RadioWest

There are 48 data centers currently in operation across Utah. Few of them received public attention as they went through the public planning process. But the data centers currently in development are being put under the public’s microscope. Deseret News reporter Art Raymond and New York Times reporter Karen Weise join us to help understand why that is.

These days, we take the polarization of faith in America for granted: Christians are mostly conservative, and liberals are hardly religious at all. But it wasn’t always this way.

The Stratos Project, a massive data center planned for Box Elder County, has run up against equally massive public opposition, even as state officials champion its benefits. A panel of local journalists joins us to help make sense of the debate.

The chronically-online young men pushing Republicans further right are called “Groypers.” The journalist Antonia Hitchens explores their extremist agenda.

This week, Box Elder County commissioners gave the green light to a 40,000-acre data center in remote Hansel Valley, Utah. Matteo Wong, a staff writer for The Atlantic, says the immense scale of the planned development is hard to wrap your mind around.

As big freighters go, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the biggest, the best and the most profitable ship on the Great Lakes. Then, on Nov. 10, 1975, facing gale-force winds and 50-foot waves, the ship sank, taking all 29 men aboard her down into the icy depths of Lake Superior.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints filed a lawsuit in April against “Mormon Stories Podcast” host John Dehlin, alleging trademark and copyright infringement. We’ll talk with Dehlin about the case, as well as with LDS scholars Matthew Bowman and Patrick Mason about what the suit tells us about the LDS Church and the influence of “Mormon Stories.”

Coltan Scrivner studies why some of us are drawn to look at gruesome things. He calls it morbid curiosity, and he says it’s not a bad thing.

If you grew up along the Wasatch Front, you’ve seen how much this place has changed. Farm fields replaced by housing developments. High-rise apartments where single-story buildings once stood. A steady influx of new people. Much of it has happened in little more than a decade. That rapid transformation fascinates housing journalist Taylor Anderson. He says it creates an opening to ask a bigger question: how is the region changing, and for whom?

Nate Blouin, a Utah State Senator and leading progressive Democratic contender for Utah’s new congressional seat, faces a setback as vulgar online comments he made years ago recently came to light. The controversy also raises questions about the clout of the progressive wing of the party in the lead-up to the Democratic State Convention.

The linguist Valerie Fridland says everyone has an accent, whether they think so or not. Her new book is about how the different ways we talk shape our lives.

Great Salt Lake normally doesn’t reach peak water level until late May. But after a record-low snowpack, the lake has already topped out, and experts warn it will likely brush up against its own record low. Could a sizable influx of federal dollars help save it?

There’s emerging evidence of the health benefits of raising your body temperature—you know, getting sweaty. Author Bill Gifford’s book makes the case.

Daryl Lindsey is a sustainable landscaping expert. With spring here, and a worrisome winter in the rearview, she joins us to talk about this year’s growing season.

The hunt for critical minable resources is heating up in Utah, and would-be extractors have found a legal loophole to get around federal mining laws.

U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement recently purchased a warehouse on Salt Lake City’s west side, but the agency doesn’t intend to use the site for goods or merchandise: It will be a detention facility, part of the agency’s efforts to round up and deport a million people every year.

With Easter weekend approaching, we’re revisiting our 2025 conversation with Elaine Pagels about the real Jesus of Nazareth.

The Wild West has been the subject of much mythologizing in American culture. But for all the fantasy, at least one figure was real: the gunfighter.

It may seem like Mars is just a modern-day obsession, but we earthlings were nuts for the Red Planet more than a century ago. David Baron’s new book tells the story.

What weighs five pounds, hasn’t been seen in print for 20 years, but still shapes the way we think about language? Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary — and author Stefan Fatsis is here to tell us why it matters.