Thursday, May 22, 2025

⏰ Tick Tock

82 days to Utah's 2025 municipal primary elections (8/12/2025)
166 days until Election Day (11/4/2025)
530 days until the 2026 midterm elections (11/3/2026)

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👀 Here's what you need to know for Thursday morning:

UTAH AND THE WEST

Utah's GOP members of Congress duck questions on $4 trillion deficit bomb. [Utah Political Watch]

Republicans remove language in Trump budget bill to sell public lands in Utah. [Deseret News]

Farmington man arrested on stalking charge over Salt Lake mayor's proposed city flags. [KUTV]

Is Mike Lee the establishment now? Here's why some Lyman Republicans think so. [Deseret News]

Utah lawmakers' own study found gender-affirming care benefits trans youth. Will they lift the treatment ban? [Salt Lake Tribune]

Utah Legislature to consider extending school lunch breaks. [Utah News Dispatch]

Utah Senate unanimously approves Cox's pick to head a state department – without asking about his checkered past. [Salt Lake Tribune]

Buoys, toilets, fees – Lake Powell boaters frustrated with National Park Service. [Fox 13]

Utah commission chairman defends approval of Rocky Mountain Power 4.7% rate increase. [KSL]

Utah's new state superintendent was just selected. Here's what we know. [Salt Lake Tribune]

Shifting foreign aid from taxpayers to tithe payers? Senator suggests LDS Church, other groups can help fill void. [Salt Lake Tribune]

"Mind-boggling" amounts of fentanyl in Utah comes from the southern border, A.G. Derek Brown says. [Salt Lake Tribune]

NATIONAL

The Republican-led House of Representatives passed President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" by a single vote on Thursday morning. Here's what's in it. [NPR]

  • The GOP megabill approved by the House on Thursday cuts SNAP – food stamps – by 30%, which is the biggest cut in the program's history. [CNBC]
  • The Republican spending bill adds to the nation's $36 trillion debt load, which has triggered a negative reaction in the bond market. [CNBC]
  • The GOP budget bill will trigger more than $500 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare. [Press release]
  • Almost five full pages of changes to the bill made by Republicans were nothing but striking out the word "MAGA" and replacing it with "Trump." [X]

The Pentagon took possession of a Qatari luxury jet for President Trump to use as Air Force One. [Washington Post]

Two staff members of the Israeli Embassy were shot and killed Wednesday evening. The suspect allegedly yelled, "Free Palestine" after he was arrested. [Associated Press]

INTERNATIONAL

President Trump privately told European leaders that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not ready to end the war in Ukraine becuase he thinks he's winning. [Wall Street Journal]

President Trump made several false claims about so-called "white genocide" – the alleged persecution of South Africa's white minority – during an Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. [Reuters]

  • During the meeting, Trump played a social media video he claimed showed the "burial sites" of "over 1,000" white farmers in South Africa. That wasn't true. [New York Times]

President Trump's "gold card" program allowing people to buy permanent U.S. residency for $5 million will launch within a week. [Axios]

ECONOMY

Bitcoin rose to a new all-time high on Wednesday, reaching $108,955.10. [CNBC]

Walmart plans to cut around 1,500 corporate jobs in a cost-cutting restructuring move. [Wall Street Journal]

HEALTH

A measles outbreak in El Paso, Texas is mostly affecting adults, not school children. [Texas Tribune]