Utah State News Service

By Lauren Bennett  To convince lawmakers of the dire need for more mental health providers at Utah State University’s regional campuses, student leaders are hoping to demonstrate the issue is being taken seriously by fellow learners across the state. To that end, a vote scheduled for this week on whether to raise student fees by $15 could prove crucial. “It’ll probably take a couple years before the state will increase any funding to address the problem,” said David Bush, a licensed psychologist and the director of the university’s Counseling and Psychological Services office. “But more immediately we thought, well, this year we can at least show the state that the students are willing to put their money where their mouth is.” Bailee Bird, the student executive vice president for the university’s Uintah Basin campus, said increased awareness of where the money will go is vital, because students typically are wary of fees.  “The term ‘adding a fee’ is kind of freaky ...

By Matilyn Mortensen Rezoning land in the Cliffside area of Logan will encourage housing stability, city leaders believe, but likely will also contribute to urban sprawl in Cache Valley. The city council voted Tuesday to rezone approximately 65 acres of land in Logan, shifting lot sizes from six houses per acre to four houses per acre. Russ Holley, the Logan city senior planner, said the rezone is “not a big deal” because both designations are for single family homes. “It’s not like you’re going from residential to commercial, or residential to industrial,” Holley said. “Those kinds of drastic zone changes tend to be very impactful. This is a very minimal change.” The intent of the rezoning is so future development will match already existing neighborhoods. The Cliffside area was zoned for higher density a few years ago as part of the Envision Cache County plan. The goal of the plan is to “keep the city, city and the country, country.” This means preventing urban sprawl to...

By Eddie Collins A spike in Cache Valley’s air pollution earlier this month may have been bad for the health of people in Northern Utah, but it has been good for some researchers at Utah State University. The inversion culminated in the highest level of particulate matter 2.5, or PM2.5, in a single day since 2005. And that has provided researchers with increased accessibility to samples that are crucial for their work. “We want to know what air pollutants do to human health,” said Randy Martin, who researches airborne particulate matter in Utah’s Uintah Basin. “If we’re going to try to quantify that, we need to sample our air pollutants.” Collection of particle samples is Martin’s area of expertise, and it requires understanding of what the particles are made of, their sizes, and how to effectively collect them. During periods of bad pollution, his duties increase with the number of agencies and colleagues who need samples to carry out their own research. Roger Coulombe, a p...

By Zachary Aedo  If there’s a time to celebrate traditions, it’s now. That’s the perspective of students from Utah State University’s Latino Student Union, which is planning its annual Fiesta Americas celebration in the wake of a year in which many of its members felt targeted by hurtful words and hateful attitudes. Club member Karina Hernandez said it was hard “to witness people being so hateful towards our community" during the election season. "First it hurt. It did sting," Hernandez said. "But now we're coming together and creating a network of forces to combat that attitude towards us ... it's forcing us to mobilize and to be stronger than we've ever been before. So if anything, it's definitely bringing us together." For Hernandez, the Fiesta Americas party is a way for the Latino community to come together and keep celebrating its traditions — which can be hard when one lives in "a community that's very much different f...

By Shayne Bair Two Richmond business owners have launched an employer-owned medical center to provide healthcare for their employees. The new center opened Wednesday as one of Utah’s first employer-owned medical centers. The facility is expected to provide low-cost healthcare to the employees of two of the town’s largest businesses, Casper’s Ice Cream and Lower Foods. “It is going to save money for our employees, because we buy them a membership to come here,” Casper’s owner Paul Merrill said. “So now they don’t have to pay towards their deductible when they are coming here.” Lower Foods owner Alan Lower believes the new clinic will save his company money by reducing workers’ compensation claims. “In the workers’ comp world, it is all about minimizing your claims and not having people sit home longer than they need to,” Lower said. “This place will allow us to get our employees back on the job faster, and at a fraction of the cost.” The facility will contract wi...

By Natalie Draper  For weeks, Brad Orme had been telling his grandmother he didn’t believe superheroes. That belief was challenged on Saturday, though, when the four-year-old attended The Family Place’s Superhero Training Academy at Playgrounz in Logan. Brad, living as Captain America for the day, went to the event with his grandmother, Jennie Orme. When Orme asked her grandson how long he had been waiting for the “hero party” he said, “I’ve been waiting for 100 days!” Being excited and being a believer, however, are two different things; he still insisted that heroes were imaginary. At the party, kids of all ages dressed up as Spiderman, Wonder Woman, members of The Incredibles and   other heroes. They also   made masks, conquered an "American Ninja Warrior" obstacle course, engaged in tug-of-war with the Hulk, beat Batman in a Frisbee toss and collected sought-after autographs. Britney Bird, the event coordinator, said the annual superhero event has a...

By Shanie Howard A Utah State University researcher believes his team might have found a potential vaccination for Zika virus. Justin Julander, an associate professor with the university’s Institute for Antiviral Research, has been working on Zika with funding from the National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since December. Now, he said, he’s ready to publish some of the team’s findings. “We’ve identified several anti-viral agents and a few vaccines that are effective in treatment and prevention of Zika,” said Julander, who plans to submit a paper about the discoveries by the end of this week. Up to this point, these vaccinations have only been tested on mice, and would still need to undergo clinical trials before being distributed to those infected or at risk of infection. It’s not the first time a potential vaccine has been identified. Clinical trials got underway for one possible inoculation on Tuesday in Baltimo...