General News

LDS Church Objects to Media Calling Polygamists 'Mormon' Reacting to a widely distributed Associated Press story on the FLDS Church of Hilldale, Utah and Colorado City, Airzona, the LDS Church is calling the use of the term "Mormon" in describing that church "misleading." To combat the perception that the FLDS group is somehow connected to the LDS Church, the Church's public relations department issued the press release on the commercial service PRNewswire. It is currently not available on the Church's website.

Local News

Ricks Says it Got Most BYU-Idaho Domains, But Not in .com While Ricks' officials tried to move fast last June in registering domain names for its new name, BYU-Idaho, when the announcement was made, others moved faster, registering most of the .com domain names before Ricks could get to them. In an article in yesterday's Spokane Spokesman-Review, Ricks' Robert Reed, who manages Internet services for the school, said he had targeted 36 different names as the most critical to protect the school from objectionable material that might be misrepresented as belonging to the school.

Sports

Lithuanian Swimmer is First Mormon Scheduled to Compete in Olympics Lithuanian swimmer Arunas Savickas will be the first Mormon athlete to compete in this year's Olympic Games, joining his team in qualifying heats in the 4x100m relay at a few minutes after noon, Sydney time (2am Eastern time in the US). Savickas, who is competing in his second Olympics, is a student at BYU. Also competing on the first day are Charlene Tagaloa, a member of the US women's indoor volleyball team, and Courtney Johnson, who is a member of the US women's water polo team.

LDS Gymnast Dantzscher Injured Ahead of Olympics LDS Gymnast Jamie Dantzscher was injured Thursday when she twisted an ankle in training, However, US Gymnastics team coach Bela Karolyi said Thursday he isn't concerned about the injury. "We know her abilities, we know her heart and what a fighter she is so I definitely hope to see her performing with the other team members."

Mormon Baseball All-Star Jeff Kent Possible MVP After making the National League's All-Star team for the first time this summer, LDS baseball player Jeff Kent is now being considered for the league's Most Valuable Player (MVP) award, confirming Kent's transformation from a good 2nd baseman to one of the best players in major league baseball today. Members of the Baseball Writers Association should receive ballots this week for the MVP and other annual baseball awards. Kent is included on the ballot, which must be postmarked October 2nd.

Politics

Flake Wins in AZ Primary; Keeps Seat in Mormon Delegation LDS Church member Jeff Flake won the Republican primary in Arizona's 1st district yesterday, virtually assuring that he will succeed fellow LDS Church member Matt Salmon in the US Congress. Salmon, who kept his pledge to serve only 3 terms, had endorsed Flake, possibly the most conservative of the five Republican candidates in the race.

People

LDS Hmong Woman's Activism Lifts Her Community An LDS woman in Sacramento is making a difference in her hmong community, helping women and their families make the transition from the traditional hmong culture to a hybrid more acceptable in the US. May Ying Ly was featured in a lengthy and interesting article in the Sacramento Bee outlining the difficulties hmong women face. The organization Ly founded, the Hmong Women's Heritage Association, was recently given a $400,000 grant from The California Endowment to help troubled families and help traditional hmong men bridge the generation gap with their mostly American grandchildren.

LDS Family's Immigration Nightmare Ends With the Portland office of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service under fire for its handling of deportations, an LDS couple was able to successfully resolve the threatened deportation of the wife last week, now 11-weeks into a high-risk pregnancy. LDS Church member Susan Williams, 32, a native of Guatemala, was threatened with deportation by the INS, in spite of the fact that she was married to a US citizen and had been a legal resident of the US for eight years.

Arts & Entertainment

LDS Church Will Keep Promised Valley Playhouse, Will Become Shops, Offices Promised Valley Playhouse, a 95-year-old theatre, will be redesigned with office and retail shops and additional parking spaces by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Talk of donating it to Salt Lake County never materialized despite hopes for a $24 to $30 million dollar project to transform it into a fine-arts facility.

Business

Mormon Stock Index off as Novell Announces Cuts Network software maker Novell, Inc. announced on Tuesday that it will lay off 16% of its workforce, leading investors to dump its stock, and helping to drop the Mormon Stock Indexx 3.23% for the shortened week. Other high-tech stocks in the index, including Caldera Systems, Corvis and Myriad Genetics were also off more than 10% as the broader stock market took a downturn and the high-tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped more than 6%.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]