General News

LDS Church Wants to be Called 'Church of Jesus Christ'

A New York Times article yesterday reported that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will begin a new push to get journalists, Church members and the public to refer to the Church by its official name, or a newly suggested alternative, the "Church of Jesus Christ." The effort is just the latest step in the Church's efforts to discourage the familiar term "Mormon Church" and the first to make the suggestion that the term "Church of Jesus Christ" be used instead of "LDS Church."

Church Going All-Out at Today's Press Conference

The LDS Church's press conference today announcing the release of its "Freedman's Bank" CD-ROM will be a major news event, if the Church's plans are any indication. The press conference will be held simultaneously in 13 different locations, including Washington DC's National Press Club. Attending the conference in addition to LDS Church officials will be US Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Senator Harry Reid, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Reginald Washington, a genealogy specialist at the National Archives.

Church of Jesus Christ (LDS Church) Now Fifth Largest

An analysis of data released Friday by the National Council of Churches and other sources shows that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is now the fifth largest denomination in the United States. The NCC data comes from its 2001 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, the most comprehensive source of Church statistics. But the data for the Church of Jesus Christ included in the book is dated December 31, 1999, and subsequent growth appears to have pushed the Church from sixth place to fifth.

Local News

Look at Harlem Block Discovers LDS Church Among Changes

Six years after it first looked at a then-drug-infested block of 129th Street in Harlem, the New York Times has come back with a new three-part series on the block and how it has changed. The series, which started Monday and ends today, discovered residents bettering their lives and coping with work instead of welfare under recent laws. It also found developers entering Harlem and this block, renovating buildings and in the process pushing out long-time poor residents and bringing in more affluent White and Hispanic residents. And, it found a Church of Jesus Christ (LDS Church) on the block, trying to integrate its Harlem members with the mostly White and Hispanic members in the rest of the New York New York Stake.

Brisbane Temple Court Case Settled; Groundbreaking in March

The LDS Church and the Brisbane City Council reached a compromise Wednesday that settled the Church's lawsuit against the city and cleared the way for the Temple's groundbreaking ceremony in March. The lawsuit challenged restrictions the city had placed on the building, and the settlement removes some of those restrictions.

Sports

Despite Reduction, Clerical Error Costs Bower Four Games

While the NCAA reduced the suspension penalty for Wisconsin's LDS guard Ricky Bower, he will still miss a total of four games because of the clerical error, along with 17 of the team's practices. Bower, who was declared ineligible last week, suffered the suspension because his high school failed to send transcripts to the NCAA. In part, his return late last summer from an LDS mission contributed to the ineligibility because Wisconsin had already done its final check of athlete academic compliance before Bower committed to play there.

LDS High School Senior Excels in Three Sports

Kim Eastin, a senior at Sunnyslope, plays incredible defense in three sports. During the final soccer game of the season, she stopped 21 shots in the second round 4A playoff game. She was voted the Skyline's Defensive Player of the Year in volleyball. And now she's gearing up for the softball season.

Politics

Moscow Ruling for Jehovah's Witnesses Strengthens Religious Freedom

A Moscow judge Friday refused to liquidate the Jehovah's Witnesses' Moscow community, giving the sect the victory in a two-year-long court battle. The case has attracted international attention as a test of Russia's controversial 1997 law that forced relatively recent denominations, including the LDS Church, to undergo a complicated registration process.

Internet

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People

Shaw Picks Up Olympic Interfaith Baton from Late LDS Colleague Barnes

William Shaw is feeling the pressure of performing for the 2002 Olympic Games. Shaw is not an athlete but he's been handed a Herculean task with a very short timeline. Newly appointed head of the Olympic Interfaith Roundtable, Shaw has to take it to the next level. Alan Barnes, the original founder of the Olympic Interfaith Roundtable, an ecumenical group focused on fulfilling the religious needs of the athletes and visitors planning to attend the 2002 Olympic Games, passed away unexpectedly on Jan. 2, 2001.

LDS Man's Attempt to Row Accross Atlantic Swamped

It's official! The "Brother of Jared" rowboat was officially certified as an ocean crossing by the Ocean Rowing Society headquartered in London last week shortly after Richard Jones of Utah rowed the 30-foot boat through the Caicos Passage just south of the Bahamas and clear of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet, the voyage officially ended when a tow from a passing fishing vessel swamped the rowboat causing Jones to abort his winter-long odyssey less than 400 miles from his intended destination of the Florida mainland.

Arts & Entertainment

Mormon Writer and Academic Eugene England has Surgery for Brain Tumor

Well-known Mormon writer and academic Eugene England was hospitalized following surgery yesterday to remove two golf-ball sized cysts from behind his eye and a portion of a brain tumor in the right front lobe of his brain. England is a writer in residence at Utah Valley State College and a retired BYU professor best known for his books "Dialogues with Myself" and "Why the Church Is as True as the Gospel," and for co-founding the academic journal "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought."

Maren Ord's Waiting

19-year-old LDS musician Maren Ord's first album, Waiting, was released yesterday, with newspaper articles in her hometown of Edmonton cheering her as Canada's next pop star and praising her practical yet sophisticated nature. But the album's release starts the beginning of hard work for Ord as she promotes the album in her attempt to launch a successful pop singing career.

Business

Nauvoo Changes Coming from Mormon Investors, Not Just Temple

Despite the efforts of Nauvoo's city government to forestall changes, Mormon investors and entrepreneurs are making that change inevitable as they try to cash in on the LDS Church's new Nauvoo Temple. Although the town has in place a moratorium on new buildings, investors are looking at unincorporated land around the city, where its rules don't apply.

Whither Iomega?

Iomega is a high-tech company in the predominantly Mormon community of Roy, Utah. As the largest publicly traded company based in Utah, Iomega has brought technology jobs and money to many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Iomega is tracked on the Mormon Stock Index because its chairman, David J.Dunn, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and because of the many members that are employed there.

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