August 6, 2007

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Romney Defends His Religion
Jake Tapper/ABC News (08/05/2007)
In remarks he didn't know were being recorded by a DV camera, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney heatedly defended his religion during commercial breaks of an interview with conservative talk radio host Jan Mickelson at WHO 1040 in Iowa.

Romney says he erred on abortion
Susan Milligan/Boston Globe (08/06/2007)
Mitt Romney yesterday called his onetime support for abortion rights his greatest personal and political mistake, and sought to reassure voters during a Republican presidential debate that he is a reliable and determined foe of abortion, an issue important to the party's religious conservatives.

Republican hopefuls debate abortion, war
Stephen Dinan/Washington Times (08/06/2007)
Mitt Romney yesterday said his greatest mistake in life is that he used to be pro-choice on abortion, as he defended himself against attacks from fellow Republican presidential candidates.

MEDICAL ETHICS
Assisted suicide attacked from an unlikely front
James Ricci/Los Angeles Times (08/06/2007)
Disability rights groups, typically supportive of individual liberty, have helped defeat bills out of fear that HMOs would see a chance to cut care.

DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE
Preaching transformation, U.S. sect goes global
James B. Kelleher/Reuters (08/06/2007: signonsandiego.com)
Pentecostalism, a lively evangelical Christian movement that took off a century ago in Los Angeles, is one of the world's fastest-growing sects, with dedicated followings in places as far-flung as Brazil, Kenya and South Korea.

EDUCATION
Does the Bible have a place in public schools?
Seema Mehta/Los Angeles Times (08/05/2007)
New legal mandates and the rise of two national curricula are driving a surge in the number of classes — and the debate over how they're taught.

Online course helps laity manage parishes
Ann Rodgers/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (08/06/2007)
Elaine Herald, the parish manager of St. Theresa in New Cumberland, Cumberland County, in the Diocese of Harrisburg, helped design a new online master's degree program for parish managers at Duquesne University. Classes begin this fall.

Church use of school probed
Sara Neufeld/Baltimore Sun (08/06/2007)
A Baltimore principal is allowing a church his wife runs to hold services at his school for free, waiving $4,140 in annual fees for electricity and other basic costs, a Sun review has found. Ronald N. Shelley, executive director of the Stadium School, says the majority of the fees aren't applicable in his case because he's doing the janitorial work and providing security during the services himself.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
Hispanics in a Knot in Prince William
Theresa Vargas/Washington Post (08/04/2007)
Immigration lawyers and community activists say many undocumented immigrants could be turning to matrimony as a route to legal status or choosing to tie the knot before the county starts denying public services to those who are here illegally.

NONPROFITS
Islamic group provides medical understanding
Susan Hogan/Albach/Chicago Sun-Times (08/06/2007)
Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, IMANA helps to educate Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It has issued guidelines for Muslim patient care and on ethical issues from abortion to stem cells.

CRIME AND COURTS
Police: Handyman for Black Muslim group admits to editor killing
Associated Press (08/06/2007: chicoer.com)
OAKLAND, Calif.—A 19-year-old handyman for a Black Muslim splinter group who police said admitted to gunning down an Oakland journalist investigating the group, was expected to be charged Tuesday with his murder. Devaughndre Broussard, one of seven people arrested in Friday raids on Your Black Muslim Bakery, has confessed to fatally shooting Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey, 57, near the newspaper's offices a day earlier, Assistant Chief Howard Jordan told the San Francisco Chronicle.

DNA exoneration starts with Innocence Project gatekeeper
Christa Case/Christian Science Monitor (08/06/2007)
Politicized, angered by societal injustice, and fresh out of Cornell University in 1997, Huy Dao figured that if he was going to work for peanuts, he didn't want to be getting someone's coffee. So he took a job delivering freedom.

ARTS AND MEDIA
Madi-Zen Avenue marketing
Susan Hogan/Albach/Chicago Sun-Times (08/06/2007)
The pillaging of religious stories and symbols, long a staple of advertisers and marketers, is taking another twist, this time targeting Eastern religions.