Utah
Suazo Business Center, traditionally focused on Latinos, gets $600K grant to expand services
SALT LAKE CITY — Suazo Business Center traditionally aids members of Utah’s Latino community in honing their business acumen to create and build businesses.
Services have typically been offered in Spanish, though that has been changing, and immigrants have been among the key recipients of assistance as they forge a place in Utah.
A $600,000 grant from KeyBank will help Salt Lake City-based Suazo expand its offerings to serve a larger client base, including, perhaps, the children of some of the original recipients of assistance. KeyBank and Suazo officials gathered Wednesday to formally announce the grant, with some describing the occasion as a milestone for the nonprofit organization.
“I’m passionate that what we do here at the Suazo Center matters,” said Howard Headlee, a member of the Suazo Business Center board of directors and president of the Utah Bankers Association. “People pursue their dreams here, and your donation today is going to play a big role in a lot of dreams in this community.”
Drew Yergenson, Utah market president for KeyBank, said the grant is about fomenting growth in the state. The grant from the KeyBank Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the bank, is the largest single donation KeyBank in Utah has provided in its 15 years of business, he said.
“As we try to think about helping Utah grow, you’ve got to serve communities that need help. I think the Latino community is a large part of our local economy. We want to see them grow,” Yergenson said.
He stressed Suazo’s role since its founding in 2002 in helping some 10,000 clients launch around 5,000 new businesses.
“That means more families building stability, more small businesses strengthening our local economy and more people achieving sustainable employment,” he said.
KeyBank officials believe opportunity “should be accessible, not limited by language, schedule, transportation or geography, and that’s why this partnership is so special to us. It reflects our commitment to investing in education, workforce development, stronger communities,” Yergenson said.
The funds will be provided to Suazo in $200,000 increments over three years. Lorena Riffo-Jenson, chairman of the Suazo board, said the money will be used, in part, to expand online offerings to serve those who aren’t able to travel to the organization’s offices for classes and training.
The funding “will help us reach more people at different times,” she said.
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The organization has traditionally offered courses in Spanish to its largely Hispanic clientele; now it hopes to expand its English-language offerings, in part, to serve those from immigrant families who were born in the United States.
“We have started to do a little bit in English. This will allow us to fully expand everything. So we will be fully bilingual in all of our services,” said Silva Castro Bennett, president and CEO of Suazo.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
SANDY, Utah — Rodrigo De Paul and Luis Suárez scored one minute apart late in the second half, and Dayne St. Clair earned his second clean sheet of the season as Inter Miami beat Real Salt Lake 2-0 on Wednesday night.
Soccer legend Lionel Messi played the entire 90(+7) minutes of the game in his Utah debut, but failed to score despite late opportunities.
Miami (5-1-3) is unbeaten in its last eight regular-season games to sit in second in the Eastern Conference standings.
Salt Lake (5-1-2) had a six-game unbeaten run come to an end. RSL had secured multi-goal wins in its previous two games.
De Paul took a short corner from Telasco Segovia and curled a shot into the upper-right corner of the goal in the 82nd minute.
Suárez, who entered in the 75th, volleyed a left-footed shot past goalkeeper Rafael Cabral for his second goal of the season.
The only other meeting between the teams resulted in a 2-0 victory for Miami at home in the 2024 season opener.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Utah transfer Terrence Brown gives UNC a dynamic scoring guard with playmaking upside.
Utah transfer Terrence Brown, one of the top combo guards in the portal, has committed to North Carolina, giving the Tar Heels a high-scoring backcourt addition for next season.
Brown chose UNC over Kansas, Kentucky, Oregon, Ole Miss and USC. He is ranked the No. 8 combo guard and No. 38 overall transfer by 247Sports.
The 6-foot-3 rising senior averaged 19.9 points, 3.8 assists and 2.4 rebounds for Utah last season while shootingt 45.3% from the field and 32.7% from 3-point range. He earned All-Big 12 honorable mention.
His ability to both score and create for others makes him a natural candidate to replace former Tar Heels combo guard Seth Trimble.
Here is a full breakdown of what Brown brings to the tables.
What to be excited about
For starters, Brown is a high-level scorer. He scored 20 or more points 18 times and 25 or more points nine times last season. North Carolina’s backcourt had a player score 20 or more points only five times last season. Trimble accounted for four of those games, and Bogavac had one in UNC’s regular-season finale against Clemson.
Brown has shown he can be an effective passer as well. He posted a 27.7 assist percentage, an increase of 6.4 points from the previous season. That number rose to 28.1 percent in conference play, eighth-best in the Big 12.
He has shown he can be a capable defender, averaging 1.7 steals per game throughout his career. His career best was 2.2 steals per game in 2024-25 with Fairleigh Dickinson, which led the Northeast Conference.
What to be concerned about
The only concern UNC should have with Brown is his ability to play with players just as good as, and possibly better than, he is. The worry should not be that he may intentionally ballhog. In fact, he may simply try to do too much.
Because he was on two mediocre programs such as FDU and Utah, Brown had free rein to shoot himself out of slumps as he was the No. 1 scorer and the primary ballhandler. The last two seasons, Brown has ranked in the top 15 in usage rate and has averaged 16.4 and 15.4 shots per game. While his offensive rating improved at Utah, going from 96.8 to 108.1, his effective field-goal percentage was still below 50 percent at 48.6.
He will have to learn not to put too much pressure on himself as he plays alongside teammates such as Neoklis Avdalas, Jarin Stevenson and possibly Henri Veesaar, if Veesaar returns to Chapel Hill.
How He Fits at UNC
Brown should fit in just nicely in Chapel Hill and will provide a much-needed boost to its backcourt.
With UNC’s stronger supporting cast and a coach with a championship pedigree in Michael Malone, Brown will be pushed to process the game faster. He will need to read the floor quickly, use his first step to collapse the defense or kick out to shooters, and he could form an intriguing pick-and-roll duo with both Avdalas and Veesaar.
Brown’s athleticism could be a difference-maker at UNC. All he has to do is improve his shot selection and overall efficiency.
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SALT LAKE CITY — A California man in Utah, as part of his duties with the National Guard, is accused of trying to solicit sex from a young teenager.
Joshua Ruben Rodriguez, 29, of Fresno, was charged Tuesday in 3rd District Court with attempted rape of a child, a first-degree felony, and enticement of a minor, a second-degree felony.
The investigation began when an agent with the Utah State Bureau of Investigation posed as a 13-year-old girl on a “popular social media site … in an attempt to locate and apprehend adults attempting to have sexual contact with children,” according to charging documents.
On April 16, Rodriguez sent the agent a message — believing he was talking to a teen girl — that stated, “I’ll be direct with you, I would like to get to know you and (have sex with) your mind into a daze to where you feel like a woman,” according to charging documents.
When the “girl” asked if he had a problem with her age, Rodriguez replied, “I don’t have a problem with your age,” the charges state.
The agent told Rodriguez to meet at an apartment complex in Salt Lake County where the girl lived, claiming her mother would be gone. When Rodriguez arrived, he was taken into custody, the charges state.
“(Rodriguez) does not have ties to Utah. He is a resident of Fresno, California. (He) was in town as part of his military service with the California National Guard,” prosecutors stated in charging documents while requesting he be held without bail pending trial.
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