Kansas City, Mo. • A gunman being investigated in the killing of a university student from India shot and wounded three Kansas City police officers Sunday before dying in an exchange of gunfire with police, authorities said.

The three officers' wounds were not life-threatening, police said.

The suspect, whose name has not been released, had been identified as a person of interest in the slaying of Sharath Koppu and officers had him under surveillance, according to police. Koppu, 25, was a master's degree student from India who was studying at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Koppu was shot on July 6 during an armed robbery at a fast food restaurant in Kansas City where he worked.

Jagdeesh Subramanian, president of the India Association of Kansas City, said the group is grateful to police for pursuing Koppu's shooting diligently and that "there is some closure" with the person of interest's death.

"We are equally disheartened hearing about the three officers who were shot in pursuit," Subramanian said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with them for a speedy recovery."

The man being sought by police in relation to Koppu's death opened fire Sunday afternoon on officers with a semi-automatic "AK-47-type" rifle as they conducted an investigation at a motel less than 2 miles (3 kilometers) from Kauffman Stadium, where the Kansas City Royals baseball team plays, police spokesman Sgt. Jake Becchina told The Associated Press. Two officers were wounded in that gunfire.

Police had been looking for the man all week, Kansas City police Chief Rick Smith told reporters in a video posted online by KCTV .

"This is the first time we laid eyes on him," he said.

After shooting the two officers, the man fled in a vehicle with another person, Becchina said. Police took the vehicle and placed the other person in custody, though Becchina said that individual isn't believed to be involved in the fatal robbery or the shootings of the officers.

The gunman remained at large until about an hour or so later, when he opened fire at officers from inside a house where he had barricaded himself a short distance from the motel, police said. A detective was shot.

"We didn't know he was there. He just popped up all of a sudden," Smith said.

Becchina said about 15 minutes later, the man emerged from the home and again opened fire. Officers fired back, fatally wounding him.

Koppu, the university student who was killed in the shooting that police were investigating, was a software engineer who came from India to the United States in January, according to a GoFundMe page set up by his family. Raghu Chowdavaram, a cousin, told The Kansas City Star newspaper after Koppu's death that Koppu was a "perfect gentleman" who wouldn't hurt anyone.

Subramanian said the robbery and fatal shooting of Koppu appeared random and unfortunately “could have happened to anybody.”

Farmington • Although he posted top-10 finishes in four consecutive Web.com Tour starts coming into the Utah Championship, Cameron Champ never really experienced the nervousness that comes with having a chance to win.

Those feelings hit him this weekend at Oakridge Country Club, and his breakthrough did not come easily. Even so, winning the tournament was not as tough as the process of turning around his season a couple of months ago.

Champ absorbed an 18th-hole bogey Sunday, finishing one shot ahead of Steven Ihm and completing his rise from an average Web.com Tour rookie as of mid-May to a player destined for the PGA Tour in October. The former Texas A&M golfer from Sacramento shot 61-64-67-68 for a total of 24 under par, three strokes better than the winning score last July in Oakridge’s first staging of the event presented by Zions Bank.

“This is new for me, pressure-wise,” Champ said. “I’ve never felt it, but I loved it. And I was able to handle myself well enough.”

Thanks to the $126,000 prize that doubled his season's earnings, Champ clinched PGA Tour access for the 2018-19 schedule by moving to No. 3 on the Web.com Tour money list.

“It’s just crazy to think about,” Champ said.

Champ shares an agent with PGA Tour player Tony Finau, the Salt Lake City native whose foundation is associated with the tournament, so he said he was thrilled to win in “Tony’s territory.”

Patrick Fishburn, from Fremont High School and BYU, tied for 24th at 15 under after his third 67 in four days. Next stop: Omaha. Lacking any Web.com Tour status, Fishburn took advantage of his sponsor exemption with a top-25 finish, earning a spot in the next tournament.

Ihm was just as happy about finishing second as Champ was about winning. The Iowa pro was playing in only his third event of the season, due to his limited access, and earned $75,600 with a closing 65. Sam Burns finished another shot back after a 64 and, like Champ, secured his PGA Tour card. Third-round leader Jim Knous faded to a tie fourth with a 72.

Ihm is proof of what can happen when a player finishes in the top 25 and earns another start, as he did in the previous event in New York. “Just an awesome week,” he said after celebrating with a double fist pump as he walked out of the scoring trailer. “I’m just excited about my persistence this week.”

Playing two groups ahead of the winner, Ihm applied mild pressure to Champ, who had made four birdies on the front nine to build a four-stroke lead. Champ bogeyed the par-4 No. 12 (Oakridge’s nines are reversed for the tournament), but steadied himself with a birdie on the par-5 No. 15. T

hat pretty much removed any doubt about his victory, although Ihm could have made things more interesting if he had converted a birdie try on No. 18.

From a Utah perspective, Sunday’s drama occurred while Fishburn played the back nine — and then for about 90 minutes afterward, when he was in danger of falling out of the top 25.

For the second day in a row, Fishburn made four straight birdies on the back nine. “I’m just kind of a streaky player,” he said. “When I’m playing good, I feel like I can hit any shot.”

In Sunday’s case, he gave back a stroke by missing a par putt from inside 3 feet on No. 17, with the ball spinning violently out of the hole and leaving him “pretty shocked,” he said. “Hopefully, that doesn’t cost me.”

It didn’t. So Fishburn will remember how he saved a par on No. 18 with a 25-foot putt, having missed the green after driving into the rough. He more than validated his sponsor exemption by playing four solid rounds and having dozens of friends and relatives follow him around Oakridge. “I had a blast,” he said.

Fishburn can keep playing this tour as long as he strings together top-25 finishes. His primary membership this summer is in the Mackenzie Tour of Canada.

Orem native Scott Pinckney, a Web.com Tour member, also tied for 24th as he continues his recovery from a back injury.

Retired NHL goaltender Ray Emery, who helped the Ottawa Senators reach the final in 2007 and won the Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2013, drowned in his hometown of Hamilton, Ontario. He was 35.

Hamilton Police said Emery was identified as the victim of a swimming accident in the harbor Sunday morning. Staff sergeant Paul Evans said police received a call just after 6 a.m. that an adult swimmer did not surface and that the Niagara Police assisted in the recovery effort.

Emery’s body was recovered just before 3 p.m. Sunday. Hamilton Police said a cause of death would be confirmed after a post-mortem.

Nicknamed “Razor” for his aggressive style, Emery played parts of 11 seasons with the Ottawa Senators, Philadelphia Flyers, Chicago Blackhawks and Anaheim Ducks from 2003-2015. He helped the Senators reach the Stanley Cup Final in 2007 and won it as a backup with the Blackhawks in 2013.

“Ray was an outstanding teammate and an extremely gifted goaltender,” Flyers president Paul Holmgren said. “Ray’s talent, work ethic and determination helped him enjoy a successful 11-year NHL career.”

Emery battled avascular necrosis, the same serious hip ailment that ended two-sport star Bo Jackson’s career. He and fellow Blackhawks netminder Corey Crawford combined to win the William Jennings Trophy for allowing the league’s fewest goals during the lockout-shortened 2013 season and finished seventh in Vezina Trophy voting.

“The Blackhawks will fondly remember Ray as a fierce competitor, a good teammate and a Stanley Cup champion,” the team said in a statement.

Emery played in 326 NHL regular-season and playoff games. He went 145-86-28 with a 2.70 goals-against average and 16 shutouts during his career.

Throughout his career, Emery dealt with off-ice problems, including an incident of road rage, assault of a trainer in Russia and behavior that led to him being sent home from Ottawa’s training camp.

“Ray had many highs and lows in his personal life and his career,” longtime agent J.P. Barry said. “He never let things that would derail most of us stop his forward momentum. He had a big heart and a fun loving personality. He was someone we all rooted for to succeed.”

Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas, who knew Emery from junior hockey and the goalie’s stint with the American Hockey League’s Marlies, echoed that sentiment of rooting for him to succeed through his ups and downs. Dubas said Emery’s “smile and intelligence made him a magnetic personality.”

Emery played in Zac Rinaldo’s charity hockey game Saturday night in Hamilton. After word of his death spread, condolences poured out from the hockey community.

“I will always remember Ray as a good person first & foremost,” friend and former teammate Dan Carcillo wrote on Twitter. “I envied his demeanor. He had a contagious personality. People were drawn to him. ... I will never forget his selflessness. Man this hurts. Rest easy Uncle Ray Ray.”

Former teammates lauded Emery’s mentorship and leadership, especially in his final professional season in the AHL in 2015-16. Enforcer-turned-analyst Paul Bissonnette, a teammate with the AHL’s Ontario Reign, said Emery would treat other players to dinner almost every night.

“I’d heard nothing but great things before meeting him and it was true,” Bissonnette said. “He was awesome. Great in the locker room and just made life enjoyable.”

Carnoustie, Scotland • Jon Rahm had heard about a dry summer in Scotland. It didn’t really hit home until he checked into the Carnoustie Golf Hotel and caught his first glimpse of the course with a reputation as the toughest links in golf.

“I forgot the fact the R&A lets Mother Nature set up the course,” he said Sunday. “It wasn’t until I got to my hotel room when I looked out and said, ‘This is baked. This is brown.’ I’m just glad they water the greens.”

This is a different look than the previous two times the British Open came to Carnoustie.

The rough was dense, thick and crowded the narrow fairways in 1999. It was wet and long in 2007. It is bone dry this year, the grass brown on the fairways, almost the same color as the sand filling some of the divots. The ball is running forever.

Rahm said he can still see why the links has been nicknamed “Car-nasty.”

“But I think with this year’s setup — the lack of rain, the fairways being firm, the fescue not being thick at all — it almost seems like a completely different golf course from what I’m used to hearing,” he said.

Padraig Harrington got everyone’s attention on Saturday when he tweeted that he hit into the Barry Burn again on the 18th hole.

“This time it was the one at the green, 457 yards away,” he tweeted. “The fairways are a tad fast.”

Harrington hit into the first burn in the final round in 2007, and then hit his next shot into the burn by the green. He salvaged a double bogey and wound up beating Sergio Garcia in a playoff.

The Irishman tried (and failed) to post video . His caddie, brother-in-law Ronan Flood, posted video of the swing , though not the ball bouncing along the turf and dropping into the 6-foot wide stream where Jean Van de Velde was so famously standing in the final round of 1999.

Brandt Snedeker tweeted that he hit one 427 yards on the 18th.

“Never seen an Open this firm,” he said.

That brings in a different set of dynamics, which for the Open, which starts Thursday. Controlling distance is never more difficult when players don’t know how far the ball is bouncing. Rahm was skeptical about Harrington’s tweet as he played the 18th on a warm, dry and breezy afternoon.

“It’s 360 yards to that bunker,” he said, pointing to the right. “No way the ball rolled 100 yards.”

But the Spaniard had no less appreciation for the roll. He played with Tommy Fleetwood, and Rahm said there were a couple of holes when Fleetwood opted for a 2-iron off the tee, and Rahm went with driver.

“Usually the difference between a driver and a 2-iron is 40, 50 yards,” he said. “On this course, a couple of times when Tommy hit iron and I hit driver, it was a 100-plus. It’s a big difference.”

Tiger Woods, who spent Saturday at Wimbledon watching Serena Williams lose the championship match, showed up mid-afternoon at Carnoustie and belted a stinger off the first tee. It’s his first time playing the British Open since he missed the cut at St. Andrews. A three-time champion, Woods has seen courses in all conditions. He won at Hoylake in 2006 when it also was very brown and very fast. Woods hit only one driver that week.

Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas, the top two players in the world ranking, also were practicing on a course where even the rough wasn’t too daunting. The grass was wispy, not deep enough where it would be tough to get to the green.

Rahm won the Irish last year, and he tied for fourth this year at Ballyliffin. He understands the key to his success is navigating the pot bunkers, which typically means playing smart and playing short of them.

For this year at Carnoustie, he was talking more about taking the bunkers out of play by going over them.

“I was pretty aggressive out there, just trying to take bunkers out play,” he said. “Because the fairways are so slippery that it’s tough to keep it in the fairway. If you can hit driver, you don’t need to hit fairways. If you hit half of them, you have a short club in, besides 13. Into the wind today, that was a long club.”

This could be one of those years when the fairways are faster than the greens.

“Tommy and I joked about that,” Rahm said. “On the second hole, we putted from 50 yards off the green. The browner spots really look fast than the green, or if not faster, just as fast. It gets to the green and it doesn’t bounce as much, just rolls, but it definitely slows down.”

Las Vegas • The Los Angeles Lakers put on a good show for LeBron James.

With James in attendance , the defending NBA Summer League champions cruised back into the semifinals, beating the Detroit Pistons 101-78 on Sunday.

Second-round pick Svi Mykhailiuk scored 19 points and Josh Hart added 18 for the Lakers, who shot out to a 33-14 lead after one quarter inside UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center.

James wore gold Lakers shorts in watching the Lakers improve to 5-0. He left as his former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, were preparing for their quarterfinal game against Toronto.

The Cavaliers won that game and will meet the Lakers in the semifinals on Monday.

Sunday’s games:

Lakers 101, Pistons 78 • Jeff Ayres had 10 points and 10 rebounds for the Lakers.

Former lottery pick Henry Ellenson finished a solid stint in Las Vegas with 22 points for the Pistons (3-3). Second-round pick Bruce Brown added 11 but was a woeful 3 for 17 from the field, missing all six 3-pointers.

Cavaliers 82, Raptors 68 • John Holland scored 23 points and No. 8 overall pick Collin Sexton had 18 points and six assists for the Cavaliers (5-1).

The 12th-seeded Cavaliers broke open the game by outscoring the Raptors 21-4 in the third quarter, when Toronto went 2 for 20 from the field and missed all 11 3-pointers.

Chris Boucher scored 18 points for the 29th-seeded Raptors (2-4), who rested OG Anunoby. Malachi Richardson and Alfonzo McKinnie each added 14 points but combined to shoot 10 for 29.

Trail Blazers 95, Celtics 80 • John Jenkins had 25 points for the No. 2 seed Trail Blazers (5-0) and Archie Goodwin became the all-time Las Vegas Summer League scorer in the fourth quarter, passing Coby Karl (337).

Goodwin had 13 points and finished the game with his Las Vegas career mark at 343.

Wade Baldwin IV had 14 points and 10 assists, and Zach Collins scored 11.

Trey Davis had 19 points, and Guerschon Yabusele and Hassan Martin added 16 apiece for the Celtics (4-2).

Portland will face the 27th-seeded Grizzlies in the semifinals.

Grizzlies 82, 76ers 73 • Jaren Jackson Jr., the No. 4 overall pick, had 14 points, eight rebounds and four blocks to help the Grizzlies (3-3) top the 30th-seeded 76ers.

Brandon Goodwin led the way for Memphis with 21 points, Kobi Simmons scored 15 and second-round pick Jevon Carter added 11.

Furkan Korkmaz had 18 points, Demetrius Jackson scored 11 and Askia Booker 10 for Philadelphia (2-4).

Police believe the report of a woman stabbed while jogging in Magna on Sunday is a hoax.

The woman had reported that, as she was jogging in Magna Copper Park on Sunday night, she was confronted by two or three people who attempted to rob her and then stabbed her. “But she had no description of her attackers, and no real information,” Gray said.

“The doctors believe that these stab wounds were probably self-inflicted,” said Unified Police Sgt. Melody Gray of the Unified Police Department. “This was not a random stabbing, and we don’t want to cause public panic.”

“Remember the Merrick!”

It sounds like it could be a rallying cry for the Spanish-American War and it might as well be, because it’s so quaint and naive.

Instead, it’s the closest thing the Democrats have to a strategy for trying to stop the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Bless their hearts.

Democrats are justifiably angry that President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland — a man whom Sen. Orrin Hatch had repeatedly praised for his qualifications and intellect — never even got a confirmation hearing.

Especially in hindsight, Garland may not have been the ideal pick. Republicans would have had a harder time denying a woman or a minority a hearing.

And Democrats seemed overly comfortable that Hillary Clinton would win the White House — an assuredness that turned out to be another mistake.

It was, in part, conservative furor over the Supreme Court nominees that drove the GOP base to hold their nose and vote for Trump. According to CNN exit polls, 56 percent of Trump voters cited Supreme Court nominations as the single most important factor in their selection.

And, as I heard this one guy say once: “Elections have consequences.” Now we’re seeing those consequences, and we could see them for decades to come.

Democrats have pleaded to postpone Kavanaugh’s confirmation until after the election, appealing to fairness and rules.

Rules and decorum and collegiality may have mattered once upon a time. But talk of rules and fairness in today’s Senate has to make Mitch McConnell break out in that creepy grin of his, because McConnell’s only goal is: Win. The rules are just tools to help you get there.

When McConnell was in the minority, the shoe was on the other foot, but since taking over the majority, McConnell has shown a ruthless willingness to steamroll the opposition to an extent Democrats could never quite muster.

Democrats argued Garland should get a hearing because (notwithstanding what Hatch and others claimed) that was the tradition. They were ignored.

They made the mistake of forcing a filibuster vote on Neil Gorsuch’s nomination, because those were the rules. Republicans happily changed the rules and they lost the best defensive weapon they had forever.

Now some, like Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, have made the feeble argument there shouldn’t be a vote on Kavanaugh until after the election out of fairness, since that was the treatment that Garland got. As if fairness mattered.

The Democrats are left playing seven-card stud poker with one card in their hand. Barring some unforeseen bombshell, Kavanaugh will be the next Supreme Court justice. The appointment will likely reshape the court for decades.

Yes, he will probably help cut the legs out from under Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion ruling, which is why conservatives were so willing to vote for Trump.

But he will also enable the erosion of hard-fought-for protections for the LGBTQ community, minorities, immigrants and workers; he will undermine health care and environmental laws and civil liberties; and he will help weaken access to the ballot box and expand corporate influence in our democracy.

Elections have consequences.

Going forward, Democrats have a choice. They can light a candle and pray for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health (which frankly, they should all do, anyway, because duh!).

Or they can use the Supreme Court as a catalyst for the November Election.

There is a decent chance they can retake the House, but when it comes to any Supreme Court nominees until 2020, they have to re-take the Senate, and the challenge there is significant.

They need to hold onto toss-up seats in Florida, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota and West Virginia, plus try to win a Republican seat in Nevada and one in Arizona, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in 30 years.

To pull off that feat, Democrats need to get angry. Not just angry, enraged, and focus that furor on registering voters, donating money, supporting candidates and making the case to anyone who will listen: Donald Trump and Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh are why the 2018 election matters.

If they don’t make it happen, they should be prepared for Republicans to hold as many as seven seats on the bench by the time they get another chance in 2020. And those are consequences we can’t afford.

In January 2006, David M. Winberg wrote a two-page paper lobbying the National Security Agency to build a computing center at Camp Williams.

Winberg, a Utahn with a long history with the NSA, lauded the technical advantages of the site. Then he used the last paragraph to promote Utahns as a whole.

“Utah has long stood as one of our nation’s most patriotic states,” Winberg wrote. “The people of Utah are committed to the principles and practices of maintaining and improving our national security.”

Winberg’s paper was included in a batch of records the NSA recently provided to The Salt Lake Tribune pursuant to a request made five years ago under the Freedom of Information Act. The records better explain how Utah was sold to the NSA and what the digital spy agency found alluring.

The documents affirm the practical assumptions for why the Data Center was built in Bluffdale: The NSA was seeking cheap electricity. The newly revealed records also elaborate on Winberg’s role in bringing the secretive facility to Utah.

The 58-year-old Winberg earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Utah State University in 1986. Published biographies say he had a 30-year career with the NSA, including time as a Chinese linguist. Those bios lack any specifics of his time at the NSA, though the recently provided papers offer some intriguing details.

Winberg, who did not respond to requests for comment, identified himself in his proposal as the director of the Utah Regional Language Center. At the time, it had the same addresses as the Joint Language Training Center that the Utah National Guard has operated for decades at Camp Williams, straddling the line between Salt Lake and Utah counties. The Joint Language Training Center uses linguists and intelligence gatherers to support military units and civilian police investigating drug trafficking.

Winberg’s proposal also gives his number to reach him through the National Secure Telephone System. That’s the NSA’s internal phone system. Winberg is currently listed as the director of special programs at USU’s Space Dynamics Laboratory.

The documents begin with the Jan. 25, 2006, proposal. Much of it reads like a Chamber of Commerce pitch.

Page 1 of WinbergProposalsNSA

Contributed to DocumentCloudby Nate Carlisleof The Salt Lake Tribune• View documentor read text

Winberg began by promoting the security Camp Williams could provide and how the land could be had “at no cost to the government.”

He then addressed power transmission — Camp Williams sits along multiple high-volume electrical lines — and communications. He noted the Salt Lake City and Provo areas offered significant communications infrastructure and that Hill Air Force Base, 50 miles to the north, was on track for a major upgrade of its fiber optics.

That would “save the agency millions of dollars over the years in communications circuit lease costs,” Winberg wrote.

He touted the engineering and computing programs at his alma mater as well as the University of Utah and Brigham Young University. He also discussed the needs of the agency he was then running.

The Utah Regional Language Center, or URLC, had “attracted more than 80” analyst candidates since it opened a few months earlier, Winberg wrote, “and the number increases each week.” It was expected URLC would outgrow its facilities in three years, Winberg wrote. He suggested the Data Center include space for the URLC.

It’s unclear where the URLC operates today. On Saturday, Utah National Guard Maj. D.J. Gibb said the Joint Language Training Center is not housed at the Data Center. He said some NSA employees happen to be in the National Guard, but their work for the NSA is seperate from their duties as soldiers.

In a follow-up paper dated July 27, 2006, Winberg reports that he and Utah National Guard Col. Scott Olson had been further investigating a possible NSA site in Utah. Winberg reported that then-Gov. Jon Huntsman and the state’s Division of Facilities Construction and Management were prepared to propel the project to the top of their priority lists once the NSA approved. Winberg also reported “three large construction companies” were interested in building the Data Center.

An NSA analysis dated Feb. 18, 2009 — and labeled “TOP SECRET” — said the Data Center would use 65 megawatts of electricity (about the same amount as 66,000 Utah homes combined).

“Power” is listed as the first item of consideration on the analysis, followed by “space,” “cooling” and “communication.”

The NSA redacted specific attributes of the Camp Williams site and long-term costs of electricity and other expenses. But the provided records make clear the site was favored by the NSA.

“Camp Williams, Utah is the best value site,” one page of the presentation reads.

Congress and President Barack Obama approved the first phase of Utah Data Center funding about four months later. Those congressional budget documents were also the first time the federal government publicly disclosed plans for the Utah Data Center.

Construction cost about $1.2 billion. The center opened on Camp Williams in 2013.

Notations on the NSA analysis indicate the documents were shared with U.S. allies Australia, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand.

Benjamin Lee, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University, said the NSA’s electricity considerations are standard for an organization wanting to house a lot of information technology. What stands out is the size. Microsoft and Google data centers, Lee pointed out, typically use 10 or 20 megawatts.

Lee, who reviewed the documents at The Tribune’s request, said the NSA also appears to have placed greater emphasis than the private sector would on the high-speed telecommunication lines the Data Center could access. He noted communications infrastructure received significant discussion in the documents.

“I would imagine with NSA,” Lee said, “it’s about how quickly you can push data into the facility.”

Lee believes Winberg overemphasized the human resources available in Utah. Data centers generate few jobs, Lee said, because so much of the work is automated or can be done remotely.

Despite Winberg’s pitch about Utah patriotism, there’s no indication in the documents the NSA weighed that in its analysis. And there’s no discussion of the state’s predominant institution, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or its members. Some have suggested the NSA wanted easier access to returned Mormon missionaries with language skills or a population inclined to obey authority.

Editor’s note • Jon Huntsman is a brother of Tribune owner and Publisher Paul Huntsman.

St. George • In work meetings, DJ Tischner used to sit anywhere. Now he finds a chair near the door. At restaurants, the 26-year-old puts his back against a wall. Better to see everything that’s going on, he figures.

Loud noises jolt him — the sound of sudden laughter or a scream or construction workers hammering in the St. George building where he works as a country music disc jockey.

Tischner was covering the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Festival for his station, Big Kickin’ Country, when Stephen Paddock opened fire from the nearby Mandalay Bay Hotel late on Oct. 1. At least 59 died, including some Utahns, and hundreds were physically wounded. Tischner was one of dozens of Utahns among the 22,000 people in attendance — witnesses, and, in substantial ways, victims of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Nine months later, many still grapple daily with what they experienced. They find themselves making mental notes on how to escape — just in case — when going to sporting events or the movies. They look with suspicion at strangers. They struggle to explain what they saw to friends and family who weren’t there.

More and more Americans have had similar experiences. Since the Las Vegas massacre, there have been seven mass shootings, totaling 71 deaths and 64 injuries, according to a Washington Post analysis. They have occurred at schools, a restaurant, a car wash, a church and, recently, a Maryland newsroom. After each, the Facebook survivor groups multiply. More GoFundMe pages for medical expenses are created.

The media and public soon move on to the next big story. But survivors of mass shootings and similar traumatic events face long recoveries, at least six to 12 months, during which they may experience a range of physical, emotional and social symptoms, according to Emanuel Maidenberg, a UCLA psychiatry professor and an expert in stress and anxiety.

After this initial recovery period, Maidenberg said, it “becomes clear who tends to suffer long-term consequences.” For some, various symptoms and potentially unhealthy coping strategies — a withdrawal from friends and family, for example, or substance abuse — can linger for years.

Tischner fears he might never be the same. He knows he is fortunate to have escaped physically unharmed but nevertheless feels “robbed” of his normal life.

He hasn’t been able to move on. “I think about it every day.”

—

Five Utahns at Route 91 told similar stories in interviews for this article. They recall the terror associated with a series of horrible split-second decisions: Are we sure those were gunshots, not firecrackers? Do we crouch down, or make our move? Could there be multiple shooters roaming the concert grounds — or perhaps all over the Las Vegas Strip? Is anywhere safe?

Tischner was taking a group photo with colleagues at the media tent when they first heard the faint gunshots.

“I’m going to die right now,” he recalled thinking. He grabbed a friend and sprinted, vaulting a fence, then piling inside an Uber with a pregnant woman and a guy bleeding from his arm. Finally, he said, they found shelter at a nearby helicopter rental business.

Herriman resident Amy Beckstead was taking a video of Jason Aldean performing one of her favorites, “When She Says Baby,” when the gunfire began. She had won tickets to the festival from a radio station and invited her sister-in-law — just a “little girls’ weekend,” she said. They ducked behind concession stands, then a bar. They crawled under a fence, before running more than a mile away.

Jessie Wood and Jordyn Florence, meanwhile, were walking toward the restroom when they stopped and realized they were missing one of their favorite songs. The 22-year-old hospice aides from Ogden then noticed something else: The harsh crack of automatic gunfire and the crowd surging toward them.

They crouched behind a concrete barrier, then dashed behind a trash can. They watched concertgoers bang on the windows of passing cars, shouting “Let us in!”

They found safety when a stranger offered to let them stay in her hotel room.

Karen Larsen, 60, describes herself as a “rabid” country music fan. The retiree from Clinton had enjoyed all the acts at Route 91, but she was especially eager to watch Aldean — she even encouraged her sister and friend to push their way to the front of the crowd. After that, though, her memory has blank spots.

She thinks a man pulled her onto the ground, but eventually, she ran. Another person shuttled her behind a beer stand. She screamed some more, ran some more. A woman grabbed her, and they hid behind an electrical box. Another woman soothed her and others after they finally reached a casino elevator. “It’s OK, guys, we’re safe,” the woman had said. “No one can get us in here.”

“There were people like that everywhere, which is amazing,” Larsen said. “Because I just get hysterical and don’t know what to do. But there’s people there, in the middle of that shooting, that are calming everyone down, helping everyone.”

—

In the days after the shooting, these Utahns said, it was impossible to sleep or focus on tasks at hand.

Paddock’s face had been plastered all over the news for days, and sometimes, Wood said, she would close her eyes, and there he was. Staring back at her.

Beckstead, a financial analyst who works from home, said her mind wandered constantly back to that night. She repeatedly checked for new information about those who died or clarity on Paddock’s motive. Four days after the shooting, she realized she’d looked at the same work email 10 times in an hour. “I couldn’t even process it,” she said.

Tischner, too, felt obsessed with the shooting. He compulsively pored over cellphone videos of the carnage that he found on YouTube. Eventually, he realized the habit was strange and probably unhealthy.

Like others, Tischner has had vivid nightmares. Sometimes, he’s at a different concert where someone opens fire. In others, he won’t have his gun when he needs it. Or it’s out of bullets. In real life, he carries his handgun everywhere now. Sometimes, wind rattles the windows at his house, he said, and he’s sure someone has broken in — not to steal anything but to “shoot me.”

—

All five said they’ve become more anxious in crowded places. Tischner has felt it at bull-riding events, at a Brad Paisley concert in Salt Lake City, at a gathering inside a high school auditorium.

“The odds of it ever happening to me again are so slim,” he acknowledges. “But, still, I’m always thinking everywhere I go.”

If something does happen, he said, “I know not to sit back and just chill.”

Florence and Wood attended a Royals soccer game this spring. They considered going on the field with the rest of the crowd, at halftime, to watch a musical performance. But they stayed in their seats.

Watching all those people crowd together “gave me the chills,” Florence said. Besides, Wood reasoned to her friend, the stadium seating would offer more protection if someone started shooting.

Maidenberg, the UCLA professor, said this “hyperawareness” — including a need to prepare for the worst — is normal after experiencing a mass shooting. It can last months, or years. Survivors often report it helps them in the moment by making them feel less anxious.

But it can be unhealthy in the long run, he warned.

“It’s a disproportionate response,” Maidenberg said. “People continue with a [high] level of anxiety at places where it may not be warranted. Not every crowded place has an increased risk of something terrible happening — but it’s being perceived that way.”

Some have gone to therapists. Others believe that’s unnecessary. Tischner said he felt supported by family and listeners, initially talking about it on his morning radio show. He hasn’t yet sought professional help but said he’s considering it — especially as he continues to have nightmares and anxiety in public places.

“I don’t want to have those thoughts,” he said, “to where I’m always on the defense.”

Florence saw a counselor once a week for several weeks and said it helped minimize the post-traumatic stress. But her friend Wood said she largely has kept it inside. “I’ve learned my way of coping,” she said of previous traumatic experiences in her life, “and it’s just putting it away.”

Larsen went to a counselor once.

“You are so lucky,” the counselor told her. “You’re lucky you can’t remember the horror, the horrible things that you had to have seen.”

Larsen didn’t feel the need to go back but has poured herself into volunteering at an animal shelter, which she said has helped her cope.

—

Before Route 91, Beckstead often would see shootings on the news and wonder, “What would I do in a situation like that? What would be going through my head?” Then it happened. Now she knows.

In February, as she watched the coverage of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida, she knew exactly how those kids felt: Their terror as they tried to hide. She put herself in their shoes, she said, back in the midst of the pop-pop-pop of gunfire, and eventually it became overwhelming.

She switched off the TV.

Said Tischner: “We all ask that question: Why does this keep happening? Why?”

As yet another mass shooting unfolded, this time at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Maryland, a co-worker sent Tischner the breaking news story. He didn’t feel the need to read all the details. “I felt like, ‘Well, it’s just another one.’”

Just a fact of American life.

Enoch • When Debbie Bowerman went to see a movie recently with her husband and teenage daughter, they settled into their seats, and she scanned for the emergency exits.

It’s a habit the Enoch resident repeats in many confined public places, ever since the Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting in Las Vegas last fall.

Know the fastest way out. Have a plan.

Bowerman wasn’t wounded in the mass shooting. Actually, she wasn’t even at the festival. Instead, she witnessed the carnage firsthand as an emergency room nurse at nearby Sunrise Hospital, which took in about 200 patients in the hours after the shooting.

Her experience since then reflects how first responders and medical professionals often face traumatic memories and other lingering impacts long after a mass shooting.

“It’s still there. It will always be there,” Bowerman said recently of that Sunday night. “It’s just not in the front; it’s tucked away a little bit.”

Bowerman’s job Oct. 1 was in the ambulance bay, the first person to assess each gunshot victim. At first, she was joined by a doctor, Kevin Menes, but he was soon needed inside.

She was on her own.

“It was just pulling bodies out of the ambulances,” she recalled, “out of the police cars, Ubers, taxicabs, pickup trucks, with four, five and six people in them.”

Bowerman struggled to sleep for days afterward. She couldn’t stop thinking about a woman in her early 20s, around the same age as one of her daughters. The woman had no pulse, and Bowerman had jumped on the gurney and started doing CPR. It was too late.

Bowerman continues to walk through escape plans in her mind when she’s at most public events. But she says it doesn’t prevent her from enjoying herself; she can walk through the plan in her mind for a moment, and then move on.

“I don’t do these things because I live in fear,” she said. “I do them because I have come face to face with the reality of: This can happen anywhere.”

That night reinforced to Bowerman that she was meant to be an ER nurse. She plans to seek out more training, on both mass casualty situations and self-healing techniques for her and her fellow hospital workers.

And she wants to share with other medical workers what she learned, even though she’s no fan of public speaking.

She recently tag-teamed a speech with Menes about their experience at an Emergency Nurses Association event in Las Vegas, to a standing ovation. For the next two talks — at hospitals in Salt Lake City and New York — she’ll be on her own.

And no doubt checking for the exits ahead of time — just in case.

Trump calls U.S. media ‘fake news,’ but loves the Russian media flattery. The president calls his London visit a success. Sen. Warren appears to be eyeing 2020 presidential bid.

Happy Monday. President Donald Trump continues his running war with the U.S. news media, but he may not be so quick at flinging “fake news” accusations at the largely government-controlled or influenced Russian press, which is giving him sympathetic coverage as a mistreated maverick. [AP]

Topping the news: Despite tens of thousands of protesters hitting the streets and criticism of his treatment of British Prime Minister Theresa May and Queen Elizabeth, the president declared his U.K. visit a success and says he believes the United States will get a great trade deal out of it. [Politico]

-> Sen. Elizabeth Warren appears to be clearing the way for a 2020 presidential bid. But others are also waiting in the wings, including former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kamela Harris and Kamela Harris. [NYTimes]

-> The number of refugees admitted to the United States under the current administration is at its lowest level in decades so refugee resettlement operations are shifting resources to other issues -- such as homelessness -- or going out of business. [LATimes]

Tweets of the day: From @TechnicallyRon: “Trump: ‘Immigration has ruined Europe’ France: ‘Hold our World Cup’”

-> From @InklessPW: “I believe there’s some danger of a Sacha Baron Cohen character becoming the next GOP presidential nominee.”

-> From @summerbrennan: “Ok but how do people still not know what Sacha Baron Cohen looks like? Even in disguise.”

Happy Birthday: To former Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, state Rep. Merrill Nelson and Salt Lake County Clerk Sherrie Swensen.

In other news: A former Salt Lake City police investigator is taking legal action against his old employer after he developed post-traumatic stress disorder and says he was fired because of it. [Trib]

-> The survivors of the Parkland shooting in Florida spoke to an audience of 1,200 Utahns at a town hall in Sandy, and clashed with gun supporters as they made the case for stricter firearm restrictions. [Trib] [Fox13] [KUTV]

-> As polls show a tight race between Rep. Mia Love and SL Co. Mayor Ben McAdams, the two 4th District candidates have both amassed $1.4 million to help their efforts, according to campaign finance disclosure forms. [Trib]

-> The Utah Board of Education agreed to count students who opt-out of test-taking as failing, which could lead to plummeting performance ratings in certain school districts. [Trib]

-> Multiple Utah cities have proposed more than doubling their property taxes, raising questions as to whether a 1985 Truth in Taxation law originally meant to keep taxes down has backfired. [Trib]

-> While high-density housing could be a solution for the state’s housing crisis, projects like the Olympia Hills development have seen strong opposition from concerned members of the community. [Trib]

-> Pat Bagley imagines how the international community views President Donald Trump after last week’s NATO summit. [Trib]

-> Frank Pignanelli and LaVarr Webb discuss the projects they think will help keep Utah’s economy booming, including the proposal to build an inland port in Salt Lake City and efforts to create a high-tech hub in Utah County. [DNews]

Nationally: President Donald Trump spent the first evening of his meeting in Finland with Russia’s Vladimir Putin critcizing allies and the news media, but the president did not condemn Russia for its alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election. [NYTimes] [Politico] [WaPost]

-> The California Democratic executive committee voted to endorse progressive state Sen. Kevin de Leon over five-term Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the race for her seat, signalling infighting in a crucial congressional race that could determine control of the House of Representatives. [Politico] [NBC] [NYTimes] [CNN]

-> Republicans peformed well throughout the Midwest in the 2016 election, but politicians in the region are now distancing themselves from some of Trump’s policies. [WaPost]

Got a tip? A birthday, wedding or anniversary to announce? Send us a note to cornflakes@sltrib.com.

-- Dan Harrie and Connor Richards

Twitter.com/danattrib and Twitter.com/crichards1995

Helsinki • President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin opened their long-awaited summit Monday with a wink and slouch, respectively, then talked one on one behind closed doors for two-plus hours before the American leader declared their meeting was off to a “very, very good start for everybody.”

Neither leader revealed what was discussed. But in advance of the talks, Trump listed a series of topics that did not include Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

"We have not been getting along well for the last number of years," Trump said after arriving at the Presidential Palace in Finland's capital, where the leaders are meeting. "But I think we will end up having an extraordinary relationship. ... I really think the world wants to see us get along."

Putin, for his part, said he and Trump have maintained regular contact through phone calls and meetings at international events but “the time has come to have a thorough discussion on various international problems and sensitive issues.” He added: “There are quite a few of them for us to pay attention to.”

Their opening one-on-one session had been scheduled to run 90 minutes. The Russians said it lasted two hours and 10 minutes. The White House wouldn't immediately confirm the timing.

The summit, which is being closely watched around the world, was not the first time Trump and Putin have held talks. They met on the sidelines of world leader meetings in Germany and Vietnam last year. But Monday’s session was condemned in advance by members of Congress from both parties after the U.S. indictment last week of 12 Russian military intelligence officers accused of hacking Democrats in the 2016 election to help Trump’s presidential campaign.

Trump said last week that he would raise the meddling issue again with Putin, but questions have been swirling about whether Trump will sharply and publicly rebuke his Russian counterpart for the interference that prompted a special investigation probe that Trump has repeatedly labeled a "witch hunt."

Addressing reporters before the one-on-one meeting, Putin struck a casual pose during Trump's remarks, slouching in his chair with his legs wide and eyes low. He nodded along to some of Trump's remarks before they were translated, showcasing his fluency in English. Trump leaned forward in his chair, his hands tented in front of him and frequently glanced over at the Russian president. At one point, he shot Putin a wink. After Trump concluded his remarks, American reporters shouted several questions about whether he would bring up election meddling during his discussions with Putin.

Trump did not respond; Putin appeared to smirk.

With that, the leaders gave a quick handshake and their private meeting in the opulent Gothic Hall was under way. Just the two of them, each with a translator.

They continued the discussion with an expanded group of aides and over lunch in the Hall of Mirrors, once the emperor's throne room. They'll conclude the summit by taking questions at a joint news conference.

Out on the streets, the summit attracted a grab-bag of protesters, with abortion-rights activists wearing artificially bulging bellies and Trump masks, anti-fascist protesters bearing signs with expletive-laden insults, and free traders, anti-war Ukrainians and gay rights supporters making their voices heard.

The summit began just hours after Trump blamed the United States — and not Russian election meddling or its annexation of Crimea — for a low-point in U.S.-Russia relations. The drama was playing out against a backdrop of fraying Western alliances, a new peak in the Russia investigation and fears that Moscow's aggression may go unchallenged.

“Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse,” Trump tweeted Monday morning, blaming “many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!”

Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2018

The Russian foreign ministry responded by liking Trump’s tweet and then replying: “We agree.”

We agree https://t.co/7l087Qwmj3

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) July 16, 2018

The summit started late because Putin arrived in Helsinki about a half hour behind schedule in another display of the Russian's leader famous lack of punctuality. Trump seemed to return the favor by waiting until Putin had arrived at the palace before leaving his hotel. Putin has been late for past meetings with the pope and British queen, among many others.

Several dozen Trump supporters, many waving American flags and sporting "Make America Great Again" caps, cheered Trump near his waterfront hotel in Helsinki. Two held up a handwritten banner that read "God Bless D & M Trump."

Trump and his aides have repeatedly tried to lower expectations about what the summit will achieve. He told CBS News that he didn't "expect anything" from Putin, while his national security adviser said the U.S. wasn't looking for any "concrete deliverables." Trump told reporters during a breakfast Monday with Finland's president that he thought the summit would go "fine."

Observers have raised concerns about the fact that the leaders met alone during their first meeting, but for a pair of interpreters, meaning there will be no corroborating witnesses to accurately represent what was said during the conversation.

Trump said he and Putin would discuss a range of issues, from trade to the military, along with missiles and China. Not mentioned: Election meddling or Syria.

The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected last week's indictment as part of a "shameful comedy" they claim has been staged to prevent the normalization of Russia-U.S. ties.

In tweets Monday, Trump continued to undermine the investigation and blamed his predecessor, Barack Obama, for failing to stop Russia's efforts to sway the 2016 election in Trump's favor. He claimed Obama "was informed by the FBI about Russian Meddling, he said it couldn't happen, was no big deal, & did NOTHING about it."

The Obama administration did, in fact, take action, including confronting Putin in person as well as expelling nearly three dozen Russian diplomats the U.S. said were actually intelligence operatives and imposing new sanctions.

While Trump was eager for a made-for-TV moment that will dominate headlines like his sit-down with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month, Putin hopes the meeting, mere hours after he presided over the World Cup finals, will help him forge good personal ties with Trump and focus on areas where Moscow and Washington may be able to find common ground, such as Syria.

Putin will likely not be shooting for official recognition of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea or the easing of crippling U.S. sanctions, aware that the U.S. Congress would never allow such action. But he would welcome a symbolic end to Western protests over Crimea and Moscow's attempts to destabilize elections and traditional Western alliances and norms.

On Syria, a possible deal could see Moscow helping mediate the withdrawal of Iranian forces and their Hezbollah proxies from the areas alongside Syria's border with Israel — a diplomatic coup that would reflect Russia's carefully cultivated ties with both Israel and Iran.

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Ken Thomas and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

Springfield, Mass. • A liberal woman of color with zero name recognition and little funding takes down a powerful, long serving congressman from her own political party.

When Tahirah Amatul-Wadud heard about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning upset over U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley in New York’s Democratic primary last month, the first-time candidate saw parallels with her own long-shot campaign for Congress in western Massachusetts.

The 44-year-old Muslim, African-American civil rights lawyer, who is taking on a 30-year congressman and ranking Democrat on the influential House Ways and Means Committee, said she wasn’t alone, as encouragement, volunteers and donations started pouring in.

“We could barely stay on top of the residual love,” said Amatul-Wadud, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal’s lone challenger in the state’s Sept. 4 Democratic primary. “It sent a message to all of our volunteers, voters and supporters that winning is very possible.”

From Congress to state legislatures and school boards, Muslim Americans spurred to action by the anti-Muslim policies and rhetoric of President Donald Trump and his supporters are running for elected offices in numbers not seen since before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, say Muslim groups and political observers.

Many, like Amatul-Wadud, hope to ride the surge of progressive activism within the Democratic Party that delivered Ocasio-Cortez’s unlikely win and could help propel the Democrats back to power in November.

Still, the path to victory can be tougher for a Muslim-American. Some promising campaigns already have fizzled out while many more face strong anti-Muslim backlash.

In Michigan, Democrat candidate for governor Abdul El-Sayed continues to face unfounded claims from a GOP rival that he has ties to the controversial Muslim Brotherhood, even though Republican and Democratic politicians alike have denounced the accusations as “conspiracy theories.”

In Rochester, Minn., mayoral candidate Regina Mustafa has notified authorities of at least two instances where anti-Muslim threats were posted on her social media accounts.

And in Arizona, U.S. Senate candidate Deedra Abboud received a torrent of Islamophobic attacks on Facebook last July that prompted outgoing U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, the Republican lawmaker Abboud is hoping to replace, to come to her defense on Twitter.

“I’m a strong believer that we have to face this rhetoric,” said Abboud, who has also had right-wing militant groups the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights and the Proud Boys stage armed protests her campaign events. “We can’t ignore it or pretend like it’s a fringe element anymore. We have to let the ugly face show so that we can decide if that is us.”

There were as many as 90 Muslim-Americans running for national or statewide offices this election cycle, a number that Muslim groups say was unprecedented, at least in the post-9/11 era.

But recent primaries have whittled the field down to around 50, a number that still far exceeds the dozen or so that ran in 2016, said Shaun Kennedy, co-founder of Jetpac, a Massachusetts nonprofit that helps train Muslim-American candidates.

Among the candidates to fall short were California physician Asif Mahmood, who placed third in last month’s primary for state insurance commissioner, despite raising more than $1 million. And, in Texas, wealthy businessman Tahir Javed finished a distant second in his Democratic primary for Congress — despite an endorsement from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

Nine candidates for Congress are still in the running, according to Jetpac’s tally. At least 18 others are campaigning for state legislature and 10 more seek major statewide and local offices, such as governor, mayor and city council. Even more are running for more modest offices like local planning board and school committee.

The next critical stretch of primaries is in August.

In Michigan, at least seven Muslim-Americans are on the Aug. 7 ballot, including El-Sayed, who could become the nation’s first Muslim governor.

In Minnesota, the decision by Keith Ellison, the nation’s first Muslim congressman, to run for state attorney general has set off a political frenzy for his congressional seat that includes two Muslim candidates, both Democrats: Ilhan Omar, the country’s first Somali-American state lawmaker, and Jamal Abdulahi, a Somali-American activist.

But historic wins in those and other races are far from assured, cautions Geoffrey Skelley, an associate editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political analysis website run by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Omar’s chances of emerging from a field of five Democratic candidates in Minnesota’s Aug. 14 primary was bolstered by a recent endorsement from the state Democratic Party, but El-Sayed is an underdog in his gubernatorial race, he said.

Other Muslim-American candidates might fare better in Michigan, which has one of the nation’s largest Arab-American populations, Skelley added.

There, former state Rep. Rashida Tlaib has raised more money than her Democratic rivals in the race to succeed Democratic Rep. John Conyers, who resigned last year amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Former Obama administration official Fayrouz Saad is also running as a Democrat in the wide open race to succeed Republican Rep. David Trott, who isn’t seeking re-election.

Either could become the first Muslim woman elected to Congress, which has only ever had two Muslim members: outgoing Ellison and Rep. Andre Carson, an Indiana Democrat seeking re-election.

Saad, who served most recently as director of Detroit’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, recognizes the importance of representing her community in an era of rising Islamophobia.

The 35-year-old broke from the conservative Republican politics of her Lebanese immigrant parents following the 9/11 attacks because she felt Arabs and Muslims were unfairly targeted.

“I felt the way to push back against that was to be at the table,” said Saad, adding that her parents’ political leanings have also since moved to the left. “We have to step up and be voices for our communities and not wait for others to speak on behalf of us.”

But not all Muslim candidates feel that way.

In San Diego, 36-year-old Republican congressional candidate Omar Qudrat declined to comment on how Islamophobia has impacted his campaign, including instances when his faith have been called into question by members of his own political party.

Instead, the 37-year old political newcomer, who is one of at least three Muslim Republicans running nationwide this year, provided a statement touting his main campaign issues as faces Democratic U.S. Rep. Scott Peters in November: addressing San Diego’s high number of homeless military veterans, improving public education and expanding economic opportunities for city residents.

“Running for public office is about advancing the interests of your constituents and the American people,” Qudrat’s statement reads. “Nothing else.”

Sure, they’re subjective as can be, but for fans, they’re also the start of a bread crumb trail that leads straight through the dog days of summer to the opening of preseason camp.

And there, that’s where college football officially starts.

On Monday, four University of Utah football players were announced to be on national award preseason watch lists as the start of Utah’s 2018 fall camp nears on Wednesday, Aug. 1.

Headlining the crew is junior running back Zack Moss, who was named to the 2018 Maxwell Award preseason watch list. The 82nd annual Maxwell Award will be handed out this fall, which is given to America’s top college football player since 1937.

Moss, the 5-foot-10, 217-pound bruising tailback from Hialeah Gardens, Fla., finished the 2017 season with 1,173 yards on 214 carries and 10 rushing touchdowns. He played in all 13 games in Utah’s 7-6 campaign, starting 12. Moss averaged 90.2 yards per game as a sophomore and led the team in all-purpose yards with 1,416 total yards. He set a career-high in yards in Utah’s bowl-clinching win over Colorado with 196 and later followed that up with 150 yards in the win against West Virginia in the Heart of Dallas Bowl.

He’s on the preseason watch list alongside the nation’s top young talents, including Arizona’s Khalil Tate, Georgia’s Jake Fromm, Ohio State’s Nick Boss, Oregon’s Justin Herbert, Stanford’s Bryce Love and Washington’s Jake Browning.

Along with Moss, Utah’s Julian Blackmon and Bradlee Anae were each named to the Bednarik Award preseason watch list, which recognizes college football’s best defensive player.

Blackmon, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound cornerback from Layton, has taken up a role in Utah’s long line of standout defensive backs. The local kid turned into a star his sophomore season finishing as an all-second-team Pac-12 selection, starting 13 games and leading the Utes in interceptions with four. Blackmon’s two interceptions in the Heart of Dallas Bowl win earned the junior the game’s MVP honors.

Anae will, once again, be a primary feature on Utah’s defensive line. The 6-foot-3, 254-pound junior from Late, Hawaii, played in all 13 games in 2017 with 10 starts. Anae was tied for second in the Pac-12 in forced fumbles (3) and fourth in fumbles recovered (2).

Lastly, Utah senior Chase Hansen was named as one of 42 preseason candidates for the Lott IMPACT Trophy, which honors college football’s defensive best in character and performance. The 6-foot-3, 230-pound former safety transitioned full-time to linebacker in the spring where he’s expected to start at the rover position this fall.

Hansen, a former all-state quarterback from Lone Peak High, has played in 30 games in his career, 22 of which are starts.

Washington • Sinclair Broadcasting’s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media has raised “serious concerns” at the Federal Communications Commission about the amount of control the combined company would have over the U.S. television market, said Ajit Pai, the agency’s chairman.

Pai said Monday that he intends to send key parts of the deal to review by an administrative law judge, which is typically the first step the FCC takes when it seeks to block a deal.

The merger would consolidate Sinclair’s position as a major conservative broadcasting entity, adding dozens of media stations to its roster. Its original merger proposal, if approved, would have given Sinclair access to 72 percent of television households in America, far surpassing a national ownership cap of 39 percent.

Sinclair had proposed spinning off a number of stations to get beneath the cap. But a number of the new, prospective owners had close ties to Sinclair executives, which critics said would allow Sinclair to stay in control of the stations it sold.

Pai said Monday he found those arguments persuasive.

“The evidence we’ve received,” said Pai, “suggests that certain station divestitures that have been proposed to the FCC would allow Sinclair to control those stations in practice, even if not in name, in violation of the law.”

Following its history-making run in 2017, the Weber State football team has been picked to finish second in the Big Sky Conference for the 2018 season. The Wildcats were selected second in both the coaches and media polls, released Monday at the Big Sky football media kickoff in Spokane, Washington.

Eastern Washington was picked to finish first in both polls. The Eagles garnered six first-place votes in the coaches poll and 27 in the media poll.

The Wildcats picked up three first-place votes and totaled 124 points in the coaches poll, and had 19 first-place votes in the media poll.

The second-place selection in the preseason polls is Weber State’s highest since being selected second in 2009, following a conference title in 2008.

Northern Arizona was third in the coaches poll, followed by new Big Sky member Idaho, Sacramento State, Southern Utah, Montana and Montana State.

In the media poll, NAU was third in the poll, followed by Montana, Idaho, Southern Utah, Sacramento State and Montana State.

The Thunderbirds, sixth in the poll, picked up one first-place vote.

Idaho, dropping back down to the FCS level after competing as an FBS program, was picked fifth.

Weber State is coming off its best season in history 2017 that included a Big Sky title, a school-record 11 wins, two wins in the FCS Playoffs and a fifth-place national ranking, the highest in school history.

Los Angeles • Comic-Con, the annual gathering of over 130,000 fans, artists, collectors and geek culture savants, has already been changed by the #MeToo and Time’s Up era, with at least one notable figure stepping aside due to sexual misconduct allegations. But questions remain about its atmosphere and whether convention organizers will take any extra steps to address longstanding allegations of harassment issues during the event which kicks off Wednesday night in San Diego.

The convention has always been a home for comic book and genre enthusiasts, and a refuge for like-minded fans to mingle, but it's also been a place rife with harassment of women and others, whether it's cosplayers (people who dress up in costumes), general attendees or even those hawking merchandise (sometimes called "booth babes").

"I don't think any convention has historically been a safe or inviting space for women," says Cher Martinetti, the managing editor of SYFY Wire's Fangrrls site.

Sexual harassment at fan conventions is a subject that is often raised, but the scrutiny will be even more intense this year with the heightened awareness about misconduct.

Just weeks ago, Nerdist founder Chris Hardwick, a mainstay at Comic-Con and moderator of numerous panels, stepped aside from moderating AMC and BBC America panels amid allegations from an ex-girlfriend , which Hardwick has denied. And since last fall a handful of familiar Comic-Con faces, have been accused of misconduct as well, like Ain't It Cool News founder Harry Knowles and "Honest Trailers" creator Andy Signore.

Comic-Con has a code of conduct that representatives say was, "Intentionally created to serve as a comprehensive measure that makes attendee safety a priority.

"We want all participants to feel if they are treated in a manner that makes them uncomfortable, that there is a system in place that will respond to misconduct and sexual harassment," Comic-Con International told The Associated Press in a statement Sunday.

According to the code, attendees must "respect commonsense rules for public behavior" and "personal interaction" and that "harassing or offensive behavior will not be tolerated." The code specifies that anyone who feels at risk should report it to a security person or a staff member and outlines the location of the show office in the San Diego Convention Center, which is open during show hours. Anyone who violates the code is at risk of losing their pass.

But as with most big confabs and entertainment festivals, events don't stop when the convention center closes, and many attendees will continue their nights at parties and offsite installations, beyond the reach of convention hall security and staff, during the four-day event. And Comic-Con has the unique distinction that many attendees dress in costume, some of which can be revealing.

In 2014, a group called Geeks for CONsent made waves petitioning for a formal anti-harassment policy at Comic-Con. The group organizers carried signs and passed out temporary tattoos that year that read, "Cosplay does not equal consent."

Since #MeToo shook the culture, other large-scale gatherings have reevaluated their own safety protocols. Some have addressed the issue openly and instituted hotlines for attendees to report instances of harassment. The Sundance Film Festival earlier this year updated its code of conduct and partnered with the Utah Attorney General’s Office to implement a 24-hour hotline.

Organizers of FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention announced last week it is forming an advisory council, made up of 10 people from the convention community, to help handle harassment issues. The event also is working with the Utah Attorney General’s Office to put a hotline in place during the September convention.

Sunu Chandy, the Legal Director for the National Women's Law Center has observed other best practices emerging in the wake of #MeToo and Time's Up as well.

"I see a lot of organizations taking this moment to be very clear and upfront at the opening sessions about expected behaviors, what's off limits and where someone should go," says Chandy. "That will go a long way in setting the tone for the event and making sure that all the participants can take part in a safe and enjoyable manner."

Representatives for Comic-Con International declined to provide specifics about its security measures but said that they work closely with the San Diego Police Department and other law enforcement entities. They also employ several private security companies.

Some attendees expect the atmosphere to be changed this year because of the social movements and the implicit message sent when Hardwick stepped aside from his panels. Martinetti, who is hosting a session Friday about women changing the game in sci-fi and genre with panelists like "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" creator Rachel Bloom, is one, but with a caveat.

"I think it'll be a little different because when you see someone who is a bigger name and a known personality be held accountable for their actions and their behavior, it puts everyone else on alert," Martinetti says. "But I think it's a temporary thing."

Still, she has seen some positive changes over the past few years, "not just in the makeup of the panels and the topics that were discussed but also in the verbiage that's used toward cosplayers and being more accommodating toward not just women but anyone who isn't a straight, white, able-bodied cisgender male."

There are several female-centric panels this year, including Entertainment Weekly's annual Women Who Kick Ass panel, ones on body positivity, women in publishing, women of color in comics, the women of Star Wars and the "fake geek girl fallacy." The convention is also hosting panels on intersectional Afrofuturism, queer comics for queer kids (and another about being queer and black) and general diversity in comics. There's even one titled "#METOO to #TIMESUP: An Action Summit for Comics." But like many of these more inclusive panels, the #METOO panel is programmed in a smaller room directly against a presentation from a major Hollywood studio — in this case, Sony Pictures.

Fandango correspondent and TCM host Alicia Malone is returning this year to host a panel called "The Future of Film is Female" with participants like directors Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Susanna Fogel. She says the enthusiasm from Comic-Con is palpable.

"It started last year with 'Female Voices in Film Twitter' which was well-received and encouraged by Comic-Con, but this year I feel like everyone is really excited to talk about Women in Film and celebrate these achievements," says Malone.

As an eight-year Comic-Con veteran, Malone, is also hopeful that things are evolving.

“There is so much focus on it that the #MeToo and Time’s Up movement can’t be ignored,” Malone says. “I’m so optimistic, more than ever, that things are going to change from now on.”

Lawmakers will meet this week and vote on a bill that would change the development of a controversial new shipping-and-receiving hub in northwest Salt Lake City after months of closed-door negotiations, Gov. Gary Herbert announced Monday.

The latest version of the bill would shrink the boundaries of the proposed Utah Inland Port by more than 4,000 acres to bring it to about 20,000. It would make changes to the way the port authority pays for services, such as reimbursing cities for police in the sweeping area that state and business leaders hope will become home to manufacturing plants and storage space where goods are produced, imported and exported.

The proposed changes come amid tension over what’s described as the largest economic development project in Utah’s history. Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski has declined to take part in negotiations that included top legislative leaders, members of the City Council and the governor.

While Biskupski’s office described the latest version of the bill as “questionable,” City Council members stood alongside Herbert as he announced he would call legislators into session for changes to the port and applauded the proposed tweaks.

“We’ve been able to address our consistent concerns [in the draft bill],” Council Chairwoman Erin Mendenhall said.

Herbert’s proclamation calls for changes that will shrink the port boundaries to exclude wetlands and address tax-sharing between the port authority and taxing entities, land use appeals and conflicts of interest for board members. It also calls for changes to “other provisions" of the law.

Here are the top proposed changes to the bill lawmakers passed on the eve of the last day of the legislative session earlier this year. There will be a public hearing on the bill Wednesday before the Legislature takes any vote.

Councilman James Rogers stays on board

Provisions in the law that cost two legislators their seats on the port authority board of directors would be changed to allow Salt Lake City Councilman James Rogers to retain his seat.

Rogers is part owner of a business park in northern Salt Lake City that is within a five-mile conflict-of-interest zone legislators created with the original bill, SB234. The law says no one can sit on the board if he or she owns property within five miles of the port’s sprawling boundaries.

The law also said “the member of the Salt Lake City Council” whose district includes the port would sit on the board automatically. But the port boundaries include both Rogers’ and Councilman Andrew Johnston’s districts. Rogers and Johnston agreed Rogers should sit on the board despite the problematic language.

Two members — House Speaker Greg Hughes, who appointed himself, and Sen. Don Ipson, who was appointed by Senate President Wayne Niederhauser — resigned because their property holdings violated the law.

The group negotiating the compromise apparently considered changing the conflict-of-interest provisions created by SB234 to allow board members to own property within five miles as long as they didn’t also receive “a direct financial benefit” as a result of the port development.

The latest version doesn’t include that provision. It would clarify that the council member whose district includes the airport — Rogers — will be on the board. It would also allow Rogers, Utah Department of Transportation Director Carlos Braceras and Salt Lake County regional development director Stuart Clason, all of whom would be on the board because of the positions they hold and not because someone appointed them, to own land within five miles. They must disclose the ownership to the public, however.

Other conflict-of-interest changes

The draft bill would also make clear that people could serve on the board if they own an interest in any private company that they believe would get a financial benefit from the port development.

The change would address what Hughes said was vague language about board members, such as Braceras, inadvertently violating state law by negotiating a land deal on behalf of UDOT. The draft bill would make clear board members and port employees could take actions that benefit public entities, not private ones.

Who keeps the taxes?

One of Salt Lake City’s primary concerns was that the port authority could take all of the money that’s generated from the expected increase in property taxes when land values rise as a result of the port development. That won’t change under the bill.

Instead, the bill would require cities to provide the same municipal services within the port boundaries that they would in other, similar areas of town. In return, the port authority would use property tax revenue to cover the cost of the services.

The port would also share revenue with the cities in which the port operates — which includes Salt Lake City, West Valley City and Magna Township.

The port would also have to give Salt Lake City 10 percent of the increase to pay for housing for low- and moderate-income Utahns.

Environmental protections

Critics of the port say it will be an air quality disaster, with a development that’s bustling with semitrucks, diesel-powered freight trains and cargo planes importing and exporting goods also leaving behind pollution in a county that already fails federal air quality standards.

The draft bill would require the port authority board to “include an environmental sustainability component" that would “meet or exceed applicable federal and state standards” on emissions monitoring and reporting and mitigating environmental impacts from the port’s development.

The new boundaries would also remove about 4,000 acres of wetlands, Mendenhall said.

During disputes over developments, a person or company appealing a land use decision must explain “any potential environmental impact the proposed development will have, including on air quality and groundwater,” according to the bill.

The board would be required to work with other cities and towns and “neighboring property owners and communities to mitigate potential negative impacts” from the port development.

Cities whose land is being used for the port now have until year’s end to create laws that allow for port development that’s subject to standards decided by the city as long as they are in line with the port’s goals.

It has been five days since a dozen boys were rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand, and five days since Elon Musk has been wandering in a Twitter labyrinth of his own making.

The Silicon Valley engineer and billionaire was briefly seen in Thailand last week, hauling a miniature submarine to the mouth of the cave just before an international dive team rescued the boys without it.

Since then, he has been arguing with people who accuse him of shoehorning himself into the drama and imagining hypotheticals in which rescuers had not deemed his hastily built submarine unnecessary and impractical.

This has, inevitably, led Musk into public arguments people who actually participated in the rescue operation — a rhetorical war that he drastically escalated on Sunday, when he called one of the cave explorers a “pedo,” prompting the explorer to consider a lawsuit.

If you're already acquainted with Musk and his bizarre entanglement with the Thai cave story, you may skip to the end of this report for a fuller accounting of his baseless pedophilia accusations.

If not, a summary of man and cave follows.

Musk — briefly — is a person who co-founded the e-commerce site PayPal, who later built rocket ships through SpaceX and electric cars through Tesla, and who is alternately hailed as a visionary or derided as a showboater for pitching ideas to begin colonizing Mars next decade, or build highways under Los Angeles, or create a website to rate the credibility of journalists who report on problems at his electric-car company.

The cave saga, on the other hand, was a massive, weeks-long operation to rescue a boys soccer team from a flooded tunnel system, an effort led by the Thai government, carried out with the help of British divers, and watched obsessively by much of the world.

It really had nothing to do with Musk — until one of his Twitter fans suggested, a week and a half into the operation, that he build an invention to help get the boys out.

As Abby Ohlheiser has already chronicled for The Washington Post, Musk accepted the challenge with "a lengthy, live brainstorming process on Twitter," which ended when he traveled to Thailand with a miniature submarine made from rocket parts, tweeted some photos of the cave, left the device there and went home.

Hours later, a dive team sans submarine began extracting the children — ultimately successfully. And while Musk’s fans lauded his intentions, his submarine drive-by also became the butt of many jokes.

The mockery was fueled, in part, by reports that top rescue officials had considered Musk's submarine impractical for the cave's tight-winding passages.

As Ohlheiser wrote, Musk soon "started a Twitter argument over how much credit he deserved for offering to help save the youths," during which argument he showed off an email of himself corresponding with one of the British divers and incidentally claimed that the Thai official in charge of the rescue had not been in charge.

Then, three days after the rescue operation was completed, CNN posted an interview with a British spelunker who had helped locate the boys. That spelunker, Vernon Unsworth, called Musk's submarine "a PR stunt."

"He can stick his submarine where it hurts," Unsworth told CNN. "It just had absolutely no chance of working. He had no conception of what the cave passage was like."

Like other critics, Unsworth noted that the flooded tunnel was extremely narrow and twisted. "The submarine, I believe was about five, six feet long. Rigid," he said. "So it wouldn't have gone around corners or around any obstacles. It wouldn't have made it the first 50 meters."

Unsworth concluded this portion of the interview by claiming that Musk had been quickly asked to leave the cave during his much-tweeted-about visit.

The interview spread through the — until a Twitter user baited Musk into responding to it, just as he had been lured by another fan into devising his submarine.

In a series of tweets that Musk appears to have deleted while this article was being written, he claimed that he had been repeatedly asked by rescuers to build the sub. He wrote that he was escorted into the cave by Thai Navy SEALS — “total opposite of wanting us to leave.”

He said he had not seen Unsworth — whom he dismissed as “this British expat guy who lives in Thailand” — during his brief guided tour of the cave system and suggested that, therefore, Unsworth had not actually participated in the rescue operation. (Unsworth absolutely and crucially had, per CNN.)

Furthermore, Musk insisted that his submarine (designed in consultation with "cave experts on the Internet," he wrote) would have worked. He bragged that he would one day pilot it through the now child-free cave system as proof.

And midway through his rant, for some inexplicable reason, he accused Unsworth of sex crimes.

"Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it," Musk wrote, clarifying in a follow-up tweet that he meant "the Brit expat diver" was a pedophile.

Generally confused, some Twitter followers guessed that Musk was dubiously linking Unsworth (who has been mapping the Tham Luang caves for a decade) with Thailand's epidemic of child-sex tourism.

“Bet ya a signed dollar it’s true,” Musk wrote late Sunday morning, a few hours before he deleted his tweets — too late to avoid yet another deluge of public criticism.

pic.twitter.com/I1l8XLQibm

— Steven Dengler (@Dracogen) July 15, 2018

Condemnation of his remarks seemed universal — a mixture of outrage at the slur against Unsworth, outrage against the implied slur against Thailand, and yet more mockery of Musk.

The Guardian, a British newspaper, consulted a legal expert who thought Unsworth had "a cast iron case of libel." The spelunker did not necessarily disagree when reporters asked for his reaction to the pedophile comments.

"I'll take advice when I get back to London," he told 9 News during a celebratory ceremony outside the evacuated gave.

"Legal?" the reporter asked.

"Yeah."

The accusation had angered and astonished him, Unsworth told the Guardian. He said Musk, whom he had never met, must have a “bruised ego.” And speaking to a gaggle of TV reporters at the ceremony, Unsworth explained:

Thai Cave Rescue: British diver Vern Unsworth has told 7 News' @MyleeHogan that he's considering legal action after being referred to as 'pedo guy' by @elonmusk. "It's not finished...I believe he's called me a 'paedophile'...I think people realise what sort of guy he is." #7News pic.twitter.com/jzVUAtraun

— 7 News Sydney (@7NewsSydney) July 16, 2018

"I believe he's called me a pedophile. Well." He cleared his throat. "By definition, I mean rescuing 12 young boys, by definition that puts everybody else in the same context."

"I'm not going to make any further comment about him," Unsworth continued. "But I think people realize what sort of guy he is."

"Would you consider taking legal action against him?" a reporter asked, again.

"Yes," Unsworth said instantly. "Yes, it's not finished."

Spokespeople at Musk's companies, Tesla and SpaceX, have not replied to requests for comment on his tweets or the possibility of a libel lawsuit.

James Anderson, one of the largest shareholders in Tesla, told the Guardian that he planned to convey his concerns to the company.

The message was slashed onto the weather-beaten planks of a barn in the empty farmland not far from where the girl’s body had been found.

Police in northern Indiana stared at the jerky handwritten scrawl in May 1990, realizing this was the most significant clue to drop in the region’s most publicized unsolved crime. In 1988, 8-year-old April Tinsley had been found murdered and sexually assaulted. Two years later, police were now studying the white building on a stretch of lonely rural road, fields running to the horizon on all sides. The message appeared to be a confession — as well as a taunt and a threat.

“I kill 8 year old April M Tinsley,” the barn read, according to a recently filed police affidavit. “[D]id you find the other shoe haha I will kill again.”

Although the message initially failed to steer investigators to Tinsley’s killer, it was not the last word from the alleged murderer. As the case stalled, and hundreds of suspects were targeted and cleared, the girl’s assailant would continue to haunt the Fort Wayne area. Grotesque messages — left with used condoms and Polaroids — were sent to other little girls who the child killer claimed were next on his list.

This reign of terror also failed to direct police to a suspect. But the horrific messages did provide investigators with the DNA they would eventually use to zero in on the killer — albeit once the right advanced science and technology came along.

On Sunday, investigators from the Fort Wayne Police Department and the Indiana State Police arrested John D. Miller for Tinsley's April 1988 death. The 59-year-old is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Monday morning. According to a probable cause affidavit filed in Allen County Superior Court, Miller confessed when questioned about Tinsley's death.

Documents show that the arrest was not the result of intense media attention over the years — the case was featured twice on America’s Most Wanted as well as a 2016 episode of “Crime Watch Daily” — nor the repeated pleas for information that followed the 30th anniversary of Tinsley’s death last April. Once again, the cold case was cracked thanks to the dramatic scientific breakthrough pairing forensic DNA with genealogical research.

The new science has led to a run of cold case arrests, including the prosecution of alleged Golden State Killer Joseph James DeAngelo and an arrest in the 1992 murder of Pennsylvania schoolteacher Christy Mirack. Court records indicate the Tinsley break came thanks to Parabon NanoLabs, the Reston, Virginia-based company at the center of many of the recent cold case arrests.

It was chilly on April 1 — Good Friday — 1988, the sky in Fort Wayne bruised over with threatening storm clouds. April Tinsley — a blond-haired, dark-eyed first-grader — left her home in Fort Wayne for a friend’s house two streets away. When Tinsley failed to walk through the door by dinner time, her mother reported the little girl as missing. “You’re sitting there looking out the window, and trying to think where is she? Who’s got her?” Tinsley’s mother, Janet Tinsley, told Crime Watch Daily in 2016.

Three days later a jogger spotted the body of a child in a water-filled ditch twisting through the rural fields of the nearby Amish country. One of Tinsley's shoes was found 1,000 feet from where she was located, according to court documents. Police also recovered a sex-toy in a shopping bag left near the site. An autopsy showed the victim had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiated.

"You got an 8-year-old girl that was sexually assaulted and strangled," Fort Wayne Police Detective Cary Young told Crime Watch Daily. "She suffered, and we don't know exactly how long she suffered. It could have been three days of horror."

Witnesses recounted seeing a girl matching Tinsley's description being forced into a blue truck near her house. A description of the suspect was circulated, but investigators failed to track down any substantial leads. DNA evidence found in the girl's underwear also did not initially point to a perpetrator. The barn message scrawled two years later in 1990 unnerved the community. But again, the taunting note produced nothing in terms of immediate concrete investigative evidence.

But the alleged killer surfaced again 14 years later.

In 2004, four notes were left at homes scattered around the Fort Wayne area. Three of the messages — written on lined yellow paper — were placed on young girls’s bicycles. An additional note was put in a mailbox. Three of the messages were inside plastic baggies with used condoms and Polaroid pictures of the sender’s nude lower body. Several of the notes referred to Tinsley.

"Hi honey," one note read, according to a picture released by the FBI. "I been watching you I am the same person that kinapped an rape an kill Aproil Tinsely you are my next victim [sic]." The same message demanded the young girl report the note to the police; the writer said that if he didn't see a report on the message in the newspaper or local TV, he would blow up the child's house.

Again, the letter did not immediately point police toward a suspect. But the DNA material recovered from the condoms did match the evidence recovered from Tinsley’s underwear — concretely linking the deranged 2004 notes with the 1988 killing.

Years passed. The case flickered in and out of the national spotlight. Last April, to mark the 30th anniversary of April's murder, Janet Tinsley decided to hold a balloon release in a small neighborhood park dedicated to April near her home. More than 70 people attended, sending balloons up into the gray April sky.

“We thought ain’t nobody really going to show up,” Janet Tinsley told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. “But then all the sudden we see a lot of people. It made me pretty happy. And hopefully they’ll continue supporting her, and thinking of her, and bringing up her name.”

According to the recently filed court documents, by the next month, the case had taken a dramatic turn.

In May, the Fort Wayne Police Department submitted the suspect's DNA to Parabon NanoLabs. Using public genealogy databases, the firm's researcher CeCe Moore was able to narrow the possible suspects down to two brothers in the Fort Wayne area.

Police tracked one — John D. Miller — to a trailer park in Grabill, Indiana, outside Fort Wayne. Investigators pulled trash from the location, including three used condoms Miller had allegedly discarded. According to the probable cause affidavit, the DNA from the recently obtained condoms matched the DNA from the 2004 condoms, which matched the genetic profile found on the victim.

On Sunday, two detectives approached Miller outside his trailer and asked him to come to the police station to talk. There, after advising Miller of his rights, the detectives asked him if he knew why they wanted to speak with him.

"April Tinsley," the suspect allegedly told police, according to the affidavit.

According to the court document, Miller allegedly confessed after learning police had a DNA match linking him to the murder. He allegedly admitted to police he abducted Tinsley, took her back to his trailer, and raped her. He allegedly strangled her to keep her from reporting the rape to police. Miller allegedly told police he dumped her body at night.

The next day he allegedly found the young girl's shoe in his car. Driving past the ditch where he laid the body, Miller tossed the shoe in, too, he allegedly told investigators.

Miller faces felony charges or murder, child molestation, and criminal confinement. Authorities plan to offer additional information at a news conference on Tuesday.