Utah News

A Utah Supreme Court justice has resigned amid a probe into an alleged relationship with an attorney who worked on a redistricting lawsuit.

Justice Diana Hagen appeared to reference the investigation and the toll it has taken on her loved ones in a resignation letter to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, which was obtained by Fox News Digital.

“As a public servant for twenty-six years, I am keenly aware that public service requires sacrifice,” Hagen wrote. “I have willingly accepted those sacrifices for the privilege of holding a position of public trust, where I could do my part to uphold the rule of law and protect the constitutional rights of every Utahn.”

UTAH LEADERS LAUNCH PROBE INTO SUPREME COURT JUSTICE OVER ALLEGED RELATIONSHIP WITH REDISTRICTING LAWYER

Justice Diana Hagen is pictured in a courtroom of the Utah State Courts. (Utah State Courts)

“I also understand that public officials are rightly held to a higher standard and must accept a greater degree of public scrutiny and diminished privacy,” she said. “But my family and friends did not choose public life. They do not deserve to have intensely personal details surrounding the painful dissolution of my thirty-year marriage subjected to public scrutiny.”

The resignation was effective immediately, a spokesperson for Utah’s Administrative Office of the Courts said.

Hagen was accused by her former husband of sending “inappropriate” text messages to an attorney who helped challenge a Republican-friendly map that maintained four red congressional seats in Utah. David Reymann, who worked on behalf of progressive voting rights groups in the case, was named as the lawyer in a complaint that an attorney for Hagen’s husband submitted to Chief Justice Matthew Durrant and the Judicial Conduct Commission, according to local outlet KSL.

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Hagen and Reymann previously denied the allegations.

The Judicial Conduct Commission—described on its website as an independent body comprising several state lawmakers, judges, and members of the public—conducted a preliminary investigation based on the complaint and chose not to pursue the matter further, KSL reported.

A statement issued by the Utah Supreme Court on behalf of Hagen in April said she took “prompt, prudent, and transparent steps” in response to the allegations by her ex-husband.

“My last involvement in the redistricting case was October 2024,” Hagen said. “I voluntarily recused myself from all cases involving Mr. Reymann in May 2025, and my recusal was reflected in the Court’s September 15, 2025, opinion in League of Women Voters.”

In her resignation letter, Hagen stated that she would love to continue serving on the bench.

The Scott M. Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City, Utah, houses the Utah Supreme Court and various lower courts. (Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group)

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“But I cannot do so without sacrificing the privacy and well-being of those I care about and the effective functioning and independence of Utah’s judiciary,” she wrote.

Cox will be tasked with naming Hagen’s replacement. Fox News Digital has reached out to the governor’s office.

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Oliver contributed to this report.

A Utah couple have been accused of torturing their 11-year-old son to death, as a GoFundMe launched just days after the child’s passing said his family experienced an “unexpected passing.”

Brigham Merrell, 35, was booked Wednesday into the Box Elder County Jail on suspicion of child abuse homicide and child torture after allegedly calling 911 on September 21 to report seeing his “minor child hanging by a coaxial cable,” according to a Tremonton-Garland police affidavit cited by KSL. His wife, Melinda Merrell, 36, was also booked on suspicion of child torture.

During a months-long investigation, police said Brigham Merrell gave inconsistent accounts about who found the boy, the position he was in and the events leading up to his death, KSL reports. Investigators said those discrepancies, along with camera footage from inside the home, led to the couple’s arrests.

In a news release, police said that they will not identify the child who was killed “out of respect for the victim’s dignity.” Meanwhile, a GoFundMe campaign, created by user LaDaune Vonk, identified the child as Moroni and described his death as an “unexpected passing,” saying he was “prematurely taken from this earth” and asking for help covering funeral costs. The fundraiser had raised about $7,400 toward a $9,000 goal as of publication.

“If you didn’t get the chance to know Moroni, you would have found him to be extremely kind and loving with his 5 siblings,” the GoFundMe reads. “He loved to play video games and all things outdoors.”

“This has been a very devastating time for the Merrell family,” the fundraiser added.

However, police say the boy and his siblings, some of whom were home at the time of his death, endured prolonged abuse and disturbing punishments inside the home. One child told investigators they witnessed the victim die after receiving a “whooping” from Brigham Merrell, according to the affidavit seen by KLSN.

“During interviews with the children, friends of the children, the suspect and his wife, we also found yearslong allegations of child abuse and child torture, which included food restriction, admittance of corporal punishment that resulted in bruising when belts, pans and other items were used to whip, as well as allegations that the children are sent out to stay in an outside dog run when they are in trouble,” the affidavit states, per the outlet.

When Brigham Merrell called 911 on September 21, he claimed he was performing CPR on his son, but officers arrived to find him kneeling without providing aid, according to an affidavit. The child was later pronounced dead at a hospital after emergency responders treated him.

Investigators said home surveillance footage contradicted Merrell’s account. The camera footage is said to show him moving the child’s body through the house and past emergency responders attempting to access to property. He also left the room to change clothes during treatment, which police described as potentially concealing evidence.

After the incident, police reportedly learned that items had been discarded from the home, surfaces repainted and rooms altered.

A forensic exam found injuries and ligature marks inconsistent with hanging, along with bruising on the child’s back that may have occurred near the time of death. Both parents denied knowing the cause, though Brigham Merrell suggested it “could be from a belt.”

Melinda Merrell allegedly told investigators she checked her children for bruises days after whippings to “adjust their methods,” including switching from spoons to pans because the spoons left marks, police said. Both parents admitted to the abuse and stated they should have looked into the laws in Utah before they moved here. Melinda, specifically, stated she was not taught that leaving marks on her children was not acceptable,” according to the affidavit.

Video footage showed Melinda either participating in the beatings or watching as Brigham Merrell carried them out, investigators said.

The other children from the home have been placed in the care of child welfare agencies, KSL reports.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, known for initiatives on political civility and energy abundance, rolled out a new talking point this week in front of leading international business people in Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City.

The Republican governor preached what could be described as a theory of community-centered capitalism.

Like any good conservative, Cox has long prioritized cultivating a corporate-friendly environment in Utah, complete with a six-year streak of cutting income taxes and a campaign to speed up government permits.

By key economic metrics, Utah’s free-market policy orientation appears to have paid off.

Utah has the highest year-over-year, and 10-year cumulative GDP growth in the country, the highest median household income adjusted for cost of living and the No. 1 economic outlook now 19 years running.

For three years in a row, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Utah as the best state. But, at high-profile events on Tuesday and Thursday, Cox didn’t point to the economy. The secret, he said, is what Utah’s economy is pointed to.

Utah is “a place where we still believe in community. A place where we still believe in faith and virtue and taking care of our neighbors,” Cox said. “A place where we believe that the economy works for us, and not us for the economy.”

Amid global turmoil, stability becomes a peculiar trait, and one that is increasingly attracting attention to Utah, Cox told the executives, diplomats and community leaders attending the annual Crossroads of the World summit.

As favorable views toward capitalism creep downward, and crash among young people, the unlikely answer coming from Cox is to remind capitalists what Utah never forgot: that business is at its best when it’s building community.

A moment of global uncertainty

Attendees at the two-day conference hosted by World Trade Center Utah and Zions Bank were greeted by a stark assessment of the world economy from Ian Bremmer, a political scientist and founder of the Eurasia Group.

Russian alienation, Chinese aggression and Middle East military action are shifting international relations as oil shortages, tariffs and artificial intelligence increase the odds of a global recession, Bremmer and others said.

Utah has seen positive movement as it navigates the tariff regime established by President Donald Trump, Zions’ senior economist Robert Spendlove said, with an increase in exports and a surge in technology imports from Taiwan.

But the dominant force in Utah and U.S. economies is uncertainty, Spendlove said, because it is too soon to tell what will be the long-term impacts of tariffs on prices and production, and of AI on efficiency and employment.

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Faced with these obstacles, businesses are looking for economic stability. But, more than that, Cox said business people, feeling “unmoored” and “unsettled” like they haven’t for “generations,” are looking for a stable life.

“The people across the globe are just desperate for goodness, for community, for connection,” Cox said. “So where in the world, where in the United States of America would you rather be than in the state of Utah?”

Cox said “Utah was in demand in a way that we have just never seen before” at the Select USA Investment Summit in Maryland on Tuesday, with international investors from Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea lining up.

Utah’s competitive advantage is not its regulatory environment, Cox said, it’s a culture that encourages entrepreneurialism that gives back to “the least among us” — a capitalism of “neighborhoods,” not “boardrooms.”

This informs Cox’s approach to “pro-human” AI development. Concluding his remarks, the governor urged his audience not to lose sight of the fact that these technologies “work for us” so “we don’t become slaves to them.”

What are Utah’s unique values?

Cox’s idealistic message of business channeling humanity’s best values comes as Americans, especially young adults, have become more pessimistic toward the U.S. economic system than at any other point in recent history.

The share of Americans who view capitalism favorably fell to 54% in 2025, according to a Gallup survey. This is down 6 percentage points from 60% in 2021, and the lowest number since Gallup started asking the question in 2010.

A December YouGov/Economist poll found when asked to pick between capitalism and socialism, 41% of Americans chose capitalism and 21% chose socialism. That flipped among ages 18-29 to 26% capitalism and 28% socialism.

Some of this can be attributed to a feeling that capitalism has become unanchored from place and people, according to Ryan Beck, managing partner at Tapestry Capital, a Salt Lake City firm focused on long-term Utah investments.

“A relational approach to business means the lines between community and business get blurred in really profound ways that do create stability and that do share the gains of capitalism more broadly,” Beck told the Deseret News.

An example, Beck said, is the Larry H. Miller Company, which has poured resources into disadvantaged neighborhoods. But to maintain this culture, Utah must recognize “there’s certain money we don’t want in this state,” Beck said.

Money is not “the end goal,” Cox said on Tuesday; the real end is reflected in Utah having the best upward economic mobility in the country, correlated with the highest rates of two-parent homes, religious attendance and social capital.

Cox plans to build on Utah’s social capital, defined by family unity, charitable giving and neighborhood friendships, by leading a nationwide “America’s Potluck” initiative, inviting the country to share a communal meal on July 5.

President of Interfaith America Eboo Patel, who popularized the idea of potlucks as a metaphor — and a real-life practice — “to save diverse democracy” said a strong social fabric starts with crossing the street to have a conversation.

Strong communities are “the cornerstone for any civilization,” and require people to welcome diverse identities while striving to serve the common good with respect, relationships and cooperation, Patel said.

“There are too many people tempting us to look at the things we don’t like about one another,” he said. “Gov. Cox is one of the most important leaders inviting us to consider what we like about one another and how we can connect on that common ground.”

Hundreds of furious Utah residents packed a gym and erupted in chants of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” this week as county commissioners pushed through approval of “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary’s colossal AI data center project — a sprawling development critics warn could transform the rural region forever.

The controversial proposal ignited a political firestorm in Box Elder County, where regulators voted to advance O’Leary’s planned “hyperscale” data center — a massive complex expected to generate and consume more than twice the electricity currently used by the entire state of Utah.

The fierce backlash in Box Elder County, population 64,100, reflects a growing national revolt against massive AI data centers. Critics say the sites guzzle enormous amounts of water and electricity, receive lavish tax breaks and permanently transform rural communities while creating relatively few long-term jobs.

Last month, small-town Missourians voted to oust several councilmembers who backed a $6 billion data center despite intense opposition from locals.

Opponents of the Utah project have raised alarms over the potential for pollution, drought strain, rising energy demand and what they describe as a rushed approval process that gave residents little say over a development expected to reshape tens of thousands of acres of open land.

The proposed site would span roughly 60 square miles — making it nearly three times the size of Manhattan — and would be powered largely by natural gas, according to state officials.

Hundreds of residents jammed into the Box Elder County Commission’s special meeting Monday carrying protest signs and blasting commissioners over what critics described as a rushed and secretive process.

The fury inside the gym boiled over into hallways and parking lots as demonstrators shouted at officials after the vote, with some accusing county leaders of selling out the region’s land, water and air quality.

Commissioners moved the meeting from their usual chambers to a larger fairgrounds facility in Tremonton after anticipating an unusually large turnout, according to local reports.

O’Leary brushed off much of the backlash by claiming the demonstrations were fueled by outside agitators rather than local residents.

“We think over 90% of the protesters are actually not people that live in Utah or Box Elder County. They’re being bussed in,” the investor said this week in a video posted to social media.

The fallout from the vote became so heated that one commissioner said police officers were stationed outside commissioners’ homes after the meeting amid fears demonstrators could show up at there.

“Today I have policemen parked in front of my house,” Commissioner Lee Perry told ABC4, adding that protesters were “attacking, not just me personally, but my family.”

Scientists and environmental experts warned the proposed facility’s massive energy appetite could dramatically worsen pollution in Utah because the project would rely heavily on natural gas generation.

One Utah State University physicist estimated the project could raise the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 50%.

At full buildout, the sprawling AI campus is projected to require up to 9 gigawatts of electricity — more than double Utah’s current average statewide power consumption, according to state officials.

The project has also drawn scrutiny over lucrative incentives approved by state officials in an effort to secure the development.

Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority, or MIDA, approved a sharply reduced energy tax rate of 0.5% for the project — far below the 6% rate it was authorized to charge.

State officials also acknowledged they aggressively fast-tracked the proposal as they competed with rival states to land the project.

“It’s a competition,” MIDA executive director Paul Morris said last month. “That’s also why we’ve been rushing it so fast.”

Kirk Offel, CEO of Overwatch Mission Critical, told The Post that the Utah project’s proposed 9-gigawatt scale would have been unimaginable just a few years ago — but said the AI boom is rapidly changing the economics and infrastructure demands of the industry.

“Nine gigawatts is aggressive. But it’s not unrealistic. Not anymore,” Offel said.

“We are no longer building data centers, we are building industrial infrastructure for intelligence.”

Offel said the biggest challenge facing hyperscale AI projects is no longer demand, but execution — including whether developers can secure enough power, build workforce capacity and maintain community trust.

He also acknowledged the enormous environmental concerns surrounding the Utah proposal, saying projects of this size force “hard choices into the open’ over water use, emissions and sustainability.”

“Natural gas is being used as a bridge, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s available, scalable, and dispatchable right now,” Offel told The Post.

“The real issue is this: We have demand moving at exponential speed, and policy, infrastructure, and environmental alignment moving at linear speed.”

As parents scramble to protect their children from the adverse effects of a free and open internet, lawmakers are increasingly restricting access to untoward content via age verification laws. Enforcement, however, has proven difficult, with constituents often flocking to tools like virtual private networks to circumvent restrictions. As a response, lawmakers have advocated restricting access to VPNs, which camouflage a user’s location by spoofing their IP address. While VPN restrictions have been deployed in totalitarian countries like North Korea, Belarus, China and Russia, age limits that necessitate them to enforce are increasingly popular in liberal nations like the U.K. and Australia. Some American states, like Wisconsin and Michigan, have attempted to codify VPN bans. On May 6, 2026, Utah became the first state to officially effectively combat users’ access to the privacy tool.

Utah’s state Senate Bill 73, dubbed Online Age Verification Amendments, was signed by Utah’s Republican governor Spencer Cox in March. The law, which largely focuses on taxing websites exhibiting adult content, sets several age verification provisions. Critically, SB73 shifts liability for minors accessing adult content onto the websites themselves. This constitutes a major shift in the state’s content censorship rules, as online providers will be legally liable for verifying the age of all users located in Utah, regardless of if they’re using a VPN to mask their location. 

Advocates argue that such provisions act as a soft VPN ban, potentially forcing websites to prevent all traffic from known VPN IP addresses. While this form of enforcement is significantly less extreme than some proposed bans, specifically Wisconsin’s now-abandoned law which sought to ban the technology outright, Utah’s new restrictions could prove a watershed moment for American censorship online. Advocates warn the move creates a dangerous precedent with major implications for national censorship laws. 

Read more: 12 Common Windows Apps You Should Uninstall Immediately, According To Experts

Inside SB73

To ensure that Utah residents adhere to the state’s new age restriction rules, SB73 imposes two new provisions concerning VPN usage. The first extends companies’ legal liability for users violating the state’s age regulations, requiring companies to restrict access from any underage users physically located in the state. Second, it prevents entities with “a substantial portion of material harmful to minors” from sharing information related to VPNs.

Although these may sound like minor changes, advocates worry that they could force websites to indiscriminately apply age verification measures. For one, websites cannot accurately determine VPN users’ true locations, potentially forcing companies operating in Utah to apply age verification rules across a VPN company’s entire customer base. Determining who’s using a VPN, for that matter, is equally difficult, since VPN companies routinely add new IP addresses, rendering VPN blacklists ineffective. In a statement given to TechRadar, popular VPN provider NordVPN gave the issue the moniker of a “liability trap.” Because Utah’s age restriction mandate is essentially unenforceable, NordVPN argues, it forces websites into making age verification rules universal, and thus subjecting  “millions of users to invasive identity checks [when] they have no legal obligation.”

It’s important to note that Utah’s restrictions are not a hard-and-fast mandate. Instead, it deploys what the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit focused on defending digital rights, dubs a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, in which “websites likely only have an obligation to ask for proof of age if they actually learn that a user is physically in Utah and using a VPN.” Rather than assuage concerns, however, EFF argues that such legal uncertainties create “a dangerous precedent” that “threatens to significantly undermine digital privacy rights.”

Implications

This discussion must be held within the context of the broader age verification debate, which activists argue unduly infringes on users’ privacy. To enforce age restriction rules, websites must require access to sensitive information, ranging from government IDs and biometric data to users’ online browsing histories. Increasingly, websites like Google are feeding some amalgamation of this data into AI algorithms to determine user’s ages. According to EFF, each of these age verification methods “demands users hand over sensitive and immutable personal information that links their offline identity to their online activity.” Some activists argue that age verification rules function more to feed surveillance structures than safety measures. Furthermore, users worry that providing personal data creates major security concerns, exemplified by a slew of high-profile hacks of age verification providers in recent years.

As the first American age verification law to directly address VPN usage, Utah’s SB73 sets a dangerous precedent while offering little practical utility. By roping VPNs into its online censorship laws, Utah expands the Overton Window for American lawmakers looking to restrict constituent’s online activities. In doing so, the ban potentially sets the stage for more invasive restrictions without making its constituents’ online lives any safer. In fact, Utah’s SB73 exemplifies a legal paradigm in which privacy measures are increasingly treated as “loopholes” rather than security tools. 

Utah is far from the only jurisdiction pushing for more invasive age verification rules. As governments around the world look to mitigate minor’s exposure to social media, pornography, and other sensitive materials, VPNs have increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs. Ultimately, restricting their usage potentially causes more damage than benefits.

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Members of the Utah football coaching staff recently checked in with one of their top targets in the 2027 class ahead of an important campus visit.

Late Tuesday night, blue-chip wide receiver prospect Blake Wong shared on his X account that Utes offensive coordinator Kevin McGiven and wide receivers coach Chad Bumphis stopped by his home to meet with him and his family before his schedule trip to Salt Lake City.

Wong, who’s arranged an official visit with Utah for May 29, is a consensus four-star recruit and top-45 wide receiver in the 2027 class. He’s garnered interest from high-level programs throughout his recruitment and narrowed down his options to Utah, BYU, Ohio State, Oregon and UCLA.

Utah wasn’t the first of Wong’s finalists to pay him a home visit since he announced his top five schools in April; Ohio State wide receivers coach Cortez Hankton Jr. stopped by his home recently, and not long after BYU wide receiver coaches Fesi Sitake and Raelon Singleton pitched the Cougars to the 6-foot-1 prospect, according to his X account.

Wong will have more opportunities to further his relationships with each coaching staff in the coming weeks as he tours the campuses of his finalists. Following his Salt Lake City trip, the Norco High School (California) product will head closer to home to check out UCLA on June 5 — only to then turn around and head back to the Beehive State for his BYU visit on June 8. A couple of stops in Eugene, Oregon, to see Dan Lanning and the Ducks (June 12) and Columbus, Ohio, to see Ryan Day and the Buckeyes (June 19) round out his visit schedule for the summer.

Morgan Scalley and company will look to capitalize on their chance to host Wong first later this month. According to an April report from 247Sports, Ohio State has been considered the frontrunners in the race to land his signature, while the two Utah schools have been viewed as “dark horse candidates.”

That being said, it’d be a massive recruiting win for Scalley and the Utah staff if they were to undercut three Big Ten schools and their in-state rival for Wong, the No. 31-ranked wide receiver recruit in the country according to 247Sports. The Utes haven’t snagged a wide receiver prospect of his caliber in some time, and have had to rely on the transfer portal market to replenish their depth at the position for the last couple of offseasons.

Wong, the No. 243-ranked player in the nation overall, also holds offers from Arizona State, Michigan State, Purdue, Washington and Duke, among others.

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