General News

Polygamist Green Given Five Years, $78,000 Judgement

News that polygamist Tom Green had been given a five-year jail sentence and ordered to pay $78,000 in restitution for fraudulent welfare payments spread worldwide this past weekend. The case had already attracted worldwide attention when Green was prosecuted and then convicted in May and June, and now the news of his sentence was carried on all major international news wires, including the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Agence France Press as well as other local news wires. The news was carried in virtually every news outlet.

Elder Nelson Visits Brazil's Top Elected Officials

Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints paid a visit to several of Brazil's top elected officials on August 15th and 16th, sharing information about the Church's worldwide efforts in support of families. Elder Nelson met with Brazilian Vice President Marco Antonio de Oliveira Maciel, Aecio Neves, President of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies (equivalent of the US House of Representatives), Edson Lobao, acting president of Brazil's Senate, and of its Congress, and Jose Serra, Brazil's minister of Health.

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Local News

Classroom Lease to LDS Church on Hold

A plan to lease a high school classroom to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is on hold amid delays at the county attorney's office and criticism from civil rights groups, leading some 200 LDS students at Higly High School to be bussed to a nearby charter school for seminary. The plan to lease a classroom in an unoccupied building on the high school's campus was approved by the Higley school board on August 21st, contingent on the approval of the Maricopa County Attorney's office.

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Sports

'Mormon' Attack on Tiger Woods' Records Fails

A double-barrell attack on Tiger Woods' US Amateur Championship records came up empty Friday as both defending US Amateur Champion and LDS Church member Jeff Quinney and 17-year-old Danile Summerhays lost in the tournament's quarterfinals. Quinney lost by just one hole to his former ASU teammate and fellow Oregonian Brian Nosler while Summerhays, the youngest player in the quarterfinals, lost to Robert Hamilton, the oldest player.

Will Best-in-Nation Prep QB Serve Mission?

LDS youth Ben Olson, considered by some the best prep quarterback in the US, is facing the decision that every serious LDS high school athlete must face: whether or not, and when, to serve an LDS mission. In fact, Olson has researched the consequences, "No quarterback has gone on a mission, come back and really done anything in college football," he says. "I'd be the one to change that."

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Politics

Mormon Woman to be First to Head BLM

US President George W. Bush announced this week that he will nominate Kathleen Burton Clarke as director of the Bureau of Land Management. If confirmed, Clarke will take on one of the most politically contentious jobs in Washington, as the position has been a lightening rod for fights between environmentalists and agricultural and mining interests. The fights have left the bureau led by acting directors for much of the Clinton administration.

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Internet

Internet: New Support Web Sites

This week a number of nice looking sites cover both various support groups and personal businesses. Both LDSAdopt and Two of Us For Now look at adoption issues and infertility, providing support in pleasant sites. Best looking is ProMoms, a support website for full-time moms run by an LDS woman. The site also has an LDS-specific page.

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People

Mormon Couple Arrested in McDonald's Scam

A Mormon real estate developer and his wife are among the eight people arrested in a scam to defraud fast food restaurant chain McDonald's of the winning game pieces in its popular "Monopoly" and similar promotions. Noah D. "Dwight" Baker and his wife Linda Baker are charged with recruiting friends and relatives to cash in the winning game pieces, in a fraud that so far totals $13.8 million.

LDS Teachings and Education Behind New Gilbert Schools Superintendent

Brad Barrett became the new Superintendent of the Gilbert Unified School District this summer and gives the credit to his father, Jeff Barrett, who taught him the value of an education along with a strong belief in the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "There were no excuses about going on in education, " Barrett said. "It was just expected."

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Arts & Entertainment

Unknown Teichert Painting Discovered in Utah High School

Everyone dreams of a great find when they dig through their attics and basements and that is what the director of the Springville Museum of Art found in a dirty, folded canvas in the Richfield High School safe. Vern Swanson and associate museum director, Sharon Gray, traveled to more than 100 Utah public schools to inventory art works as part of the museum's statewide Art Partnership Project. On August 24 they discovered "the art find of the decade." The dirty canvas was an oil painting by Utah-born artist Minerva Teichert depicting an American Indian on horseback about to slay a bison.

Memorial Service Held for Eugene England

Hundreds of friends, students, and family members of Eugene England gathered Saturday, August 25, in the Provo Tabernacle to pay tribute to the writer and scholar. England, 68, died of brain cancer Friday August 17, and was buried the following day in a private ceremony.

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Business

Covey Attacked for London, Ontario Schools Use of Book, Seminars

Parents, teachers and activists in the London, Ontario schools are attacking their school board over the used of training materials and seminars produced by Franklin-Covey, the firm founded by LDS Church members Hyrum Smith and Stephen R. Covey. But while the complaints allege that the money could be better used and that the materials don't help make better teachers and instruction in the district, they also claim that the materials promote the teachings of the LDS Church. And some of the complaints seem to object simply because Stephen R. Covey is Mormon.

Amid Saginaw Well Complaints, LDS Church Reaches Out to Neighbors

A ruling by Michigan Circuit Judge William Crane last week, against two Saginaw County farms owned by Walther Farms and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, prompted representatives from the Church to visit 26 nearby homes. The court charged that the two farms must pay $4,000 each for water storage tanks to the 22 families that lie within a half-mile of the irrigation wells, a distance the court concluded that shows a connection between irrigation and the resident's problems.

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