Shannon Dininny

SALT LAKE CITY -- U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch defeated his Democratic challenger in Tuesday’s general election, securing a seventh, and what he says will be his final, term in office.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Ukrainian man who authorities say had been drinking heavily before he ran to the back of a Salt Lake City-bound Delta Air Lines plane and tried to open an emergency exit was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday for disrupting the flight and attempting to bribe the FBI agents who arrested him.

SALT LAKE CITY — Thousands of Utah voters have cast ballots by mail and at early polling places, and elections officials hope even more turn out next week to reduce the likelihood of long lines on Election Day.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Ukrainian man, hung over from a 50-day drinking binge, said he believed the wing of the airplane was on fire when he disrupted a Salt Lake City-bound Delta Air Lines flight and had to be wrestled to the floor by passengers, authorities allege in a criminal complaint.

LSOGAN — An 8-year-old Logan boy wrote a letter to his local newspaper after an animal shelter worker failed to write a note to save his cat from being euthanized. "Yesterday grown-ups killed my kitty, my best friend, when they weren’t supposed to," he said.

WENATCHEE, Wash. — A haze of thick smoke formed Tuesday over vast swaths of the West as wildfires forced more residents to flee their homes in several states.

Fire officials reported seven homes were destroyed and hundreds of people were evacuated near Casper, Wyo., where a wildfire has burned across almost 24 square miles. In western Montana, fire crews said there was no containment in sight for a blaze that has prompted an evacuation order for 400 houses west of Hamilton.

YAKIMA, Wash. — The federal government will pay more than $1 billion to settle a series of lawsuits brought by American Indian tribes over mismanagement of tribal money and trust lands, under a settlement announced Wednesday.