Chris Holmes

A sustained thunder storm on Friday dumped 2 inches of rain in about 20 minutes on central Iron County, overwhelming city streets and resulting in flooded basements in some 80 homes in the town of Enoch.

Arizona's Prop 204, "The Quality Education and Jobs" Initiative, calls for the renewal of a $0.01 sales tax set to expire in 2013. The tax would provide a dedicated permanent revenue stream for education that the legislature cannot cut.

The blaze known as the Reserve Fire burning on the Red Cliffs Wilderness Reserve north of St. George began on Monday and quickly grew to over 3,000 acres. That fire is now 50% contained.

Although there are no longer any structures threatened by the blaze, 2 popular hiking trails remain closed as interagency fire crews to battle both on the ground and from overhead.

The Little Pine fire burning near Enterprise has been fully contained after blackening over 2,000 acres and closing access to Enterprise Reservoir and its popular campgrounds.

The Utah rural summit concludes today in Cedar City. UPR's Chris Holmes was there from opening to close and reports on highlights from the summit.

The keynote speaker on Thursday was Jack Shultz, author of the book The Seven and a Half Keys to Big Success in Small Towns. Key #1 according to Schultz is to have a "can do" attitude. In welcoming summit attendees, Southern Utah University President Dr. Michael T. Benson offered a local example: The Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Today is the opening day of the 25th annual Utah Rural Summit, a 2-day seminar attended by leaders from Utah's non-Wasatch Front counties and cities. UPR's Chris Holmes sits down with Wes Curtis, Executive Director of Southern Utah University's Office of Regional Services, to talk about the summit his office is hosting and why Cedar City is a great place to hold this discussion.

The Southwest Utah Public Health Department reports that mosquitoes taken in a random survey in Washington County have tested positive for West Nile Virus.

This is the first positive West Nile result in Utah this year. Southern Utah's last human case of West Nile Virus was in Kane County in 2010.

During the early hours Monday morning members of the Iron County Sheriff's Office along with the DEA, Forest Service, and the Iron/Garfield County Narcotics Task Force, located and removed a number of marijuana plants located in a garden near Pinto, Utah, about 30 miles west of Cedar City.

A $15,000 reward has been offered in a recent case of animal cruelty in the FLDS-dominated bordertown of Colorado City, Arizona.

The now infamous cat mutilation case actually took place on May 31, but only recently received local and national news attention when footage was posted on Youtube.

The FBI out of Denver confirms that Brian Joseph Heglin is a murder suspect out of Colorado Springs. Tuesday morning he was on the run and desperate. Around 3 a.m. the suspect jumped the fence at the St. George airport and attempted to commandeer an empty SkyWest airlines regional jet.

Brian Joseph Hedglin, 40,  was on the run and suspected in the murder of his former girlfriend. Hedglin was a pilot for SkyWest airlines, on administrative leave after his arrest last week for stalking and harassing 39-year-old Christina Cornejo.  Cornejo was found stabbed to death in her Colorado Springs apartment on Friday.

People nationwide are still reacting with amazement at the remarkable story of survival that broke in a remote area of Southern Utah late Friday afternoon.

28-year-old William LaFever, from Colorado springs, contacted his father for money on June 6th or 7th –calling from boulder, Utah.

John LaFever wired money for his son to the closest location, Page, Arizona.

The younger LaFever, who is autistic intended to follow the Escalante river to Lake Powell, then solicit a boat ride to page, with no apparent appreciation for the peril that such a trek posed.