General News

LDS Church Pledges 'Appropriate' Publicity During Olympics With Salt Lake City expecting hundreds of thousands of visitors for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, the LDS Church is trying to find a balance between proselyting and correcting visitors misconceptions about Mormonism. The Church is both preparing for the influx of visitors and setting policies to avoid overbearing proselyting.

Dedication Of South America For Gospel Commemorated The dedication of South America for the preaching of the gospel by Elder Melvin J. Ballard took place at 7 a.m. Friday December 25, 1925 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in Parque Tres de Febrero, in a small grove of weeping willows near the banks of the Rio de la Plata. The 75th anniversary open-air commemoration was held on the Buenos Aires temple grounds with ten stakes attending Saturday evening December 2nd and thirteen stakes on Sunday evening. Crowds of thousands, members and non-members, excitedly arrived in colorful old school buses, trucks, cars, or by walking, looking like a modern-day Children of Israel leaving Egypt scene.

Local News

Mesa Police Officers Claim Discrimination By LDS Superiors In a third major incident this year involving the heavily Mormon eatstern Phoenix suburbs of Mesa and Gilbert, a group of nine disgruntled police officers have filed a discrimination lawsuit against their department. The lawsuit claims that the department illegally favored other officers over them because of race and religion. The Mesa police chief is LDS and the officers claim that their superiors favored LDS officers over them.

Creches, Lights, Choirs Are Public Face of Mormon Christmas Looking at the events at LDS facilities around the U.S., it seems the Church's public face at Christmas time is made up of Christmas lights decorating temples and visitors centers, choirs performing Christmas music and exhibits of nativity creches at many local chapels around the country. The newest of these traditions is the exhibit of nativity creches, which in the past 18 years has grown from a pioneering exhibit in Ann Arbor, Michigan to as many as 50 annual exhibits at LDS chapels in North America.

LDS Man Murdered by Roommates in Arkansas Police in Fayetteville, Arkansas have arrested the two roommates of LDS Church member Keith VanMaren after they discovered VanMaren murdered in his bed early Wednesday morning. Acting on a tip from an informant, the police went to Van Maren's apartment and found him lying faceup in his bed, apparently strangled with a belt. The roommates, James Pugh, 29, and Joy Doss, 21, were in the apartment and arrested at that time.

Sports

Crowton Named BYU Head Football Coach Gary Crowton, Chicago Bears' offensive coordinator and former head coach at Louisiana Tech, today was introduced by Brigham Young University President Merrill J. Bateman as the 13th head football coach at BYU. "As we begin a new era of football at BYU, I can think of no other person who is as qualified and prepared to take over a program that has been under the direction of a living legend in LaVell Edwards, than Gary Crowton," said Bateman. "This is a wonderful day in the history of our tremendous athletics program."

Politics

LDS Vegetarian Questions Church's Hunting Preserve In a new article on the VegSource website, an LDS Church member questions the Church's ownership of a hunting preserve on the southwest shore of Utah lake in Utah. Jim Catano, who first become vegetarian for health reasons before developing a distaste for killing animals, looks at the past statements of LDS Church presidents and finds them incompatible with the Church's preserve. However, Catano is not able to give the Church's side of the picture.

Internet

Many LDS Palm Sites, Same Content The seven or more LDS sites that provide resources for members with Palm OS handheld computers are trying to provide what handheld computers are good for -- frequently used reference information. But that means there are a limited number of useful files -- and most of these sites have them all.

People

Faith Amid Tragedy Barry and Trisha Topham, like most couples, have had their share of trials. With the sudden loss of their daughter, Susannah 23, who died after being struck by a car while riding her bike and the near-death of their son, Dan who three years ago was stung by a yellow jacket and left with an allergic reaction that caused severe brain damaged, they share the same grief but have come to terms with the tragedies in different ways. "I'm always the optimist and Barry's the pessimist," says Trisha. "This too shall not pass," said Barry turning a familiar comforting phrase upside down.

Arts & Entertainment

God's Army Distributor Reports Record-Shattering Sales Eight months after it's world premiere, God's Army is still making headlines. The breakthrough independent film that chronicled several weeks in the lives of a group of Mormon missionaries in Los Angeles broke records at the box office, and is continuing that trend on video.

Business

Tribune-Deseret News Dispute Explodes After AT&T Agrees To Sell The continuing dispute between the Salt Lake Tribune and the LDS Church-owned Deseret News exploded last Friday after the Tribune's owner, AT&T Broadband, reached an agreement to sell the newspaper to the Denver-based MediaNews Group. The Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Company, which has a contract to run the newspaper, immediately filed a lawsuit to block the sale, claiming it has the right to purchase the Tribune in 20021 under an earlier contract. The Tribune also published a series of articles on Saturday and Sunday accusing the Deseret News and the LDS Church of orchestrating the sale to force changes in the joint operating agreement (JOA) the newspaper has with the Deseret News and to silence the Tribune on issues sensitive to the LDS Church.

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