By Monday night — less than a week after winning election to become Utah’s newest congressman — John Curtis will be in Washington getting sworn in and casting his first vote. It’s a tad overwhelming, he said with a laugh Wednesday, and “a little surreal.” With a Republican-led Congress eager to pass major reforms, the freshman GOP legislator could offer one more vote toward a tax plan or a health-care proposal. Getting him on board quickly is purely tactical, said David Magleby, a political science professor at Brigham Young University.

During this decade, Utah sped along to the second-fastest growth rate for residents who speak a language other than English while at home, a shift driven by the children of immigrants. That population grew by 20 percent between 2010 and 2016, second only to the 25 percent growth rate in Wyoming, according to a Center for Immigration Studies report released Wednesday, which relied on U.S. Census Bureau data.

Utahns are marrying later, having fewer children than in the past and delaying when they are having their children, according to an analysis by the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. The change appears to be driven by economic factors that include income levels, an increase in housing prices, student debt and education and work patterns. It’s likely “the new normal,” according to one of the study’s authors, noted economist and demographer Pamela Perlich. Utah remains a place where women are having children. As the report states: “While Utah continues to have the highest fertility rate, youngest population, earliest age [...]

Her mother and older sister each got married at 20, but Aliska Julian was busy nurturing a love of social justice and travel at that age. At 25, in between trips to Kenya to run the nonprofit she started with her mom, Julian met an entrepreneur named Nate while dancing to ’80s covers at Liquid Joe's in Millcreek. The pair wed two years later, when she was 27 and he was 32, then waited another two years to have their first son, Morrissey. Julian is among a growing number of Utah women who start a family later than their mothers [...]

“It’s not your grandmother’s county anymore. It’s not your grandfather’s county anymore.” With these words, Natalie Gochnour, director of the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, set the tone for the Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce 2017 Executive Summit Monday at Sundance Mountain Resort. “Growth will be your constant companion. You are going to change,” Gochnour told the Utah County leaders gathered to discuss Utah County’s biggest issues among business and development. “You have a choice. How do you react to that change? Do you react to it by letting it happen, by just watching it? …. Or do you really [...]

Daggett and Garfield counties may be on opposite sides of the state, but they have one thing in common — more than half of their jobs (54 percent) are provided by private leisure and hospitality companies. It’s not that much different in Grand, Kane and Summit counties, where upwards of 40 percent of all private-sector jobs are related to tourism. Even along the Wasatch Front, the leisure and hospitality industry accounts for almost 10 percent of all jobs in Salt Lake and Utah counties, slightly more than in Davis and Weber counties.

BOULDER, Garfield County — If the boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument are shrunk, Blake Spalding says it will be the hammer likely to nail the doors shut on her nationally recognized restaurant. After all, the Hell's Backbone Grill is named for the narrow, 9,000-foot elevation spine along the monument's Aquarius Plateau and in a biblical sense, the geologic formation begat the commercial enterprise. "In my mind I try to think of what a tourist would think, that if it is reduced, it is damaged," Spalding said. "It could be a public relations nightmare for Utah tourism. I don't [...]

"It's time for action, time for doing. The time for talking is past," he said. Herbert then challenged rural leaders to identify their community problems, the hindrances to getting them solved and craft a plan of action and bring it to Salt Lake City for a meeting to hammer out an "all hands on deck" approach to revitalizing rural Utah. "We have a high degree of know-how. We have a low degree of do-how," Herbert said, which needs to change. When the governor took questions and comments in response, Carbon County Commissioner Jake Mellor pointed out the two large hindrances [...]

The hard-driving forces that have made St. George and the rest of Washington County one of the fastest-growing populations in the U.S. are expected to continue for the foreseeable future, ballooning the area to more than 500,000 people over the next 50 years, according to new state population projections released this week. […]

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows Utah is experiencing a growing wave of diversity and Asian and multiracial population are growing faster than others. The state's Asian and multiracial populations both grew by 6 percent between 2015 and 2016 — faster than any other racial or ethnic group, according to the data released Thursday. More than 1 in 5 Utah residents is now a racial or ethnic minority, including more than 1 in 4 under the age of 18, the census bureau said. "These trends are cumulative and ongoing and irreversible," said Pam [...]