Welfare

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah is beginning a divisive policy of drug testing welfare applicants, but its measured approach underscores how carefully states are navigating the issue amid legal challenges that have blocked proposals elsewhere.

SALT LAKE CITY — Some welfare recipients could be required to undergo drug tests to qualify for benefits under a bill being signed into law by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert.

SALT LAKE CITY — A bill to require drug screening for people receiving public assistance has cleared another key hurdle as it makes its way through the Legislature.

House Bill 155, sponsored by Rep. Brad Wilson, R-Kaysville, was approved on the first reading Wednesday by the Senate and has been moved to the body’s third reading calendar for final review.

SALT LAKE CITY -- A huge, technology-driven facility, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' new Bishops' Central Storehouse exists for those in need of life's most basic necessities.

Officials unveiled the facility Thursday. The storehouse has 535,966 square feet of space and room for 65,000 pallets of food and supplies.

A friend on Facebook read last Sunday's column about Shelly Roche getting help from my readers to set up a day care business (thanks!) and said, "This shows we don't need government to help each other."

Quite the opposite. We need government, or something like it, to dole out charity more than ever. Shelly's case is the very rare exception.

Today I am foolishly going to try to kill the urban myth that people, especially those here illegally, get rich on welfare.

Why foolishly? Urban myths have more lives than cats. But, since even reasonable people get taken in by them, we must try.