Minutes before she was sworn in as a new U.S citizen on Wednesday, Ana Gomez held a U.S. flag in one hand. With the other, she filled out her first-ever voter registration form — using a large enveloped stuffed with her citizenship papers as a makeshift lap desk.

When asked why she immigrated from her native El Salvador, she said. “It’s very bad there, very dangerous” because of gangs and crime. “The people are poor. Everybody struggles.”

How is life in America?

“Here, it is like a paradise.” The Lehi resident says she want to help keep it that way — including using her new right to vote. “I thank God that he led me here.”

While July 4 is a time to celebrate America, Gomez and 125 other Utahns officially became Americans on Wednesday — just in time for Independence Day.

In a packed Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City, immigrants from 41 countries raised their hands as a group to renounce old allegiances and take the oath to become U.S. citizens.

They came from Afghanistan, Argentina, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burma, Cabo Verde, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Mexico, Mongolia, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Tonga, Venezuela and Vietnam.

Former state Rep. Francis Merrill, sister of former U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, told the global group, “We honor the diversity. It is what made America great. Your opinion is very important to our country,” and urged them to vote and make their many different voices heard.

They were among 7,500 new citizens participating in 110 special naturalization ceremonies around the country during the week of July 4 — in venues from the 9/11 Memorial in New York City to George Washington’s Mount Vernon in Virginia.

Many of the Utah immigrants say they love the opportunities that America offers — and pledge to help their new country with hard work.

Elizabeth Leon Ferrin says she has lived the American dream since she immigrated from Peru.

“I feel more independent. I was able to get my driving license and get a car,” she said, adding that may never have happened in Peru. “I have a nice home, and little girl,” a 3-year-old name McKaley.

As a citizen, she can now sponsor her mother as a new immigrant also. “My dad passed away a few years ago. I don’t have much family left in Peru. My mom is the last one living there.”

Lizeth Love immigrated from Guatemala 25 years ago. “It was dangerous. We didn’t feel safe anywhere,” she says. “The difference here is night and day. Coming here is a blessing that changed my life.”

She says becoming a citizen also makes her feel more secure at a time when threats against immigrants by the Trump administration made even legal permanent residents with green cards anxious. “We can go back to Guatemala now to visit family and return.”

Melanie Baldini, 19, immigrated from Argentina when she was 2-years old, and remembers little about that country. But she talks a lot about the advantages here.

“My mom had cancer. America has a better health care system,” she says, so they came for that and “for a better life and a better future for me and my sister.”

Baldini, a Layton resident who is a Weber State University student, says she has always thought of herself as American as she was raised here. “Now I really am one,” and just in time for a favorite holiday. “I’ve always loved July Fourth. It’s the best of holidays,” and will celebrate her new citizenship with real fireworks.

Cynthia Wainscott, who immigrated 10 years ago from Peru, also says, “Becoming a citizen before July 4 has special meaning. My daughter was born on July 5, and she wanted me to become a citizen before her birthday” and America’s birthday. Her daughter Claire turns six on Friday.

Wainscott also brought a loud cheering section of 10 friends dressed in patriotic colors. “They helped me study for the citizenship test,” she says. “They have become my family here. I love the people here.”

As she talked about her July 4 plans, Teresita Parodi perhaps showed just how American she’s become since she immigrated from Argentina 19 years ago.

“I have to work that day,” as a cashier at Walmart, she says. “Afterward I’ll go to Saratoga Springs where my daughter lives” for a backyard barbecue and maybe to watch some fireworks. With work, family and opportunities here, she says, “I’m very happy.”

We live in an era of public ugliness, of architects who deliberately make their forms unsightly and inhuman, and of public art installations that are invariably ridiculous.

The most obvious exception is the ballpark, which has gotten more beautiful rather than less in a great example of renewal through a return to tradition.

Paul Goldberger, a former architecture writer for The New York Times, traces this journey in his wonderful new book "Ballpark."

He rightly calls the ballpark "one of the greatest of all American building types" and argues that "as much as the town square, the street, the park, and the plaza, the baseball park is a key part of American public space."

Ballparks went from delightfully peculiar structures shoehorned into city streets, to monochromatic multiuse facilities with all the charm of public-works projects, before rediscovering the old forms.

The first ballpark was built in Brooklyn in 1862 and called "Union Grounds." Amazingly enough, "The Star-Spangled Banner," not yet the national anthem, was played before the first game. The wooden parks of the 19th century tended to burn down, sometimes spectacularly (a fire at the South End Grounds in Boston took out 200 buildings in Roxbury).

The 20th century brought the age of steel, brick and concrete, and "the Golden Age" of 1912-14. It gave us Crosley Field, where the Reds played until 1970, with an upward slope known as the "terrace" in left field; Tiger Stadium, quirky and cozy (a flagpole stood in the field of play in deep center); and especially the "jewel boxes" of Fenway, Wrigley and Ebbets.

They had in common eccentricities owing to where they were built, and an extraordinary intimacy. Some of their signature features didn't come until later. The famous Green Monster and the "Dartmouth Green" paint of the interior of Fenway arrived with renovations. Wrigley didn't get its iconic ivy walls until the 1930s.

Subsequent decades brought a flight from cities, and from idiosyncrasy. Cleveland previewed what was to come in the 1930s with its publicly funded, gargantuan, usually half-empty, symmetrical, multisport Municipal Stadium, or the "Mistake by the Lake."

The truly dreadful, indistinguishable concrete doughnuts, made for football and baseball but manifestly unsuited for the latter, arrived beginning in the 1960s.

The turning point was Camden Yards in Baltimore, opened in 1992. Originally conceived as another multisport suburban facility, it instead decisively moved baseball beyond such hybrids. A decision at the outset to keep a nostalgic-feeling old Baltimore & Ohio Railroad red-brick warehouse intact at the site of the new park usefully pointed to the past.

Camden Yards has a red-brick exterior and exposed steel supports inside, eschewing the concrete of the doughnuts. It limits foul territory to bring ground-level seats closer. The stands are arranged asymmetrically to avoid a deadening sameness, and frame a view of the Baltimore skyline, anchoring the park in the city.

It was such a triumph that its retro style has become a design cliche. Its influence stamped the best of the new parks: PNC Park in Pittsburgh, which, outside of Fenway and Wrigley, might be the most charming place to watch a game in the country; Oracle Park in San Francisco, which is everything its execrable forebear, Candlestick, wasn't; T-Mobile Park in Seattle, which is enchanting despite a retractable roof.

They all are distinctive and tethered to a specific city. They are all pleasing and humane, as good architecture always is. And they are wholly devoted to baseball -- still and all, the most American game.

Goldberger writes of how the ballpark, with its lush field at the center of an enclosure of concrete and steel, is the garden in the city, a sports combination of the Jeffersonian agrarian tradition and the Hamiltonian emphasis on cities and industry.

It's a wonder we managed to mess it up, but we did, before the current revival that shows there's always a way back.

Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. comments.lowry@nationalreview.com

I feel helpless sometimes; voiceless, without a plan to stand up for our brothers and sisters whose basic human rights are disregarded or abused.

Galway Kinnell said, “Think of the wren and how little flesh is needed to make a song.” How is it that such a tiny bird can sing so beautifully? How can you also sing out with the voice you have, loud or soft? How can I? Let’s figure it out. Many voices make a chorus.

Have you tried to make a difference before and didn’t make a splash? Sometimes we’re simply overwhelmed just living our own challenging lives. In the shadow of Independence Day is there something you and I can do to show solidarity and stand up for the basic human rights our fellow human beings in anguish deserve? You don’t have to be a bigwig in your community, family or country, to raise up your voice wisely about your rights, the rights of others, or to sing the song of kindness and love.

It’s time to stop heinous crimes of supremacy, neglect and violence at our borders and in our communities. There should never, ever be another tragedy like that of Oscar Martinez, his little girl, Valeria, and their surviving family. All of us are left to live forever with the memory of father and daughter face down in the water in a border river. There should never, ever be another mass shooting or the omnipresent gun-related fear our students feel.

Just because we are each born in different cities and different countries of the world doesn’t mean God only sent His preferred ones to His favorite country (whatever country you may think that is). The right to liberty, to work, to love and be loved, to gain an education without discrimination, and without fear in school, is an inheritance we are all entitled to as a product of birth, not privilege.

Consider how you can use your voice in a way that works for your life circumstances. Give it real thought. Large efforts or small, every voice matters. Poets, write more poems (like “Ink Has No Borders”). Musicians, write more operas (like “The Central Park Five,” by Anthony Davis and Richard Wesley). Women, men, teenagers talk among yourselves about basic human rights issues, write to congress, participate in, or organize a march. Put a poster on your front door. Preachers, keep preaching sermons about love and inclusivity. Kids, smile at someone who may be different than you.

Sometimes we are unable to give freely the love that each person inherently deserves because our own emotional baggage makes it difficult to love or be loved. We sometimes fail to love liberally because we fear rejection by peers who might mistake our voice for condoning what they personally don’t approve of. I might not approve of the rocky road ice cream you’re buying ahead of me at the market, because I have an overwhelming attachment to mint chocolate chip, yet I can still love you.

Let’s make a difference in our communities. Let’s become patriots of basic human rights, the rights of our neighbor and every person in every country, of our unquestionable right to the pursuit of happiness and love regardless of race, religion, gender, gender preference, or background, here and in every country. This includes the state of emergency for our fellow human beings in Yemen and the barbaric treatment of women in Papua New Guinea. Whatever you choose to do, please share you voice with #bornfreeandequal

When we watch fireworks for the 4th of July, pass around watermelon at our picnic, or stake our claim to a seat for a parade, maybe our freedom celebration will mean more if we think about how we can love more, and, in giving love broadly can help spread the liberation that comes with understanding and compassion. Perhaps we can notice our own implicit bias when we walk past someone, each aware that we’ve noticed the difference in our clothing, our skin color, our age, and check our bias at the door the next time.

We still have a long way to go. Because of this, I know when I bite into my triangle of freedom watermelon it’s going to taste just a tad bittersweet, as it should. I’ll also light a sparkler and sing out like the wren during the “Star Spangled Banner", because I’m hopeful we can band together and sing out in chorus: It’s not us and them. It’s we.

Gwendolyn Taylor Soper is a writer and musician who lives in Orem.

This Pat Bagley cartoon appears in The Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday, July 4, 2019. You can check out the past 10 Bagley editorial cartoons below:

• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/02/bagley-cartoon-wishing-he/" target=_blank><u>Wishing He Would Zip It</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/07/01/bagley-cartoon-founding/"><u>Founding Fathers Fun Facts</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/06/28/bagley-cartoon-press/"><u>Press Control</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/06/27/bagley-cartoon-pillars/"><u>Pillars of Democracy</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/06/26/bagley-cartoon-future/"><u>Future Shock</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/06/25/bagley-cartoon-if-its-not/"><u>If It’s Not Broke</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/06/24/bagley-cartoon-peace-fowl/"><u>Peace Fowl</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/06/21/bagley-cartoon-border"><u>A Border Crossing</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/06/20/bagley-cartoon-epa-rules/"><u>EPA Rules Change</u></a>
• <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/bagley/2019/06/19/bagley-cartoon-air-biden/"><u>Air Biden</u></a>

Want more Bagley? Become a fan on Facebook.

Surging presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris will come to Salt Lake City later this month for two events, including a campaign fundraising dinner.

The California Democrat, who served as a prosecutor before being elected to the Senate, has catapulted to national prominence over the past few months as a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. She enjoyed a big bounce in national polls after a strong performance in her first Democratic debate last week, where she challenged former Vice President Joe Biden over his record on race and segregation.

Several polls show her leaping into second place, cutting into the lead of Biden, the front-runner.

The July 17 Utah swing will include a noncampaign luncheon and a campaign fundraising dinner, both at The Wave, a Salt Lake City coworking space and social club for women and marginalized genders.

Joanna Smith, founder and CEO of The Wave, said the organization has had Harris’ trip to the Beehive State in the works for almost two months.

“She killed it [in the debate],” said Smith. “We were pretty excited.”

The Wave, which opened in April, hosts regular events with female leaders of different industries. They recently brought journalist Gemma Hartley to town and will host Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in August.

Harris will arrive in Utah on July 17 and kick off the day with a “Taking Up Space” luncheon at The Wave, according to Smith. The event is not related to or coordinated with the campaign. The senator will sit on a panel with Sundance’s Betsy Wallace, Adobe’s Laura Desmond and Salt Lake County Sheriff Rosie Rivera.

The luncheon costs $35 for members of The Wave and $85 for the general public. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to Planned Parenthood of Utah. That evening Harris will host a fundraiser dinner for her campaign at The Wave, where she will give a keynote address to attendees. Tickets for the dinner cost $200.

Harris will be the fourth Democratic hopeful to visit Republican Utah this year. The first was John Delaney, former Maryland congressman, then Julian Castro, former Housing and Urban Development secretary and mayor of San Antonio, followed by Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts, in April.

Castro plans a second visit to Utah this Saturday in West Wendover, just inside the Utah line from Nevada.

Utah is one of the most Republican states in the nation. It has not voted for a Democrat for president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Utah Democrats, though, were heartened by the underwhelming performance of Donald Trump in 2016. He carried the state with less than 50% of the vote.

Washington • Democrats and conservation groups are incensed that President Donald Trump is hijacking the traditional Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall — and even more so after a report that the president’s plans will siphon millions from the already-underfunded National Park Service.

Trump calls the event a “Salute to America” with military jet flyovers, bands and even tanks — with the president prominently featured. The typical fireworks show at the Lincoln Memorial has been moved blocks away so Trump can speak from a stage in front of a VIP section of Republican donors, political appointees and supporters.

The Washington Post reported this week that the park service, which faces a $12 billion maintenance backlog, will contribute $2.5 million toward the show.

“Using national park entrance fees to pay for this display of pageantry is absolutely outrageous,” said Rep. Betty McCollum, a Minnesota Democrat who heads the House Appropriations subcommittee over the Interior Department.

McCollum noted that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt tapped entrance fees to keep parks running during the latest government shutdown in December and January, a move that is now under investigation.

“These fees are not a slush fund for this administration to use at will,” McCollum said. “They are meant to improve our national parks, keep them safe and protected for Americans to enjoy, and are clearly not to be used for a political rally.”

A spokesman for Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, the top Republican on the House Natural Resource Committee that oversees the Interior Department, pushed back on the criticism noting that the department always hosts the Fourth of July celebration and will do so again this year.

“If the left takes issue with celebrating the Fourth of July and Betsy Ross, we face issues much greater than a fireworks show,” said spokesman Lee Lonsberry, referring to a controversial decision by Nike to not sell shoes featuring a flag Ross apocryphally designed.

Lonsberry noted that Bishop is sponsoring legislation to address the maintenance backlog by diverting some lease payments and royalties from oil, gas, coal and other energy development on public lands to the national parks. And the spokesman noted that the law allows Trump to use park service funding for an event on national park lands.

“If Democrats want to try and change that, that’s their prerogative,” Lonsberry said.

The National Mall in Washington has always been a place for Americans to celebrate the country’s founding, a gathering capped by fireworks over the iconic monuments.

Trump, though, possibly inspired by a military parade he witnessed in France on Bastille Day 2017, has vowed a more expansive show with flyovers by the highly trained Blue Angels and one of the planes that serves as Air Force One. The Army used trains to bring in two Abrams tanks, two Bradley Fighting Vehicles and an M88 recovery vehicle from Georgia to be displayed on the Mall (though they’ll be trucked to their locations so as not to damage roads).

Trump will address the crowd at some point in the evening. The event is free to the public, though the section closest to the Lincoln Memorial is reserved with tickets being doled out by the Republican National Committee and Trump’s reelection campaign.

The Interior Department didn't confirm the $2.5 million figure but touted the event to honor America.

“The Department of the Interior is committed to providing the American people a fantastic celebration of our nation’s birthday,” said spokeswoman Molly Block. “We are doing so consistent with the department’s mission and historical practices. We hope everyone enjoys the Fourth.”

Trump defended the cost of the show on Twitter.

The cost of our great Salute to America tomorrow will be very little compared to what it is worth. We own the planes, we have the pilots, the airport is right next door (Andrews), all we need is the fuel. We own the tanks and all. Fireworks are donated by two of the greats. Nice!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2019

“The cost of our great Salute to America tomorrow will be very little compared to what it is worth,” he wrote, adding that the government already owns the planes, employs the pilots and all it will cost is the fuel.

It's unclear how much the Defense Department is spending to bring in the tanks or for the flights Trump demanded.

New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Interior Department, said it was “unacceptable” to spend taxpayer money on Trump's “lavish” Fourth of July event that is allowing special access for those with political connections.

“The American people deserve to know how much of their money the president is spending to turn their July Fourth celebration into a de facto campaign rally,” Udall said in a statement. “All reports indicate that the president is planning to turn a national day of unity into a day of vanity — trying to use the military for political purposes and doling out perks to his political backers — at the taxpayers’ expense. We need answers.”

Because I am who I am, I’ve rarely experienced a Fourth of July that couldn’t be described as privileged. Or, using another word, American.

Barbecues and picnics. White creased pants and wide-brimmed hats. Fresh corn and watermelon and pancake breakfasts where the fire station comes out to man the slip-and-slide. Those are pretty idyllic experiences that are, in essence, very American.

Of course the best memories revolve around camping chairs in the street watching the kids play with sparklers and the pyro-crazed bigger kids (i.e. men) play with rocket launchers, or whatever the really dangerous firecrackers are called.

Privilege. American privilege.

I’m traveling this holiday, which often crystallizes certain feelings about the American celebration quite succinctly. For example, there was the year in Paris (privilege!) we chose to eat at McDonald’s to commemorate the Fourth. Bland as it was, it was ours!

Besides the expected preternatural body assault from our very un-American TSA, and a work agenda that made me wonder why I was leaving in the first place, I settled in to the typical day-long travel regime to get me from point A to point B.

Please, just get me to the ocean.

During the boarding process for the flight leaving the country, TSA was present checking passports, again, as well as random passengers’ bags outside the boarding door. I noticed a Middle Eastern man being subject to their search, and my feelers pricked up.

There was another darker-skinned man queued up as well, and I was ready to pounce with allegations of discrimination and unfairness, eager to revel in my own self-righteous equanimity. Quintessential privilege.

Instead, they pulled me out of the boarding line. And boy was I bothered. There’s only so much overhead bin space, right? My place in line was definitely not first class, or comfort plus, or even sky priority, and by the time my turn came around, I needed to get on that plane.

But as I stood there watching them go through the staid contents of my purse, I was weirdly proud that they had chosen to pull aside a white, middle-aged (not in my head), conservatively-dressed woman to check for bomb residue.

Annoyed, yet placated, I walked away with an appreciation for our country. Not for the TSA, certainly, but for a country that while we have deep and troubling issues, we’re collectively trying to do better. And be better.

Whether our farcical political atmosphere or our embarrassingly low-brow president or some other weakness is pushing us, I really do believe we’re trying to be better. And as the common adage goes, out of weakness we may even find strength.

But only if our weaknesses aren’t forgotten. And only if our strength recognizes goodness.

I’ve written many times on Frederick Douglass’s speech titled “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” It’s always a good reminder to read over the holiday.

Douglass, who grew up as a slave in Maryland, taught himself to read and escaped to New York. He gave this speech in 1852 to a group of New York abolitionists. It is a 10,381-word treatise on the experience of the American slave.

Concerning the national holiday, Douglass admonished,

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

Racism, sexism, poverty and privilege. These are also part of America’s history. If we refuse to learn from them, our growth will be stunted.

America stands for principles of freedom and liberty, strength, work, and self-sufficiency. This is what we celebrate on the Fourth of July.

But shouldn’t we also stand for kindness and love and aiding in the well-being of our fellow man? That’s what this bleeding-heart conservative will be celebrating this holiday. Even if I’m not in America.

Michelle Quist is a columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune.

There’s a certain process that happens with lottery prospects who can’t really score.

First of all, they hardly ever work out for the team that drafted them. There’s too much invested, too high of expectations. Opportunities are blown, and fans get upset. Eventually, the team moves on, giving the player up in a trade or in free agency.

But then the next team gets an opportunity to play that player, and see him for something closer to what he is, learn about what it is he actually can bring to the NBA. Sometimes that means he sticks with that team. Sometimes, it takes a third team, or a fourth team, or even a fifth.

That’s where we are in the career of Ed Davis. The Utah Jazz considered picking Davis — the No. 13 pick of the 2010 NBA draft — instead of Gordon Hayward back then. Given a chance to play a lot of minutes and even start in Toronto, he found himself getting benched in crunch time, then was traded to the Memphis Grizzlies as part of the Rudy Gay deal.

Then, the Grizzlies let him go for nothing, and he signed with the Lakers on a one-year deal for the minimum. He played OK there, enough to earn a $7 million-per-year deal with the Blazers. But once again, Portland was comfortable moving on, and he went to Brooklyn on a one-year deal last year. Now, Davis has been forced out of Brooklyn’s cap situation to make room for Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and DeAndre Jordan, and he has signed with the Jazz.

But somewhere in those last few years, he became one of the most highly regarded backup centers in the league. Instead of focusing on what Ed Davis can’t do — score — we focus on what he can do — pretty much all of the other backup center things.

Let’s start with his defense, where he earned the second-highest number in ESPN’s Defensive Real Plus-Minus last year, behind only Rudy Gobert. Some of that was because of his lineup situation, but Davis is legitimately an excellent rim protector. Teams shot 3.8% fewer shots at the rim when he was in the game (Gobert’s defense led to 5.4% fewer shots at the rim, in comparison) and 3.9% more mid-range shots (Gobert’s equivalent: 4.1% more).

It’s not that he actually blocks a lot of shots, he just scares people out of taking them. He moves across the paint quickly and early, and he’s still tall and athletic. He’s not quite as long as Derrick Favors, let alone Rudy Gobert, but the effect is similar.

Then we get to his rebounding, which is superb. Last season, he was one of the top-five rebounding bigs in the NBA on both ends of the floor: third in the NBA in defensive rebounds and fourth in the NBA in offensive rebounds. The Richmond Free Press called him one of the “NBA’s lords of the boards," which is a great turn of phrase to describe it. He’s just kind of a bully down there. He will throw his shoulders against bigger and smaller guys alike to open up or keep space for himself, and then aggressively go with two hands to corral the ball. If he can’t get two hands on it, he’ll do a wild swat with one hand to tap it back to the perimeter, hoping it goes to one of his teammates.

The aggressiveness does come out in some bad ways, though. He’s active with his hands down low, which does lead to some steals, but also leads to a lot of fouls: 5.6 per 36 minutes last season. I expect Jazz coaches to work with him on this, but at 30 years old, Davis may not be up for changing some of his worst habits.

The highest percentage of his offense comes from putbacks. He’s not an effective roller at the rim; you should not expect a lot of Joe Ingles/Ed Davis pick and roll. Nor is he really a guy who can pass; he averaged 0.8 assists per game last season, and a whole lot of them were just when he was the guy who caught and immediately gave up the ball on dribble hand-off plays. He’ll hang out in the dunker spot during other offensive actions, or act as an off-ball screener. You should not expect any semblance of a jump shot; he is very inefficient anywhere outside of the immediate vicinity of the rim.

And that’s all OK. He isn’t what the NBA expected out of a lottery pick, but he is contributing. When he was on the floor last year, the Nets were 5.5 points per 100 possessions better. That’s going to be difficult to duplicate while backing up Gobert on a team that figures to have a very strong starting lineup, but it might lessen the drop-off between the two. At the room mid-level exception, less than $5 million per season, that’s a good deal.

The children of Patrick Harmon — a black man fatally shot by police in 2017 — are suing Salt Lake City, claiming Harmon’s death reflects an inadequately trained police force that is prone to racial profiling.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in 3rd District Court, names both Salt Lake City and the officer who fired, Clinton Fox, as defendants. Its description of the shooting relies heavily on video footage from police body cameras, alleging Fox used excessive force and caused Harmon’s wrongful death.

It also alleges the department’s policies, practices and trainings show deliberate indifference to constitutional rights, and asserts that both Fox and the city treated Harmon with unnecessary rigor and violated equal protection provisions in the Constitution.

Salt Lake City representatives didn’t immediately respond to The Salt Lake Tribune’s request for comment, and Fox, through a Salt Lake City police spokesman, declined to comment. Salt Lake County prosecutors have decided the shooting was justified.

Harmon was killed Aug. 13, 2017, after police stopped him for not having a red tail light on his bike and crossing all six lanes of traffic and a median on State Street. When arresting Harmon, police found active warrants for his arrest, including one for violating the terms of his release after an aggravated assault conviction.

As police handcuffed Harmon, he got away from them and ran. Fox told investigators that he saw Harmon had a knife and shot him. While Fox used his handgun, another officer drew his stun gun.

Salt Lake County prosecutors said the use of deadly force was justified because the officer felt threatened by Harmon and the knife, pointing out that Harmon said, “I’ll cut you.” District Attorney Sim Gill asked the FBI to review the shooting following protests and calls for Gill’s firing after he announced the shooting was legally justified.

The FBI didn’t immediately return the Tribune’s request for comment Wednesday.

The lawsuit questions whether the knife found at the scene belonged to Harmon — and whether he ever brandished it.

“The problem with this description of events is that all three officers wore body cameras. From three different angles, there is no knife visible in Mr. Harmon’s hands. There are no words to the effect of ‘I’ll stab you,’” according to the lawsuit.

Attorneys for Harmon’s estate make their case using still images from released body camera footage, which they say shows Harmon’s hands are empty prior to being shot.

In reviewing the footage released to The Tribune, the newspaper could not hear Harmon saying he would cut officers, but Harmon’s voice is barely audible throughout the recording.

The estate’s attorneys, Andrew G. Deiss and Corey D. Riley, argue that knife found near Harmon’s body may not have been his. They say the knife appears to be in “pristine” condition, without smudges or other indications it had been dropped. It’s also a “rescue knife” with a folding blade, typically requiring two hands to unfold it — and they say body camera footage never shows him using two hands to open the knife.

Police, the law suit alleges, “quickly disposed” of the knife before testing it for fingerprints or other evidence to determine if it was Harmon’s.

The case, the lawsuit alleges, follows an “all-too-familiar narrative: an unarmed black man shot to death by law enforcement without justification." It later adds: “The homicide of Mr. Harmon is reflective of a city plagued by a racial policing crisis.”

It points to statistics from the SLCPD website that show from January 2017 to December 2018, black people were the subject of officers’ use of force just over 13 percent of the time, although they make up only about 2 percent of the population.

Data from that time period is no longer available on SLCPD’s website, but numbers from June 2017 to May 2019 show black people were the subject of 8.8% of officers’ uses of force. White people make up 74% of the population and account for nearly 60% of the cases of SLCPD officers’ use of force.

“Mr. Harmon’s race was a substantial motivating factor in ... Fox’s decision to use excessive force against him,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit asks for compensatory and consequential damages for emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, pain and suffering, in addition to punitive damages on all five claims.

Attorneys for Harmon’s children didn’t return The Tribune’s request for comment, but said in the lawsuit that while Harmon “did not lead a perfect life” he “deserved the opportunity to grow with grace.”

The lawsuit said that just before his death, he had “found renewed spirituality” and reunited with his son and daughter, Patrick and Tasha, who wanted to rebuild their relationship with him.

The Washington Post reports: "Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the twin brother of Julián Castro, led a delegation to the border station in Clint, Tex., on Monday, where attorneys described children held in appalling conditions last month."

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general issued a scathing report on DHS detention facilities. The inspector general found "serious overcrowding of [unaccompanied minors] and families, populations defined as 'at-risk' ... For example, children at three of the five Border Patrol facilities we visited had no access to showers, despite the [Transport, Escort, Detention and Search] standards requiring that 'reasonable efforts' be made to provide showers to children approaching 48 hours in detention." Moreover, "At these facilities, children had limited access to a change of clothes; Border Patrol had few spare clothes and no laundry facilities. While all facilities had infant formula, diapers, baby wipes, and juice and snacks for children, we observed that two facilities had not provided children access to hot meals."

Single adults were also mistreated ("at one facility, some single adults were held in standing room only conditions for a week and at another, some single adults were held more than a month in overcrowded cells").

These conditions, according to the inspector general, create a security risk. "We are concerned that overcrowding and prolonged detention represent an immediate risk to the health and safety of DHS agents and officers, and to those detained. At the time of our visits, Border Patrol management told us there had already been security incidents among adult males at multiple facilities."

This is intolerable, and the administration must be held to account, as well as Republicans in the Senate who refused House proposals to remedy the very conditions that the inspector general found during on-site visits.

On Tuesday night, a federal court found the administration's policies unacceptable. The Associated Press reports, "A federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday blocked a Trump administration policy that would keep thousands of asylum-seekers locked up while they pursue their cases, saying the Constitution demands that such migrants have a chance to be released from custody." The effort to deny these people the right to bond hearings was illegal. ("U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled Tuesday that people who are detained after entering the country illegally to seek protection are entitled to bond hearings.") The report explained:

"Pechman said that as people who have entered the U.S., they are entitled to the Fifth Amendment's due-process protections, including "a longstanding prohibition against indefinite civil detention with no opportunity to test its necessity."

"Immigrant rights advocates including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project sued to block the policy, which was due to take effect July 15.

" 'The court reaffirmed what has been settled for decades: that asylum-seekers who enter this country have a right to be free from arbitrary detention,' Matt Adams, legal director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said in a written statement. 'Thousands of asylum-seekers will continue to be able to seek release on bond, as they seek protection from persecution and torture.' "

It is not immediately clear how many migrants will be affected or if those held in substandard conditions now will be allowed to leave pending their asylum hearing. Nevertheless, this is a positive sign that the federal courts will not abide the administration's lawless and immoral conduct.

In short, the zero-tolerance and family separation policies have created an overcrowding nightmare in which the government is unable to provide for the detained migrants' basic needs or respect their constitutional rights. The administration's self-made catastrophe must be denounced on a bipartisan and sustained basis until the situation is remedied.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., blasted the administration in a written statement. "The Inspector General's report provides a shocking window into the dangerous and dehumanizing conditions that the Trump Administration is inflicting on children and families at the border," she declared. "This report is even more troubling after the discovery of the vile, crude comments made on social media by some of those in CBP responsible for caring for migrant families and children."

She alluded to the House bill that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., refused to consider ("we have even greater cause for concern and urgency to enact the protections for children and families that were part of the House-passed border supplemental bill") and, in a separate "Dear Colleague" letter, made clear that the House is not going to let Republicans off easily. "Last week, we saw a disgraceful undermining of American values by Senator Mitch McConnell," she wrote. "Leader McConnell disrespected the House by refusing to go to conference on the commonsense protections in the House-passed border bill, and declared he would table any amended legislation from the House. He clearly does not sufficiently care about the safety and well-being of children at the border."

She continued, referencing the vile conditions that members of Congress observed:

"What we have witnessed is unconscionable disrespect for the dignity and worth of God's children. We have witnessed disrespect for the House and for the oversight duty of Members of Congress to visit sites unannounced to uncover the truth for the America people. We have also learned of vile, crude disrespect for children, families and, indeed, Members of Congress by some in CBP, which demands total repudiation by the Border Patrol and the Trump Administration."

Democrats, when they return, should demand that Republicans address this human rights disaster before any other business is taken up.

Democrats certainly have public opinion on their side, but there is a stunning divide in opinion on treatment of migrants. "About 6 in 10 Americans (62%) say they disapprove of the treatment migrants are receiving at the border, but there's a steep partisan divide here as well," according to a new CNN poll. "Democrats are near-unanimous in their disapproval (93% disapprove), and a majority of independents feel the same (60%), but most Republicans (62%) say they approve of the way migrants are being treated by the government after crossing the US-Mexico border."

What is wrong with these Republicans?

Perhaps they rely on Fox News and other right-wing propaganda outlets that do not dwell on news unfavorable to the president. Perhaps they simply refuse to disbelieve Trump when he insists that he's doing a great job and that conditions were worse under President Barack Obama. (That's a lie.) I certainly hope it is not because Trump has succeeded in convincing his followers that desperate families are a menace, an "infestation," "animals" and criminals.

We have seen this story before: Strip a group of people of their humanity, whip up fear that they are a threat to the country, abuse and mistreat them, intimidate the media and other independent sources of information and conceal the grotesque treatment of people whom they have treated as less than human. This ongoing nightmare is a stain on this presidency, officials implementing his policies and Republicans defending Trump. Their despicable conduct is enabled by the often cruel and dismissive right-wing media machine that cannot muster empathy for anyone not donning a MAGA hat. If only these people's pro-life ideology extended to the already born.

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post.

@JRubinBlogger

Washington • On this 243rd anniversary of the beginning of the best thing that ever happened — “The Great Republic” was Winston Churchill’s tribute — many of today’s most interesting arguments about America’s nature and meaning are among conservatives. One concerns the relevance of the Declaration of Independence to the contested question of how to construe the Constitution.

The crucial question is: What did the Founders intend — what was their foundational purpose? Mark Pulliam, who might disagree that this is the crucial question, certainly thinks the Declaration is not pertinent to construing the Constitution.

Pulliam, a lawyer and contributing editor of the excellent Law & Liberty blog, notes portentously that the Declaration is not mentioned in the Constitution. This, however, is as obvious as it is obviously irrelevant. Neither is democracy “mentioned,” and the Declaration is hardly mentioned in The Federalist Papers. However, the Declaration expressed, as Jefferson insisted, the broadly shared “common sense of the subject.” Rather than belabor the Declaration’s (to them, unremarkable) assertions, the Constitution’s Framers set about creating institutional architecture that would achieve their intention: to establish governance that accords with the common sense of their time, which was that government is properly instituted to “secure” the preexisting natural rights referenced in the Declaration.

Also obvious and irrelevant is Pulliam's observation that Jefferson, the Declaration's primary author, was not at the Constitutional Convention (he was a U.S. diplomat in Paris). What is obvious — and, concerning the Constitution's original meaning and continuing purpose, dispositive — is this: The Declaration's role is the locus classicus concerning the Framers' intention, which is surely the master key to properly construing what they wrought.

The late Judith Shklar (1928-1992), a Harvard political philosopher, correctly noted the "momentous novelty" of the Constitution's first three words, "We the people." They announced a "declaration of independence from the entire European past," a root-and-branch rejection of all prior attempts to ground the legitimacy of government in anything other than the consent of the governed. The Constitution was, however, written by men of the Enlightenment who were not confident that the rationality they practiced and espoused could be counted on to constantly characterize the republic for which they wrote.

The Declaration did not mention majority rule, which the Founders embraced because they considered it, when public opinion is properly refined and filtered, the best — although hardly a certain — mechanism for protecting the natural rights affirmed in the Declaration. Those rights, not a procedure (majority rule), was their foundational concern. The equilibrium of Madison's constitutional architecture is currently in disarray, with congressional anemia enabling presidential imperiousness. Nevertheless, the architecture was designed to "secure" — the crucial verb in the Declaration's second paragraph — the natural rights the Declaration affirms.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s genius — he was, in a sense, the final Founder — was in understanding what the University of Pennsylvania's Rogers M. Smith terms the "Declaration of Independence-centered view of American governance and peoplehood." Over the years, this stance of "Declarationists" explicitly opposed Jacksonian democracy's majoritarian celebration of a plebiscitary presidency, and the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act's premise that majorities ("popular sovereignty") could and should — wrong on both counts — settle the question of whether slavery should expand into the territories.

The learned and recondite disputes currently embroiling many conservatives, disputes about various doctrines of interpretive constitutional "originalism," are often illuminating and sometimes conclusive in constitutional controversies. But all such reasoning occurs in an unchanging context. Timothy Sandefur, author of "The Conscience of the Constitution," rightly sees the Declaration as the conscience because it affirms "the classical liberal project of the Enlightenment and the pervasiveness of such concepts as natural rights."

Furthermore, Sandefur says, this explains the Constitution's use of the word "liberty," which "does not refer to some definitive list of rights, but refers to an indefinite range of freely chosen action." Which means that the Constitution should be construed in the bright light cast by the Declaration's statement of the Founding generation's general intention to privilege liberty.

Pulliam dismisses as "inapt Biblical imagery" Lincoln's elegant formulation that the Constitution is the frame of silver for the apple of gold, which is the Declaration. Lincoln's mission was to reconnect the nation with its Founding. The frame, Lincoln said, is to "adorn" and "preserve" the apple. Frames are important and silver is precious, but what is framed is more important and gold is more precious. So, tonight, by the light of some sparklers, read the Declaration, which illuminates what came next, the Constitution, and a nation worth celebrating.

George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column with The Washington Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977. His latest book, “The Conservative Sensibility,” was released in June 2019.

@georgewill

georgewill@washpost.com

Cape Neddick, Maine • To suggest on the Fourth of July that we need to consider the downsides of patriotism is to risk a heresy far more troublesome than challenging the merits of baseball, fireworks, hot dogs and beer.

Let's leave baseball unsullied. But we know that fireworks, misused, can be dangerous, and that excess when it comes to hot dogs and beer is a problem.

I am unabashed about the merits of American patriotism as the constructive alternative to divisive and aggressive forms of nationalism. All who love constitutional democracy and justice can claim there is something distinctive about our country’s patriotic feeling. A diverse people, we revere ideas and the documents that embody them. We don’t define nationhood by race or ethnicity or even the places we love — although I confess a special affection for New England, where I was raised and where I’m happily celebrating Independence Day.

Our choice of July Fourth as our day of national celebration is itself significant. It memorializes not a great military victory but an essay explaining why our country exists. The document is universal, even cosmic, in its claims. Its key line is so familiar we forget how radical it remains: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Our forebears, John F. Kennedy observed, embraced "the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God." This was a revolutionary inversion of the divine right of kings. The Declaration's claim about the equality of everyone embedded a subversive doctrine into our intellectual and moral DNA — subversive over the long run of all aspects of our society that worked against equality, from slavery and segregation to sexism (despite that word "men") and discrimination based on sexual orientation. Fighting for equal rights moves with the strong tide set in motion at our founding.

A form of patriotism celebrating our ideas is very different from blood-and-soil nationalism. American patriotism is contingent on upholding certain principles and it’s thus the antithesis of “my country, right or wrong.” Our love is not primarily for a place even if it is “beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.” It is a love for “self-evident” truths. When our country fails to live up to them, it forfeits its special claim on our fidelity.

And let's acknowledge that patriotism is not a philosophically airtight virtue. My self-assigned reading for this holiday was an essay by the iconoclastic philosopher George Kateb, "Is Patriotism a Mistake?" Kateb believes it is. He sees patriotism as nothing more than "self-idealization" and "group narcissism without any self-restraint except for a frequently unreliable prudence, and carried to death-dealing lengths." Patriotism thus "makes a certain kind of self-love into an ideal."

Kateb writes with some respect for an idea advanced by the philosopher Maurizio Viroli, "the patriotism of liberty" rooted "an interest in the republic" and "a love of the common good." But Kateb qualifies this appreciation by noting that if patriotism can be used to advance just causes, it can also be invoked for unjust purposes. Our Civil War, he argues, provides evidence on both sides of the question.

Lincoln used patriotism (the goal of saving the Union) to justify a war to abolish slavery, an objective that itself would not have initially rallied popular support in the North. But Southern patriotism, Kateb wrote, was "enlisted to preserve the radically unjust institution of slavery." While defending white supremacy was always the Confederacy's purpose, the goal of Southern nationhood provided the rebellion's leaders with a broader rallying cry.

Kateb thinks we should reject patriotism as a fundamentally selfish notion manifested most plainly in a willingness "to die and to kill for one's country." I respectfully disagree with Kateb because I share Viroli's view that certain forms of patriotism — yes, including the American form — are bound up in the defense of free institutions and human solidarity.

Still, Kateb's bracing skepticism reminds us that we always need to judge patriotism by its fruits and its purposes. Our founders did not pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the narrow interests of 13 colonies but to large principles, including the rights of "a free people." American patriotism rests not on power and might but on a loyalty to the equal rights of all to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

E.J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post. He is a government professor at Georgetown University, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a frequent commentator on politics for National Public Radio and MSNBC. He is most recently a co-author of “One Nation After Trump.”

@EJDionne

A Utah flag manufacturer is promoting its new Betsy Ross designs and bumper stickers — made in response to Nike pulling its shoes with the same symbol, which some consider tied to white supremacy.

Colonial Flag owner Paul Swenson, a well-known conservative who runs the Sandy business, said he believes the flag is historic and “not a symbol of racism.” It was created during the Revolutionary War and features 13 white stars in a circle to represent the colonies. Swenson called it “the first real flag of our country."

“We’re going to have more people get it than the few losers that don’t,” he said Wednesday.

The company sent out an advertisement to sell its Betsy Ross flags and stickers “available online and in our showroom,” the email blast says. The merchandise is branded with the phrase “JUST FLY IT.” That’s a play, Swenson added, on Nike’s “Just do it.”

Nike announced it was yanking a sneaker line with the flags on Monday, according to The Wall Street Journal, which broke the news. Former NFL star Colin Kaepernick had told the company that it shouldn’t sell the July Fourth holiday shoes because of the negative associations with the early American flag.

Kaepernick, a Nike endorser and prominent activist since his ejection from the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem, said it’s connected to an era of slavery. Others have pointed out that the design was used by the American Nazi Party and has come to symbolize white supremacy movements.

Jeanetta Williams, president of the Salt Lake City branch of the NAACP, said she supports Nike’s decision to pull the line. “It takes courage to speak up," she said, "when you see injustices happening.”

Lex Scott, the founder of Black Lives Matter Utah, said using the flag is “not patriotic in any way.” And she believes Colonial Flag should be shamed for promoting it.

“It sounds to me like they want us to protest them," Scott said. “It’s basically them flaunting how racist they are. Racism is not always someone running down the street screaming the N-word.”

Swenson doesn’t think those are “rational” connections. And, he said, Kaepernick has “twisted and distorted it.”

“I could say basically that peanut butter is communist because somebody grinds up peanuts,” Swenson added. “It’s ridiculous.”

He continued: “I love the flag. Everybody loves the Betsy Ross flag. And if somebody wants to push back, then push back. We love capitalism, too.”

To that, Scott replied, “If they want to sell their souls for a profit, then I congratulate them.”

Swenson referred The Salt Lake Tribune to a statement from his company’s vexillologist, of flag expert, John M. Hartvigsen. It was titled “Keeping Old Glory above politics.”

“Those who do not choose to wear Nike Air Max 1 Quick Strike Fourth of July shoes, for whatever reason, have the freedom to not purchase or wear them; that is part of the freedoms that the U.S. flag represents,” Hartvigsen wrote. “However, others resent Nike’s decision based on a protest that may fail to represent America’s peoples on the whole.”

Swenson also said his company has been selling the Betsy Ross flags for some time now. Options on its website for those go up to $76.80. The stickers and the “JUST FLY IT” campaign are new.

The owner has previously hosted Tom Price, the former secretary of Health and Human Services for President Donald Trump, at his factory. And he showcased his flags at a White House event in July 2017.

Swenson was also applauded in 2015 for removing the Confederate flags from his business in the wake of the shooting at a historic black church in South Carolina.

The monster is back in Season 3 of “Stranger Things” — and it’s joined by a “Mormon.”

Well, probably.

Netflix starts streaming new episodes of the popular horror series on July 4, bringing back all the characters who lived through Season 2. It’s almost a year later — the summer of 1985 — and things are about to get really scary again.

In Episode 1, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) returns home to Hawkins, Ind. — the site of all that supernatural mayhem in the first two seasons — from a monthlong stay at science camp. And, to the surprise of his friends, the teenager met a girl there.

“Girls go to science camp?” Mike (Finn Wolfhard) asks — a minor example of the 1980s-esque sexism that accurately pervades “Stranger Things.”

“Suzie does,” Dustin replies. “She’s a genius.”

But she’s not just smart, he assures his friends. “Think Phoebe Cates, only hotter” — another true-to-the-’80s line.

But Suzie lives in Utah, so Dustin enlists his friends to lug equipment up the highest local hill to set up a super-powered radio tower he’s built so he can contact her.

“You know, I’m pretty sure people in Utah have telephones,” Max (Sadie Sink) says.

“Yeah, but Suzie’s Mormon,” Dustin says.

“Oh, s---,” Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) says, “She doesn’t have electricity?”

“That’s the Amish,” Max replies.

Having grown up back East, I can say without hesitation that it wasn’t unusual for people to confuse members of the LDS Church with the Amish or Mennonites. That was definitely true in the ’80s.

(By the way, it’s accurate for the characters in “Stranger Things” to use the term “Mormon” to describe members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1985, a third of a century before the church president announced that was offensive. They’re no doubt still using the term in Indiana today.)

“What are Mormons?” Lucas asks.

“Super-religious white people,” Dustin replies. “They have electricity and cars and stuff, but since I’m not Mormon, her parents would never approve. It’s all a bit Shakespearean.”

Yes, Dustin likens himself and Suzie to Romeo and Juliet. And his friends, unsurprisingly, wonder if Suzie actually exists.

That question ... will be answered. I’m not going to spoil it for you. And not just because that plot point is on the long list of Things Netflix Told Critics Not to Reveal.

There is a logical reason why the Demogorgon — the monster from the alternate dimension known as the Upside Down — is back to wreak more havoc in Hawkins. I’d tell you that one, because it’s revealed in the opening moments of Season 3, but that’s also on the Do Not Spoil list.

And by logical, of course, I mean it fits within the “Stranger Things” reality, where teenagers save us from that monster from an alternate dimension.

At some point, it’s going to be hard for “Stranger Things” to keep this narrative going. But the Duffer brothers — creators/writers/executive producers/directors Matt and Ross — haven’t gotten there yet. Season 3 is tense and scary and surprising and gross — a crazy monster movie spread over eight episodes.

And it’s plausibly, and sometimes hilariously, true to the ’80s. A whole lot of Season 3 takes place at the new mall in Hawkins, and in 1985 the local mall was the place to be. And the placement of cans of the ill-fated New Coke is 100% on point — it was introduced in April 1985.

The characters we’ve come to love are as compelling as ever. And, in a totally no-spoilery way, if you’re invested in them, you’re going to laugh and you’re probably going to cry.

Will there be a Season 4? Netflix hasn’t officially confirmed it yet ... but you can judge for yourself whether you think it’s happening by the way Season 3 ends.

Spoiler alert: I think the answer is ... yes.

After making his NBA debut in the Salt Lake City Summer League on Monday night in a frenetic performance that featured 11 points but also eight personal fouls, Jazz power forward Jarrell Brantley conceded there were “definitely a lot of nerves going in, especially when I stepped out there.”

But, he also clarified that night, “A little nerves is always good for me — I like having a little nerves.”

After sitting out Tuesday’s game, there were apparently nerves aplenty for Wednesday’s return to the lineup for both Brantley and fellow second-round pick Miye Oni given how they went out and captivated the Vivint Smart Home Arena crowd in the Jazz’s 84-81 win over the Spurs.

Oni’s seemingly effortless movements contributed to his 17 points and six boards, while Brantley’s rampaging forays downcourt and brute strength helped him finish with 16 points and six rebounds.

Jazz assistant coach Lamar Skeeter, who is heading up the team’s summer league outfit, said that Brantley, Oni, and fellow second-round pick Justin Wright-Foreman (who played Monday and Tuesday but sat out Wednesday) all got better from their initial outings to their follow-ups.

“Some of these guys, they get that first game and it’s a lot — the game’s fast, there’s a lot to think about, there’s a lot going on,” Skeeter said. “So once guys can get that first game under their belt, generally the second game is a little better for them.”

Certainly neither Brantley nor Oni was lacking for confidence in the finale.

Brantley started the game with a designed 3-pointer off a screen — a shot that was too strong and offline to the right, and which smacked off the backboard. Undaunted, on the ensuing Spurs possession, the 6-foot-7, 250-pounder grabbed a defensive rebound, took off downcourt, went coast to coast, missed the inside shot, but fought for the rebound and drew the foul.

Just before the five-minute mark of the opening period, Brantley drove left across the lane and threw down a swooping southpaw jam, eliciting a chorus of appreciative ohhhhhhhhs from the crowd.

worth another 👀 pic.twitter.com/1BMR4brEtW

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) July 4, 2019

“There’s a lot more space out here than in college, so I know if I can get a step … I like going left — I don’t think I should tell people that! — but I know if I can get a step, I feel like I can attack the rim,” he said. “I got a chance to show my athleticism.”

In the second quarter, Brantley drilled a trey from the right corner, held his follow-through aloft, and blew a kiss to the sky. In the fourth, he drained a stepback triple and blew on his fingertips.

Jarrell Brantley 1/2 pic.twitter.com/4WLmZt9Aem

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) July 4, 2019

Oni was considerably less demonstrative but no less effective.

After a relatively anonymous 0-for-3 effort Monday, he was definitively different from the outset Wednesday. In the game’s first 4 minutes, he’d swished a pair of 3-pointers and finished off a coast-to-coast drive with an acrobatic layup. A few minutes later, he drained another deep shot to wrap up his opening period with 11 points on 4-for-4 shooting.

Late in the second quarter, the wing from Yale came flying in for a weakside rejection of a layup attempt, then snagged the rebound. A few plays later, he broke up a 2-on-1 fast break by getting his hands in the passing lane.

Miye Oni 1/2 pic.twitter.com/yKZGzZhavq

— Eric Walden (@tribjazz) July 4, 2019

“I was a little passive in Game 1, I felt like I was trying to let the game come to me — maybe a little too much,” Oni said. “So I wanted to take the opportunities I had tonight within the offense and just play good team basketball.”

Big man Willie Reed, who is hoping to make the transition from the G League to the NBA, had a strong performance, taking over late in the fourth quarter and keeping Utah ahead with strong glasswork and a pair of putback dunks. He finished with 14 points and 16 rebounds.

Grizzlies 81, Cavaliers 68

Keenan Evans came off Memphis’ bench to score 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting, as Memphis sent Cleveland to a winless 0-3 record in the Salt Lake City Summer League. Former Jazz player Naz Mitrou-Long again led the Cavs, totaling 12 points and six rebounds. Cleveland shot just 36.7% for the game.

SALT LAKE CITY — Three thoughts on the Jazz’s 84-81 win over the San Antonio Spurs from Salt Lake Tribune Jazz beat writer Andy Larsen.

1. Jarrell Brantley is bizarre, but I think that’s a good thing

Jarrell Brantley is 6-foot-7, 250 pounds, which means he weighs more than the much taller Tony Bradley (248 pounds) or Willie Reed (245 pounds). Rudy Gobert is also listed at 245 pounds, as is Ekpe Udoh. In other words, Brantley is a big dude.

Bigger, shorter dudes aren’t supposed to be able to jump very high, Zion Williamson and Charles Barkley excluded. So that Brantley can do this is surprising:

DON'T HURT 'EM, @jstuntbrantley 😱#SLCSL | @SLCSummerLeague pic.twitter.com/ZHAOSA41uh

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) July 4, 2019

That video will get the SportsCenter treatment, probably. It will definitely get the local TV treatment. But that he can also dunk like that, and hit stepbacks like this, is very surprising:

Jarrell with 1️⃣6️⃣ pic.twitter.com/1Z9pE0vSMx

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) July 4, 2019

But I think I was most surprised by what he did in the middle of this highlight video, about 15 seconds in. He gets a rebound, goes coast-to-coast while under control, keeps a defender on his back, avoids the charge, and finishes with a finger roll. Then on the next play, he gets the ball on the perimeter, dribbles between his legs, switches into a postup, then quickly turns to the middle to get an easy two.

📹| Jazz vs. Spurs highlights ⤵️#SLCSL | @SLCSummerLeague pic.twitter.com/JyHBWMp8q8

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) July 4, 2019

Wait, what? How does this guy, who was drafted at No. 50, have all of these things in his toolbox?

Now let’s be clear: I actually don’t think he’s an NBA rotation player right now. He scored 16 tonight, but it took him 14 shots to do it, and after getting eight fouls in his first game, he had four Wednesday. He’s wild, a little bit over aggressive — a good trait in summer league but maybe not in NBA action. Some of the threes he took today, just like in Game 1, had absolutely no chance of going in because his footwork wasn’t set. At the NBA level, he won’t be able to waste possessions like that.

But as a prospect? He’s really, really intriguing. I think over the course of a summer with the Jazz’s coaching staff, working to iron out some of the irrational exuberance, working to maximize his most useful traits, he could actually turn out to be a good NBA player. As David Locke points out, only about eight of the 143 guys most recently drafted in the 50s have turned out to be good NBA players. The odds are against Brantley... but he looks like a guy who could beat the odds.

2. Miye Oni gets aggressive

Miye Oni wasn’t a big part of the Jazz’s Game 1 loss: he scored only two points, took only three shots, and generally floated around like he wasn’t really there.

In Game 3 — his Game 2, because he sat out of Tuesday’s game — Oni found a way to impact the game from the opening whistle. In the first four minutes, he had already scored eight points from two 3-point shots and a nice steal and drive to the basket.

In this video, he shows some nice things. The immediate catch-and-shoot was a good sign, even as he stood a couple of feet outside of the arc. So, too, was the pull-up on the pick-and-roll.

.@princeoni13 led us in scoring tonight:

17p | 6r | 4 3pm | 2a | 2s | 1b pic.twitter.com/2V0oSgNfIW

— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) July 4, 2019

He also had a steal and attacked quickly in transition, even in the middle of some traffic. He finished over Lonnie Walker, a player with NBA athleticism.

There were times where he was stifled, and while he did use screens well, he didn’t really take advantage of times when the defense switched. Right now, I think he’s going to have some trouble with physical defenders on the perimeter, or those with length. The tough thing about the NBA is nearly everyone fits one of those two categories, so he’ll need to learn some tricks.

In the end, he finished with 17 points (5-12 FG), six rebounds, a couple of assists and steals, and one block. That’s a nice bounce-back line, and he was a nice part of the win.

3. Assorted other takeaways

Since it’s the last day of the SLC Summer League, let’s do a quick list of bullet points here:

• Stanton Kidd is 100% an NBA defender, maybe even a very good one. He’s long, moves well, and is super smart in his movement, he does an excellent job of mirroring his attacker. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t do anything at all on an NBA level offensively. If he could shoot, he’s an NBA player, even a highly-paid one.
• The dropoff from Jairus Lyles to Frankie Ferrari was painfully palpable. Ferrari, who has one of the best names in athletics, just has not played well in either of his games here... didn’t shoot well, turned the ball over, was slow getting into sets, and was even generally bested by Jeff Ledbetter and Josh Magette types.
• Willie Reed vs. Tony Bradley is a tough decision for third center... but the younger one who is already on the roster probably wins out. Willie’s a better player now, I think, but not by leaps and bounds. Truthfully, you can probably find a better third guy on the very deep center market. Tyler Zeller? Ekpe Udoh? Etc.
• Lonnie Walker was the best athlete here... and still showed that he’s a little bit away. He can absolutely catch fire, and then there are large stretches where he’s hardly in the game, or worse, ones where he’s taking every shot but they’re not good ones. There were encouraging signs, to be sure, and he’s made progress from last year, but I don’t think he’s polished enough yet. Kidd did a very nice job on him.
• Yuta Watanabe looks like he might play a role on next year’s Grizzlies, he can do some nice things.
• I really wish that any of Ja Morant, Kevin Porter Jr., Grayson Allen, Bruno Caboclo, Darius Garland, Chimezie Metu, or Brandon Clarke had been able to play in this tournament. As is, it was kind of like a B-roster of summer league teams, which is kind of a bummer.

Sandy • If Sam Johnson never had chosen to take up professional soccer, he could have had a career as an elite sprinter in the 100-meter dash.

In the 38th minute of Real Salt Lake’s 1-0 win over the Columbus Crew on Wednesday at Rio Tinto Stadium, Johnson showed off his breakneck speed. Defender Aaron Herrera sent a long ball Johnson, who was positioned far up the field. On the flight of the ball, Johnson engaged his fast twitch muscles, perhaps in an effort to secure his own rendition of “Forrest Gump.”

The RSL striker outran two Crew defenders, gave the ball a light touch with his head, then finished with his right foot. It was the only goal of the evening, but Johnson’s third in two games and eighth this season.

“He’s deceptively fast,” coach Mike Petke said. “His gait, he doesn’t have quick steps. It’s very long strides and he just glides. So it was pretty cool to see that from the sideline.”

#RSL coach Mike Petke on Sam Johnson’s sprint that led to his goal. pic.twitter.com/fYQtFOe53s

— Alex Vejar (@AlexVReporting) July 4, 2019

Goalkeeper Nick Rimando joked that he told Herrera to get it Johnson. But on a more serious note, he said he merely told Herrera to clear the ball away from the box. He described the sequence as RSL benefiting from some fortune.

“Sometimes you need lucky bounces like that to go your way,” Rimando said.

#RSL keeper Nick Rimando on Sam Johnson’s goal. pic.twitter.com/gGHL2qhVj1

— Alex Vejar (@AlexVReporting) July 4, 2019

Three points at home for Salt Lake is always good news for the club. But the team that plays with the Wasatch Mountains as a backdrop got another sliver of good news. After beating the Crew, RSL elevated itself to sixth place in the Western. It is tied in points with FC Dallas, which has one less win than Salt Lake.

Real played a strong defensive game as well, allowing Columbus only seven total shots and none on goal. RSL tallied 14 shots, three of which were on target.

Although the team won, the sentiment around RSL was the team wasn’t as sharp as it could have been. Rimando attributed that to possibly having heavy legs after playing two games in five days. Petke pointed out that the team played backward too much and did not try to break the Crew’s defensive lines enough.

Petke said the team finding ways to grind out games despite disappointing performances is a positive development this season.

“My first year that I was here, parts of last year, about a year or two before I was here, this team would not have gotten a result,” Petke said. “The mentality, the grittiness, determination — that’s very important when you build a team and when you have a team that you want to accomplish things with. It’s not always the tactics, it’s not always the beautiful play. It’s getting a result.”

Real did itself a favor Saturday by beating Sporting Kansas City, allowing it to say in the mix for a playoff berth in the Western Conference. Entering Wednesday’s game, RSL was one spot below the playoff line, but just three points away from the fifth spot.

Real has won its last two games and is on a three-game unbeaten streak. Rimando added yet another clean sheet to his 20-year resume.

Notes • Johnson did not finish the game due to a thigh injury. A spokesperson said he was pulled from the game as a precaution. … RSL was without Kyle Beckerman, who served a suspension due to yellow card accumulation.

Photographers at The Salt Lake Tribune traveled the state documenting some of the biggest stories of the month, including Utah’s Pride weekend, rallies and protests, as well as tragedy that struck a cord with Utahns along the Wasatch Front.

See their best work below. Keep up with Tribune photographers by following us on Instagram.

Vayanna Kruse dances at the Utah Pride Parade in Salt Lake City on June 2.

Jason Suker dancing at the Utah Pride Festival in Salt Lake City on June 1.

Teachers walk out of the public comment period at a Salt Lake City School District meeting about teacher pay June 4.

Opponents were escorted out of the Utah Inland Port Authority Board meeting by Utah Highway Patrol officers June 5. The board had to cancel its May meeting after a group of protesters disrupted it.

A UTA TRAX train at the City Center station in Salt Lake City is reflected in a pillar June 5. During a debate, several of the city’s mayoral candidates pitched free UTA fares within city boundaries to promote ridership and improve air quality.

A hiker and his dog hit the Mount Olympus trail, as varied weather hit the Salt Lake Valley on June 6.

Julia Story splashes through the water with her kids, Kyson, 9 and Thalia, 6, at the Great Salt Lake on June 8. The cool temperatures resulted in crowd of around 300 people. The group fell short in an attempt to set the world record for the largest number of people floating together at one time. They would have needed well over 1,000 people to break the current record.

Erin Cooper remembers her sister Joslyn Spilsbury, in Salt Lake City on June 8. One year after Spilsbury was killed outside of a Starbucks in Millcreek, prosecutors still haven’t charged the driver with a crime.

A protest organized by Black Lives Matter and other groups at the Woods Cross Police Department on June 14. The rally was to show support for DJ Hrubes, a 10-year-old black child who was held at gunpoint by a police officer last week while playing in his grandmother’s front yard.

Owen Burket, 11, holds a sign reading “Will I Be Next” at a protest organized by Black Lives Matter and other groups at the Woods Cross Police Department on June 14.

Utah Royals FC defender Samantha Johnson (16) looks for a call after Sky Blue FC midfielder Paige Monaghan (4) collided with Utah Royals FC goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart (18) during the game at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy on June 15.

The Sauruses make an appearance at the Utah Arts Festival on June 22.

Jim Dabakis gets animated as he talks about air pollution alongside fellow candidate David Ibarra during a debate for Salt Lake City’s mayoral race at the Salt Lake City Library on June 26.

Investigators remove bags of evidence during their search of a home June 27 at 547 N. 1000 West in Salt Lake City. Ayoola Ajayi has been accused of kidnapping and murdering University of Utah student MacKenzie Lueck, but has not yet been formally charged in her death. He is in jail without the opportunity to post bail.

Skyleigh Urrutia, Nick Astalos, Allison Doten and Elena Ring sing along with Dāya at the LoveLoud Festival at USANA Amphitheater on June 29.

The humanitarian crisis on our border is an abomination and would be deemed a criminal act if children were treated that way by an individual. Instead, we let this situation persist as an example to the world of the moral fiber lacking in our current leadership.

We spend billions of dollars in the Middle East in an attempt to settle disputes between countries that do not share values and not only cry "Death to America" but wish death to each other.

I would like to see us pull those dollars and join forces with Mexico and Central America to help eradicate the brutes that make the people fear violence in their own countries. I believe that these people would rather enjoy safety and prosperity in their own countries rather than having to make dangerous journeys to our border.

Dennis R. Mead, Taylorsville

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A year ago, we were outraged that this administration was separating children from their parents. We spoke out, marched and protested. The president promised to end the policy, the news cycle changed, and we moved on.

Now we are reminded that families continue to be separated and that children are being held for extended periods of time in worse than prison-like conditions — given no blankets, no place to sleep, no soap, little time outside and inadequate food.

The president and his supporters are playing politics with the lives of children as they continue to blame others for their deliberate cruelty, be it Democrats or the innocent refugees who are merely trying to escape impossible living conditions.

But, as he has previously stated, he, alone, can fix this. He can stop the torture of children today, right now. Yet, he refuses.

We must not use the changing news cycle as an excuse to be complicit. These could be your children. These are our children and we all are responsible. Individually, we need to be doing everything in our power to help these immigrants.

The crisis at the border should be the headline on the front page of The Salt Lake Tribune and all media outlets today and every single day until these crimes against humanity have ended

Charlotte Maloney, Millcreek

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