SANDY, Utah — With the power of over 200 youth volunteers, thousands of veterans’ graves have a flag planted in their honor this Memorial Day.

From all over the Salt Lake Valley students of all ages gathered at around 7 p.m. Thursday at Larkin Sunset Gardens Cemetery in Sandy.

“Some of them are local church groups. This group right behind me here is my grandson’s swim team,” said Rob Larkin the mortuary manager and a fourth-generation in the family business. “And then, there’s some other civic high school groups that come in and help.”

Larkin gets to see the next generation respect and honor our fallen Utah heroes.

“(My grandson went) over and cleaned up the grave and made sure that his great-grandfather had a flag. He served in the Korean War,” Larkin said.

Larkin manages this event each year and sees the lessons the volunteers learn from the experience.

“It gives them … their first inkling on how important it is to be respectful to our veterans,” he said.

A red white and blue tribute for our fallen heroes ahead of Memorial Day. By the time the sun set, every American flag had a home.

Eric Cabrera is a reporter for KSL NewsRadio. You can follow him on Instagram. 

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The No. 1 overall high school basketball prospect in America is going to call Utah home for a season. Specifically, Hurricane.

On Friday, it was announced that AJ Dybantsa — the consensus top recruit in the 2025 class — is transferring high schools, moving from Prolific Prep in California to Utah Prep Academy.

Listed at either 6-foot-8 or 6-foot-9, depending on the outlet, and 200 pounds, Dybantsa is one of the most sought after prospects in the country, holding scholarship offers from over 20 notable Division 1 programs, the most recent offer coming from the University of Utah.

Duke, Kansas and Kentucky have all offered Dybantsa, as have the two-time defending champion UConn Huskies, plus North Carolina, Texas, Washington and more.

The Brockton, Massachusetts, native averaged averaged 21.2 points, 9.4 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game as a junior at Prolific Prep this past season and as a freshman two years ago at St. Sebastian’s School in Needham, Massachusetts, Dybantsa was named the Gatorade Player of the Year.

Through 10 games played with the Oakland Soldiers (9-1) this season on Nike’s EYBL circuit, Dybantsa is averaging 23 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.9 assists per contest while shooting 54.8% from the field, 39.3% from 3-point range and 81.6% from the free-throw line.

Dybantsa reclassified up to the Class of 2025 in October and is now considered the consensus top prospect for the 2026 NBA draft as a small forward.

Utah Prep, formerly known as RSL Academy, is relocating to Hurricane from Herriman for the 2024-25 season. The Academy is just one of a couple notable prep basketball powerhouses now located in the state, along with Wasatch Academy in Mt. Pleasant.

Another top 10 prospect in the 2025 class — Isiah Harwell — plays for the Tigers, meaning Utah will be the temporary home of two of the most talented prep basketball players in the country. A Pocatello, Idaho, native, Harwell holds scholarship offers from nearly a dozen Division 1 programs currently, including Gonzaga, Houston, North Carolina and UCLA.

Top Utah officials aren’t happy with federal air quality standards. And their ammunition to fight back could jeopardize the state’s federal highway funding or even the federal government overriding how the state handles air quality to begin with.

In February, Gov. Spencer Cox called the stricter regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency “onerous” and “so stringent” that it will be “impossible” for the state to comply. The EPA reduced the amount of PM2.5 and ozone pollution allowed in the atmosphere, making it harder to fall within the attainment standards, which Utah hasn’t met since 2006. The Utah Attorney General’s Office has filed and joined other states in challenging the agency over its mandates, like the “Good Neighbor Rule,” which targets ozone pollution emitted across state lines.

The majority of the Utah Legislature is so unhappy with the regulations it partly inspired a new state law that aims to push back. Republican Sen. Scott Sandall’s 2024 “Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act” sets up a process for the state to opt out of federal regulations they deem as overreach.

The first test of the new statute could be the looming air quality battle the state is picking over the updated air quality standards and the Clean Air Act. But it won’t be an easy sell.

“If the state wants to test the red line,” said Brigham Daniels, a law professor at the University of Utah, “this is a risky one.”

During a May 15 Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment Interim Committee meeting, Bryce Bird, the director of the Utah Division of Air Quality, said Utah is “still really struggling” to meet EPA ozone standards, especially in Salt Lake, Davis and parts of Weber and Tooele counties. But if the state doesn’t fall within the attainment zone of 70 parts per million, which is considered protective of public health, Utah could face federal funding sanctions.

“That prevents both federal funds being used to expand transportation projects here in that non-attainment area, but it also prohibits state funding from being used for regionally significant projects,” Bird said. “So it really does have that direct impact on the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country.”

If Utah still doesn’t clean up the air after funding is frozen, Bird said the federal government could swoop in and create its own plan for how Utah will meet ozone standards. If that comes to pass, the state “will lose flexibility and input into the plan.”

Utah and the Intermountain West face an uphill battle when it comes to meeting EPA ozone standards. Bird said states like Arizona, Utah and Colorado have “higher natural concentrations of ozone and a greater impact from international transport of the precursor emissions to ozone formation,” which places some of the problem outside of the state’s control.

The fact that Utah isn’t solely responsible for ozone pollution within its boundaries is Sandall’s biggest complaint, calling it “the heart of the heartburn,” and that Utah doesn’t have to “try to comply to an uncontrollable standard.”

“That’s the message that we’ve got to send to the federal government is we can’t do that. There’s no way,” he said during the May 15 meeting. “So whether we do that through legislation, whether we do that through a lawsuit, whatever we do, we have to be the ones to say no.”

Republican Rep. Casey Snider followed Sandall’s comments by stating “perhaps there needs to be a fundamental shift in the key objectives” of the Utah Division of Air Quality centered around “pushing back on this overzealous nature of the federal government rather than simply complying with the impossible.”

Daniels said he’s sympathetic to the predicament the state is in because of what the EPA considers to be “a healthy air quality will be very difficult for the state to obtain,” given the outside exacerbating factors. But challenging the Clean Air Act isn’t that simple.

From his perspective, if Utah does take the steps to challenge the Clean Air Act under the Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act, the state is likely to fail because of the Supremacy Clause, which says the Constitution and federal statutes are “the supreme law of the land,” trumping any state laws.

Daniels added EPA employees are mandated by federal law to enforce the consequences of a state not complying with standards set by the Clean Air Act and a state sovereignty clause won’t stop them from doing so either.

“Within the realm of environmental law and natural resources law, you almost couldn’t have chosen a worse statute to gamble with,” Daniels said. “Because the federal government doesn’t have any discretion about whether or not it moves forward with sanctions.”