February 20, 2008

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS
Obama surges past Clinton
John Whitesides/Reuters (02/20/2008)
MILWAUKEE - Barack Obama has surged past Hillary Clinton to open a big national lead in the Democratic presidential race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday. Obama also leads Republican front-runner John McCain in a potential November election match-up while Clinton trails McCain, enhancing Obama's argument he is the Democrat with the best shot at capturing the White House.

Texas Latino Bloc Not as Clear
Amy Chozick/Wall Street Journal (02/20/2008)
SAN ANTONIO -- After suffering a string of losses this month, Sen. Hillary Clinton is counting on her popularity among Hispanics to deliver a big win in Texas March 4 and catapult her back into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

ABORTION
2 abortion bills address question of adult advice
Tom Fahey/Union Leader (02/20/2008)
Concord – Speakers at hearings of two Senate committees agreed yesterday that adults ought to advise pregnant teens considering an abortion, but they split over whether those adults should be parents. The state passed a parental notification bill in 2003, but the U.S. Supreme Court rejected it on an appeal by Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE). State lawmakers repealed the law last year after voting down attempts to fix its language.

Kansas Supreme Court stalls subpoena of Tiller abortion records
Ron Sylvester/Wichita Eagle (02/19/2008)
The Kansas Supreme Court has stalled a Wichita grand jury's subpoena of abortion records from the Kansas Attorney General's Office. By an order this afternoon, the high court said the attorney general's concerns over patient privacy were similar to the issues raised by lawyers for Wichita abortion provider George Tiller.

EDUCATION
Colleges scramble to offer curriculum on Mormon religion
Michael Paulson/Boston Globe (02/20/2008)
Harvard Divinity School has long prided itself on the diversity of its curriculum - it currently features classes in American Buddhism, Jewish Apocalypticism, and Classical Sufism - but it took until this semester for the venerable school to offer a course on one of the fastest-growing faiths in the world: Mormonism.

God And The City
David Segal/Washington Post (02/20/2008)
There's an evangelical college in the Empire State Building -- 45,000 square feet of space on three floors, with classrooms, a student rec center, administrative offices, the works.

DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE
Pastor Issues "30-Day Sex Challenge"
CBS (02/20/2008)
The pastor of a southwest Florida church opened many eyes and ears Sunday when he said he wants married couples in the congregation to -- have sex for 30 days in a row. Oh -- and he wants singles to steer clear of such frolicking for the same length of time. Head pastor Paul Wirth of Relevant Church in Ybor City, outside Tampa, says his "30-Day Sex Challenge" is one way of taking on the nation's 50-percent divorce rate.

Rare 'Book of Enoch' arrives in Jeffersonville
Peter Smith/Courier-Journal (02/20/2008)
Enoch was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic by ancient Jews, and some ancient fragments of it have been found near the Dead Sea. But the oldest complete versions are in the ancient Ethiopian language of Ge’ez because Ethiopian Christians are the only enduring church group that revered the book as Scripture.