Pahoa, Hawaii • Nearly 1,500 people fled from their mountain-side homes after Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano sent molten lava chewing through forests and bubbling up on paved streets in an eruption that one resident described as “a curtain of fire.”

After a week of earthquakes and warnings that an eruption could be imminent, steam and lava poured out of a crack Thursday in the community of Leilani Estates near the town of Pahoa on the Big Island, officials said.

Television footage showed lava spurting into the sky from a crack in a road. Video from an aerial drone showed a line of lava snaking through a forest. The activity continued early Friday, with reports of eruptions from volcanic vents on two streets.

Resident Jeremiah Osuna, who captured the drone footage, described the scene as a curtain of flame roaring through the vegetation.

“It sounded like if you were to put a bunch of rocks into a dryer and turn it on as high as you could. You could just smell sulfur and burning trees and underbrush and stuff,” he told Honolulu television station KHON.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, but at least 100 people were in staying in shelters Friday, with many more evacuees believed to be with relatives and friends.

The Hawaii governor activated the National Guard to help with evacuations and provide security to about 770 structures left empty when residents sought shelter.

Scientists have no way of predicting how long the eruption will continue, said Asta Miklius, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

A key factor will be whether magma reservoir at the summit starts to drain in response to the eruption, which has not happened yet, Miklius said.

“There is quite a bit of magma in the system. . It won’t be just an hours-long eruption probably, but how long it will last will depend on whether the summit magma reservoir gets involved. And so we are watching that very, very closely.”

County, state and federal officials had been warning residents all week that they should be prepared to evacuate because an eruption would give little warning.

The geological survey on Thursday raised the volcano’s alert level to warning status, the highest possible, meaning a hazardous eruption was imminent, underway or expected.

Henry Calio said the first sign that something might be wrong happened when cracks emerged in the driveway of his home in Leilani Estates. His wife, Stella, then received a call from an official who told them to get out immediately.

The two feared that they might lose their house.

“This is our retirement dream,” Henry Calio said.

Geologists said new ground cracks were reported Thursday afternoon. Hot vapor emerged from a crack and spattering lava began to erupt.

Areas downslope of the erupting vents were at risk of being covered by lava. Leilani Estates appeared to be at greatest risk, but scientists said new vents and outbreaks could occur, and it’s impossible to say where.

The eruption came after days of earthquakes rattled the area’s Puna district. A nearby school was closed due to the seismic activity, and several roadways cracked under the strain of the constant temblors. A magnitude 5.0 earthquake was recorded Thursday, hours before the eruption began.

Kilauea’s Puu Oo crater floor began to collapse Monday, triggering a series of earthquakes and pushing the lava into new underground chambers. The collapse caused magma to push more than 10 miles (16 kilometers) downslope toward the populated southeast coastline of the island.

USGS geologist Janet Babb said the magma crossed under Highway 130, which leads to a popular volcano access point, on Tuesday night.

Civil defense authorities closed the area to visitors Tuesday and ordered private tour companies to stop taking people into the region.

Kilauea has erupted periodically for decades. Most of its activity has been nonexplosive, but a 1924 eruption spewed ash and 10-ton (9-metric ton) rocks into the sky, leaving one man dead.

Puu Oo’s 1983 eruption resulted in lava fountains soaring over 1,500 feet (457 meters) high. In the decades since, the lava flow has buried dozens of square miles of land and destroyed many homes.

___

Jones reported from Honolulu. Associated Press writers Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.

Lawmakers need to reconsider the proposed name change of the Utah Transit Authority to the Transit District of Utah.

Where and when did they solicit taxpayer input on this proposed use of taxpayer money? Where and when did they articulate to the public precisely how this costly name change will translate to measurable improvements to UTA? Where is the evidence that shows that other transportation agencies have undergone name changes which resulted in significant improvements to their operation? Where is the business plan that shows the return on investment to the UTA and to the taxpayer for an investment of this magnitude?

Let’s assume that a name change is a good idea and that real, positive change will occur as a result. What then do we call the new organization — “The Transit District of Utah”? In other words, it is being proposed to take an organization (transit authority) and now give it a name that most reasonable individuals would associate with a region (transit district). No identity crisis there.

The proposed name change is an ill-conceived idea with an even worse proposed method of implementation. Lawmakers would be wise to rethink this.

Marc Cronan, Salt Lake City

These were my thoughts when I heard about a veteran and the dirty exam room at the Salt Lake City veterans hospital. I saw the pictures and thought this is unacceptable. However, having worked for the VA for over 25 years, and married to a veteran, I have several views of this.

What discouraged me most was why the patient and his family did not go to the director first before the media. Whoever placed the vet in this room was certainly not thinking or distracted. I know that patients get discouraged by their wait times and want to be put in a room now. I think this was not meant to be disrespectful to the veteran. Because everything we are about is for the veteran first and always.

The response of the veteran after he received an apology from the director, saying that she was only saying it to cover her butt, is troubling for me. We have a great director and she is sincere about the service that we provide.

My husband would not be here today if it weren’t for the care he received at the Salt Lake City VA.

Patrice Kennedy, APRN, Salt Lake City

Move over is-the-dress-black/blue-or-gold/white, there’s a new dress debate online. And it’s a lot more serious.

Perhaps you’ve heard by now about the Utah teen who wore a traditional Chinese qipao dress to prom last week. As someone who the masses assumed was not Chinese (and she isn’t), the girl was unabashedly critiqued for her lack of cultural sensitivity.

That judgment may be warranted (and her namaste-like pose suggests it), but I have watched the subsequent debate about cultural appreciation versus cultural appropriation with a degree of unease.

While the topic delights to me to no end (so necessary!), the tenor does not.

This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve tried to parse out what’s safe or what’s offensive as it relates to reflecting a culture or lived experience that isn’t our own (whether that be about race, country of origin, sexuality, class, level of ability, etc.) but the intensity of the debate seems to heighten with each instance.

In many ways, that makes sense; repeated offensiveness is exhausting and excruciating. Each new transgression adds to a history of pain, making robust reactions feel justified every time.

And yet, most transgressors aren’t responsible for the whole — or even the majority — of our pain or oppression. Remember, this was a high school student going to prom.

So, I’ve been thinking about the spectrum of offenders. On one end, we’ve got the well-intended but maybe less informed accidental culprits (which is probably where our prom gal lives, and where I’m sure I live, too, when I make mistakes), and on the other end we’ve got the evil, racist, sexist, ableist, faithist, all-the-ists horrific oppressors (Trump, for example).

To be very clear, everyone on the spectrum, well-intended or not, is responsible for their own behavior and the consequences of it. Every one of us should routinely ask ourselves how our language and the ways we express ourselves affect other people. Accidental oppression is still very much oppression, and the pain that comes from it feels exactly the same no matter the intention.

The distinction, however, is important, because ignorance and hate are uniquely different beasts. And I’m not sure we best serve our cause by treating all transgressions as if they’re the same — even if their outcomes are.

It’s a big (too big?) ask of the marginalized to be patient or vulnerable with those who knowingly or unknowingly cause us grief. After all, why should that be on us?

Yet, if we are misunderstood, it’s hard to imagine any better way of rectifying that than being open about who we are and being patient with those who are interested in our worlds. If we don’t teach others how to respect our traditions, our food, our clothing or our celebrations, who else will? In fact, who else could?

I wonder if instead of sharpening our ability to call out injustice, we might first consider a person’s intentions. And if the intention isn’t clear, maybe it makes sense to ask, genuinely and directly. Call someone up, so to speak, instead of immediately calling them out. Seek understanding while we ask others to seek understanding.

Less confrontational approaches don’t always spark national discourse, but they can provide spaces for people to gracefully come around, or to even admit they were wrong.

Whereas, all we got from the debate over prom gal’s dress was “It’s a [expletive] dress,” which isn’t quite the thoughtful reflection that garners change.

I don’t know. Maybe this isn’t the answer, and maybe I’m way off base (it wouldn’t be the first time). But, I wonder: even if we’re deservedly enraged, if it’s compassion we’re fighting for, should it be compassion we should fight with?

Marina Gomberg’s lifestyle columns appear on sltrib.com. She is a communications professional and lives in Salt Lake City with her wife, Elenor Gomberg, and their son, Harvey. You can reach Marina at mgomberg@sltrib.com.

Bountiful • A store clerk at a Bountiful pawnshop shot and killed one of two men who reportedly attempted to rob the store Friday morning.

For at least eight hours after the shooting, Bountiful Pawn and Sales, at 135 S. 500 West, remained cordoned off by police tape.

Dispatchers received reports of shots fired at the shop about 10:10 a.m., Bountiful police Lt. Dave Edwards said.

The two men, one carrying a handgun, Edwards said, came in as the clerk, who had been alone, opened the store.

One of the men, a 40-year-old from Colorado, reportedly pointed a gun in the clerk’s face and ordered him to get on the ground. The second man walked along the glass cases with a hammer “as if he was going to break open the display cases,” Edwards said.

When the man looked away briefly to close the shop door, the clerk retreated to a storage room and pulled out his own weapon, Edwards said. The 40-year-old followed him into the storage room, where the clerk shot him.

Then there was a scuffle, Edwards said.

“Eventually,” he said, “the store clerk was able to free himself, and the suspect succumbed to his injuries and the store clerk called 911.”

We’re at the Bountiful Pawn shop, where there was a shooting during a robbery earlier today pic.twitter.com/DyMby4Tc7i

— Mariah Noble (@mnoblenews) May 4, 2018

Surveillance cameras recorded the other man fleeing south from the store. He left in a white SUV that was parked in a lot across the street from the pawnshop.

The clerk suffered minor injuries during the confrontation, Edwards said.

Police have not yet released the identification of the man who died, because they are trying to notify his family members.

The two who reportedly tried to rob the pawnshop stayed in a Salt Lake City-area hotel Thursday night, Edwards said. Based on surveillance video, police believe the two had visited the shop Thursday, with their faces concealed by shirts.

The man who fled is considered to be armed and dangerous. He was wearing a blue mask, a gray hoodie and jeans.

The 40-year-old had also been suspected of several armed robberies in Oklahoma and Texas, Edwards said. A warrant for his arrest was issued in Oklahoma on Friday morning.

Police did not know the identity of the second man Friday evening.

Willie Salas, who says he has lived in the area for decades, noticed the police presence when he was out to buy a drink from a nearby store.

“Things like this don’t happen here,” Salas said. “I consider Bountiful and Davis County a quiet place, but for something like this to happen in broad daylight, it’s crazy.”

Salas said he’s been in the pawnshop many times. The entrance is on the north side of the building, and inside, a counter and display run east and west, he said.

“It’s not a very big building, but the guy runs a business out of it,” Salas said. “You never ever want to hear about anybody being killed, but people have the right to protect themselves and their property.”

Officials locked the doors at four nearby schools — Bountiful Junior High, Meadowbrook Elementary, Washington Elementary and West Bountiful Elementary— for about 45 minutes during the investigation, Davis County School District spokesman Chris Williams said. The doors were unlocked about 11:15 a.m.

Police searched businesses in the area for the suspect.

Police shut down a lane of northbound 500 West near the pawnshop during the investigation, the Utah Department of Transportation tweeted. It was reopened just before 12:30 p.m.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the second suspect can call 911.

Utah has traditionally been safe from Lyme and many other insect-borne diseases, thanks to its long, cold winters — but appears to be changing.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports of Lyme disease in Utah have been trending upward over the past decade and a half. Confirmed cases jumped more than 500 percent, from just three in 2000 to 19 in 2016.

Most Utahns who contract Lyme disease still get the infection while traveling the East Coast, said Dallin Peterson, an epidemiologist and specialist in insect- and animal-borne diseases for the Utah Department of Health. But, he said, one of the tick species known to carry the bacteria that causes Lyme, the Western black-legged tick, has migrated to Utah.

Traditionally, that species has mostly inhabited Washington, Oregon and California, Peterson said, but recently it appears to be moving east into Idaho and Utah.

Climate change is likely helping to spread disease-carrying insects into the state, which has been relatively free of insect-borne diseases. The ticks that carry Lyme disease have a two-year life cycle, according to Sam LeFevre, manager of the Utah Department of Health’s Environmental Epidemiology Program.

In temperate states, cold winter weather should kill large numbers of young ticks each year. But as average temperatures climb, LeFevre said, more ticks are surviving each winter to breed the following spring.

“Thus,” he said, “we have a population explosion.”

Lyme disease typically starts with a characteristic bull’s-eye rash and flulike symptoms. Left untreated, it can cause chronic fatigue, bouts of arthritis and nerve damage. In some cases, the disease leads to heart palpitations that may require the use of a pacemaker, according to the CDC.

The number of Western black-legged ticks in Utah is thought to still be too low to cause a Lyme disease outbreak, but officials are developing a statewide surveillance system to monitor the pest’s migration.

Lyme isn’t the only disease of concern, Peterson said. Utahns regularly report cases of tick-borne diseases, including Colorado tick fever and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. But the number of those cases has remained relatively steady in recent years.

Mosquito-borne illnesses remain Peterson’s primary concern. West Nile had a particularly big year in 2017 with 62 confirmed cases, he said, and mosquitoes in southern Utah are being monitored for the presence of Saint Louis encephalitis, a viral mosquito-borne disease that causes swelling in the brain and, in severe cases, can result in paralysis, coma and death.

The disease has turned up in Southern California and Nevada and may be headed toward Utah, Peterson said.

Changing climate and its effects on habitats also have introduced new species of wildlife to some areas, LeFevre said, which has encouraged the spread of the ticks. Longer summers could mean more outdoor recreation, increasing the chances humans will come into contact with ticks.

Taken together, these factors increase the likelihood that Lyme-carrying ticks will encounter humans unfamiliar with their risk — a major concern, warns Jay Lemery, who oversees the wilderness and environmental section at the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine.

“That’s the really scary part,” said Lemery, one of the authors of “Enviromedics,” a book on the impacts of climate change on human health. “This historically naive population is now being exposed.”

The tricky thing about Lyme disease, Lemery said, is its “insidious” nature — it doesn’t exhibit the same symptoms in all patients, and it can be difficult to treat when it’s not detected in its early stages.

“That, to me, is one of the big manifestations of risk,” Lemery said. “There are probably not many doctors in Utah who are used to thinking about Lyme disease.”

Lemery advised Utahns to learn to check themselves thoroughly for ticks when they have been in wooded or grassy areas, because tick bites are less likely to transmit diseases if the tick is removed quickly. Lemery said Utahns should be aware that ticks may be much smaller than they anticipate and will hide in skin folds or crevices.

Peterson urged Utahns headed outdoors to wear protective clothing and insect repellent, which will deter both mosquitoes and ticks. Utahns should see their physician if they develop flulike symptoms, a fever or a rash after recreating outdoors.

Who knew Marco Rubio and Tom Price were joining #TheResistance?

OK, that’s an exaggeration. But in the past week, both the Republican senator from Florida and the ousted health and human services secretary unexpectedly criticized Republicans’ signature legislative achievements.

In Rubio’s case, he acknowledged — at least initially — that GOP tax cuts have flopped.

“There is still a lot of thinking on the right that if big corporations are happy, they’re going to take the money they’re saving and reinvest it in American workers,” Rubio told the Economist. “In fact, they bought back shares, a few gave out bonuses; there’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker.”

That’s all true, of course.

Apple, for instance, bought back $22.8 billion of its stock in the first quarter, a record for any U.S. company. For context, it’s bigger than the entire market capitalizations of 275 different companies in Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index.

In total, companies are projected to repurchase about $800 billion of their own stock this year, according to JPMorgan Chase analysts, a greater than 50 percent increase from last year. Dividend payouts are likewise expected to rise 10 percent.

Meanwhile, worker pay has barely budged.

This, by the way, was all wholly predictable when Rubio himself voted for the bill.

Companies including Apple were already sitting on mountains of cash. Interest rates were (and are) low. Long-term price-to-earnings ratios are near their highest level since the dot-com bubble, meaning equity financing has been quite cheap. If firms wanted to expand, hire or raise wages, they easily could have done so. If their investment behavior disappointed, it’s not because they needed more cash but because they didn’t see lucrative investment opportunities.

So of course when given a tax windfall, companies determined the best use of the money would be distributing it to shareholders.

If a tiny portion also went to raises or bonuses, that was a PR stunt, puffing up pay hikes that likely would have occurred anyway. Even the economists who believe the supply-side story — that corporate tax cuts will ultimately result in large wage increases — cited a mechanism that takes years if not decades to materialize. It was a mistake for Republicans to promise voters immediate wage bumps that their own economic advisers knew wouldn’t come.

So why has Rubio suddenly become a truth-teller on this large-scale “tax scam,” as Democrats have taken to calling the GOP tax overhaul?

Presumably because he’s realizing that the tax cuts were an unfortunate twofer: bad policy and bad politics.

For tax cuts to have been a winning midterm issue for Republicans, the answers to three questions would have to be yes:

1. Are people noticing they got a tax cut?

2. Do Americans care more about their own tax liabilities than they do about the overall fairness of the tax system?

3. Is tax policy the biggest (or even a major) driver for how people cast their votes?

But right now, the answer to all three questions is no, based on multiple polls.

Also experiencing buyer’s remorse this week was Price.

At the World Health Care Conference on Tuesday, he committed a Kinsley gaffe (i.e., accidentally telling an inconvenient truth) by acknowledging that killing the individual mandate is likely to raise insurance premiums. That’s because, in Price’s words, “you’ll likely have individuals who are younger and healthier not participating in that market, and consequently that drives up the cost for other folks within that market.”

Well said.

And, once again, wholly predictable. Any health economist, insurer, actuary or health-care provider could have warned Price last year that eliminating the mandate would raise premiums — and oodles of these people did. Nonetheless, Price insisted the opposite was true back when he was in the Cabinet and had some influence over party policy. Of course, the mandate was unpopular, and instead of trying to convince voters why it ought to be preserved, he chose to exploit public confusion for political gain.

Facing an onslaught of Democratic triumphalism, both Rubio and Price walked back their comments Wednesday. Price said his words had been taken out of context and that, if anything, he believes the GOP hasn’t gone far enough in destroying Obamacare. Rubio said the tax law wasn’t terrible; it just could have been better.

It’s a pity. They came so close to advocating good policy, regardless of the personal political fallout. Instead, they gave in to buyer’s-remorse remorse.

Catherine Rampell’s email address is crampell@washpost.com. Follow her on Twitter, @crampell.

As Josh Hansen untied his patrol boat, he could hear the splashes.

He wasn’t sure how many there were before he got to the dock, but at least two heavy thunks sounded off the water while he started the engine. About 500 yards away and a few minutes’ distance from where he was, someone was throwing heavy slabs of stone over a cliff and into the reservoir below. Hansen raced for the opposite shoreline.

When he pulled in, a kid was about to toss another rock but paused. On the surface of the dusty red sandstone that he was holding were two toe imprints from a partial dinosaur track.

“I saved that one,” Hansen recounted Thursday. The park manager regrets that he couldn’t get there sooner. “He had already thrown multiple [tracks in the water].”

Some 200 million years ago, 8-foot-tall carnivorous dinosaurs trudged though the terrain in what is now northeastern Utah. The footprints they left behind are the basis for Red Fleet State Park about 10 miles outside Vernal. A trail runs past hundreds of the prehistoric raptor tracks stretching up a slickrock slope. And thousands of people come each year to see them.

Over the past six months, though, the site has been heavily vandalized. Visitors — much like the kid Hansen stopped two weeks ago — have been chipping out pieces of rock and hurling them into the the water.

“It’s become quite a big problem,” said Utah Division of State Parks spokesman Devan Chavez. “They’re just looking to throw rocks off the side. What they don’t realize is these rocks they’re picking up, they’re covered in dinosaur tracks.”

Some of the sheets sink to the bottom of Red Fleet Reservoir, some shatter upon hitting the surface, some dissolve entirely.

“Some of them are likely lost forever,” Chavez said.

Red Fleet State Park is considering sending a diving team to recover what it can from the lakebed. But, for now, it’s putting up more signs asking tourists not to touch the sandstone.

Already, there are several notices throughout the area that say, “Do not disturb the rocks” and “We are depending on you to preserve this special place.”

“You’d think common sense would provide guidance, but it’s not coming across in people’s mind,” said Hansen, who’s been the park’s manager since March. He’s responded to two cases in the past two weeks.

This area, which is now a dry and dusty desert, was once a bog filled with mud and moss. Paleontologists believe the dilophosaurus, part of the raptor family, would ambush other dinosaurs while they were resting or getting a drink in the swamp. They were fast with sharp teeth and toes used as weapons. Some weighed as much as a small horse.

Though their three-toed footprints are not fossils, they’re treated as such under Utah Code. Anyone who destroys one could be charged with a felony, though no charges have been filed recently. (Three teens were tried in juvenile court for destruction of a paleontological site at Red Fleet State Park in 2001.)

“We’re going to be cracking down on it a lot more,” Chavez said.

Many of the tracks are noticeable walking through the landscape. But plenty are not. At least 10 of the larger, more visible footprints, which range from 3 to 17 inches, disappeared in the past six months. Chavez said that’s a conservative estimate.

Similar vandalism and graffiti are happening throughout the state. Tourists are carving their names into redrock arches. Some are spray-painting canyon walls. And it’s frustrating land managers and park rangers.

Last year, 37,000 people came to Red Fleet State Park. From the dock, Hansen can see as visitors climb up the hill toward the dinosaur tracks and now, when he does maintenance work nearby, he listens for any splashing.

“If we don’t preserve it,” he said, “there won’t be much left.”

The vast majority of the nearly 70,000 Mormon missionaries serving across the globe feel safe, a sweeping LDS Church survey shows, but the Utah-based faith is enhancing its security policies nonetheless and taking a second look at places where its proselytizers identified “multiple” concerns.

A year ago, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a safety questionnaire to all of its young full-time missionaries. It included inquiries about whether the “elders” and “sisters” have experienced or observed physical harm, such as being punched, kicked, mugged, choked, restrained, bitten by a dog or in any other way injured.

It also asked about harassment, including obscene gestures, catcalls or stalking. It wanted to know if any respondents had been grabbed, groped, kissed or otherwise sexually assaulted — and, if so, when and where.

“We were pleased to learn that an overwhelming majority of missionaries reported feeling safe within their missions, and the number of incidents was very low compared to the total missionaries serving,” LDS Church spokesman Daniel Woodruff said in a news release. “Gratefully, serious threats and violence involving missionaries are uncommon, although we recognize that exceptions occur.”

Though the LDS Church publicly provided no data, it has decided to target a second survey at unspecified missions where its young troops reported “multiple safety concerns.”

“Information from this follow-up survey will be shared with mission presidents,” Woodruff added, “to help them understand the potential risks in their missions and to help them consider where missionaries are placed.”

He noted the church has established a Sister Safety Committee that “meets regularly … to determine how to enhance the overall safety of the [female] missionaries.”

The church also developed a follow-up process to “provide better care and support for missionaries” after any incident.

“A significant health, safety and security training program is being produced that is heavily influenced by the survey results,” Woodruff said. “… Feedback from this survey [also] will inform future changes.”

The public update on the church’s safety query comes in the aftermath of recent revelations about abusive behavior by two former LDS mission presidents.

Last month, McKenna Denson filed a lawsuit against the LDS Church and former Missionary Training Center President Joseph L. Bishop, alleging he raped her when she was a missionary at the church’s flagship MTC in Provo in the 1980s.

In 2014, Philander Knox Smartt III, a Mormon mission president in Puerto Rico, was excommunicated for unspecified misconduct with sister missionaries in his care.

Traffic accidents are among the most common causes of death and injuries among LDS missionaries. Last month, four missionaries were injured in a southern Idaho crash that killed two other people.

Traditionally, though, Mormon missionaries suffer fewer accidents and deaths than others in their age cohort — starting at 18 for elders and 19 for sisters.

That’s partly because they are “instructed to minimize the objects they have with them and only carry cash sufficient for that day’s needs,” the church’s policy states. “If accosted by thieves, missionaries are trained not to resist, to avoid confrontation and to give up whatever money they have.”

In 2013, about a dozen Mormon missionaries died, well above the typical average, which hovers between three and six a year.

However, even the higher number remained well below death rates for those same age groups across U.S. and world populations — as tracked by the World Health Organization and several prominent academic journals. Like-aged rates of death for nonmissionaries are six to 20 times higher, depending on the measures used.

Still, there have been occasions in which Mormon emissaries were evacuated from a country.

In the 1970s, missionaries in Argentina were given codes to call to find out whether to stay put or head to Buenos Aires if that country went to war with Chile (it didn’t). In the 1980s, Haiti was rocked by coups, and elders and sisters were locked down each time.

In recent years, civil unrest in Ukraine and the Ebola outbreak in Liberia and Sierra Leone caused church authorities to withdraw or move some missionaries to more stable regions. In 2013, an 18-year-old missionary from Bountiful was among survivors of a horrific train derailment in Spain that killed at least 80 people. And last year, several missionaries were severely wounded in the terrorist bombing at an airport in Belgium.

Just last week, the LDS Church transferred dozens of missionaries out of Turkey due to “a prolonged period of heightened political tensions.”

“We are committed,” Woodruff said, “to doing all we can to understand and to improve, where needed, the circumstances of all missionaries.”

Rod Rosenstein is doing a star turn as principled defender of the law, but he’s performed abysmally as deputy attorney general, and President Donald Trump would be fully justified in firing him.

The leaked questions that special counsel Robert Mueller wants to ask Trump in a prospective deposition are, if accurate, a sign that Mueller has spun out of control on Rosenstein’s watch.

The questions (drafted by Trump’s legal team after consultations with Mueller’s investigators) suggest a free-floating investigation of the president’s motives, undertaken by a subordinate of the president. This is unlike any special counsel investigation we’ve ever seen and represents a significant distortion of our system.

Per the questions, Mueller wants to know how Trump reacted to news stories in The Washington Post. What he thought of FBI Director James Comey during the transition. How he feels about his attorney general.

These questions grow out of an obstruction-of-justice probe centered, as far as we can tell, on Trump’s exercise of the legitimate powers of the presidency. Mueller is out to prove that Trump had ill intentions. But this is an inherently problematic inquiry that involves a subordinate second-guessing the president on highly political questions.

It is doubtful that a president can be guilty of obstruction of justice in exercising his official duties, precisely because passing judgment on the lawful acts of a president is not a matter for prosecutors or the courts, but for the political process (i.e., for impeachment if the acts are deemed abuses of power). It’s another matter if a president has engaged in actual criminal conduct, like suborning perjury, but there is no indication of that.

What makes Mueller different from previous special counsels is that his predecessors were given the mission of investigating specific alleged crimes. As my National Review colleague Andrew McCarthy has repeatedly pointed out, Rod Rosenstein mentioned no crimes in his initial order to Mueller, a violation of the special counsel regulations. He said only that Mueller should investigate collusion and anything related.

This amorphous, wide-ranging guidance appears to have allowed Mueller to effortlessly slide from an amorphous, wide-ranging investigation into Russian meddling into an amorphous, wide-ranging investigation into obstruction of justice. (Rosenstein followed up later with a more specific memo to Mueller.)

Now, judging by the leaked questions, obstruction is the lion’s share of Mueller’s work. Absent smoking guns that we aren’t aware of (always possible), this is bizarre and disproportionate.

We now have an extensive obstruction investigation carried out by investigators who haven’t been obstructed. There’s been an intense focus, for instance, on Trump’s Oval Office discussion with then-FBI Director Comey about going easy on Michael Flynn. But as Andy McCarthy also notes, no one went easy on Flynn, who pled guilty to lying to the FBI.

Regardless, current Justice Department guidance says the president can’t be indicted. If Mueller takes heed, he is limited to indicting underlings and writing reports on his findings, with Congress the most important consumer.

This means Mueller is, in effect, the lead investigative counsel for a prospective House impeachment committee. It’s an important position, just not one that should be housed within the executive branch.

Rod Rosenstein is ultimately responsible for the state of this investigation. On the merits, he should be fired and replaced by someone willing to exercise proper oversight of the special counsel.

A more practical lever would be to push for Rosenstein to recuse himself. As a party to the firing of James Comey, he shouldn’t be overseeing a probe in which he’s a witness.

To this point, the White House posture toward the Mueller investigation has been to cooperate and hope it goes away, when a root-and-branch legal and constitutional challenge to Mueller’s work is now what’s called for.

Surely, Mueller will want to ask questions about such an effort, too — because he’s the unbounded investigatory ombudsman of the Trump era.

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

A man was arrested Thursday evening after he apparently randomly attacked police officers and, later, bit a police dog.

About 10 p.m., the man spotted gang detectives while he was standing near a van about 1200 W. Lexington Ave. Officers said the man started yelling at them before getting into his van and driving toward them “at a very high rate of speed,” according to a news release.

The man was reportedly trying to ram the officers’ vehicle, but police narrowly avoided that attempt. The man then stopped his vehicle in the middle of the road, and yelled and revved his engine at officers. He drove at them and backed away multiple times, before ramming into the police vehicle head-on as other officers arrived at the scene.

The impact disabled the man’s vehicle, and police tried to arrest him. Officers used a Taser in the process, but it was “ineffective,” according to the release. They then brought in a police K-9 to pull the man out of his vehicle.

The man apparently bit the dog as it was biting him, police spokesman Detective Matt Roper said, but the man was taken into custody.

The man was booked into jail on suspicion of aggravated assault on a police officer, criminal mischief, assault on a police service animal, resisting arrest and possession of drug paraphernalia.

The officer and dog were injured in the confrontation, but both will recover, Roper said.

They say it’s not a real series until a team wins on the other team’s court.

So welcome to the second round, Jazz fans.

Quin Snyder and company flipped the script in Game 2, turning Donovan Mitchell into a point guard, getting Rudy Gobert to the rim, and out-running the fast-paced Rockets.

With the series tied at 1-1, tonight’s game in Salt Lake City certainly feels like a bellwether moment in this matchup.

On this episode of the Weekly Run podcast, we relive the highlights of Game 2 and look ahead to what it will take for the Jazz to replicate their success at Vivint Smart Home Arena.

Media reaction to that Donovan Mitchell follow-slam. pic.twitter.com/xQ885JB0wZ

— J.A. Adande (@jadande) May 3, 2018

At 1:25 • Even press row lost its collective mind over the Donovan Mitchell put-back dunk in Game 2. What is the etiquette for reporters at the games?

At 4:30 • Donovan Mitchell’s adaptability and his role with Ricky Rubio sidelined by a hamstring injury

At 7:35 • How real did Utah’s win feel? Are the adjustments they made enough to win Game 3?

At 12:30 • Kyle thinks the series will go six games — that “it could go either way”

At 13:50 • Rudy Gobert vs. Clint Capela

At 16:30 • A Jazz fan called Harden “the worst flopper in the NBA” and the presumptive MVP smacked the man’s phone. Did anybody do anything wrong? And are Jazz fans getting an undeserved reputation in the wake of Russell Westbrook’s remarks?

White man playing the victim that’s all I see RT @BleacherReport: James Harden slaps this Jazz fan’s phone after being called the “worst flopper in the NBA” 😂 (via Jason Glad/Facebook) pic.twitter.com/cK9oo65oLW

— Roy (@MrSmith120) May 4, 2018

At 24:00 • Is Jazz-Rockets the best series in the playoffs at the moment?

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When he accepted the Republican nomination for president, Donald Trump pronounced himself the “law and order candidate.”

Instead, he has bestowed a new political cachet on the criminal class.

Sure, the mention of Hillary Clinton’s name can still provoke chants of “Lock her up!” at Trump’s rallies. And the president continues to blame immigrants for the imaginary violent crime wave that he says is gripping the nation.

But an actual criminal record has become a badge of kinship with a president who constantly rails about witch hunts, a rigged system and prosecutors run amok. It is also the latest evidence that Trump has taken us all to a place that seems beyond parody.

This year’s election has produced the spectacle two recently freed inmates — ex-congressman Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., and former West Virginia coal baron Don Blankenship — running for Congress while proudly touting their time behind bars as bona fides.

“You know, I’ve had a little personal experience with the Department of Justice. They lie a lot too,” Blankenship said Tuesday night, when asked during a GOP Senate debate whether he thought Trump should be allowed to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

The Morgantown, West Virginia, audience erupted in applause and laughter at this reference to Blankenship’s conviction on misdemeanor charges stemming from the nation’s deadliest mine disaster in four decades.

That same evening, in Tempe, Arizona, Vice President Mike Pence was slathering praise on former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio as a “tireless champion of strong borders and the rule of law.”

A federal judge in 2017 thought differently, when she found Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt of court for his “flagrant disregard” of an order to stop racially profiling Latinos in traffic stops. Trump pardoned the 85-year-old Arpaio, sparing him what could have been six months in jail. His get-out-of-jail-free card in hand, Arpaio announced he was running for the Senate to “bring some new blood to Washington.”

Arpaio has become a sought-after fundraiser for other Republican candidates. So has former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who awaits his own sentencing for lying to the FBI. If Trump is ultimately found to have obstructed justice in the ongoing Russia probe, the original sin will have been his efforts to get then-FBI Director James Comey to back off his investigation of Flynn for having made false statements about conversations with the Russian ambassador.

“So General Michael Flynn’s life can be totally destroyed while Shadey [sic] James Comey can Leak and Lie and make lots of money from a third rate book (that should never have been written),” Trump tweeted last month. “Is that really the way life in America is supposed to work? I don’t think so!”

The destruction of Flynn’s life seems something less than total. He will be the star attraction May 6, when he appears with Senate candidate Troy Downing in Montana. As my colleague Michael Scherer reported, Flynn has a good time in store: “He plans to shoot skeet, dine with donors and hold a rally in the state, where select VIPs will be offered a chance to take their picture with him.”

Grimm, meanwhile, is trying to win back his old Staten Island House seat after serving eight months for tax fraud and other offenses. He has been shunned by local Republican leaders. But some polls are showing him ahead of Rep. Daniel Donovan, the Republican who replaced him.

On Monday night, Grimm jubilantly announced that Anthony Scaramucci, who did a brief and embarrassing stint as Trump White House communications director, will headline a money-raising event for him on May 19.

“Excited to welcome former White House comms director and one of our President’s staunchest allies, Anthony Scaramucci, to Staten Island on May 19! You don’t want to miss it,” Grimm tweeted.

The person who has made this whole trip through the looking glass possible is a president who promised in his convention acceptance speech that he would “work with, and appoint, the best prosecutors and law enforcement officials to get the job done.”

Instead, Trump has demonized those very people — and the institutions they represent. In doing so, he has bestowed martyrhood on criminals, at least those who are his cronies and his clones.

The question now is whether voters can still tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.

Boise, Idaho • An Idaho university says it can’t find a small amount of radioactive, weapons-grade plutonium about the size of a U.S. quarter, and federal officials are proposing an $8,500 fine.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a statement Friday that Idaho State University can’t account for a third of an ounce (1 gram) of the material that’s used in nuclear reactors and to make nuclear bombs.

Officials say the amount is too small to make a nuclear bomb but could be used to make a dirty bomb to spread radiation.

The university says documents from 2003 and 2004 identify the material as being on campus. But the school in Pocatello says a search in October failed to find the plutonium.

School officials didn’t immediately respond to inquiries from The Associated Press.

Washington • President Donald Trump insisted Friday that “we’re not changing any stories” about the 2016 hush payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels, even as he further muddied the explanations by suggesting the new face of his legal team needed to “get his facts straight.”

Trump said that Rudy Giuliani, who upended the previous White House defense this week by saying the president knew about his personal lawyer Michael Cohen’s payment to Daniels, was “a great guy but he just started a day ago” and said the former mayor of New York City was still “learning the subject matter.”

Hours later, Giuliani issued a statement in which he tried to back away from his previous suggestion that the $130,000 payment was made because Trump was in the stretch run of the 2016 campaign.

“The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the President’s family,” Giuliani said. “It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.”

That was a marked change from Giuliani’s earlier comments about the timing of the payment, made on Oct. 27, 2016, less than two weeks before the election.

Of Daniels’ allegations of an affair with Trump, Giuliani said Thursday: “Imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton. Cohen didn’t ask. He made it go away.”

Giuliani insisted Trump didn’t know the specifics of Cohen’s arrangement with Daniels until recently, telling “Fox & Friends” on Thursday that the president didn’t know all the details until “maybe 10 days ago.” Giuliani told The New York Times that Trump had repaid Cohen $35,000 a month “out of his personal family account” after the campaign was over. He said Cohen received $460,000 or $470,000 in all for expenses related to Trump.

In his statement Friday, the former mayor added that his previous “references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president’s knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters” but did not elaborate. His statement came just a day Giuliani said “You won’t see daylight between me and the president.”

While Giuliani also repeated his belief that the payment did not constitute a campaign finance violation, legal experts have said the new information raised a number of questions, including whether the money represented repayment of an undisclosed loan or could be seen as reimbursement for a campaign expenditure. Either could be legally problematic.

Trump himself called news stories about Daniels “crap” and said the White House would offer an accounting of the payments. But he offered no details.

The president added that “virtually everything” reported about the payments — which are the subject of swirling legal action and frenzied cable newsbreaks — was wrong. But he declined to elaborate.

Giuliani’s surprise revelation of the president’s payment earlier this week clashed with Trump’s past statements, created new legal headaches and stunned many in the West Wing. White House aides were blindsided when Giuliani said Wednesday night that the president had repaid Cohen for $130,000 that was given to Daniels to keep her quiet before the 2016 election about her allegations of an affair with Trump.

But no debt to Cohen was listed on Trump’s personal financial disclosure form, which was certified on June 16, 2017. Asked if Trump had filed a fraudulent form, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: “I don’t know.”

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, is seeking to be released from a non-disclosure deal she signed in the days before the 2016 election to keep her from talking about a 2006 sexual encounter she said she had with Trump. She has also filed defamation suits against Cohen and Trump.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One several weeks ago, Trump said he did not know about the payment or where the money came from. In a phone interview with “Fox and Friends” last week, however, he appeared to muddy the waters, saying that Cohen represented him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal.”

Sanders said Thursday that Trump “eventually learned” about the payment, but she did not offer details.

For all the controversy Giuliani stirred up, some Trump supporters said it was wise to get the payment acknowledgement out in the open.

Said former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: “You know, there’s an old saying in the law, ‘Hang a lantern on your problems.’ ... So the fact is that Rudy has to go out there now and clean it up. That’s what lawyers get hired to do.”

Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, who engaged in his own press tour Thursday, slammed both Trump and Giuliani.

“The admissions by Mr. Giuliani as to Mr. Trump’s conduct and the acts of Mr. Cohen are directly contrary to the lies previously told to the American people,” he said. “There will ultimately be severe consequences.”

Trump is facing mounting legal threats from the Cohen-Daniels situation and the special counsel’s investigation of Russian meddling in the election and possible coordination with the Trump campaign.

Cohen is facing a criminal investigation in New York, and FBI agents raided his home and office several weeks ago seeking records about the Daniels nondisclosure agreement. Giuliani has warned Trump that he fears Cohen, the president’s longtime personal attorney, will “flip,” bending in the face of a potential prison sentence, and he has urged Trump to cut off communications with him, according to a person close to Giuliani.

The president’s self-proclaimed legal fixer has been surprised and concerned by Trump’s recent stance toward him, according to a Cohen confidant. Cohen was dismayed to hear Trump marginalize his role during an interview last week with “Fox & Friends” and interpreted a recent negative National Enquirer cover story as a warning shot from a publication that has long been cozy with Trump, said the person who was not authorized to talk about private conversations and spoke only on condition of anonymity. Cohen also had not indicated to friends that Trump’s legal team was going to contradict his original claim that he was not reimbursed for the payment to Daniels.

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin, Zeke Miller and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

For a player some have criticized for taking too many shots, Donovan Mitchell wasn’t ready to pull the trigger Friday morning.

The Rook was given two opportunities to give his thoughts on an ugly Game 2 from Ben Simmons, the Philadelphia phenom who is considered his greatest challenge for Rookie of the Year. Even though the votes were cast last month, a fiery (and sometimes unsavory) debate between fans and media has continued in the case of Mitchell vs. Simmons.

But Mitchell still wouldn’t pounce after a second reporter asked what he thought about Simmons scoring just one point against the Boston Celtics on Thursday night.

“It happens to everybody,” he said. “It just so happens that it happened to him. I expect him to respond. He’s a good player. Good players respond back, and it’s a testament to his character. But it happens. You can’t play great every night. It’s not as easy as some people think.”

Perhaps the rookies themselves have lulled audiences into believing this is easy.

Simmons, the first overall draft pick in 2016, starred in the first-round series against the Miami Heat, including a triple-double in Game 4. He’s averaged 15.7 points, 9.3 rebounds and 8.3 assists per game in the playoffs, even taking his 1-point night into account.

Mitchell also has wowed for the Jazz, averaging a team-leading 26.1 points with 6.4 rebounds and 4.0 assists per contest. Only five rookies ever have averaged more points in the postseason, and four of them (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and George Mikan) are in the Hall of Fame.

While Mitchell occasionally has stoked Rookie of the Year fires — Adidas notably produced a campaign that included sweatshirts and billboards — he declined to kick Simmons while he was down. The first time he was asked about the Celtics’ Game 2 win over the 76ers, he pivoted the question from Simmons to a fellow Louisville Cardinal, Terry Rozier, who is having his own breakout postseason.

“Terry’s been a great player,” he said. “Zero turnovers a game for, I think, the third time in the playoffs? He’s one of those guys who is overlooked. People don’t really know much about him. Y’all should get to know Terry. He’s impressive. He’s an impressive guy, and what he’s doing is great.”

The grassroots initiative to enact Medicaid expansion in Utah appears to have enough signatures to appear on the November ballot, according to the latest count.

Supporters needed to gather a requisite number of signatures in 26 of 29 state Senate districts and a total of 113,143 statewide. As of Friday, the signature count had met the 26-district threshold and surpassed 139,500 for the state as a whole.

The numbers still require certification by the lieutenant governor’s office later this month.

“They’re still validating signatures, but at this point we met the minimum requirement to make it on the ballot in 2018,” organizer RyLee Curtis said Friday.

The ballot initiative would extend Medicaid coverage to people who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line – about $16,700 per person, or $34,000 for a family of four. Organizers say 150,000 Utah adults would gain Medicaid coverage under the initiative and the state would receive $800 million in federal money.

A similar ballot initiative in Idaho also appears to have met that state’s signature requirements.

The Utah initiative represents full expansion compared to a bill passed by the Legislature, HB472, that would extend coverage to an estimated 72,000 low income Utahns. That measure would require a federal waiver before it could be implemented because it only insures people up to the poverty line. It also contains work requirements, enrollment caps and a provision that pulls the plug on the program if federal funds ever fall below paying 90 percent of the cost.

Utah’s top provider of workforce training graduated 3,603 students on Thursday as Salt Lake Community College held its 2018 commencement ceremonies in West Valley City.

Graduating students, faculty, friends and family members assembled in the Maverik Center heard from New England Patriots wide receiver and award-winning children’s book author Malcolm J. Mitchell, who delivered the event’s keynote speech.

Mitchell, who attended the University of Georgia before being drafted by the Patriots in 2016, is said to have struggled with reading when he first began college. Since the 2016 release of his first book, “The Magician’s Hat,” Mitchell has emerged as an advocate for literacy.

“If success is a mountain,” the 24-year-old Georgia native told SLCC graduates on Thursday, “then being here today means you’re already moving up that mountain.”

The college awarded 4,215 degrees during its morning commencement exercises, with more than a third of them in general studies. SLCC also gave out two honorary doctorate degrees, to SLCC board member and retired entrepreneur Ashok Joshi; and to Pam Perlich, director of demographic research at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute for the University of Utah.

Angela H. Brown, executive editor of SLUG Magazine, and Manoli Katsanevas, owner of Manoli’s restaurant, were given the college’s 2018 Distinguished Alumni awards.

The college gave teaching excellence awards to faculty members Gordon Storrs, Kristen Taylor and Deidre Tyler. Chosen as 2018 Graduates of Excellence were Aaron Hornok, Alondra Melendez Rivas, Blake Hrubes, David Johnson, Ethel Wilson, Febechukwu “Febz” Megwalu and Nathan le Duc.

Dallas • President Donald Trump on Friday linked the sanctity of the Second Amendment to his party’s prospects in the 2018 midterm elections, telling supporters at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention that “we’ve got to get Republicans elected.”

Trump struck a tough tone months after he briefly strayed from the NRA’s message in the days after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. He vowed that the Second Amendment will “never ever be under siege as long as I am your president.”

Trump’s speech in Dallas was his fourth consecutive appearance at the NRA’s annual convention. His gun comments were folded into a campaign-style speech, which touched on the Russia probe, the 2016 campaign, illegal immigration and his efforts in North Korea and Iran.

Trump said Democrats want to “outlaw guns” and said if the nation takes that step, it might as well ban all vans and trucks because they are the new weapons for “maniac terrorists.”

The speech came as the issue of gun violence has taken on new urgency after one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. Student survivors of the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which left 17 people dead, are now leading a massive national gun control movement. They too are looking to the midterm elections for action.

Though Trump embraced the Second Amendment right to bear arms before Friday’s speech, he had temporarily strayed from the strong anti-gun control message in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. While the shooting has not led to major changes from the White House or the Republican-led Congress, it did — at least briefly — prompt Trump to declare that he would stand up to the powerful gun lobby. He later backpedaled on that tough talk.

Trump referenced the Parkland shooting in his speech, saying he “mourned for the victims and their families” and saying he has taken steps on school safety. He noted that he signed a recent spending bill that included modest provisions to strengthen the federal background check system for gun purchases and money to improve school safety. He also repeated his support for “letting highly trained teachers carry concealed weapons.”

Asked earlier this week why Trump was attending the convention, given the current political tensions around gun violence, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said safety was a “big priority.” But, she added, “We also support the Second Amendment, and strongly support it, and don’t see there to be a problem with speaking at the National Rifle Association’s meeting.”

Trump said some people had advised him that attending might be controversial, but added: “You know what I said? ‘Bye-bye, gotta get on the plane.’”

Trump has long enjoyed strong backing from the NRA, which spent about $30 million in support of his presidential campaign. The NRA showcased its high-profile guests for the event, with NRA Executive Director Chris Cox saying on Twitter: “We are honored to celebrate American Freedom with @realDonaldTrump, @VP Mike Pence and others. #2A #watchtheleftmeltdown”

But one of the Parkland student survivors, David Hogg, was critical of Trump’s planned attendance.

“It’s kind of hypocritical of him to go there after saying so many politicians bow to the NRA and are owned by them,” Hogg said. “It proves that his heart and his wallet are in the same place.”

During a televised gun meeting with lawmakers in late February, Trump wagged his finger at a Republican senator and scolded him for being “afraid of the NRA,” declaring that he would stand up to the group and finally get results in quelling gun violence.

He praised members of the gun lobby as “great patriots” but declared “that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything. It doesn’t make sense that I have to wait until I’m 21 to get a handgun, but I can get this weapon at 18.” He was referring to the AR-15 the Parkland shooting suspect is accused of using.

Those words rattled some Republicans in Congress and sparked hope among gun-control advocates that, unlike after previous mass shootings, tougher regulations would be enacted this time. But Trump later retreated on those words, expressing support for modest changes to the background check system, as well as arming teachers.

After expressing interest in increasing the minimum age to purchase a so-called assault weapon to 21, Trump later declared there was “not much political support” for the move. He then pushed off the issue of age restrictions by assigning the question to a commission.

Trump’s moves have drawn concerns from both sides of the gun debate.

“He ran as supposedly the best friend of the Second Amendment and has become gun grabber in chief,” said Michael Hammond, legislative counsel to the Gun Owners of America. Hammond said his members were upset Trump had approved a spending bill that included background check updates. “We’re not confident at all. We are very disappointed.”

Kristin Brown, of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said Trump had offered mixed messages since the Parkland shooting.

“Which Donald Trump is going to show up?” she asked. “Will it be the one who sympathized with the Parkland students he brought to the White House, the one who met with members of the Senate ... or the one who had burgers” with NRA head Wayne LaPierre.

Several groups announced plans to protest over the weekend. The protesters will include parents of those killed in Parkland and in other shootings.

__

Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Washington contributed.

It took about three weeks for Alton Phonepraseuth and his classmates at West Valley City’s Granger High School, Ivan Padilla and Bailey Beacham, to write their rap about the Boston Massacre — and another week to memorize it.

Annsheri Reay, a student at Monticello High School south of Moab, picked Abigail Adams’ name, because it was first on a list of prominent figures of the Revolutionary War, and she wrote a rap in about an hour.

And Kiysa Gorley, a student at Delta High School in the center of Utah, accompanied herself on ukulele for a minor-key folk song about a brutal winter at Valley Forge, because “I sing better when I sing about sad things.”

Those students, and those from a dozen other Utah high schools statewide, applied their musical talents — and their knowledge of America’s founding — from the stage of Salt Lake City’s Eccles Theater on Friday. From that stage, they drew cheers from 2,000 students in the audience and the appreciation of the touring cast of “Hamilton.”

The occasion was the Hamilton Education Project, also known as EduHam, which the touring Broadway production tries to put on wherever it lands during the school year.

Students competed at their respective schools for the chance to perform on the Eccles stage for the EduHam program. The students were tasked with doing what Lin-Manuel Miranda did as he developed the Tony-winning hip-hop history lesson: study original founding documents and create an original work — song, rap, poem, essay or spoken-word piece — inspired by a figure or an event in American history.

Phonepraseuth said he did the bulk of the writing on his Granger High team’s Boston Massacre spoken-word work, in which each of the three took on the character of someone involved in the event. Phonepraseuth gave voice to Crispus Attucks, the black man who was killed in the British soldiers’ attack; Padilla portrayed silversmith Paul Revere, whose etching of the incident became the illustration for rabble-rousing pamphlets; and Beacham gave voice to John Adams, one of the many politicians moved to action after the massacre.

The hardest part, Phonepraseuth said, was “to find a beat or rhythm that doesn’t sound like anything from ‘Hamilton.’” The effort paid off: After the Granger trio’s performance, actor Kyle Scatliffe, who plays Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette in the touring show was imitating their beat appreciatively.

“Y’all gonna take some of our jobs someday,” Scatliffe remarked during his stint as morning emcee.

Gorley, who plays guitar, took a month to learn the ukulele for her Valley Forge song. As for the lyrics, “I just looked up a ton of facts and just read a lot about it,” she said.

Reay said she picked Abigail Adams, who advised her husband, John Adams, through letters during the Continental Congress, because she “noticed she was very feminist, very pro-woman and way ahead of her time.”

She started putting Abigail’s words into a poem, “but as I started saying it,” the poem became a rap: “We are working with you trying to build a nation / but the men will need the women to form a strong enough foundation.”

That was one of many rhymes that drew cheers from the students in the audience. Another came from Misty Villagran, Brittney Herrera and Kiersten Whatcott from Cyprus High School, who sang about the Boston Tea Party: “Don’t cry over spilt tea / seventeen seventy-three / they ate their crumpets dry, polluting the sea / it was the Boston Tea Party.”

Another trio that wowed the audience was from the Utah International Charter School. Ramla Osman and ZamZam Ahmed translated some of their performance in their native Somali, while classmate Klo Plah Hset delivered some lines in Karen, a language from his home country, Myanmar.

Ahmed’s reaction to performing on the “Hamilton” stage echoed many of the students: “It felt amazing all those people were listening to us and watching us,” she said.

After the students performed, members of the “Hamilton” cast — some of whom were watching from the back of the house — sat onstage for a Q&A session.

The actors talked about researching their roles and reading different takes on history. Marcus Choi, for example, said he’s reading a biography of George Washington, the character he plays. Jon Patrick Walker, who plays King George III, recommended Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.”

Mostly, the actors gave students the advice they would have given their teen selves.

“I know it’s cliché, but it gets so much better,” said Ta’rea Campbell, who plays Angelica Schuyler in the show.

And Scatliffe offered this wisdom: “You are the only version of yourself that exists, and that is what makes you special.”

The students were also treated to an afternoon matinee of “Hamilton,” and their responses had a rock-concert intensity. They cheered at every major character’s entrance, hooted during the Cabinet-meeting rap battles and went deadly silent during the second act’s saddest moments.

By intermission, Reay, who rapped about Abigail Adams, said she was speechless.

“This took my breath away,” Reay said. “I’ve been on the edge of my seat the whole time.

The performance for students kicked off the final weekend of the production in Salt Lake City, with Friday night’s show, two on Saturday, and a final matinee on Sunday.

A spokesman for Broadway at the Eccles said that, by the end of the 3½-week run, about 78,000 people will have seen “Hamilton.” All 32 performances, including Friday’s matinee for the students, sold out.