General News

Ignoring LDS Suggestion, Vermont House Supports Gay 'Civil Unions' Acting because of a Vermont Supreme Court edict last fall requiring that the state give same-sex couples equal benefits to those enjoyed by heterosexual couples, the Vermont House of Representatives passed a bill creating 'civil unions' for same-sex couples, but specifying that marriages are limited to heterosexual couples. The controversial bill passed on a vote of 76 to 69 and now moves to the state Senate where it is expected to be approved. Vermont Governor Howard Dean has indicated that he will sign the legislation.

Hinckley's Mountain Meadows Efforts Made Limited Progress While the LDS Church sought last fall to heal the wounds opened for 142 years, the legal and practical issues of the attempt limited what could be said and how it could be delivered. That, combined with the accidental discovery of the remains of 29 of the victims thwarted much of what was gained by building the memorial.

UVSC To Study Mormons; College to pioneer LDS cultural program Utah Valley State College will kick-off a new Mormon Cultural Studies program tomorrow, starting with a day-long conference on Mormonism. The program is unique at colleges and universities in Utah, and makes UVSC the first to embrace Mormonism as a subject worthy of study. The program will be part of a new religious-studies program to be housed in the college's Center for the Study of Ethics.

Local News

Man Convicted Of Slaying LDS Missionaries In 1974 Faces English Charges Robert Elmer Kleasen, once convicted of killing two LDS missionaries, will face charged Friday in a British court for lying to police when he applied for a gun dealer's license. Kleasen, a U. S. citizen and former LDS Church member, spent time on Texas' death row for the murder of Elder Mark Fischer and Elder Gary Darley in 1974. Released when a search warrant was declared invalid, Kleasen spent 15 years in prison for gun charges in New York. When he was released, Kleasen went to England.

Two Buses of LDS Members, Missionaries Were On Bridge That Collapsed A temporary Bailey-type bridge connecting the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa with its sister city, Comayaguela, collapsed early in March, endangering 98 LDS Church members and missionaries on two buses on the bridge. The bridge, constructed by the U.S. military last year to replace the Juan Ramon Molina bridge washed away by Hurricane Mitch, collapsed as the busses, two trucks, a taxi, a pick-up truck and a jeep combined to exceed the 40-ton weight limit on the bridge by 20 tons.

LDS Doctor Had Cache Of Illegal Weapons, But Nothing Connected To Attack On Business Partner When police searched the home of the late Larry C. Ford, the LDS Church member and Biofem executive suspected in the attack on his business partner, they did find a cache of 17 illegal weapons, 40 to 50 more legal weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. But the weapons were rusting and hadn't been used for several years, leaving investigators without any connection between the weapons and the attack on Biofem's James Patrick Riley. The weapons did not include the gun used on Riley.

Sports

Two LDS SLOC Execs Could Face Charges After federal prosecutors filed a plea agreement with former U.S. Olympic Committee official Alfredo LaMont, speculation has centered on whether or not LDS Church members Tom Welch and Dave Johnson will be prosecuted for their role in the Salt Lake Olympic bid scandal as a result. Documents on file with the U.S. Department of Justice say that Salt Lake bid committee "Officers 1 and 2" conspired with LaMont.

People

Most Eligible LDS Bachelor Gets Married The most eligible LDS bachelor, Steve Young was scheduled to get married today. Young was to marry girlfriend Barbara Graham in the new Kailua-Kona Temple in Hawaii. The location of the wedding had previously been kept secret to avoid publicity.

Arts & Entertainment

LDS Film God's Army Reports Strong Local Box Office Revenue According to Salt Lake Area Box Office Statistics provided by ACNielsen EDI, Inc., the LDS film God's Army is currently #2 and rising in the region. The film is just slightly behind the nationally released film "Mission to Mars," and is expected to take over the #1 slot by the end of the week. "God's Army" is a film by LDS director Richard Dutcher is about LDS missionaries serving in the Los Angeles area.

'Standing for Something' Joins Another Bestseller List President Gordon B. Hinckley's book "Standing for Something" remained at #4 in the Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous category of the New York Times Book Review's Best Seller's list and also appeared on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list. In addition, it has seen an upsurge in sales on Amazon.com that placed it at #28 in its sales ranking last week.

Business

Tribune Purchase Of Times-Mirror Leaves LDS CEO Rich But Tainted The $6.5 billion purchase of Times Mirror, parent of the Los Angeles Times by the Chicago-based Tribune Co., parent of the Chicago Tribune, leaves Times Mirror CEO Mark Willes, a member of the LDS Church and nephew of President Gordon B. Hinckley, without a job after five years of trying to change the way the Times is run. Willes leaves Times Mirror a multimillionaire, if he wasn't before, with his stock alone valued at more than $46 million. But the deal also leaves Willes somewhat tainted, both because of his controversial attempts to break down the 'chinese wall' between the editorial and business sides of the newspaper publishing business and because he failed to meet his goal of raising the circulation of the Times by 500,000 or 1 million subscribers and increase revenue.

Will Zions-First Security Merger Fall Apart? In the wake of a poor earnings report from First Security Corp. and the subsequent stock drop, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. announced Monday that investors could no longer rely on its February 17th opinion that the merger is a good deal for Zion's shareholders. The announcement puts the merger in doubt and may require that it be reconfigured if not cancelled.

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