By McKenzie Romero | Editor
The initial news of a large-scale data center project bound for rural Box Elder County and the edge of the Great Salt Lake sent shockwaves through the state. Protests, public comment and grassroots organizing followed.
Now, celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary of TV’s “Shark Tank” has pledged to cut the Stratos Project’s footprint in half, while citizen groups are fighting in court to put a question on the ballot about the data center. What will happen next?
In today’s Dispatch we break down the Stratos Project’s path, a new home for women seeking support for addiction and mental health treatment, and the federal government’s new approach to teen pregnancy education.
“The lack of transparency makes me insane. I mean, that is not what we stand for as a society in America, in Utah, it’s not how we should be doing business, and it just feels like that pendulum has swung so far that maybe it finally swung far enough to wake people up.” — Rhonda Lauritzen, a Great Salt Lake advocate and opponent of the Stratos Project data center, on the project’s approval process.
The sun rises over a part of Hansel Valley, in Box Elder County, near the proposed Stratos Project on Thursday, May 28, 2026. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
By Annie Knox
Rhonda Lauritzen returned earlier this month to the beach on the northern tip of the Great Salt Lake where she splashed around as a kid. But this time, she was surrounded by dry mud, with no water in sight.
Lauritzen brought reporters to Monument Point as she and other critics made their case against the proposed Stratos data center in the neighboring Hansel Valley. They wanted to see more than the lake, though, including information on potential environmental costs and which company would move in.
Kearra Clark, left, and therapist Lani Gailey sit in a common area of Stonebridge, a new group home for women with mental illness, after a ribbon cutting ceremony for the facility in Salt Lake City on July 23, 2026. (Katie McKellar/Utah News Dispatch)
By Katie McKellar
After Kelly Cockrell’s son was killed in a car crash at the age of 24, the mother said she “spiraled.” She started using drugs, lived on the streets of Salt Lake City, and attempted to take her own life. But she eventually got help from Odyssey House, a nonprofit that provides services for substance use issues, mental health and medical care for people in need.
Cockrell has been living in a sober living and mental health transitional home while in in Odyssey House’s program. Now, she and women like her will be moving into a new home that will give them long-term housing stability and support as they continue to heal.
One of the grantees affected by new federal rules was Children’s Aid, a 170-year-old organization in New York City that served 1,200 youth each year with its nearly $1 million grant. (Courtesy of Children’s Aid)
STATELINE
By Kelcie Moseley-Morris
The Trump administration has a new plan for teenagers learning about pregnancy: Beginning this summer, it will steer millions of dollars toward organizations that focus on anatomy, fertility tracking, hormonal production and “reproductive goals counseling.”
The plan will also emphasize abstinence from sex and the importance of marriage. In doing so, it will pivot away from programs that serve populations in areas with the greatest need and that use particular evidence-based programming to reduce teen pregnancies.
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