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The ugly brown snow that fell over much of Utah got everybody’s cars dirty. But it can also have an impact on spring runoff from the Wasatch Mountains. McKenzie Skiles studies the effects of windblown dust and air pollution on winter snowfall. Dust and soot make the snow darker, so it absorbs more sunlight and melts faster, she explained.

Simple economics indicate that if people in southwest Utah paid more for their water, they would use less. "Water use in Utah is subsidized, mostly by property taxes," said Gabriel Lozada, an associate professor of economics at the University of Utah who has extensively modeled the Lake Powell Pipeline project.

This voter trend in Utah matches what’s going on across the nation, as the GOP reckons with its party identity and tensions between traditional conservatives and Trump followers, explains Baodong Liu, a political science professor at the University of Utah. “Utah is almost a perfect reflection of what’s going on in the nation,” he said. “It’s in the search mode for sure inside the Republican Party.”

Ted Tatos, with the University of Utah’s Department of Economics, joined us to talk about the recent Supreme Court case NCAA vs. Alston. This new case examines the relationship between the NCAA and its student athletes, a case that focuses on non monetary academic benefits.

In the new Pew research, 6 in 10 women say they do more household chores than their partner and just 6% say the man does more. Those numbers don't line up when men are asked. Nearly half of men (46%) say they share tasks about equally, while 20% say they do more and just over a third credit their partner working harder on household chores.