January 31, 2008

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Obama wants summit with Muslim countries
Reuters (01/31/2008)
PARIS - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told a French magazine in an interview that if he wins office, he will hold a summit with Muslim countries to better the United States' image in the world.

Will evangelicals in southwest Missouri stick with Huckabee?
Tim Townsend and Todd C. Frankel/St. Louis Post-Dispatch (01/31/2008)
McCain was the favorite Republican in last week's Post-Dispatch poll of 800 likely voters in Missouri. Huckabee ranked second statewide, but in one corner, Republicans preferred him over McCain.

Assessing McCain’s Evangelical Appeal
Matt Phillips/Wall Street Journal (01/30/2008)
Arizona Sen. John McCain hasn’t been what you’d call a darling of the influential evangelical Christian arm of the Republican Party. Yet in Tuesday’s Florida primary, he showed he could keep up with the out-and-out favorite of evangelicals, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

ABORTION
Abortion provider must turn over files
Stephanie Simon/Los Angeles Times (01/31/2008)
One of the nation's few late-term abortion doctors was ordered Wednesday to turn over about 2,000 patient medical records to a Kansas grand jury investigating his practice. Abortion opponents hope that the records will lead to further criminal charges against Dr. George Tiller, who already is facing 19 misdemeanor counts stemming from late-second and third-trimester abortions at his clinic in Wichita.

DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE
Mormon Women Emerging From Shadows
Eric Gorski/Associated Press (01/31/2008: ap.google.com)
No one can profess to know how women's issues will be handled by the successor to church president Gordon B. Hinckley, who died Sunday at 97. But few expect major changes along the lines of opening the Mormon priesthood — an office granted only to Mormon men — to women. But women could still emerge as stronger voices of the church.

Group seeks Methodist vote on SMU land leasing for Bush library
Paul Meyer/Dallas Morning News (01/30/2008)
A group of Methodists is stepping up efforts to force a church vote in July on whether Southern Methodist University has the right to lease out land for the George W. Bush Presidential Library and policy institute.

FAITH LEADERS
New Mormon president has long years of service
Peggy Fletcher Stack and Bob Mims/Religion News Service (01/31/2008: usatoday.com)
SALT LAKE CITY — Long before he became a counselor to Gordon Hinckley, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who died Sunday, Thomas S. Monson was well-known to the Mormon faithful. Monson has spent his entire career in the service of the LDS Church, working alongside every Mormon president since 1963, when he was named one of the 12 apostles at the age of 36.

ARTS AND MEDIA
Eli Stone: Jonny Lee Miller Takes a Leap of Faith
Steve Pond/TV Guide (01/31/2008)
In Eli Stone, which treats social issues with a twisted sense of humor, the title character finds himself a prophet of sorts, drawn to the kind of good deeds sure to raise eyebrows inside a high- powered law firm.