through football.”

It’s what also nudged along a dream to fight and claw as a potential late-round draft pick or undrafted free agent ahead of the 2009 NFL Draft. But while training in the weeks leading up to that year’s combine, Greg tore muscles in his hamstring, essentially ending his playing career.

“In some ways, it was painful for him to see friends go on and be successful,” said Laura’s husband, Geoff, the insight coming from Greg’s journals, which he filled for years.

Greg played his final football game less than a month before he turned 23. By his 24th birthday, he began exhibiting worrisome behavior.

“That’s when the voices started,” Laura said.

Friends and roommates told his family that Greg’s irritability would spike in an instant. He had mental lapses, when he would just stare for minutes on end. He spoke to walls. In 2011, Greg told Laura that angels in his mind told him to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the religion in which they were raised. He served in Florida, but was sent home after four months due to erratic behavior; the same thing happened when he was reassigned in Utah less than a year later.

Several therapists and attempts at prescription treatments came and went. Some thought he was suffering from bipolar disorder, some thought he was schizoaffective. Nothing was ever definitive.

But Greg’s decline ebbed and flowed. From 2014 to 2019, he had good spells that lasted as long as six months at a time. He worked for two international banks with branches in Salt Lake City. He had a girlfriend. He stayed in great physical shape. But he would not watch football. He told Yvonne that, if he could do it over again, he would’ve played soccer.

He moved to New York City in 2018. He was hired as an associate portfolio manager by Northern Trust and passed the first two stages of the Chartered Financial Analyst exam. Greg posted Instagram highlights of life in the city: 5K races, ramen restaurants, concerts and breathtaking views.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a pivot point. Greg went an estimated 50 straight days in isolation in his studio apartment, a few blocks from Madison Square Garden, during the spring of 2020, which exacerbated his symptoms. On May 9, 2020, he posted a smiling selfie with the caption, “Getting outside, my mom said it would be good for me.”

The smile would soon be harder to find. Greg’s episodes caused him to be fired from two jobs while in New York.

“In his altered state of mind, he couldn’t understand why nothing was working out for him,” Laura said. “No matter what he did, it all just kept falling apart.”

By August, Greg was back in Southern California, working as a chief financial officer for a friend’s family trucking business. But the final unraveling, family members said, had begun.

“His imaginary world was more real to him than this,” Yvonne said. “There wasn’t a light side to him anymore.”

Greg’s journal entries from that time showed only faint glimpses of his former self. He wrote about a lot of things. Some real, most not. Finding a book so rare it would change his life, references to “coronation day intel,” and “The Stick of Ramses.” Ancient Egypt became an obsession. Crystals, too. Football, meanwhile, was still drifting about in his mind. He wrote about a rally to win a game with a 2-point conversion, just as Utah did against Oregon State during the 2008 season.

“He was suffering to a degree that was just unbelievable,” Yvonne said.

The last few years of his life featured stints in voluntary transitional hospitals, long-term treatment centers and sober-living housing. Therapists who worked with Greg said he was no longer mentally fit to hold a part-time job.

Experts again oscillated between diagnoses of Bipolar Type II and schizoaffective disorder. No health care professional, Yvonne said, ever raised the topic of CTE.

The prescription drug Greg always felt like he needed was Adderall, a stimulant used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He also used Vyvanse, a similar prescription for ADHD. Those drugs, he believed, would help him focus. While in the treatment center, Yvonne took Greg to take the third level of the CFA exam. He came out feeling like he did well. But he ended up failing.

Antipsychotic drugs like Abilify were administered to combat his episodes with limited effectiveness. He complained of feeling like a zombie, his father, Terry, remembered.

“It wasn’t Gregory,” Terry said.

Greg bounced between staying with family and living in his Toyota Prius. He began self-medicating on the street, where Greg lived the last year of his life. In December 2023, when Greg was living out of a tent, his parents brought Greg a meal on Christmas Day.

While he was often right in front of them, he was simultaneously nowhere to be found. And family members increasingly believed that CTE was the root cause of his decline.

“In a brutal business like football,” Terry said, “it seemed like an obvious possibility.”

Growing up, Greg was known around the playground as “The Bully Protector,” his lifelong friend Carlos Gonzalez remembered. If he saw kids pushed around by others, Greg always stepped in, even if he was younger.

It was brutal, Carlos said, that no one could help Greg.

He’d seen Greg speak in tongues. Greg would randomly call Carlos and cuss him out — or send a text saying how much he respected him.

Greg spent most of his final year wandering around local strip malls. At the library, where the librarians knew him by name, he researched the healing protective power of crystals. He tried to sell rocks, which he believed to be rare gems, in a Whole Foods parking lot. He stenciled poorly drawn pictures of dragons and inaccurate hieroglyphics and tried to sell them as cars passed.

“I bought one or two drawings from him just to help him and motivate him,” Carlos said.

Around that same time in January 2024, he attempted suicide in an apartment complex parking lot. Laura said a passerby saw the attempt in the front seat of his Prius and called 911.

Soon after, he threw a brick through the window of the Goebel Adult Community Center in Thousand Oaks, in an attempt to get help because he thought someone was chasing him with a hammer, he said.

He was charged with a felony, but the judge told the family it could be reduced to a misdemeanor so long as the damages were paid for and Greg stayed out of trouble.

In the meantime, he started excessively using kratom, an herbal substance that can be purchased without a prescription and is sold at most local cannabis stores, saying it helped him focus. The drug is not FDA approved, and if used excessively provides an opioid-like calming effect. Greg’s self-medicating, family members said, didn’t begin until the last year of his life.

In his final days, Greg was living out of the Motel 6 in Thousand Oaks, located just off Highway 101. A room goes for around $90 a night.

When Greg came back to his room on the afternoon of May 16, 2024, the door was locked. Laura said management told Greg he hadn’t paid for the night’s room. He wanted to go in and get his stuff; the police were called. Greg’s family believes that he panicked, knowing he couldn’t afford another strike. So he took off running.

The Ventura County Medical Examiner informed Yvonne last summer that he had so much kratom in his system that it caused his liver and kidneys to cease functioning.

Greg wasn’t seen again until a driver of a car entering the South 101 onramp the following day noticed his body. Authorities believed he had been dead for roughly 24 hours.

Greg’s family, though not surprised, experienced a collective state of shock and grief.

“We knew where it was headed for a while,” Geoff said.

There was a potential path toward closure, they all agreed. So Laura told her parents she was making the call. The same day the Ventura County Star published news of Greg’s body being found, Geoff launched a GoFundMe that raised over $4,000 to fund further research at the Boston University CTE Center. The target goal remains $5,656 — Greg’s jersey number, repeated.

Seated in her backyard in Utah, Laura dialed the BU CTE Center and told them about her younger brother.

His brain, eyes and spinal cord would need to be procured and sent to the CTE Center. A definitive diagnosis of whether a person suffered from CTE while they were alive can only be provided posthumously. The center takes a year to dissect portions of the brain and conducts extensive interviews with family members to decipher when bouts of aggression, paranoia and delusion began and how long they persisted.

Leading the study of Greg’s brain was Dr. Ann McKee, the director of the CTE Center, who, along with her colleagues, has been at the forefront of this medical research field.

The scientific breakthrough study of CTE in the early 2000s, and its tie to football, astonished many fans. Former NFL star linebacker Junior Seau, who took his own life in 2012, was diagnosed with CTE less than a year after his death. Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who at 27 hanged himself in prison after being convicted of murder, had what Dr. McKee would describe in 2017 as one of the most severe cases of the disease she’s seen in someone so young.

In 2023, the BU Center announced that CTE was diagnosed in 345 out of 376 donated brains, all former NFL players. In 2024, a third of former NFL players surveyed believed they had CTE, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Most of the brains donated to BU have been from former athletes who showed clear signs of CTE. But former NFL players like Jerome Bettis, Matt Hasselbeck and others have publicly pledged to donate theirs to help further the studies in the field.

While there is a clear link between CTE and football, researchers continue to search for reasons why some players develop symptoms and others don’t. Optimism remains that in the coming years, a blood test or brain scans could be used to reveal potential CTE symptoms.

A December 2023 study found that among 319 donors with college football experience, 70 percent had CTE. Greg is now one of an estimated 1,600 whose brains have been examined at BU.

“Football is far more than a sport,” Dr. McKee said. “It’s a culture, it’s a way of life, it’s a national identity. It’s a lot of things. But nobody wants to hear that it’s a problem.”

Greg is buried in a small cemetery in the shadow of Mount Olympus, the most striking peak of the Wasatch Range above Salt Lake City. His funeral was small and not publicized, but when the family arrived, his head coach, Kyle Whittingham, was there in a suit, standing near the last row of chairs.

“We were stunned,” Laura said.

Newman turns to the crowd in celebration during a game at the University of Utah. (Courtesy of Chad Zavala)

Greg’s celebration of life memorial was held June 29, 2024, six weeks after his death, in Farmington, Utah, where Laura and Geoff live. More than 13 million people once tuned in to see Greg register his sack in the Sugar Bowl, but fewer than 50 gathered in a room that could hold over 200. A few former teammates were in attendance.

“It seemed like he might’ve been forgotten in some ways,” said former Utah linebacker Mike Wright. “I was a little disappointed in some of my teammates for not showing up for him on that day. But for a lot of us, from afar, it was like the Greg we knew passed away long before.”

Former Utah tight end Colt Sampson offered an opening prayer and chuckled when reminiscing about his friend, the “ultimate get-it-done” personality.

Greg’s No. 56 framed jersey was displayed in the hallway of the church. A massive bouquet of crimson and white flowers sat near the pulpit. One attendee wore a Utah Utes tie. Gary Andersen, Greg’s defensive coordinator, greeted friends and family near the photos commemorating Greg.

Laura and Geoff tried to summarize the heights of Greg’s life — most tied to football — as well as his agonizing final 15 years. Greg opted for hard rock or heavy metal CDs on their early morning drives to Westlake High together, much to Laura’s dismay. His most cherished Bible story growing up was David and Goliath.

Greg’s true love was the game that permanently damaged his brain. On Wednesday, June 4, 2025, more than a year after his death, his family learned he had Stage 2 CTE.

“To hear that was a huge sigh of relief,” Laura said, “to hear that wasn’t really him.”

Yvonne said she’ll shoulder regret for the rest of her life. She wished she’d made him fall in love with golf instead. “The amount of suffering he went through?” she said. “I don’t think I’ll ever watch another football game.”

Dr. McKee, who was permitted by the family to speak to The Athletic about Greg’s pathology report, said numerous lesions showed that Greg’s brain was in a state of degeneration for more than a decade.

While it’s indisputable that Greg was dealing with CTE, Dr. McKee said Greg’s history of psychotic episodes was more extreme than the majority of those they’ve studied. The most common early-stage symptoms of the disease include inability to control one’s own thoughts, behaviors or impulsivity, all of which Greg dealt with as the years wore on. But Greg might have had a genetic predisposition to psychotic breaks in addition to CTE.

“It’s difficult to fully account for those symptoms with CTE,” Dr. McKee said. “We’ve certainly seen people with a predisposition (have) more severe behavioral and personality changes than those who don’t. It was just more than we usually see.”

In April this year, just before Greg’s family received the diagnosis, members of the 2008 team gathered for a reunion inside Utah’s football facility. A poster of Greg in the Sugar Bowl commemorated his life. The team signed a ball and handed it to a tearful Yvonne. A video tribute included a segment for Greg.

The Newmans were also able to catch a glimpse of Utah’s spring practice. Terry noticed how many players wore spongy Guardian Caps, designed to lessen the impact of repetitive hits to the head.

Newman’s damaged helmet following the Sugar Bowl. (Courtesy of the family of Greg Newman)

Greg’s helmet from the Sugar Bowl still bears the scars of that epic evening.

The family came upon it soon after Greg’s death while sifting through storage, a coat of dust on the clear visor. The white, metal bars of the face mask are chipped. Deep, elongated gouges remain scattered across the red paint.

The helmet could one day be on display in a living room, a symbol of Greg’s life. But not quite yet.

(Top illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; photo courtesy of Ty Cobb)

When Bronco Mendenhall took over Utah State’s football program in December, he inherited a talented running back room.

Between Rahsul Faison, Herschel Turner, Robert Briggs, Derrick Jameson and even Nick Floyd, USU was loaded at the tailback position. Combined, the five runners have rushed for over 3,300 yards and 22 touchdowns in their time at Utah State.

That didn’t last for long, though.

Every one of the aforementioned players has transferred out of Utah State — save for Jameson.

Faison landed at South Carolina and is currently trying to get another year of eligibility from the NCAA.

Turner moved on to Nevada, where he is expected to “lead the running back room,” per Chris Murray of Nevada Sports Net.

Briggs made the move to Southern Mississippi — following his former head coach at USU, Blake Anderson.

Floyd left too, and according to 247 Sports, he is still in search of a landing spot.

The departures left USU with a nearly empty running back room and a desperate need for some new players.

“Utah State had strong running backs a year ago, and I remember them from playing against them when I was coaching in New Mexico,” Mendenhall said at Mountain West media days last week. “Those players left and so there is a void and opportunity.”

Enter Miles Davis.

A former BYU running back who played five seasons for the Cougars, Davis was the second established Division-I player to announce his transfer to Utah State after Mendenhall took over.

Davis is expected to be a key contributor for the Aggies this season, platooning with New Mexico transfer Javen Jacobs. It won’t be a surprise to see him outperform any of his previous collegiate seasons in his one year in Logan. Davis’ best season to date was in 2022, when he rushed for 225 yards on 40 carries and had 27 receiving yards via six catches.

Other than a desperate need for bodies at running back, why did USU go after Davis? Of the many running backs who entered their names into the NCAA transfer portal this offseason, why did the Aggies want Davis?

Mendenhall explained it pretty simply.

He and his staff knew about Davis because of his long time at BYU and that familiarity played a role.

“We know the coaches at BYU really well, and we knew Miles,” Mendenhall said.

There was more too it, though.

In Davis, Mendenhall and his staff saw something of a depressed asset. A player who hadn’t yet reached his full potential but whom they thought they could get the most out of.

“We saw the opportunity,” Mendenhall said. “We saw how he was performing his current role. We believed he is capable of more, would become more with an investment and an opportunity. Just thought that’d be a great fit, and we had a need.”

Davis will likely slot in as a change of pace back for USU, with Jacobs being more of a bruiser, while Davis is more of the home run threat.

Given his background at wide receiver and speed, Davis — in theory — could provide USU quarterback Bryson Barnes with a great safety valve while operating in open space behind linebackers who will be focused on Barnes’ running ability.

Whatever role Davis plays for the Aggies though, the expectation is that he will be the best he’s been in college yet. That is why the Aggies brought him to Utah State. Because of his unrealized potential.

Cache County • Mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus have been detected in Cache County weeks earlier than usual, and health officials are encouraging residents to protect themselves from bites as the virus spreads across northern Utah.

Mosquito pools collected in Amalga, Trenton, Lewiston and Newton tested positive for the virus earlier this month, according to Richard Rigby, manager of the Cache Mosquito Abatement District. The samples were confirmed by the Utah Public Health Laboratory.

“I usually trap in June, but I don’t hardly send anything down to Salt Lake to get tested,” Rigby said, “because we’ve never had a positive pool this early. And I just happened to, and they came back positive.”

This year’s unusually early detection surpasses the previous record, set last summer, and is likely driven by the region’s hot, dry conditions, he added.

Typically, the first signs of West Nile in Cache County come around mid-August to early September. Rigby said the samples that tested positive this year were collected July 8.

“It’s been at least four weeks since we’ve had any measurable rain or precipitation,” Rigby said, “so when it’s dry like this, and it’s hot, it seems to incubate that virus a little more.”

Because mosquitoes can travel several miles, the Bear River Health Department has advised residents across northern Utah to take precautions to reduce the risk of West Nile virus exposure. Recommended prevention measures include using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-registered insect repellents containing DEET, permethrin, picaridin, IR3535 or oil of lemon eucalyptus.

The health department also advises wearing long sleeves and pants during dawn and dusk, eliminating standing water around homes and keeping window and door screens in good condition.

Symptoms of the virus may include high fever, severe headache, neck stiffness, disorientation or muscle weakness. The Bear River Health Department has advised anyone experiencing symptoms to contact a health care provider.

As of Sunday, West Nile has also been detected in Box Elder, Salt Lake, Uintah and Utah counties, according to the Utah Department of Health and Human Services.

Kai Beckstrand looked pretty tired by the time he got to the 10th and final obstacle of the “American Ninja Warrior” semifinals course.

Over roughly 2 minutes and 45 seconds, he had cruised through the other obstacles, “living up to the hype,” “ANW” sideline reporter Zuri Hall said, of being “the ninja to beat.”

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But when the 19-year-old from St. George, Utah, reached the Invisible Ladder — an obstacle that requires hanging onto two rings and hoisting yourself up 30 feet to the buzzer — it was a big demand for his 180-pound body.

Beckstrand, who is known for his speed, noticeably slowed down as he worked hard to pull himself all the way up to the buzzer.

But he got there.

And, in what shouldn’t be too much of a surprise for “American Ninja Warrior” viewers, he still managed to do it with the fastest time of the night (up to that point).

“Tonight we saw how much grit he has,” the “ANW” announcers said after Beckstrand hit the buzzer. “The kid has no quit.”

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“I was tired, but there was no way I was letting go,” Beckstrand responded with a smile.

The Utah teen, who is competing on the show for the fourth time, hit the buzzer in roughly 3 minutes and 45 seconds.

It’s an impressive feat — but it wasn’t the fastest time of the night.

That distinction ended up going to one of his toughest fellow competitors: his younger brother.

Luke Beckstrand beats his brother’s time on ‘ANW’

It’s only his second season competing on “ANW,” but Luke Beckstrand is proving to be one of the strongest — and fastest — competitors on the show.

After making his “ANW” debut last year — where he made it to Stage 2 of the national finals — Beckstrand returned this season 3 inches taller and with 20 pounds of muscle.

He cruised through the qualifying obstacle course in 54.92 seconds earlier this season, coming up just a little short in beating his older brother’s time of 52.90 seconds.

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But during the semifinal round Monday night, it wasn’t even close.

Beckstrand, who the announcers noted is “always a little overshadowed by his big brother,” made the challenging course seem like a kids playground as he navigated all 10 obstacles in 3 minutes and 12 seconds — more than 30 seconds ahead of his older brother.

“We’ve talked about his brother Kai as a favorite to win it all. We better start talking about Luke the same way,” the announcers said.

As was the case with the qualifiers, both Luke and Kai Beckstrand claimed the two fastest times of the night during Monday’s semifinal episode.

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Luke Beckstrand’s most recent run gives him the second-fastest time of all the competitors (so far) in the semifinal round. Kai Beckstrand’s run, meanwhile, puts him fourth overall in the semifinals.

A friendly rivalry between brothers

Although the “ANW” announcers often play up the angle of the Beckstrand brothers competing against each other, both teens insist it’s all done in good spirit.

Kai Beckstrand previously told the Deseret News his intention is to push “for the best for everybody,” while Luke Beckstrand said his older brother inspires him “to be my best and do my best.”

When one brother runs an “ANW” course, the other brother can be seen smiling wide and cheering.

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Now, both brothers are headed to the national finals, which air in August.

Who else from Utah advanced to the ‘ANW’ finals?

Another set of Utah brothers has also advanced to the “American Ninja Warrior” finals.

Brothers Ashton and Paxton Myler — who make up one-half of the Ninja Kidz, a YouTube sensation out of Draper, Utah, that has billions of views and more than 40 million subscribers across all of their channels — are also moving on.

In his debut season, 18-year-old Ashton Myler hit a buzzer after completing the semifinal course in 5 minutes and 26 seconds, per NBC.com.

Although his younger brother, 16-year-old Paxton Myler, didn’t hit a buzzer in the semifinals, he made it far enough on the course to secure a spot in the finals.

Colton Skuster, a 19-year-old from Salt Lake City, also earned a spot in the finals even though he didn’t hit a buzzer. Skuster previously had the fastest time of his episode during the qualifying round earlier this season, completing the course in 52 seconds.

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A few Utahns were eliminated Monday night, including:

• Mady Howard, a nurse from St. George and six-time “ANW” competitor who recently became the second mom in “ANW” history to hit a buzzer during the qualifying round.

• Baylee Beckstrand, the younger sister of Kai and Luke Beckstrand, and the fifth person in her family to compete on the show.

• Violet Kepo’o, a 17-year-old from Pleasant Grove who made her “ANW” debut when she was 15.

• Anna McArthur, an 18-year-old student at Utah Tech University, who made it to Stage 1 of the national finals last season.

West Yellowstone, Mont. • A small airplane went down during a late-night flight last week near Yellowstone National Park, claiming the lives of three people.

One of those victims was 55-year-old Kurt Enoch Robey from Lehi, Utah. The other two were 60-year-old Rodney Conover and 23-year-old Madison Conover, both from Tennessee.

The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office in Montana said the plane took off from West Yellowstone Airport with Robey and the Conovers on board Thursday night, just before midnight. They then received word of the crash the next day around 1:40 p.m. after the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Aero Division was unable to find the plane.

Two search planes were sent out to the area, which they narrowed down thanks to the last location on the smart watch of one of the occupants. They found the crashed plane in a forested area just south of West Yellowstone.

Read the full story at Fox13Now.com.

The Salt Lake Tribune and Fox 13 News are content-sharing partners.

Utah is booming, driven by innovations in industries like AI, advanced manufacturing, and mining. As our economy expands, so does our need for abundant, affordable power. If Utah steps up now, we can secure our — and America’s — energy future. If we don’t, we risk hampering our growth and letting adversaries like China dominate the next era of energy, industry and geopolitical competition.

That’s why today, dozens of business executives, lawmakers and young leaders from across our state are launching Unleash Utah, a coalition committed to helping make Utah the nation’s leader in energy and resource development while smartly stewarding the environment.

Utah has always been a land of pioneers setting out to forge an unrivaled future — and today is no different. Governor Spencer Cox launched Operation Gigawatt to double Utah’s energy production in 10 years. Senate President Stuart Adams aimed to triple it by 2050. Our state is already a leader in geothermal energy, and we are poised to be a leader in nuclear as well.

We also have what other states lack: the critical minerals needed to power the 21st-century economy. We need those resources now more than ever. Right now, China dominates 85% of global critical mineral mining capacity and controls most of the world’s supply of strategic minerals. From batteries to semiconductors to military aircraft engines, the energy and technologies of the future depend on materials that China controls. China’s near-monopoly over critical minerals is exacerbated by its dominance in global manufacturing, achieved through trade abuses and a high-polluting industrial base that undercuts American producers and poisons our environment. All of this threatens American national security.

Utah has the answer. Not only are we leading on energy, but our state is also home to 40 of the 50 minerals which the Department of the Interior has listed as “critical” to the nation. While Utah stands ready to sustainably develop many of these resources, Chinese supply chain manipulation and federal regulatory delays make this process far more challenging than it ought to be.

Utahns also care deeply about developing our resources the right way. People here live by a quiet but serious ethic of caring for our air, water and land. What’s more, our leaders stand boldly at the forefront advancing this commitment on the national stage; for instance, Sen. John Curtis launched the Conservative Climate Caucus in the U.S. House that quickly became the second largest caucus in the House GOP with over 80 members of Congress.

For all these reasons, Utah is built for this moment of not only high-stakes competition, but also great opportunity.

Our coalition is inspired by the frontier spirit that built this state — bold, fast-moving and relentlessly optimistic. We believe in innovation over bureaucracy, open exchange over red tape, and solutions that rise from the ground up, not ones handed down from Washington. Utahns don’t sit back and wait. We roll up our sleeves, figure it out and get to work.

We’re also focused on results, advancing solutions that help Utah lead in energy, manufacturing and environmental stewardship. That means supporting the responsible development of geothermal, nuclear and critical minerals; modernizing outdated regulations; taking on foreign adversaries for their pollution and trade practices that undercut us; and scaling market-driven solutions to protect our natural resources and our environment.

Utah was founded as a place where pioneers turned challenge into opportunity and vision into action. That same spirit is alive today. With Unleash Utah, we’re answering the call once more — not just for Utah, but for the country that needs us now.

Last fall, Steven Hippler entered his Boise courtroom for the first time after taking over the University of Idaho student homicide case, folded his black-robed arms and introduced himself to the national audience he knew was following along. He indicated that he did so with at least moderate displeasure.

Hippler, of Idaho’s 4th Judicial District, welcomed the attorneys from each side and started into his stern message, a greeting that foreshadowed his personal stamp on how the public should expect to receive him.

“I’d like to tell you I’m happy to be here, but why start with an untruth?” Hippler deadpanned. “I am accepting of my responsibility to be here.”

The defendant, Bryan Kohberger, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of four University of Idaho students. This hearing was his first court date in Boise and was livestreamed for viewers near and far. Even with the added attention on the high-profile murder case, Hippler didn’t try to soften his blunt, unvarnished style since he took over as its presiding judge.

Hippler has had several homicide cases during his nearly 12 years on the bench, but Kohberger’s represented a first for the judge. While he has overseen “well over 100 jury trials,” Hippler said in court, he never before handled a capital murder trial.

And no trial would come. Earlier this month, Kohberger, 30, agreed to plead guilty to murder in the stabbings of the four college students in November 2022. The victims were three North Idaho women who were roommates: Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, of western Washington, who was Kernodle’s boyfriend.

Kohberger accepted no chance of parole or ability to appeal in a deal brokered by his attorneys. In exchange, prosecutors dropped their pursuit of a death sentence.

To some legal experts, Hippler’s actions in the months leading up to the trial left the defense with little wiggle room.The judge ruled late last month against a request from Kohberger’s public defense team to delay the long-awaited trial. Kohberger’s attorneys posed arguments that his constitutional rights would be infringed upon after the case moved “excessively fast,” which threatened their ability to effectively represent him. It followed a string of losses for the defense.

Days after Hippler’s decision, the defense team pushed for the plea bargain.

Edwina Elcox, a former county prosecutor turned criminal defense attorney in Boise, has experience arguing in front of Hippler. She said the judge’s rulings amounted to a series of pretrial defeats that began to box in Kohberger’s attorneys on possible defenses at trial, and likely led to “frank conversations” from his legal team to consider pleading guilty to remove the death penalty.

“Judge Hippler really shaped the landscape of the litigation with his rulings,” Elcox told the Statesman. “People know that he runs a very, very, very tight ship in his courtroom.”

When a judge ordered the case moved out of Moscow, where the crime took place, Boise was a natural choice. And as the administrative district judge who sets the judicial rules for the region and helps assign the capital city’s cases, Hippler has sway over who gets picked, Idaho courts spokesperson Nate Poppino told the Idaho Statesman, despite the judge’s public umbrage about receiving the assignment.

Hippler is not entirely new to the death penalty. But court records showed that after more than 35 years in the legal profession, he has had limited experience with Idaho’s ultimate punishment.

As the adage goes, death is different.

“I’ve never done anything more difficult, and never expected to do something more difficult,” retired Idaho Supreme Court Justice John Stegner told the Statesman in a phone interview. “It takes a piece of a person’s soul to impose it.”

Before ascending to Idaho’s high court, Stegner served as a district judge in North Idaho for 21 years. Just once, early into his tenure as a judge in 2000, he oversaw a capital murder case. At that time, judges decided whether to sentence a person to death if a jury convicted them. That’s since changed after a U.S. Supreme Court decision, but the pressures from the extra scrutiny paid to death penalty cases have not, he said.

“You try not to bring that home,” Stegner said, “but I think in a capital case, it’s hard to leave at the office.”

‘Not a fan of surprises’

Like Stegner, Hippler came from a background as an attorney practicing civil law exclusively — rather than criminal — before donning the robe. During more than 20 years as an attorney, Hippler made partner at two different established Boise law firms. He mostly represented doctors, hospitals and medical providers, and largely dealt with regulatory issues, business disputes and medical malpractice lawsuits, according to a judicial biography.

Kohberger’s was the nation’s most anticipated trial this year, U.S. legal pundits have opined, if not also the biggest case in Idaho history. Hippler did not respond to a request for comment from the Statesman. Idaho judicial rules of conduct limit a judge’s ability to speak about their cases.

With the heightened stakes, including for its presiding judge, Hippler brought his no-nonsense demeanor and confidence in his command of the law to the courtroom.

Elcox called him a “taskmaster” on the bench.

“He expects both sides to be totally prepared,” she said. “As we have seen, the attorneys should expect to be extensively questioned about the legal theories and arguments they are proffering, and they should expect to be challenged by Judge Hippler on the answers they give.”

Nearing the scheduled trial, Hippler put Kohberger’s defense and prosecution on notice. He chided the defense for filing a brief without first asking his permission for extra length, and he advised that he’s able to foresee arguments before attorneys even make them, deciding on objections without letting the legal team state its case.

“A lot of this is, unfortunately, going to sound like me simply lecturing about what I want and don’t want. And that certainly is a large part of it,” Hippler said at a hearing in May. “So to start with, I’m not a fan of surprises, as you may have figured out by now.”

The parents of at least one of the four victims welcomed Hippler’s approach. As mainstays at hearings for two and and a half years, they looked forward to him helping bring justice to their case at trial.

“I appreciate it. I appreciate him being that leader that he needs to be,” Steve Goncalves, father of Kaylee Goncalves, told the Statesman last year. “I think there’s a lot of delay tactics that have been used, and I feel like he sees between the lines. He’s helped clear that up and helped steer that legal argument into a place where it can get resolved in a timely manner.”

The plea deal to avoid a trial and a possible death sentence for the man who killed their daughter stunned and angered the Goncalveses. For Hippler, who warned off anything sudden, it caught him off-guard, too.

As the judge continued to prepare for trial, he received limited notice that the defendant would plead guilty and accept life in prison. Hippler apologized to the victims’ families for the hastily scheduled hearing, where he also explained that he does not have the authority to force prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

“I, like everyone else, learned of this plea agreement Monday afternoon and had no inkling of it beforehand,” Hippler said at a Wednesday morning hearing. “Prior to that time, I was under the belief that this case was proceeding to trial.”

Thousands of prospective jurors had been scheduled to start showing up within three weeks, he said, and the court was ready to move through that selection process. Instead, Hippler is now poised to hand down Kohberger’s sentence on Wednesday.

Catholic upbringing, Notre Dame football fan

Hippler, who turns 59 this month, is a Boise native and graduate of Bishop Kelly High School, a private school run by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise. His wife, Stephanie Westermeier, also is an alum, and for many years they served on the high school’s nonprofit board of directors, until the second of their two sons graduated from the school last year.

Hippler and Westermeier received their bachelor’s degrees from Boise State University. They both went to law school at the University of Utah and finished in 1991, with Hippler in the top 10% of their graduating class. They returned to Idaho and passed the bar that year, when Hippler joined his first law firm in Boise.

In the fall of 2013, then-Gov. Butch Otter appointed Hippler to be a district judge in Ada County. At the time, Otter, a fellow Bishop Kelly alum, called Hippler an “exceptionally talented litigator.”

“He brings to the bench a wealth of experience, especially in the complex and growing field of health care law,” Otter said in the statement. “I’m confident his background and training have prepared him well to be a district judge, and the people of the 4th District can expect him to be a fair, reasonable and hard-working jurist.”

Hippler has twice been reelected as a district judge, according to secretary of state data. He ran unopposed each time, most recently in 2022 for another four-year term, which expires in January 2027.

Friends and family know him as Steve, an avid fan of the Notre Dame football team, Westermeier wrote in a short biography in 2014. The names of their two sons reference the Fighting Irish, the nickname for perhaps the country’s most prominent Catholic university.

Westermeier, who is legal counsel for Saint Alphonsus Health System in Boise and Trinity Health, its parent company and a national Catholic hospital network, has written several times about the importance of the family’s faith, in trade publications and newsletters at their sons’ schools.

The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty and seeks to abolish it worldwide. The late Pope Francis reaffirmed that position in 2018 when he issued a revision to the official church doctrine known as the Catechism. It reads that the death penalty is “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

If Hippler had any reservations about the policy, he never brought them into the courtroom during the Kohberger case.

Hippler ruled more than a dozen times against the defense’s efforts to remove the death penalty as a sentencing option if jurors found Kohberger guilty of the murder. The defense quickly felt Hippler’s direct manner in the repeat rounds of intellectual debate on the issue, and in other blocked legal avenues from his decisions.

As losses in court stack up against a defendant charged with murder, their attorney must change course and consider a plea agreement, Keith Roark, a longtime Idaho attorney, told the Statesman.

“If you’ve reached the point where you don’t really have any defense except to try to break down the state’s case with cross-examination, if that’s where you are, then that’s a big factor,” said Roark, who has argued on both sides of capital cases. “And then a time will come to shift gears entirely. … We somehow have to stop the client from dangling at the end of a rope, and that compels you to start talking to the prosecutor.”

Hippler has in recent years played a cursory role in a couple of Idaho’s capital cases. On the request of prosecutors, he signed a death warrant in 2018 for one of the state’s nine death row prisoners, which was stayed within days by a federal judge in Idaho, according to court records. And he held a hearing last year for another death-row prisoner convicted decades ago.

In a pair of related murder cases in 2022, Hippler presided as a father and stepmother separately reached deals with prosecutors to plead guilty to the death of the man’s 9-year-old son. He sentenced each to life in prison without parole.

As the four-county region’s administrative district judge, Hippler also helped plan and coordinate, though did not preside over, the murder trials of Lori Vallow Daybell in 2023 and Chad Daybell in 2024, which were moved to Boise from eastern Idaho. Each was convicted, but a possible death sentence was dropped for Vallow Daybell because of a procedural error. Her husband is the state’s latest addition to death row.

“I’ve certainly seen a lot of big trials, significant trials,” Hippler told East Idaho News during Vallow Daybell’s trial in April 2023. “We’ve had cases with a lot of local media interest. But in terms of the degree of national and international media interest, in my 10 years here, I’ve not seen that.”

Kohberger’s trial was expected to surpass that.

‘It will affect you’

In September, the prior judge in the case, Judge John Judge, granted the defense’s request for a venue change, agreeing that leaving Moscow improved Kohberger’s chances for a fair trial. Then the 2nd Judicial District judge retired. The Idaho Supreme Court named Hippler to head up the case days after Judge announced his decision not to move with the trial.

From the tone he struck at the outset, Hippler made it clear that his temperament and methods were distinct from that of the previous judge.

By comparison, Judge struck a much lighter tone in his Moscow courtroom for nearly two years, at times even using humor to try to diffuse contentious hearings. He also lent a longer leash to attorneys, permitted extended arguments and, in more than one instance, allowed the defense to call experts to testify during pretrial proceedings — none of which Hippler has approved to date.

Among all of the attorneys in the case, only Elisa Massoth, co-counsel for the defense, has previously appeared in front of Hippler, he said in court. “He’s such a different person” from Judge, Massoth told an acquaintance on a break in the hallway of the courthouse in Boise within earshot of a Statesman reporter.

Had Roark been on Kohberger’s defense team, he would have been “very disappointed” to learn Hippler received the assignment after a successful push for a venue change, he told the Statesman.

A former president of the Idaho Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Roark said he’s argued in Hippler’s courtroom just once for a procedural matter. But from conversations with other attorneys, the judge’s reputation is that of “being unnecessarily strict,” and not particularly sympathetic to the defense.

“There isn’t a judge of the year award,” Roark said of the state’s defense attorney association. “But if there was such an award, Judge Hippler would never receive it.”

Still, Roark added, the priority for a defense team preparing for trial has to be the jurors.

“If you get the jury, to hell with the judge,” he said. “You just battle in.”

Hippler acknowledged the critical role he would play in Kohberger’s trial. He noted the “unprecedented publicity” already present in the case in an earlier ruling, and understood every decision he made would be closely analyzed.

Former Idaho U.S. Attorney Wendy Olson, now a partner at a private firm in Boise, has argued in front of Hippler several times and described him as “a really good judge.” He was up to the task, which included holding up under the spotlight, she told the Statesman in an interview.

“Judge Hippler has an outstanding reputation for being as efficient as possible, for very carefully considering the arguments of the parties,” Olson said. “He makes decisions based on the law and the evidence, and not whether he likes or dislikes the lawyers — and that’s exactly what you want in a judge.”

Almost as if anticipating the considerable burden he would shoulder as judge in his first capital case, Hippler in fall 2019 shared words of encouragement during a commencement speech he delivered to Idaho’s newest corrections officials after they completed their training as peace officers.

“Be mindful that the trauma you face at work will come home with you. It will affect you even if you cannot perceive that it is. Listen to your loved ones when they tell you that it is affecting you,” Hippler shared in the Idaho Capitol rotunda. “Your community asks a lot of you in this job, but I’m confident — and your community is confident — in you and your ability to do the job with distinction.”

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Kevin Fixler

Idaho Statesman

Kevin Fixler is an investigative reporter with the Idaho Statesman and a three-time Idaho Print Reporter of the Year. He holds degrees from the University of Denver and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
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