Month: February 2026

By Curtis Booker

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    PROVO, Utah (KSL) — The Utah Lake Authority says carp remains a vital issue impacting the lake, and they are once again enlisting the help of the community to remove as many of them as possible.

The agency will hold its second annual “Great Carp Hunt,” challenging anglers to catch as many carp as possible while earning cash.

The Utah Lake Authority says carp heightens numerous issues that disrupt the lake’s ecosystem by muddying the water, destroying native vegetation and continues to pose risks for the June sucker, a fish species native to the lake.

“We have been able to kind of help save the June sucker, but a lot more work needs to be done,” said Kelly Cannon-O’Day, spokesperson for Utah Lake Authority. “We don’t talk about silver-bullet solutions, but getting our carp numbers down will make other problems a lot easier to kind of start tackling and taking care of.”

Utah Lake near Saratoga Springs is pictured in an undated photo. The Utah Lake Authority has announced its second annual “Great Carp Hunt” in efforts to protect the ecosystem. Utah Lake near Saratoga Springs is pictured in an undated photo. The Utah Lake Authority has announced its second annual “Great Carp Hunt” in efforts to protect the ecosystem. (Photo: Chelsey Allder, Deseret News) She noted the environmental benefits of removing carp, including reducing sediment and nutrients that feed harmful algal blooms.

Utah Lake Authority hosted its inaugural carp hunt competition in 2025; the nearly yearlong contest resulted in around 30,000 pounds of carp being removed from the lake, according to Cannon-O’Day.

Overall, the Utah Lake Authority said 4,686 invasive carp were removed from the lake during the 2025 competition.

A group of competitors, ‘Team BPS,’ won last year’s grand prize of $10,000, and other prizes were awarded during monthly tournaments.

Organizers are taking a different approach this year, as prize money will be a bounty program. For each fish caught, the team will receive $1.50, with an additional $1.50 contributed by the Utah Lake Authority to the grand prize pool.

“The more fish you catch, the more chances that you have — or the higher your chances to win the pot,” Cannon-O’Day said.

Exact dates and locations for each tournament event are still being finalized, but they’re tentatively scheduled to occur twice a month between April 11 and June 27.

The 2026 tournament is being divided into shore fishing and boat fishing categories, based on feedback from competitors, according to Cannon-O’Day.

The team or person who catches the most fish over the entire season wins the prize pot. Two prize pots for each category will be up for grabs.

Cannon-O’Day said Utah Lake Authority is trying the bounty system this year to cut down on the cost to hold the contest, while still making it attractive for potential challengers.

“The hope is that we’re trying to remove as many carp as possible, (and) also being more cost effective with our prizes,” she said.

Cannon-O’Day said that while the carp hunt helps the Utah Lake Authority’s efforts to keep the species population in the lake from growing, it’ll take more aggressive measures to remove large quantities of carp from the ecosystem.

Those ambitious measures, such as invasive species management efforts, will likely require additional funding, which the agency has been working closely with Utah’s congressional delegation to secure, according to Cannon-O’Day.

“It’s estimated that there are between 3 (million) to 4 million carp in Utah Lake, which sounds like a lot — and it is a lot — but at one point there were 10 million,” Cannon-O’Day told KSL. “So numbers are down dramatically, but we need to keep pushing those numbers down.”

Local leaders are also seemingly invested in the effort. Former Provo Mayor Michelle Kaufusi, who also serves as chair of the Utah Lake Authority board, said during a press conference last October that the plan is to rid the lake of carp and invasive plants by 2034.

“In Utah, we believe nothing is impossible. Carp, we are coming for you, and we won’t stop until Utah Lake’s waters are clear again,” she said during the 2025 Utah Lake Symposium.

As of now, those interested in participating in the 2026 carp hunt can register early through Feb 28. General registration begins March 2.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Stephanie Stahl

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    HADDON TOWNSHIP, New Jersey (KYW) — February is Heart Awareness Month, and with Valentine’s Day approaching, the holiday holds special meaning for a South Jersey family.

In Haddon Township, 5-year-old Crew Dawson cuts out paper hearts with his family for Valentine’s Day weekend — however, his heart is a little more complicated.

“He’s had three open heart surgeries. At least two heart caths,” Crew’s mom Jana Dawson said. “There’s been a lot of scary moments but this kid is just so resilient.”

Crew’s fortitude earned him the nickname “Gritty.”

“His personality is very much like the flyers mascot — he’s bubbly and little crazy,” Crew’s dad Jared Dawson said. “He just had a spirit about him that was not going to give up.”

In his customized T-shirt, Crew and his family are helping the American Heart Association raise awareness for Heart Month.

At school, Crew is jumping rope as part of the “kids heart challenge,” where students learn about heart health, and help raise awareness and money for the heart association.

Patty Sayles is a Physical Education teacher who runs the heart challenge at Crew’s school and says she loves the program.

The family is focusing on fun activities, knowing Crew faces a lifetime of heart issues that he’s tackling with grit.

“Its a journey I never thought I’d be on,” Jana Dawson said. “You don’t know what this life is like until you’re in it.”

For now this journey is about celebrating love and joy.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Deanie Wimmer

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    MILAN, Italy (KSL) — Everen Brown is an Olympic superfan, attending almost 20 Olympic Games. After seeing all the preparation and training he does to pull it off, you may think he deserves a medal of his own.

“For many years, I’ve billed myself as Utah’s No.1 Olympic fan,” he said.

He’s got the swag and the stats to prove it. Brown has attended a total of 18 Olympic Games, 500 events and will attend 29 events just in Milan.

“I like the Olympic spirit of trying to bring the world together and have a party,” Brown said.

He was there when swimmer Michael Phelps made history, and again, for gymnast Simone Biles.

After all these years, does he have a favorite Olympics?

“Well, favorite Olympics, that’s like trying to say who’s your favorite child,” Brown said.

What about his favorite event?

“My favorite event is ice hockey. Primarily men’s U.S.A. is the team that I follow,” he said. “I played hockey as a kid, and I love hockey, and I know how to win at hockey. All I got to do is coach Team U.S.A. (at) one of these Olympics.”

Brown said the key to doing all this affordably is to plan in advance before prices go up to Olympic gold.

“Milano has tickets that start at €30. That’s cheaper, to get a preliminary hockey ticket at €30, than it is to go to a Utah Mammoth game,” he said.

Like every athlete, he has his training regimen. He gets all the shopping and sightseeing out of the way before the Opening Ceremony.

“Then once the games start, I just focus on the competitions,” Brown said.

He said he used to think the Olympics were just for the athletes.

“But it’s also for the fans,” he said.

For all his effort, KSL surprised Brown with a medal ceremony of his own. Granted, our medal was crafted out of a luggage tag and a lanyard purchased from the Olympics gift shop.

“Oh wow, I’m happy to accept this honor on behalf of the academy and KSL and the Olympic movement,” Brown said.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by KSL’s editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Camryn Justice

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    CLEVELAND (WEWS) — Katie Spotz is from Mentor, but her work takes her all over the world. That has been by foot, by bicycle, by swimming, and of course, by boat. Spotz is an endurance athlete who has pushed her body to the limit time and time again, all for a good cause, and her next challenge is her biggest yet.

Spotz first made history 16 years ago when she became the youngest woman to ever row across the Atlantic Ocean solo. She was 22 at the time, spending 70 days at sea on a small rowboat, traveling unassisted from Senegal to French Guiana.

Before that, Spotz became the first person to swim the entire 325-mile length of the Alleghany River. She’s gone on to accomplish feats that include setting a Guinness World Record by running 11 ultramarathons (races longer than a standard marathon of 26.2 miles) in 11 days across Ohio, and winning a nonstop 200-mile ultramarathon.

A dedicated athlete and U.S. Coast Guard veteran, Spotz doesn’t stray from a challenge. But her tests of endurance aren’t simply for her to add her name to record books. When Spotz sets out on a challenge, it’s with purpose.

“To date, over 50,000 people have gained access to clean water all around the world through these endurance challenges and the goal for this upcoming challenge is to help 100,000 people in Fiji gain access to clean water. What’s really exciting about that is that if—when—we reach that target, it will mean that we’ll reach a point where everyone [in Fuji] has clean water, so it is a humanitarian first as well,” Spotz said.

Spotz is not only an endurance athlete but a clean water activist.

Her challenges include fundraising efforts that have helped nearly 300 projects and impacted people in 19 countries.

The goal Spotz mentioned is next, will come if she can do something no other American woman has done before.

“In December, I will be setting off from Lima, Peru to Papua New Guinea to row across the Pacific Ocean. So it’s a 10,000-mile row, no follow boat, completely unassisted, unsupported, nonstop,” Spotz said, smiling with excitement.

You read all of the right. A 10,000-mile solo row across the width of the Pacific Ocean.

Spotz spends hours a day at The Foundry, a rowing club in downtown Cleveland, training on the simulators.

She’s working on her nutrition, finding lightweight, high-calorie items to pack in the top-of-the-line boat currently being built for her journey.

Her food and clothes, medical gear, and every other item she must have prepared for her eight-month trek have to fit on the lightweight but extremely durable boat. There’s no one there to hand her something she forgot, something she’s run out of.

Spotz will be in her boat, which includes a small cabin overhead where she’ll sleep or shelter when needed, by herself for two-thirds of a year.

She won’t have a follow boat, and her only way to achieve any assistance is an emergency beacon to flag near ships or the Coast Guard if she isn’t able to go on.

“I think the Atlantic taught me a lot that I will definitely bring with me on the Pacific. No matter how hard, no matter how overwhelming something is, it is temporary. It’s really accepting challenges rather than fighting them,” Spotz said.

Now, Spotz doesn’t anticipate smooth sailing—or rowing, rather—for the entire journey. She’s very aware of the challenges ahead.

“The ocean is the ocean and it will probably present a lot of challenges. I probably will have 40-foot waves. There will be times where there’s just buckets of water on my head all the time. I probably will have salt sores and all of these things,” Spotz said. “More than anything, I think this will be a real mental challenge. There is a very big difference between two or three months and [eight] months at sea, so I’m very curious to see how I hold up and what challenges I might face psychologically just all that time alone.”

Spotz is planning to take some normalcy with her, even finding a way to pack pizza. Now, that pizza does include an MRE tortilla base, tomato sauce and a shelf-stable cheese packet, but it will be pizza nonetheless.

“I found a way,” Spotz said, grinning. “I will have pizza and sushi out there.”

If there’s room, she might even bring her red light therapy mask.

Spotz’s life in a few short months will be the ocean. Leaving her boat will only mean jumping into the sea to scrape barnacles off the bottom. It’s a massive test of strength, both physical and mental.

But the journey, for Spotz, comes with even more rewards.

She experienced that 16 years ago in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Sometimes when I was feeling a little bit low or unmotivated, pods of dolphins would show up, it seemed like right when I needed it,” Spotz said.”I saw sharks, fish, sea turtles.”

The awe-inspiring sights of nature are something Spotz is looking forward to.

But the biggest motivator of all isn’t seeing nature or making history—for Spotz, it’s making life better for others.

“Yes, it’s hard, but there’s a lot of joy, there’s a lot of purpose and gratitude to just be able to do it at all,” Spotz said. “It’s a privilege to be able to spend eight months on a boat rowing for clean water.”

Spotz is currently accepting donations and sponsors for her endurance journey.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.