Spencer Cox: Last News

permitted to be displayed in or flown outside government buildings and schools include the American flag, the Utah state flag, military flags, the Olympic and Paralympic flags, college or university flags, tribal flags, and historic versions of other approved flags that might be used for educational purposes.“Taxpayer-funded entities shouldn’t be promoting political agendas,” Lee said on social media after Gov. Spencer Cox (R) allowed it to become law without his signature.

Sundance Film Festival announced Thursday that its new home will be Boulder, Colorado, keeping Sundance in the mountains but moving it out of Park City, the Utah ski town that had for decades provided the premier independent film gathering its picturesque snowy backdrop.Organizers said that after 40 years in the mountains, the festival had outgrown Park City, and lacked the necessary theaters or affordable housing to continue hosting what has become one of North America’s most sprawling movie events. Sundance had narrowed down the options to Salt Lake City (with a smaller presence in Park City), Cincinnati and Boulder.Boulder emerged as their choice due to its close proximity to nature, its small-town charm and an engaged community that, organizers said, provides Sundance the ideal setting for its future.“Boulder is a tech town, it’s a college town, it’s an arts town, and it’s a mountain town,” Amanda Kelso, acting chief executive of the Sundance Institute, said in an interview Thursday from Boulder.

With just two days to go until Utah’s governor either signs or vetos a controversial bill that would ban the Pride Flag from government buildings in the state, the chances of Sundance staying in the Beehive State aren’t looking good.

EXCLUSIVE: By the end of April, the new home of the Sundance Film Festival should be public knowledge with the Salt Lake City/Park City combo, Boulder, Colorado or Cincinnati bid picked as the host for the next decade. However, a bill heading toward Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk that would ban the Pride flag in schools and other state government buildings might be an eleventh-hour obstacle to the Beehive State’s hopes of keeping the Robert Redford-founded shindig past 2026.

For Matthew McConaughey, a dream deferred is not necessarily a dream denied.

Actor and author Matthew McConaughey teased a possible political run during the National Governor’s Association summer meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, Friday, where he weighed in broadly on the 2024 presidential race.Participating in a discussion on the role of culture in polarization, McConaughey joked with governors about indulging in the Hollywood heavyweight’s tequila brand the night before, while also taking a more serious tone regarding the “entertainment” factor in American politics. He argued that the “extremes seem to be going further left and further right” and “decency doesn’t seem to be on the table.”“I understand it’s hard to market and sell success in how people negotiate, because it’s not as fun, it’s not as sexy, it’s not as exciting as the car wreck. We’re a nation of rubberneckers,” McConaughey said.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill Wednesday that bans licensed professionals from subjecting minors to conversion therapy, the discredited practice that attempts to turn LGBTQ+ people heterosexual. Conversion therapy has been denounced as unnecessary, ineffective, and harmful by major medical and mental health organizations. Photo: Officer of Gov. Spencer Cox

Utah has banned most gender-affirming care for minors.Gov. Spencer Cox signed Senate Bill 16 into law Saturday.

issued a written injunction preventing the state from trying to enforce the law, which was approved by Republican lawmakers earlier this year, over the objections of Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, who initially vetoed the measure.In May, three transgender athletes and their families enlisted the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in their case.

original version of the bill, sponsored by Rep. Kera Birkeland (R-Morgan), sought to avoid a full-scale ban on transgender athletes like the one rejected last year by Utah lawmakers while ensuring that cisgender females are not disadvantaged by competing against transgender females who have a physiological advantage over them.To that end, Birkeland’s bill would have created a seven-person panel — comprised of six members appointed by the president of the State Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the governor — including: a sports physiologist, a board-certified physician, a mental health professional, and an athletic trainer — and one coach or interscholastic official appointed by the presiding state athletic association.The commission would then determine, on a case-by-case basis, an individual student’s eligibility, based on their personal physical characteristics, for competing on sports teams that match their gender identity.

Everyone knows the 1964 dark comedy Dr. Strangelove, a Stanley Kubrick film which satirized Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict.