GOP congressmen have slammed the president over the government's shutdown for shuttering clinical cancer trials for children at the National Institute of Health. Ironically, the GOP's resolution calls for severe cuts to the NIH.---

Top of the Alty World

“No, the House GOP Isn't Standing Up for Kids with Cancer”--Mother Jones

College students hit back against carbon on campus with grassroots divestment campaigns to get Indiana's higher education to stop investing in coal-extraction companies.--Nuvo

Pennsylvania's governor compares same-sex marriage to incest in a recent interview.--Think Progress

A group of Republican governors, like Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, are trying to recapture their party's brand from extremist congressmen in D.C.--Slate

Top of Alty Utah

A new report shows improvement in Utah elementary and high schools.--Utah Political Capitol

As a mayoral race heats up in Cottonwood Heights, so do claims of police harassment against local businesses.--Salt Lake City Weekly

At a Park City meeting, U.S. Olympic Committee members voted to amend the Olympic charter to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation.--Q Salt Lake

One state senator is proposing to change the law so that the Utah attorney general is an appointed position, but do states that appoint their attorneys general have ethics issues like those that have plagued Utah Attorney General John Swallow?--Salt Lake City Weekly

Rantosphere

Utah Policy's Bob Bernick reflects on how the shutdown and the debt-ceiling crisis could affect Utahns and the leaders they vote for.

“If the GOP-controlled U.S. House lets the United States default on its debt obligations later this month, the stock market will crash.How many Utahns have some of their 401k money in stocks? How will they react if they lost, nearly overnight, 10, 20 or 30 percent of their 401k value? This is their retirement, their children’s college money, or even money to help pay for an LDS mission or two.You hurt your voters this badly and they are not going to forget. Or maybe not forgive.They may not vote for the moderate Democrat in the next U.S. House or Senate race. But they may certainly vote for a Republican man or woman who DIDN’T throw their investments onto the trash heap.”--Utah Policy

The Long View

A look at how the feds busted “The Dread Pirate” who ran Silk Road, an online marketplace for guns, drugs and other illicit goods and services.

“Sure, you could buy meth, LSD, cannabis, heroin, and MDMA on the Silk Road, but the hidden website wasn't (just) about drugs. Silk Road was, said its owner, about freedom. In January 2012, as part of a "State of the Road Address" posted in the site's discussion forum, the Dread Pirate Roberts explained the site's goal: "To grow into a force to be reckoned with that can challenge the powers that be and at last give people the option to choose freedom over tyranny." To that end, the Dread Pirate Roberts built the Silk Road marketplace in 2011 as a "hidden" service accessible only over the encrypted Tor network.”--Ars Technica