After more than three years since he was arrested, Army whistleblower Private Bradley Manning begins his court martial proceedings for leaking a trove of secret cables to WikiLeaks.---

Top of the Alty World

“Bradley Manning Trial”—Democracy Now!

Mother Jones offers a handy guide for why Turkey is roiling in protests following a plan to pave a park and put a shopping mall on top.—Mother Jones

A whistleblower says that SEC rules may have prevented regulators from even pursuing Bernie Madoff, the Ponzi artist who defrauded more than $50 billion from investors.—Rolling Stone

Defense attorneys for George Zimmerman, the man who shot Trayvon Martin, have backtracked on the claim that they had evidence of Martin’s friends beating up a homeless man.—Slate

Top of Alty Utah

19 Utah mayors send letters to Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, urging they support an upcoming immigration bill.—Utah Political Capitol

A report lists Salt Lake City as one of the top cities in the nation for adopting sustainability practices.—Salt Lake City Weekly

A local watchdog site takes aim at police, prosecutors, prisons and politicians.—Salt Lake City Weekly

The FBI and the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office are looking into an alleged forgery of a Utah Supreme Court Justice's signature.—KCPW

Rantosphere

Utah Policy’s Bryan Schott considers outgoing state GOP Chair Thomas Wright’s warnings about the future of the party.

“Utah’s demographics are changing. The minority population is growing, and the only Republican member of the Legislature who fits that description is Sen. Brian Shiozawa. That’s not gonna be good enough moving forward. Yes, the party elected James Evans, who is black, as its new chairman. But, without a concerted effort to woo minority voters and get them to the polls, it’s not going to matter much.”—Salt Lake City Weekly

The Long View

Salt Lake City Weekly looks at critics’ complaints of the efficiency of the Utah Transit Authority.

“Since around 1970, the modern rail-transit boom has led American cities to spend close to $100 billion building, and billions more operating, new rail-transit lines,” wrote public-policy analyst Randal O’Toole in a Cato Institute paper called “Defining Success, the Case Against Rail Transit,” published in 2010. This analysis indicates that these new lines almost always waste taxpayer dollars. Instead of providing cost-effective transportation, rail transit mainly transfers wealth from taxpayers to rail contractors and downtown property owners."-- Salt Lake City Weekly