The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Salt Lake City Weekly. When Utah officials awarded a tax credit to one of the state’s largest oil companies, at least one member of the voting board knew that environmentalists would make noise about a corporate handout to a multi-billion-dollar company. The...
The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Salt Lake City Weekly. “I guess you could call me a tree hugger,” said Washington state resident Tammy Crough on why she decided to install home solar power in 2023. “I love trees, the Earth, and I think solar is a...
By Eric S. Peterson The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with KUER. The Utah Inland Port as it was imagined five years ago has come to a standstill. In 2018, planners envisioned a 16,000-acre logistics oasis in the marshy scrubland northwest of Salt Lake City. Instead of buzzing...
By Sara Tabin The following story was reported by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with the Daily Herald. As war rages and evidence of atrocities and mass murder surfaces in Ukraine, many U.S. companies have stopped doing business in Russia. But not everyone is pulling out. Nature’s Sunshine, a Utah-based multilevel marketing company...
The following story was reported by Eric S. Peterson of The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Utah Stories. While many U.S. industries have gone under or struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic, many multilevel marketing businesses appear to be bounding through it without a scratch. On May 26, 2021, the Direct Selling Association, representing...
The following story was written and researched by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Utah Stories. Utah-based Young Living Essential Oils has boasted of having over 3,000 global employees, more than six million members, and of being the “world leader in essential oil research and development.” But in 2020 when the company was...
The following story was written and reported by Taylor Hartman of The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Utah Stories. On December 3, 2019, in a crowded room in the Salt Lake City and County Building, the Save The Utah Theater group waited for a vote that would decide the fate of the historic Utah Theatre...
The following story was written by Eric Peterson of The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with the West View Media. There’s an old gambler’s expression that “Scared money don’t make no money.” Translation: you can’t win, if you don’t play. In 2017 President Trump created the “opportunity zone” program meant to encourage wealthy...
The following story was written and reported by Eric Peterson of The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with Utah Stories. Before he pled guilty to running a $125 million fraud and being labeled a “scammer extraordinaire” by the FBI, Deepal Wannakuwatte was known as a charming entrepreneur who owned his own tennis team....
The following story was written by Eric Peterson of The Utah Investigative Journalism Project and published in partnership with Utah Stories. Multi-level marketing is as American as apple pie and as Utahn as green jello. But in recent years, some of the biggest MLMs have realized that real growth and expansion means digging the base...