SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah unemployment numbers released Thursday are lower than anticipated, but that will probably change in a final analysis.

LAYTON -- Being down an anchor tenant this Christmas shopping season in a tight economy has done nothing to diminish the hopes of the owners of the Layton Hills Mall.

WOODS CROSS, Utah -- Video released Tuesday shows a 100-foot fireball ripping through a Utah refinery during a gas explosion that knocked a nearby home off its foundation earlier this month.

SALT LAKE CITY -- A project to demolish and replace parts of the condemned visitor center at Dinosaur National Monument has gone out to bid.

Again We must put up with two more mindless followers of the far left, or should I say from The Land of Oz. Yes, Fox has many good reporters and journalists who have their opinions, as they are human, not like the god Obama you worship. You both must watch FOX to enable yoy to know enough to spew your vitriol.I suggest you have TOTO show you the channel selector or the off button on your TV.

Jack E. Olson

Roy

Perhaps you've long believed that extremist Islamic terrorism poses the greatest danger to America. Well, the Republicans wish to disabuse you of that notion.

House GOP leader John Boehner declared the other day that health-care reform is actually "the greatest threat to freedom that I've seen in the 19 years I've been in Washington" -- an enlightening assertion, since I'd foolishly figured that the piloting of a plane full of innocents into the Pentagon wall had constituted the greatest assault on freedom in Washington. Call me crazy, but I'd assumed that al-Qaeda scored higher on the fright meter than the prospect of Americans getting the same health protections that are common everywhere else in the democratized world.

Reasonable, intelligent people can disagree over whether five accused 9-11 conspirators should be tried in federal courts in New York City for that day's horrendous destruction.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammed Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi could have been brought before the military commissions that have evolved from lengthy struggles over proper procedures for prosecuting suspected terrorists detained at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

We agree with a state legislative audit that calls for a ban on double-dipping by Utah public employees, where an employee is collecting a taxpayer-funded work check as well as a paycheck via the state's defined-benefit retirement system.

SLIDESHOW: Weber State Basketball

OGDEN -- For this field trip, the Wildcats get straight A's.

Fueled by a school-record crowd of 4,540 fans, the Weber State University women's basketball suffocated in-state rival Southern Utah at the Dee Events Center, thumping the Thunderbirds 78-41 to improve to 2-1 on the young season.

A whiskey bottle and a barroom brawl landed Mary Alice Devitt Laird with her colorful nickname.

"No-Nose Maggie" she is known as today, in recognition of the damage inflicted to her face after that skirmish in a mining camp saloon at Fish Springs.

Laird was a prostitute, one of Utah's infamous "ladies of the night," who made a new life for herself after her disfigurement and became a store owner and operator in Utah's isolated West Desert.

Her 40 years in the mining camp of Joy garnered her another nickname from a great-niece writing about her life story -- "Queen of the Desert."

"Heat Sin Water Skin." Bettysoo.

This provocatively-titled album is Bettysoo's fourth release, and her richest to date. An Austin, Texas-based artist, her first three albums sounded like many to come from the Lone Star state's plentiful pool of women singer/songwriters.

When Meredith Leyva's husband decided to join the U.S. Navy, she was fine with the idea.

"When it actually happened, it was a complete shock," she said. "I was working in a very promising job, in Washington, D.C., earning more money than my husband did, and I was shocked the Navy wanted to relocate us and deploy him. After all, who did they think made the money in the family to support his military addiction?"

That was 12 years ago.

Getting back into the jeans you haven't worn for nine months may seem as elusive as a good night's sleep after you've had a baby. But experts say it can be done with a little patience and persistence.

Candice Worthington, mother of four from Syracuse, says if she can do it, anyone can.

"After my third baby, I thought, 'Holy crap, I'm in my 30s and I better do something or I could be in trouble,' " she said. She started exercising before becoming pregnant with her fourth baby and continued through the pregnancy and after her six-week checkup. She's lost 20 pounds since April.