Month: December 2025

The Utah man arrested by ICE and wrongly accused by Homeland Security of being a “sodomite and a child abuser,” was granted bond on Monday.

A hearing for Jair Celis was held virtually on Monday, with an additional hearing scheduled for Tuesday. Celis has been a popular soccer coach in Sandy, is married to a U.S. citizen, and has a baby boy who is also a U.S. citizen.

“The judge was very good,” said Adam Crayk, Celis’ attorney. “She just flat out said, ‘Look, I can’t consider something that’s a verbal representation. There’s been no filing here. There’s been nothing submitted to show anything other than exactly what his attorney is saying. And that is, look at all the years that he’s been here, look at all the people that are in favor of him.’”

Read the full story at FOX13Now.com.

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

Cooper Flagg, as most Duke fans probably know, got off to a bit of a slow start as an NBA rookie. The Mavericks started him off at point guard and while he did okay there, it was asking a lot of an 18-year-0ld rookie and people started to say he was overrated.

They’re not saying that so much anymore, and after Monday night’s explosion vs. the Utah Jazz, Flagg has probably seized control of the Rookie of the Year race from former Duke teammate Kon Knueppel.

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Flagg finished the night with 42 points on 13-27/1-4 shooting and 15-20 on his free throws. He also had 7 rebounds, 6 assists and 2 blocks.

Former Blue Devil Kyle Filipowski had a great game for the Jazz as well, hitting for 25 on 9-13 from the floor. He also had 9 rebounds.

Flagg was the show Monday night, though, becoming the first 18-year-old in league history to top 40. Over the last seven games, Flagg is averaging 25.7 points.

We’re not saying Dallas fans aren’t still upset about the Luka Doncic trade, but Flagg is giving them a lot of hope for the future.

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When Kyle Whittingham announced his retirement last week as head coach of the Utah football team, it marked one of the few times that he put himself in the spotlight; that’s not his style.

It couldn’t be helped, of course.

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The man has managed to coach for 30 years at the University of Utah, 21 as head coach, and he did it about as quietly as he could. The story was never about him, if he could help it.

I remember sitting in his office one morning many years ago as we began an interview for a in-depth, two-part story about his life and career. I could sense his reluctance, his discomfort. I commented on this, and he said, “You know how some people say they don’t like to be in the spotlight, but they really do? I really don’t.”

He never wanted the attention. He coached on the down-low, almost anonymously, at least as much as that was possible for a coach who guided his team to three conference championships, two Rose Bowl appearances, 18 winning seasons, one unbeaten season, a win over mighty Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, and 10 top-20 finishes in the national polls (including No. 2 and No. 4), all of which would result in two national coach of the year awards.

Controversy was anathema to him. There was one occasion, a long time ago, when he got into a minor tiff with the Wyoming head coach, but that was when Whit was still making the transition from two decades as an assistant coach to head coach and learning that the new job demanded different decorum. He conducted himself thereafter with great restraint and dignity.

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On another occasion, he made a bold, brutally honest comment — a warning, really — about where college football was headed with NIL that was widely quoted. He probably didn’t know the national impact it would make, but it proved wise and prescient and he was willing to take one for the team — college football, that is. He was the voice of reason.

Then he went back to work. He’d said what he said, now stop talking to him about it.

Throughout my journalism career, I seemed to encounter Whittingham at every turn. I first met him when he was an all-conference linebacker at BYU. He turned up a few years later as a graduate assistant for the Cougars and began his ascent up the coaching ladder.

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Our sons played in a little league football game against one another. Those sons wound up playing a couple of seasons together on two of Whittingham’s teams at Utah. Whittingham won’t remember this, but I once asked him for a game jersey to give to a friend who was a Ute fan; Whittingham gladly obliged and had one waiting for me at his house.

I enjoyed talking to Kyle; he’s a deep thinker and given to introspection. He’s intense and intentional in everything he does. I especially enjoyed our conversations that veered from football to other subjects.

We shared an interest in music, and he told me about a trip to Paris in which he spent a good part of a day in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, paying homage at the grave of rock legend Jim Morrison. We spoke of our travels and he told me about annual trips he took to New York City with his wife Jaime. He liked the energy there, he said.

I knew his father, Fred, one of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever met (up there with Jerry Sloan, Larry Miller, Rodney “Hot Rod” Hundley, Craig Garrick and Luke Staley). He pretty much despised writers, but for some reason he tolerated me. We got along. We struck up a couple of casual conversations while sitting around the dorm lounge at the Utes’ training camp in Price, Utah. The stories he told … they should have made a movie about Fred Whittingham.

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He was a man’s man with that Jerry Sloan, don’t-mess-with-me aura (and no one did), who always looked as if he had a lot on his mind. He was a former (unbeaten) Golden Gloves boxer and NFL middle linebacker who was nicknamed Mad Dog. It wasn’t much of a stretch to see where that came from.

Fred was self-contained, intense, tough, no-nonsense, taciturn, football smart and what would be called ruggedly handsome. He was exactly what Hollywood would cast as a head coach.

This also describes Kyle Whittingham, except he is a warmer personality.

He was Kyle’s hero — he literally tried to fill his shoes, wearing his father’s Size 13 sneakers (six sizes too big) to school one day. He tagged around with him at NFL camps. He learned the coaching trade at his knee.

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The only time I saw a crack in Kyle’s tough veneer was when I asked him about his father in 2009, shortly after he had been named the national coach of the year for the 2008 season. His voice failed him for a moment and he had to pause to control his emotions. Fred Whittingham, a career assistant coach for 25 years, died suddenly at age 64 in 2003, 14 months before his son became a head coach.

Fred missed it all.

As I wrote in 2009, Fred was there for the formative years, but not the victory lap.

They coached Utah’s defense together for three years. Kyle kept his father’s old playbooks and notebooks in his office for years, referring to them early in his coaching career. When he was agonizing over whether to accept a head coaching offer from BYU or Utah, years later, he drove to Provo and visited his father’s grave.

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“I’ve asked Kyle if he feels like his dad is there,” his mother Nancy once said. “He says there are times during a game when he feels like he’s right there next to him.”

So now Whittingham is stepping down as coach of the Utes at the age of 66, two years older than his father was at his death. Urban Meyer delivered two brilliant, lightning-strike years at Utah on his way to the big time and then handed the reins to Whittingham.

It was an incredibly tough act to follow and seemed like a recipe for failure. Whittingham not only maintained what Meyer had begun, he made it better — he sustained it. He met the daunting and historic challenge of moving to the Pac-12 in quick order, and then made another move to the Big 12. He created a brand; he made Utah one of college football’s elite programs and became the winningest coach in school history. It was a remarkable run.

Dallas Mavericks’ No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg made NBA history on Monday against the Utah Jazz.

The 18-year-old became the youngest player ever to score 40 or more points in a game, surpassing LeBron James’ record set over two decades ago with the Cleveland Cavaliers. James did it a few months after he turned 19.

While it came in a losing effort against the Jazz, Flagg played the best game of his young career, going 13-for-25 from the field and leading the Mavericks to a close finish in a game they would have otherwise been trampled.

For Flagg, it’s a historic moment for the teenager from Maine, who reclassified from high school early so he could enroll at Duke and take the quickest path to the NBA possible. He led the Blue Devils to one of their strongest teams of the 21st Century before falling in a heartbreaking loss to Houston in the Final Four.

More news: 3 NBA Teams Shockingly Out on a Giannis Antetokounmpo Trade

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As a franchise, Dallas has been reeling since trading away homegrown superstar Luka Doncic to the Lakers in one of the most shocking trades in sports history earlier this year. Winning the draft lottery and the subsequent selection of Flagg have helped bring some optimism back to an organization that has desperately needed it.

The Mavericks recently fired the man behind the Doncic, Nico Harrison, in an attempt to win back a betrayed fanbase.

Although a loss to the Jazz won’t turn things around, the historic night for Flagg is a sign that the future might be bright in Dallas afterall. Flagg turns 19 on Dec. 21, nine days before the birthday of the 40-point record he just broke in James.

With tomorrow being the first time teams can trade players signed last offseason, it marks the unofficial beginning of the trade deadline.

It’s hard to say what the Jazz goals are this season. It’s been hard to say what they’ve been for most of this rebuild. This is a list of players most likely to be traded, and this list will be based on the assumption that the Jazz front office actually has a plan and intends to follow through with it. The smart plan is to keep their top-8 protected pick and give themselves a shot at a generational pick in this draft.

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Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk

Svi Mykhailiuk is averaging the third-most minutes on this team and is shooting 47% from the field and 37% from three. It’s a productive season for a veteran player who won’t be on this team long-term. Utah could likely find a suitor for his $3.6M contract easily. Even trading into another team’s trade exception works. But what the Jazz can’t do is continue prioritizing minutes for Mykhailiuk over their youth and the goal of keeping their draft pick.

Kevin Love

Kevin Love becomes trade-eligible on December 15, and Utah has to find a way to make a move happen. Taylor Hendricks should be getting the minutes that Kevin Love is using, and Will Hardy refuses to play him. Love has been solid for the Jazz this season, shooting 43.8% from the field and 35.8% from three. He still has his patented shooting and rebounding, which makes him a nice player for a team looking for depth and experience. Love is also just 37, making $4.1M on an expiring deal, making him very tradable.

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Kyle Anderson

Another player who somehow keeps getting minutes under Will Hardy instead of Utah’s youth. Anderson has looked like a solid rotation player in his time with the Jazz and should garner some interest for a team wanting to make an easy move for depth. Anderson is making $9.2M this season and next and could potentially garner the Jazz something interesting. Is there a dissapointing young player out there that Utah could bring on? Either way, Utah HAS to clear these minutes to get Taylor Hendrickson and Cody Williams on the floor. There is no world where the Jazz should be worried about playing Kyle Anderson. You would think the Jazz might be interested in proving they massively wasted two years and would want to develop Hendricks and Williams, but that hasn’t been the case so far.

Jusuf Nurkic

The easiest way for Utah to manufacture losses the remainder of the season would be to trade Nurkic. Nurkic has a very appealing $19M expiring contract that could save some teams a lot of money. A quick glance at the contract market shows some intriguing players to consider. Could Jonathan Kuminga be a target for the Jazz that could clear money for the Warriors and give them some depth at center? It’s an opportunity to bring on a young player who could potentially revive his career with Utah. There may be something else out there that’s worth doing, but Utah has to figure out a way to keep this pick, and removing their center depth will ensure they don’t get more of these ridiculous wins that are ruining the season.

SALT LAKE CITY — — Ja’Borri McGhee scored a career-high 29 points, Jayden Epps added 20 points, and Mississippi State rallied to beat Utah 82-74 on Saturday night.

The Bulldogs rallied from a 17-point deficit, their largest comeback since coach Chris Jans was hired prior to the 2022-23 season.

McGhee, a UAB transfer, made 11 of 16 from the field, 5 of 7 from 3-point range. Josh Hubbard scored 13 points for Mississippi State (5-5).

McGhee hit a step-back 3-pointer and then made a layup that gave the Bulldogs a 74-70 lead with 2 1/2 minutes to play. Terrence Brown made two free throws to make it a one-possession game, but Josh Hubbard driving floater about a minute later. After a Utah turnover, Shawn Jones Jr. threw down a monstrous two-hand dunk to make it 78-72 with 59 seconds remaining.

Don McHenry led Utah (7-4) with 29 points, which included five 3-pointers, and Brown finished with 22.

McHenry scored all of Utah’s points in an 11-3 run and Utah led by as many as 17 late in the first half. The Utes took a 52-37 lead three minutes into the second after Brown’s steal and fast-break dunk, but the Bulldogs scored 23 of the next 27 points to take a four-point lead — their first since 2-1 — with 9:24 to play.

Mississippi State freshman Jamarion Davis-Fleming left the game in the closing seconds after a collision with Utah’s Seydou Traore.

Up next

Mississippi State: The Bulldogs host Long Island University on Tuesday.

Utah: The Utes take on Eastern Washington at home next Saturday.

——

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It’s been nearly 3½ years since Eli Mitchell’s life was tragically taken. While riding his bicycle to the store, eager to use the new debit card his mother had just given him, the West Jordan boy was struck by a drunk driver at 13 years old.

The pain of losing his grandson hasn’t eased in the months since then. Glendon Mitchell said that if anything, the anguish has only gotten worse for him, Eli’s parents and his family.

“It would be foolish to tell you it’s been an easy journey,” he told the Deseret News, “Eli was always one who looked out for others. He was sensitive to those who were maybe being picked on or bullied or left out. And even if he didn’t know them, he would reach out and try to do what he could to alter the situation.”

Now, forced to live only on the memory of his beloved grandson, Mitchell has found himself working in the field of victims’ rights post-retirement.

The Mitchell family has worked with state legislatures to improve state laws, government programs and outreach to help people like them — who find themselves in an unfathomable situation.

“We have to deal with all of the trauma, grief, mental fog,” Mitchell said, while still “trying to make a difference for others. So maybe there’ll be fewer people put into the position that we unknowingly found ourselves in. And we didn’t sign up for it, we didn’t volunteer for it.”

Most recently, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole named its initial victim notification letter “The Eli Mitchell Letter,” which serves as the initial point of contact between crime victims and the Board, and provides essential information about the post-conviction process.

“I hope those who never want to get one of these letters will at least be given a choice to get informed of what the next stage of the criminal justice system is going to be like for them … victims need to have a voice in the criminal justice system, and that’s been an ongoing focus of the Board of Pardons and the legislature for the last few years.”

When it comes to priority, Mitchell would say the criminal justice system is 80% offender-focused vs 20% victim-focused. “I would say it’s improving with a long way to go,” he said.

The other side of true crime

Society as a whole seems to gravitate towards criminals rather than victims. In Netflix’s list of its 10 most popular shows of all time — on a global scale — No. 2 is the story of a 13-year-old accused of murdering his classmate, and No. 5 is the real story turned drama of infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. A 2023 Pew Research study found that true crime is the most popular podcast genre streamed.

According to media ethics scholar Whitney Phillips, audiences often find it easier to engage with the sensational psychological aspects of offenders than to sit with the emotional weight of victims’ grief and trauma.

Phillips explained that some people slip into treating true crimes as harmless entertainment, unaware they’re missing key facts and overlooking their ethical implications, and realizing that these are real victims, not just characters on a screen.

But for real victims like Chanae Haller, the pain she lives with is very real. Through her experiences, she became well-versed in the government structures put in place for victims of crime. She now lives her life helping others through the hurdles of bureaucracy.

Both Haller and Mitchell shared the struggle of trying to live with this deep heartache and grief, which is hard enough as is, but then gets significantly complicated and amplified by the intricate and often frustrating realities of the legal system, whether that be ongoing court proceedings that can take years, or filing protective orders to ensure future safety.

But there isn’t a day that goes by that Haller doesn’t have to remind herself to keep going.

“Healing is the biggest advice I can give,” she said. “So, for people who are survivors of a horrible trauma, you need to always protect yourself.”

She lives by the motto “live in the 10 seconds. … If you can look at that clock and just do some breath work for 10 seconds, then move up to 20 seconds, then 30 seconds. I’m staying in the present time during those moments, you’ll get through those hard emotions that you’re feeling.”

Progress and the gaps that remain

Attorney Jim McConkie said attention to victims’ rights has come a long way since he first started practicing law nearly 50 years ago.

“There are statutes now which require the courts and prosecutors to pay greater attention to the victims and to keep them informed, to pledge that they will move along as quickly as is possible to achieve a just result, and to allow them at the time of sentencing, to speak and express themselves in a situation where there’s been a crime and the individual has been convicted. Also, they have the duty under Utah law to keep the victims informed as to the progress that is being made on the case,” he explained.

During his career, he’s noticed the justice system become more “sensitive” to the needs of victims.

“I think on many social issues, we have come a good distance, and recognize the need for those who have been aggrieved to be included.”

His law firm labels cases that could have a lasting social impact for good as “righteous cases.” One of his current cases under such a label is that of Laura Ah Loo, the widow of 39-year-old Arthur “Afa” Folasa Ah Loo, who was fatally shot at a No Kings protest in Utah over the summer.

It took five months for felony charges to be filed by the Salt Lake County Attorney’s office in connection with the death of her husband. Last week, one count of second-degree manslaughter was filed against 39-year-old Matthew Alder, a so-called “peacekeeper” at the event.

Following the charges being filed, Laura Ah Loo said she appreciated the DA’s office for working to bring justice for the “negligent manslaughter” of her husband. But she told the Deseret News in a statement prior to the charges that it was “unimaginable to lose my husband in such a horrific way, only to then face silence and inaction” for so long.

As a victim, she said it was “beyond frustrating and unacceptable” and that “you wouldn’t think that basic accountability would be such a hard thing to have to ask for in a situation that should easily and without question warrant it.”

McConkie acknowledged that the case did have “unusual legal considerations,” but “when justice is delayed, it doesn’t give the victims an opportunity to recover, to the extent that it’s possible to in a tragic situation.”

“It creates a perception that our legal system is inefficient and ineffective, and it leads people to question the legal systems ability to uphold the rule of law and instead of having closure, there’s a deep sense of uncertainty,” he added, “and this feeling that their grievances are not important or being addressed by society as a whole.”

As the case progresses and additional information comes forward, Ah Loo said she hopes it will lead to reforms that enhance safety at public events. Like Haller and Mitchell, Ah Loo hopes that through her tragedy, society can learn a lesson or two on how to prevent more victims from going through her pain.