This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018.<br>You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below.<br>Who’s a good legislature?<br>Party of personal responsibility<br>Government shutdown showdown<br>Diversity not for the birds<br>Trump and the religious right<br>Trump Tower<br>Walmart severance<br>It’s a hard knock life<br>The Never Ending Story<br>Trump trolls America<br>Want more Bagley? Become a fan on Facebook.

Remember Roscoe Conkling? Few people do, even though for many years the New Yorker was the “first man” in the Senate and king of patronage.

How about Henry Cabot Lodge? “Something about the League of Nations?” you ask, if you are going off your college days or AP history prep. “No, wait, Nixon’s running mate!” you say, and head to Wikipedia to discover both fragments of memory are right. The Lodges were a father-and-son team of senators.

How about Robert Taft and Mike Mansfield? Lyndon Johnson was preceded as Senate majority leader by the man known as “Mr. Republican” and followed by the good and decent Mansfield, who went on to be a good and decent ambassador to Japan under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. (When was the last time anyone thought of a senator as such a statesman that he or she could serve as ambassador to a key ally for more than a decade under presidents from both parties?)

The point is that the Senate as an institution is — or was — quite the work of genius, but its individual members, no matter how famous in their day, fade into background characters in presidential biographies. (And most presidential biographies don’t really get read all that much.) Now the Senate itself is careening toward widespread contempt, as happened to its Roman predecessor even before the emperors turned it into a fancy advisory council.

Whether the decline began with the sliming of Robert Bork or the segregationist filibusters of civil-rights legislation, the modern Senate has been on a downward spiral for some time, and even current Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate’s most able leader of my lifetime, isn’t shrewd enough to reverse the trajectory in the public’s eyes. After another government shutdown, President Donald Trump and others are pushing hard to make the apparently dysfunctional upper chamber a purely majoritarian place. McConnell resists this, knowing that the rights of the minority party are (or at least used to be) key impediments on the country rushing into dangerous waters.

What the Senate needs is an overhaul of its rules, one that preserves the rights of the minority in some cases — key legislation, for example, and perhaps appointments to the Supreme Court — while also reflecting the speed at which the world moves today. Simple majorities on appropriations and time limits on debate over minor nominees are two obvious reforms. They could be traded for agreement on the high court vacancies, formalizing the modern precedent established by McConnell of no nominations in an election year but consideration and votes on nominees from the year prior such as Anthony Kennedy. The same deal could also include changes to the “Byrd Rule,” which gives the Senate parliamentarian broad sway over what is allowed under budget reconciliation — an extraconstitutional expansion of the parliamentarian’s powers that makes sense only under a Cubist understanding of how the Senate is supposed to operate.

Now, with the shock of the shutdown very palpable, McConnell and his minority counterpart, Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., should empower a small group of widely liked and respected members to fashion a package of reforms with the only guarantee being that their work product receive an up-or-down vote made effective by a simple majority.

The Senate’s dysfunction is astonishing to Americans who have to make things actually run and who have to do their jobs to keep their jobs. Trump has shrewdly taken aim at the Senate’s vulnerability as an issue. It would be best for both parties to head off change imposed from pressure from the outside with change organically orchestrated from within by those with care for the body and its original design.

Hewitt, a Post contributing columnist, hosts a nationally syndicated radio show and is author of “The Fourth Way: The Conservative Playbook for a Lasting GOP Majority.”

Rep. Chris Stewart said he’s spending a considerable amount of time in Congress investigating the real scandal in the wake of the 2016 election: the possible politicization of the FBI, Department of Justice and CIA.

“We are unraveling or peeling back an onion there that is extraordinarily concerning to me,” Stewart, Utah’s only member of the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday on the Utah Senate floor. “When it comes to the politicalization of agencies like the FBI, the Department of Justice and frankly, in my opinion, worst of all, the CIA, where they’ve been turned into political operatives.

“Obviously, there are dedicated public servants that work there,” he added. “But a few individuals in very senior positions. We cannot allow that to go unanswered if that is true.”

No one talks about collusion by the Donald Trump campaign anymore, Stewart said.

“You don’t hear [collusion] anymore from either side of the aisle because the reality is there just simply isn’t evidence on it,” he said.

There is, however, an ongoing investigation into Russian election meddling led by special counsel Robert Mueller III, whose team interviewed Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week, according to press reports that were confirmed by the Department of Justice. Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, also was subpoenaed, The New York Times reported last week.

Praising President Trump’s achievements in his first year in office, Stewart began his speech by comparing the president to Rodney Dangerfield, the comedian who starred as the golfer with an unorthodox swing and loud behavior in the movie “Caddyshack.”

“Halfway up the swing he stops and he tweets something out,” Stewart said of Trump, who is an avid golfer. “Halfway down the swing he throws a toy out and the press goes running over there to look at the toy and then he swings, and it’s just as ugly as anything you’ve seen, but the ball goes down the middle of the fairway.

“The goals that he’s trying to achieve, sometimes the ball has gone a long way down the fairway,” he added.

Stewart — who during the 2016 campaign called Trump “our Mussolini” — told the House Republican Caucus he now has become a “huge convert” to the president.

“He has really won my respect,” he added. “He has had an incredibly effective first year” despite “all the distractions, and all the diversions and all the media polls.”

He added, “It’s surprising to me that he has a 44 or 46 percent approval rating” while in the news media, “90 percent of the coverage is negative” that offers a “continuous beat-down.”

Stewart added that he keeps a list of where the news media “doesn’t just get it wrong, they actually deceive, actively lie.”

Reporter Lee Davidson contributed to this report.

Without a plan to address the projected 1.5 million additional residents who will live in Utah by 2050, the future may look something like this: worsened air quality, increased traffic congestion and a continued lack of affordable housing.

But as elected officials, business leaders, community organizers, transportation agencies and developers came together downtown Tuesday morning, they outlined a different vision — one that would provide more transportation choices and housing options, preserve open space and link development with transportation decisions.

“The Wasatch Choice for 2050 is about a vision for the [community],” said Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams. “Something that we choose for ourselves, where we’ve improved our air quality, where we don’t have traffic congestion. And that really takes planting seeds today — making decisions today that will have an impact over the next 10 to 20 years.”

The Wasatch Choice 2050 vision will update the existing 2040 blueprint — which was created with the help of a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — on how to handle population growth along the Wasatch Front over the next 30 years.

The Wasatch Choice 2050 vision is currently in draft form, but Wasatch Front Regional Council Executive Director Andrew Gruber anticipates it could have some big impacts.

For one, he says the plan would provide residents with access to 57 percent more jobs within 30 minutes of their homes in the next 30 years, improving the state’s air quality by reducing commute times. He also anticipates the plan could save municipalities close to $6 billion by linking development and transportation decisions.

The initiative’s success depends on cities and counties working together with other stakeholders to create “bottom-up” solutions to local problems.

“Local communities know their neighborhoods best,” Gruber said. “They know what their residents want and they have to be empowered with the ability to work with the private sector, with land owners and with community residents to make decisions about the local community fabric.”

But Ogden Mayor Mike Caldwell said it can be difficult to see that big picture on the local level, making a conference like this one especially important.

“A lot of decisions, unfortunately, in political environments are made short term,” he said. “You have what we call the ‘tyranny of the urgent.’ Your phone is always ringing and somebody is always at your door asking for things. You sometimes don’t have a chance to take a big step back and really think about the future. That’s what this conference is for — for everybody to take a step back and listen to the professionals.”

In Ogden, Caldwell said he envisions the city as having “a great mix of a very robust urban downtown core where you can walk, ride your bike or get public transportation” by 2050. He wants the city to be “livable and walkable, with lots of small, eclectic coffee shops and bookstores and small groceries mixed in with these denser environments.”

Without proper foresight, McAdams said plans like that one likely won’t be possible.

“If we don’t have a plan, then we’re allowing facts and circumstances to dictate the future for us,” he said. “And I think if we do that, the community is not going to be something we choose. It’s not going to be something we may even enjoy. What I want to do is hand off to our kids and grandkids a community that’s as great as the one we know today.”

Ogden, Utah • A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of two northern Utah residents who claim they were fired from their jobs at the Kellogg Co. in 2012 because their religious beliefs prevented them from working on Saturdays.

Richard Tabura and Guadalupe Diaz argued in their appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in Denver that they were honoring their beliefs as Seventh-day Adventists when they refused to work on the Sabbath at Kellogg's former frozen foods plant in Clearfield south of Ogden.

The Standard-Examiner reports the appellate court ruled last week that a lower court judge in Utah erred when she dismissed the case without a trial on claims their civil rights had been violated.

The ruling means Tabura and Diaz will get another hearing in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.

Washington • The head is missing, but the body is still alive.

The president killed off all attempts at compromise, then went dark after the government shut down, refusing to say what he would support on immigration or even to engage in negotiations. But in this leadership vacuum, something remarkable happened: Twenty-five senators, from both parties, rediscovered their role as lawmakers. They crafted a deal over the weekend that offers a possible path forward, and, in dramatic fashion on the Senate floor Monday, signaled the end of the shutdown with a lopsided 81-18 vote.

The agreement may not end in a long-sought immigration deal and a long-term spending plan. Trump could yet kill any deals they reach. And liberal interest groups are furious at what they see as a Democratic surrender. But Monday’s breakthrough shows there is at least the potential for lawmakers to take the wheel from an erratic and dangerous driver.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, announcing his deal with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor Monday afternoon, said he hadn’t even heard from Trump since Friday, before the government closed. “The White House refused to engage in negotiations over the weekend. The great dealmaking president sat on the sidelines,” Schumer said, adding that he reached agreement with McConnell “despite and because of this frustration.”

Looking down from the gallery Monday afternoon, I saw the sort of scene rarely observed any longer in the Capitol: bipartisan camaraderie. Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, two architects of the compromise, were talking, when McConnell, with a chipper “Hey, Chris,” beckoned him for a talk with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who soon broke off for a word with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. During the vote, Manchin sat on the Republican side with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., sat with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., hobnobbed with Coons and Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., put an arm around Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., as he chatted with Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.

Durbin marveled at the festival of bonhomie. “What I have seen here on the floor of the Senate in the last few days is something we have not seen for years,” he said.

Neither side particularly wanted this shutdown. It was the work of a disengaged president who contributed only mixed signals, confusion and sabotage. After provoking the shutdown by killing a bipartisan compromise to provide legal protection for the “dreamers” (undocumented immigrants who came as children), Trump’s political arm put up a TV ad exploiting the dreamers by saying “Democrats who stand in our way will be complicit in every murder committed by illegal immigrants.”

Trump’s anti-immigrant ad and his racist outburst in the White House a couple of weeks ago will only increase Republicans’ long-term political problems, but, in the short term, Republicans succeeded in portraying Democrats as shutting down the government to protect illegal immigrants. And liberal interest groups took the bait. In a conference call just before news of the deal broke Monday morning, a broad array of progressive groups — Planned Parenthood, labor unions, the Human Rights Campaign, the ACLU, MoveOn and Indivisible — joined immigration activists in demanding Democrats refuse to allow the government to reopen without an immediate deal for the dreamers.

Later, after the compromise was announced, they were enraged: “This deal is a kick in the stomach,” tweeted MoveOn Washington Director Ben Wikler.

The fury will be forgotten, of course, if Congress comes up with an immigration deal by the Feb. 8 deadline McConnell promised. And Republican senators are showing signs that they are willing to chart a different course from their capricious leader.

“What has been difficult is dealing with the White House and not knowing where the president is,” Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., told reporters Monday. “I don’t think it will change.”

The number of ideological moderates in the Senate can be counted on one hand, but the 25 who hatched the compromise were the temperamental moderates. And, for once, moderation prevailed.

Before Monday’s vote, the two caucuses huddled separately. But on the floor after Monday’s vote, they were as one: Durbin gave Collins a thumbs up and Schumer warmly clasped her hand. Graham had a friendly chat with McConnell, then a similar one with Schumer. “Sue! Sue!” called out Manchin, spying Collins, who was at the moment holding hands with Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and talking with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

How long will this last? It may be over already. But at least they still know how.

Follow Dana Milbank on Twitter, @Milbank.

Melbourne, Australia • Australian Open quarterfinalist Tennys Sandgren said in an interview on Tuesday that he deleted several years of tweets to "move forward" and create a "version of a cleaner start" after he was questioned about his connections with right-wing activists on social media.

Sandgren's social media activity has been closely examined during his surprising run to the final eight at Melbourne Park. He was asked after his fourth-round win over Dominic Thiem about his links to controversial political figures and conspiracy theories.

During his post-match news conference on Monday, Sandgren denied supporting the far right movement, but said he found "some of the content interesting."

In his interview with ESPN on Tuesday, he sought to clarify that remark, saying it's "definitely not 'alt-right' content is interesting, just some individuals' specific content."

"(It's) not really specific 'alt-right' content that I deem of value, I think that's very incorrect and I don't find information like that to be of value or to hold onto any of those things," he said. "So it's not who I am as a person in any way."

He said he deleted all of his tweets not because it's "something that I'm really necessary embarrassed about," but because he thought that "creating a version of a cleaner start is not a bad call."

"People can screenshot, save and distribute everything they would like to," he said. "I know that, and that' fine. It is what it is. It's just something that I thought wouldn't be a bad way to kind of move forward."

Sandgren, who describes himself as a devout Christian, said he's also learning and growing as a person and "definitely doesn't have it all together."

The 26-year-old Sandgren is from Gallatin, Tenn., and played two years of tennis at the University of Tennessee. His mother is from South Africa.

''I'm more than happy to talk with people and let people know how I feel about things," he said. "I've had to put the social media aside for now, I'll take a look at it and I'll take the criticism and I'll take the good with the bad and keep learning and growing as a person and try to move forward."

Logan • Alex Dargenton’s height and, consequently, his choice of sport made him a little bit different than most on the Caribbean island of Martinique.

While almost everyone played soccer, Dargenton and his siblings tended toward hanging out at the basketball court.

“As you can imagine, the biggest difference was the weather,” Dargenton said. “It was pretty simple. The biggest difference for me is we don’t have competitive sports within the schools, so I was playing for club teams.

“We competed against other clubs from different cities.”

At 6 feet, 8 inches tall now, he equaled the height of his tallest older brother and hoops was a natural choice.

Imagine his surprise when, after Dargenton became the first family member to play college basketball, he found out that the Utah State Aggies’ front line — of which he was the major returning component — was considered small entering the 2017-18 season.

“For me and my other fellow post players, we take this very personally,” Dargenton said. “People think it’s going to be a mismatch when we play bigger, stronger dudes and think we can’t get around these guys.

“But we have great shooters on the team and can spread the floor, and that can create other issues for the other team,” he added.

Dargenton is averaging 7.8 points a game, up from his 4.6 ppg mark in 2016-17, and the trajectory for that figure is ticking up — when he’s on the court.

The lanky senior missed a pair of games with a right ankle injury just before the Mountain West Conference slate began, then reinjured the same ankle late in a Jan. 3 home victory over Fresno State.

That forced Dargenton to sit out the win at UNLV, but he then started the next three contests.

Against Boise State, his third start in a row, Dargenton went down 20 seconds into the contest.

This time it was his left ankle that he injured.

“Alex did a tremendous job when he was in there,” Utah State coach Tim Duryea said about the Fresno performance. “Probably had his best game as a low post player in his career. Hated to see him go out.”

A sense of bewilderment comes through when Dargenton talks about his ankles.

“I sprain my ankle quite often,” he said. “Fresno was my second game back, and I was able to play and perform, but I wasn’t 100 percent yet. I had a special tape job on there, and I still managed to get hurt.”

Don’t expect Dargenton to go down easy considering the route he had to take to get to Utah State.

Although Martinique has close to 400,000 inhabitants, Dargenton’s basketball experience was confined to club play through high school. When the 17-year-old left the French island territory for the United States, he spent two years in Los Angeles, finishing at Middlebrooks Academy, where he brushed up on his English skills as well as basketball.

In the 2014-15 season, Dargenton played at Laramie County Community College in Cheyenne, Wyo., before transferring to Utah State. He redshirted with the Aggies in 2015-16 and now is classified as a senior.

Dargenton has a variety of moves around the basket, and Duryea has encouraged him to use his ballhandling to drive to the hoop. His 13 points against Fresno State was his career best.

But Dargenton is particularly fond defensively of swatting away rivals’ attempts, like another French-speaking big man in Utah, Jazzman Rudy Gobert.

“That’s my favorite. I keep an eye on the all-time blocking list” for Utah State, said Dargenton, who had 34 blocks in his 31 games last season. “Blocking shots, for the team we call it a kill because it ends the possession for the other team.

“It’s a big thing, and it also gets the fans excited. And that’s something I like to do a lot.”

Dargenton is hoping to do some of that Wednesday against Air Force. He’s expected back on the court for the Aggies against the Falcons.

The Aggies’ lack of height was readily apparent against Wyoming. The Cowboys repeatedly swatted away USU forays into the paint in the first half.

Duryea’s last words of the postgame news conference spoke volumes after the 85-77 loss, Utah State’s fourth in a row.

“We’ve just got to find some consistency, and part of that is our depth, our bench,” Duryea said Saturday. “It’s kind of a microcosm of our team. We’re getting wildly different contributions from the bench.

“It would help if we could get Alex back on Wednesday.”

AIR FORCE AT UTAH STATE <br>When • 7 p.m. Wednesday <br>TV • Mountain West Network

Washington • Attorney General Jeff Sessions was interviewed for hours last week in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday. He’s the highest-ranking Trump administration official and first Cabinet member known to have submitted to questioning.

The interview came as Mueller investigates whether President Donald Trump’s actions in office, including the firing of FBI Director James Comey, constitute efforts to obstruct the FBI probe into contacts between his 2016 campaign and Russia. Trump’s own lawyers are discussing the prospect of an interview with the president himself, and White House officials state publicly that they anticipate a resolution soon to the investigation.

The questioning of the country’s chief law enforcement officer is a reflection of investigators’ continued interest in whether the president took steps to improperly obstruct justice. That question has been at the heart of the investigation for months as agents and prosecutors have questioned multiple current and former White House officials.

Sessions himself is seen as a potentially important witness given his direct involvement in the May 9 firing of Comey. The White House initially said the termination was done on the recommendation of the Justice Department and cited a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that faulted Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email server investigation as justification.

But Trump said later that he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he fired Comey, and he had decided to make the move even before the Justice Department’s recommendations.

Sessions was one of Trump’s earliest and most loyal allies, the first senator to endorse him during the presidential campaign and a key national security adviser during the election effort.

He was present at a March 2016 meeting attended by George Papadopoulos, a campaign foreign policy adviser who pleaded guilty last year to lying to the FBI about his own foreign contacts. Sessions may have been asked during his Mueller interview about any interactions he had with Papadopoulos, as well as about his own encounters during the campaign with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Over the past several months Mueller investigators have spoken with other key people close to the president, including White House Counsel Don McGahn, former chief of staff Reince Priebus and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as they examine the campaign’s contacts with Russia and potential obstruction.

Mueller has conveyed interest in speaking with the president, and White House attorney Ty Cobb said that is “under active discussion” with Trump’s individual lawyers. He said last week on a CBS News’ political podcast, “The Takeout,” that he expected the investigation to be wrapped up within weeks.

“There’s no reason for it not to conclude soon,” Cobb said. “Soon to me would be in the next four to six weeks.”

In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said he was “not at all concerned” about what Sessions may have told the Mueller’s investigators.

Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation in early March after acknowledging that he had had two previously undisclosed encounters with the Russian ambassador during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He said at the time that it would be improper for him to oversee a probe into a campaign for which he was a vocal and prominent supporter.

Though Trump and Sessions during the campaign shared an ambitious law-and-order agenda, and even though the attorney general has continued to push the president’s priorities, the recusal decision had strained their bond. Since then, Trump has lashed out repeatedly on Twitter at Sessions and the Justice Department, and the two men now rarely speak directly. Trump saw the recusal as weak and disloyal, believing his attorney general should be doing more to protect him

People familiar with the matter have told The Associated Press that McGahn had contacted Sessions to urge him to retain control of the investigation. McGahn was acting at the behest of the president, according to one of those people, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly by name.

Rosenstein appointed Mueller, a former FBI director, to take over the Russia investigation one week after Comey was fired. He oversees the work of Mueller’s investigators, but he told the AP in an interview last June that he, too, would recuse himself if his actions ever became relevant to the probe.

Sessions’ attorney, Chuck Cooper, declined to comment, as did the White House.

Four people have so far been charged in the Mueller investigation, including former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Flynn and Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Sessions’ interview with the Mueller team was first reported by The New York Times.

Park City • One of the scariest, most mind-warping movies at this year’s Sundance Film Festival premiered in the wee small hours Sunday — and it was all filmed in Utah.

“Hereditary,” a dark story of family grief that takes a twisted turn into the supernatural, had the audience at Park City’s Egyptian Theatre gasping at the jump scares and talking about its dread-filled tone on the shuttle buses.

“It doesn’t feel like we’ve been gone very long,” writer-director Ari Aster said. The production wrapped shooting at the end of June, filming on location in Park City and Salt Lake City, and in the Utah Film Studios just outside Park City.

Aster said the Utah crew, some of whom attended the premiere screening, were “amazing. … I would recommend it to anyone to shoot here.”

The movie stars Toni Collette and Gabriel Byrne as parents whose children — teen son Peter (Alex Wolff, of “Jumanji”) and 13-year-old daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) — start acting strangely after the kids’ grandmother dies.

“Hereditary” is the movie debut for Shapiro, who won a Tony Honor as one of the four young girls to play the title role in the original Broadway production of “Matilda” in 2013. It’s also one of five movies at Sundance this year to feature Ann Dowd, who won an Emmy last year for her role in “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Collette’s character, Annie, is an artist who creates miniature dioramas of the rooms of her house. Aster said those dioramas are a metaphor for what happens to the characters. “I wanted the family to feel like dolls in a dollhouse,” he said.

The miniatures were also a design challenge, Aster said, because it meant every detail of the sets had to be thought out in advance and re-created in dollhouse form. “I don’t know how we made it, and we almost didn’t,” he said.

“Hereditary” will be released by A24 Films later this year. It continues its Sundance screenings at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Tower Theatre in Salt Lake City, then Wednesday and Saturday in Park City. See Sundance.org for details.

For years, as a seller of real estate and star of reality TV, Donald Trump made a living wooing customers and viewers. His selling skills were good enough that he even persuaded voters to elect him as president in spite of his near-total lack of qualifications.

Yet once in office, he has proved to be the worst salesman America has ever had. Far from winning over other countries, he is actively repelling and repulsing them.

Trump is singularly failing to “close the deal” for America abroad. Note that, while it’s within his power to unilaterally end supposedly “bad deals” like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or NAFTA, his promises to conclude “great deals” are utterly hollow. He hasn’t made any appreciable progress on any new trade negotiations, even the bilateral ones that he favors for mysterious reasons over multilateral (and hence more beneficial) accords. Nor, needless to say, has he had any success in renegotiating the Paris climate accord, which he (wrongly) claims is harmful to America.

Trump has managed to persuade the United Nations Security Council to toughen sanctions on North Korea, but only because Russia and China have no intention of enforcing the resolutions. He had no luck in selling his decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem or his desire to redo the Iran nuclear deal. Allies simply don’t want to help America, no matter how much Trump blusters and bluffs.

The numbers tell the story: According to Gallup, “approval of U.S. leadership across 134 countries and areas stands at a new low of 30 percent.” That’s lower than the 34 percent approval during the last year of George W. Bush’s administration, in the wake of fiascos such as the Iraq War.

Republicans used to bash President Barack Obama for alienating American allies, but Trump is turning off our partners as no one ever has. According to Gallup, “Portugal, Belgium, Norway and Canada led the declines worldwide, with approval ratings of U.S. leadership dropping 40 points or more in each country.” All four of those countries are NATO members — i.e., among the closest allies America has. The situation has gotten so bad that Trump can’t even visit the United Kingdom, America’s closest friend for the past century.

Remarkably enough, there was more approval in this international survey for Germany (41 percent) and China (31 percent) as world leaders than there was for the United States (30 percent) — the country that has, in fact, led the free world since 1942. To say this is an ominous trend is to put it mildly.

Trump is entirely focused on American hard power — military and economic might. What he doesn’t realize is that much of America’s success as a superpower has rested on our “soft power.” America is an empire by invitation: We have troops in more than 170 countries and military alliances with as many as 60 countries, because most other nations do not feel threatened by American power.

Anti-Americanism is a fact of life, but the United States simply has not engendered the same kind of fear and loathing that less altruistic, more militaristic would-be hegemons have done — whether Habsburg Spain and Napoleonic France or Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Today, China and Russia, both illiberal great powers, have a few satraps but almost no real friends. They are regarded with suspicion and hostility by their neighbors.

With his “America first” mantra and his crude attacks on other countries and regions (e.g., the “s---holes” of Africa, Haiti and El Salvador), Trump seems intent on changing America’s image abroad from largely positive to unremittingly hostile. He cares so little about this troubling trend that he is wrecking the State Department, which is supposed to represent America abroad. Morale at Foggy Bottom is at rock bottom, as indicated by statistics showing that 60 percent of the State Department’s top-ranking career diplomats have left and new applications to join the foreign service have fallen by half.

Virtually the only foreign leaders whom Trump has shown any enthusiasm for hobnobbing with are authoritarians such as Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte and Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who shamelessly flatter him and dupe him into believing they are his best friends. Trump positively fawns over dictators such as Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev, who “won” re-election in 2015 with 97.7 percent of the vote; Trump described him on Jan. 16 as a “highly respected” leader who is doing a “great, great job.” Trump even thinks that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will be his buddy.

By contrast, Trump treats democratic leaders, such as those in Germany, Britain, Australia and Mexico, like dirt. Shinzo Abe of Japan and Emmanuel Macron of France are two of the few democratic leaders who have cracked the code with our childish chief executive — Abe undoubtedly lets him win at golf, and Macron took him to a military parade.

Trump doesn’t seem to realize that a great part of America’s appeal abroad has been its role as a paragon and champion of liberal democratic values. He shows so little appreciation for those principles that Freedom House has just downgraded America in its annual “Freedom in the World” report. The report notes that in 2017, the United States’ “core institutions were attacked by an administration that rejects established norms of ethical conduct across many fields of activity.”

“President Trump himself has mingled the concerns of his business empire with his role as president, appointed family members to his senior staff, filled other high positions with lobbyists and representatives of special interests, and refused to abide by disclosure and transparency practices observed by his predecessors,” the report said. Trump even attacks the bedrock principle of freedom of the press, labeling the media as the “enemy of the American people” — rhetoric that, as Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said, is reminiscent of Stalin’s.

Meanwhile, Freedom House notes, the integrity of America’s political system was undermined by “growing evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign and a lack of action by the Trump administration either to condemn or to prevent a reoccurrence of such meddling.” Far from trying to stop the Russian interference, Trump seems intent on stopping any probe of what the Russians were (and are) up to.

Trump’s assault on democracy at home has been accompanied by a near-total lack of interest in promoting human rights abroad — except as a cynical cudgel against the anti-American dictators of Venezuela and Iran. Not surprisingly, illiberal powers such as Russia and China are rushing into the vacuum America leaves behind. As Freedom House notes, “Moscow and Beijing are single-minded in their identification of democracy as a threat to their oppressive regimes, and they work relentlessly, with increasing sophistication, to undermine its institutions and cripple its principal advocates.”

Little wonder, then, that Freedom House found that “71 countries suffered net declines in political rights and civil liberties, with only 35 registering gains. This marked the 12th consecutive year of decline in global freedom.”

Britain was said to have acquired its empire in “a fit of absence of mind.” America is losing its global power in the same way. Through ignorance and malice, Trump is destroying the foundations of American influence that previous leaders spent three-quarters of a century erecting. When it comes to “soft power,” he is engaging in unilateral disarmament — and that in turn will have dire consequences for American security and prosperity.

Trump is ending the Pax Americana and helping to usher in either a Chinese Century or a new global disorder where there is no international law and life is “nasty, brutish and short.”

Perhaps Utes coach Larry Krystkowiak’s previous gripes about playing so many consecutive Sunday games were in part because it cut into his book club time.

When asked during his weekly news conference about the improved dynamic among the players on this season’s team, Krystkowiak referenced a team discussion Monday about the book “The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom” by Don Miguel Ruiz. Krystkowiak asked the players to each read the book during the Christmas break.

Krystkowiak said the book struck a chord with him as well as players. The main tenets of the book dealt with being precise with your words, not making assumptions and always giving your best effort.

Utah coach Larry Krystkowiak on how his team responded this past week against the Washington schools coming off a rough road trip in LA, "I think we just battled." pic.twitter.com/lcemVgvvZd

— Lynn Worthy (@LWorthySports) January 23, 2018

That discussion came on the heels of Sunday’s win against Washington State in which senior wing Gabe Bealer came off the bench to score 15 points and make three 3-pointers and junior guard Sedrick Barefield scored 14 points off the bench. Bealer and Barefield had been mainstays in the Utes’ starting lineup for most of this season, but they’d struggled offensively in recent games.

“It’s short term, but Gabe has responded [and] Sedrick has responded,” said Krystkowiak, who wore a “Kuzmania” T-shirt in support of former Utes standout and current Los Angeles Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma. “It’s not like I’m playing a game, but it’s cool because they both responded in the proper way. They faced it with an open mind and a lot of enthusiasm, and they’ve both played as hard as I’ve seen them play all season. Lo and behold, the so-called monkey is off their back. They scored a few points. That’s karma.”

Happy birthday, Bib

Senior guard Justin Bibbins celebrated his 22nd birthday Tuesday, one day after he earned the Pac-12 Conference’s player of the week honor. The native of Carson, Calif., posted back-to-back double-doubles, including a 13-point, 12-assist effort Sunday night. That game made him the first Utes player since Brandon Taylor in February 2016 to register 10 or more assists in a game. Bibbins also became the program’s first weekly conference honoree since Jakob Poeltl in February 2016.

Earning respect

Utah women's basketball coach Lynne Roberts talks about her team's weekend sweep of the Arizona schools on the road. Plus, the women have a big weekend at home coming up. pic.twitter.com/WjBvn6Nxa0

— Lynn Worthy (@LWorthySports) January 23, 2018

The women’s basketball team notched a road win over No. 22 Arizona State on Friday and will welcome No. 17 Oregon State and No. 7 Oregon into the Huntsman Center for games Friday and Sunday, respectively.

“I don’t think that we are respected much, which is fine. We’ll earn it,” Utes coach Lynne Roberts said. “It’s just kind of eyebrow raising, I think, in the basketball community like, ‘Oh, wow. Utah beat them. Huh.’ The more we can do that, the more we’re going to earn that respect because as it is now, no one expects us to beat a ranked opponent. Our goal is to be those ranked opponents, not just beat them — to become one. We’ll get there.”

Seoul, South Korea • South Korean Olympic organizers say it's too late to include a North Korean taekwondo performance in the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Games, but it might still occur at the Olympic Stadium on Feb. 9.

Song Seung-hwan, the creative director of the opening and closing ceremonies, said Tuesday there are discussions on whether to include the North Korean taekwondo demonstration team in a program ahead of the opening ceremony. A Pyeongchang organizing committee official said nothing has been decided.

Song said a North Korean presence at the Pyeongchang Olympics would make the peace-themed opening and closing ceremonies more meaningful, but it would be impossible to introduce new elements into the ceremonies this late.

"North Korea's participation will bring no changes to the concept of the opening and closing ceremonies," Song said at a news conference in Pyeongchang.

The opening and closing ceremonies will be held at Pyeongchang's 35,000-seat Olympic Stadium, a steely pentagonal arena that will be torn down after the games to reduce costs.

Spectators in the outdoor stadium will have to prepare for hours of exposure to cold winter temperatures in an area notorious for strong winds. Organizers plan to provide each spectator at the Olympic ceremonies with a raincoat, a small blanket and heating pads. Polycarbonate walls will be installed above the highest seats across the two northwest sides of the stadium to block the strongest winds. About 40 portable gas heaters will be placed in aisles between the rows of plastic seats.

"There are people who say they wouldn't come to the opening ceremony because it would be too cold," Lee Hee-beom, president of Pyeongchang's organizing committee, said at the news conference. "(But) we are making all kinds of preparations for the cold weather. There's no need to be excessively worried."

North Korea agreed earlier this month to send a delegation to the Olympics, in the first formal talks between the Koreas in about two years. Its delegation at the Feb. 9-25 games is to include officials, athletes, a cheering group, journalists, an art troupe and the taekwondo demonstration team. South Korea has also sent a group of officials to North Korea to inspect preparations for a joint cultural event at the North's scenic Diamond Mountain and a practice session for the countries' non-Olympic skiers at the North's Masik ski resort. The Koreas plan to hold the two events before the start of the Olympics.

South Korea hopes to use the Olympics as an opportunity to improve cross-border ties following a period of tension over the North's rapidly expanding nuclear weapon and missile programs. The resumption of inter-Korean talks is key for the policies of liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who wants Seoul in the driver's seat in international efforts to deal with the North Korean nuclear threat.

Herriman • Two women were arrested Tuesday afternoon for allegedly keeping information from police about a Saturday episode in Riverton, where a man allegedly shot at a Unified Police Department officer and later shot and wounded a resident.

The suspect in the shooting, 33-year-old Justin Gary Llewelyn, who was then considered to be “armed and extremely dangerous,” is not in custody.

Salt Lake City police took in three people for questioning on Tuesday. Two of them — a 50-year-old and a 24-year-old — were later arrested on complaints of obstructing justice, police announced on Twitter.

Salt Lake City police Sgt. Brandon Shearer declined to elaborate on their relationships to Llewelyn or give details about their arrest, citing the ongoing investigation.

The 50-year-old’s probable-cause statement indicates that she lied to police about Llewelyn’s involvement in Saturday’s shooting when police talked to her that day. Telephone records reportedly prove that the woman knew of Llewelyn’s “involvement in this crime and took steps to be untruthful with law enforcement.”

The arrests stem from Saturday’s events, in which Llewelyn shot at police about 6 a.m. near 13770 South Dragonfly Lane (about 5000 West) in Riverton, authorities say, and then broke into a Riverton home and shot and wounded a homeowner while stealing a car. (UPD had said the shooting episodes occurred in nearby Herriman.)

After the firsts shooting, according to UPD Lt. Brian Lohrke, Llewelyn crashed the homeowner’s SUV near Blackridge Reservoir in Herriman.

The homeowner was taken to the hospital and is recovering in good condition, police said Monday.

Detective Greg Wilking said at a Tuesday news conference in Herriman that police targeted the trio because they may have some idea of what went on this weekend and where Llewelyn might be.

Police found them in “a couple different places” around the Herriman area; Wilking said the search and detainments went “smoothly.”

Wilking said it’s unclear where Llewellyn is, and that law enforcement in surrounding states are on the lookout. Residents near Herriman and Riverton should remain vigilant, Wilking said, but officers don’t anticipate “a repeat incident of what happened on Saturday.”

Police are asking Llewelyn to turn himself in as “quickly” and “safely as possible,” and that anyone with information should contact police.

“If you’re not forthcoming and helpful with police, then you may find yourself on the wrong end of criminal charges,” Wilking said.

The Salt Lake City police tip line can be reached at 801-799-4420. Police are offering a monetary reward for information that leads to Llewelyn’s arrest, Shearer said.

As a precaution during the search, Blackridge and Foothills elementary schools and Fort Herriman Middle school were placed on lockdown for a short time. The lock down was lifted by the end of the school day.

In the months prior to Saturday’s shooting, police say, Llewelyn had been living with a family member near the Riverton-Herriman border. His criminal history includes assault-, theft-, weapons- and drug-related charges.

Salt Lake City police have taken the lead on the investigation because of Unified Police’s policy regarding police shootings, which designates an outside agency to investigate. Salt Lake City and West Valley City police also use the protocol.

Anchorage, Alaska • A powerful undersea earthquake sent Alaskans fumbling for suitcases and racing to evacuation centers in the middle of the night after a cellphone alert early Tuesday warned that a tsunami could smash into the state’s southern coast and western Canada.

The killer wave never materialized, but people endured several tense hours in shelters, waiting for a potential catastrophe that they feared could wipe away their communities at any moment.

The magnitude 7.9 quake in the Gulf of Alaska triggered the jarring alert that awoke people shortly after midnight. Fleeing motorists sometimes clogged the only highway out of their towns in the rush to get to higher ground. Many took refuge at schools and other shelters.

For Alaskans accustomed to tsunami threats and regular tsunami drills, the warning still created some fretful moments. The phone message read: “Emergency Alert. Tsunami danger on the coast. Go to high ground or move inland.”

Keith Perkins got the phone alert and later heard sirens going off in his hometown of Sitka. He said people on Facebook were talking about whether the threat was real and what they should do.

Given the magnitude of the earthquake, Perkins said, he thought it best to head to the high school, a tsunami evacuation point, even though in the past he felt his home was probably high enough.

“I figured I’d probably just better play it safe,” he said.

Hours later, the warning was canceled and people returned home for an hour or two before the workday began.

There were no reports of damage, not even on Kodiak Island, the closest land to the epicenter. But people reported on social media that the shaking was felt hundreds of miles away, in Anchorage, the state’s largest city, which was not under a tsunami threat.

Eleanor King in Kodiak was jolted awake by the earthquake, which she said felt similar to Alaska’s 1964 magnitude 9.2 earthquake — the strongest on record in North America. That quake generated tsunamis that claimed about 130 lives as far south as California.

“It started out just like the big one,” King said of Tuesday’s quake. “It was very slow and rolling. … That’s what scared us.”

At the diner she runs, King permitted a little levity after the all-clear was sounded. King’s Diner invited people to breakfast on its website: “Hungry? Tsunami got you up early.”

By the time, her customers started arriving, the excitement had passed, and people quietly ate their meals, speaking little of the quake.

The quake was recorded at 12:32 a.m. in the Pacific Ocean about 170 miles southeast of Kodiak, home to one of the nation’s largest Coast Guard bases. Kodiak is about 200 miles south of Anchorage.

The temblor prompted a warning that spanned thousands of miles of Alaska’s southern coast, from Attu in the Aleutian Islands to Canada’s border with Washington state.

In parts of British Columbia, officials banged on doors to rouse people from their sleep.

“I just heard the firetrucks going around, honking their horns and on the loud speaker saying there is a tsunami warning,” said Gillian Der, a geography student at the University of British Columbia. “It was very apocalyptic.”

Elsewhere in the U.S., Washington state, Oregon, California and Hawaii were under tsunami watches. Officials in Japan say there was no tsunami threat there.

Reports varied about how long the shaking lasted, depending on location.

In the popular cruise-ship town of Seward, about 110 miles south of Anchorage, Fire Chief Eddie Athey said the quake felt like a gentle rattle that lasted for up to 90 seconds.

“It went on long enough that you start thinking to yourself, ‘Boy, I hope this stops soon because it’s just getting worse,’” Athey said.

The earthquake woke Kodiak Police Lt. Tim Putney from a dead sleep. He said it shook for at least 30 seconds but acknowledged that his estimate might be skewed by sleeping through some of it.

“I’ve been in Kodiak for 19 years. That was the strongest, longest-lasting one I’ve ever felt,” he said by telephone.

The Alaska Earthquake Information Center categorized the shaking as light.

John Bellini, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Earthquake Information Center, said there had been more than two dozen aftershocks as of about 6:30 a.m. The biggest had a magnitude of 5.3.

The earthquake was initially reported as magnitude 8.2, but better calculations can be made as more data comes in, Bellini said.

Larry LeDoux, superintendent of the Kodiak Island Borough School District, estimated that 500 people took shelter at the high school. He described the atmosphere inside as calm, with people waiting for updates.

In Seward, at the southern end of Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, residents retreated to higher ground or left on the only road out of the city, the fire chief said. He described it as a controlled evacuation similar to people driving home from a holiday fireworks show.

Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska. Associated Press Writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., is pregnant with her second child and is set to be the first ever senator to give birth while in office.

Duckworth broke the news to Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times, telling the political columnist that she is six months along and, just six weeks shy of turning 50, that she felt "great" about motherhood and the demanding role of being a senator.

"As tough as it's been to juggle motherhood and the demands of being in the House and now the Senate, it's made me more committed to doing this job," she told Sweet.

With more than 20 female senators, the world's most deliberative body has had to change its traditional status as an old boy's club. Back in 2001, then-Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, adopted two children and was often seen in the hallways and sometimes just off the Senate floor with her baby.

Her colleagues were thrilled to hear Duckworth's news.

"When she told me several weeks ago that she and Bryan were expecting a new baby to join their little Abigail, I was speechless. I have learned to never underestimate Tammy Duckworth," Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said in a statement.

Duckworth's first child, Abigail, was born in late 2014. A few months later, while still on maternity leave, Duckworth decided to run for Senate.

Duckworth opened up to Sweet about her struggles to conceive again. "I've had multiple IVF cycles and a miscarriage trying to conceive again, so we're very grateful," she said.

Duckworth is a double amputee, having lost both her legs in an Army helicopter crash in Iraq in 2004.

Lansing, Mich. • A former elite gymnast said Tuesday that a sports doctor who treated Olympic athletes overlooked what turned out to be a broken leg while he molested her in the basement of his home, one of the latest victims to testify at a Michigan sentencing hearing for Larry Nassar.

Isabell Hutchins practiced for weeks at a Lansing-area gymnastics club and even competed at national events despite acute leg pain as a teen in 2011. She said Nassar did nothing to encourage her to get help and instead molested her during late-night appointments at his home.

"You were never a real doctor. You did not heal me. You only hurt me," Hutchins told Nassar, who was seated a few feet away in the Ingham County courtroom as the sentencing phase reached a sixth day.

Nassar has admitted sexually assaulting athletes when he was employed by Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, which is the sport's national governing organization and trains Olympians. His accusers said he would use his ungloved hands to penetrate them, often without explanation, while they were on a table seeking treatment for a variety of injuries.

The accusers, many of whom were children, said they trusted Nassar to treat them properly, were in denial about what was happening or were afraid to speak up. He sometimes used a sheet or his body to block the view of any parent in the room.

"I'd been told during my entire gymnastics career to not question authority," Hutchins said.

Nassar, 54, pleaded guilty to assaulting seven people in the Lansing area, but the sentencing hearing has been open to anyone who said they were a victim. More than 150 women and girls have confronted him in court or had a statement read on their behalf since Jan. 16.

Judge Rosemarie Aquilina will sentence Nassar on Wednesday after hearing from a few more accusers. Under a plea deal, he faces a minimum of 25 to 40 years behind bars, although the actual punishment could be much higher. He already has been sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for child pornography crimes.

The mother of a victim, Anne Swinehart, beseeched those following the case to "quit shaming and blaming the parents."

"Trust me," she said, "you would not have known, and you would not have done anything differently. So stop."

Aquilina, who has made it a practice to praise each speaker, tried to ease Swinehart's feelings about letting her daughter down.

"The red flags may have been there, but they were designed to be hidden. Leave the blame here with him," the judge said of Nassar.

She subsequently heard from Mattie Larson, a former member of the national gymnastics team, who said Nassar's fingers "always seemed to find a way" to her genitals, even when he was supposed to be treating her for ankle and foot injuries.

Some of the accusers have criticized Michigan State, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee for not doing enough to stop Nassar, and Larson also gave an unflattering portrayal of the Karolyi ranch outside Huntsville, Texas, where the national team trained. She said it was very remote, the "perfect environment" for Nassar and abusive coaches "to thrive."

USA Gymnastics last week said the ranch would no longer serve as the national training center.

Meanwhile, a senior member of Michigan State's governing board said President Lou Anna Simon will not be forced out over the Nassar scandal — "period." Joel Ferguson said she's been the best leader in his 30 years as a trustee.

"There's so many more things going on at the university than just this Nassar thing," Ferguson told radio station WVFN.

He suggested victims who are suing Michigan State will be compensated for the acts of a "pervert." A former federal prosecutor hired by the school has said there's no evidence that campus officials knew what Nassar was doing, although some victims said they complained years ago.

Chuck Schumer started a government shutdown he couldn’t finish.

The New York Democrat, among the shrewdest operators in national politics, stumbled badly because he succumbed to the siren song of the anti-Trump resistance. He believed that any charge could be made to stick to President Donald Trump, no matter how implausible, and chose the dictates of an inflamed Democratic base over common sense.

His embarrassing climbdown after a short, mostly weekend shutdown shows the limits of the resistance. Yes, an anti-Trump midterm wave appears to be building, and Democratic activists — marching in the streets by the tens of thousands and badgering Republicans at town hall meetings — are energized. But this doesn’t mean that Democrats can act with impunity so long as they are fighting under an anti-Trump banner.

Schumer sought to attach an extraneous matter, an amnesty for so-called Dreamers, on a must-pass government funding bill and, when Democrats inevitably didn’t get what they wanted, blame President Trump for the ensuing government shutdown. This effort depended on gravity-defying spin that proved sustainable for less than three days.

The fact is that the Republican House handily passed a bill to keep the government open, with the support of the Republican president. Almost every Republican in the Senate voted to pass that bill through the upper chamber — where it required a supermajority of 60 and therefore some Democratic votes — while almost every Democrat in the Senate opposed it. Republican leaders said they didn’t want a shutdown and urged Democrats not to force one.

It was always going to be true that people, even reporters, were going to notice all this.

The press wasn’t hostile to the Democrats over the shutdown, but it wasn’t uniformly compliant, either. The left objected to a headline on a New York Times news alert right after the shutdown vote on Friday night: “Senate Democrats blocked passage of a stopgap spending bill to the keep the government open.” It’s not clear how a remotely honest news writer could have described it any other way.

If the media couldn’t be counted to be on board, neither could everyone in the party. In what is a persistent temptation for Democrats, Schumer forgot that the rest of the country doesn’t regard Trump with the deep disdain and abiding alarm of the coasts and the major metropolitan areas. The party still has senators in red states that the president won handily who can’t afford to indulge in anti-Trump flights of fancy. Five of them defected on the initial shutdown vote, and more would have broken with Schumer if the shutdown had endured.

When Schumer was forced to buckle, it outraged a base that believes Trump needs to be resisted on all fronts and chased from office as soon as possible, and considers anything less the work of quislings.

Nancy Pelosi didn’t back the deal to reopen the government, and the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus said of Senate Democrats: “They are getting their butts kicked.” The co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee pronounced it a “cave.” The political director of CREDO, a progressive advocacy group, called Schumer “the worst negotiator in Washington.”

He’s not the worst negotiator, but he acted in flagrant disregard of the first and most important rule for winning a government shutdown — don’t be the one to shut down the government — and paid a price.

It’s only a tactical defeat, and perhaps a temporary one. In exchange for Democratic votes for a temporary funding measure, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to hold votes in coming weeks on DACA and other immigration measures. There’s still a good chance that Democrats can force a bad DACA deal, given that the GOP is divided on immigration and President Trump might be tempted to sign up for anything as long as there’s notional funding for a wall.

So, Schumer lives to fight another day, but can only do it shrewdly if he’s more realistic than the resistance.

Rich Lowry can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com

The best politicians are those who continue to surprise constituents by doing the unexpected. By that measure, Utah House Speaker Greg Hughes is one of the best.

Few would expect a Republican politician in a red state to attack big business. Yet that is what Hughes did on Monday. On the first day of the 2018 legislative session, Hughes declared war on opiate drugmakers. We’ll call it Hughes’ War.

Hughes said his eyes were opened to the epidemic’s tale of personal addiction and community decay after he spent time in the downtown Rio Grande area. “It was news to me … that you could stay well within the prescription of your doctor given you to manage pain, and you could find yourself physically addicted.”

Hughes is partly offended by the business of the opiate industry — the profit motive behind cruelly endangering so many lives. “I want the crush of liability to be felt across this country to the point where it doesn’t make business sense anymore.”

At a time when nearby headlines clamor that “special interests gave Utah lawmakers $9 of every $10 in campaign funds they raised,” it is refreshing to see a politician go up against companies that likely have larger lobbying budgets than most American families make in a year.

Of course Big Pharma is not solely responsible for the opioid crisis. But it played a large role, and it likely did so knowingly. One of the legal theories counties and states across the nation are relying on is the claim that pharmaceutical companies marketed OxyContin as a 12-hour relief solution, when they knew the pill would not last for 12 hours, thereby causing withdrawals and addiction.

Big Pharma should be held accountable if it is truly liable. As we argued previously, whether Big Pharma’s aggressive marketing tactics reach a level of criminal behavior or civil liability is for the courts to decide.

At Hughes’ urging, counties across the state have decided to sue. Hughes hoped to get the state on board as well, but Attorney General Sean Reyes has opted instead to first seek a global settlement as part of a multistate coalition that has started investigating the problem. They have not actually filed suit against any companies, but are seeking cooperation and hope to negotiate compensation for states and residents.

Hughes’ War is likely only the first indication that during his last session, Hughes will likely be known not as a lame duck, but, in his own words, as a “wounded wolf.”

A bipartisan resolution urging colleges and universities to defend the First Amendment and civil rights of students met little resistance on its way to a 6-0 vote of the Utah Legislature’s Senate Education Committee on Tuesday.

But the wording of the resolution prompted a question of definitions from one senior legislator, Logan Republican Sen. Lyle Hillard.

Hillyard asked for clarification on the legal meaning of “civil liberties,” before acknowledging that as a non-binding resolution, the bill has no effect on state law.

“If this were a statute I'd be much more concerned about it,” Hillyard said. “It’s a resolution, I guess higher [education] can figure out what it means.”

The resolution, SCR3, is sponsored by Sen. James Dabakis, D-Salt Lake City, and Rep. Kim Coleman, R-West Jordan, who individually are among the most liberal and most conservative members of the Utah Legislature, respectively.

Dabakis said lawmakers had met with campus representatives and while civil rights policies already exist, he felt there is a need for lawmakers to be adamant in their expectation of First Amendment protections.

“We don’t want campuses full of people that are only hearing rebounds of their own philosophical ideas,” Dabakis said.

SCR3<br> NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of the state of Utah, the Governor concurring therein, strongly encourages state institutions of higher education to vigorously defend the civil liberties of students through policies that ensure the protection of constitutional rights.

While the resolution is non-binding, Coleman — chairwoman of the House Education Committee — said she plans to run several students’ rights bills this year. Those proposals are not yet public, but are listed under titles related to freedom of association, neutrality in higher education and free speech.

“I hope to bring some other bills before this committee when they move through the House that do some more hard and tangible things in the area of First Amendment rights,” Coleman said.