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Mitt Romney, the GOP’s presidential candidate in 2012 and a former governor of Massachusetts, announced Friday that he would run for U.S. Senate in Utah. “I have decided to run for United States Senate because I believe I can help bring Utah’s values and Utah’s lessons to Washington,” Romney said in a video announcing his bid. “Given all that America faces, we feel that this is the right time for me to serve our state and our country,” he said. Romney pointed to Utah's balanced budget and trade surplus as examples of the state's strengths, comparing them with Washington's debt...

Mitt Romney will launch his Utah Senate campaign Thursday morning with a low key announcement on social media, and will make his first public appearance a day later near Salt Lake City with a keynote address to a gathering of grassroots Republicans.

With tender feelings we announce that Thomas S. Monson, president and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died this evening at 10:01 pm in his home in Salt Lake City. He was with family at the time of his passing. He died at age 90 from causes incident to age. President Monson, who has served as president of the Church since February 2008, leaves behind a legacy of service and good works. A successor is not expected to be formally chosen by the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles until after President Monson’s funeral. To the...

A group of Mormon cult leaders is being charged with organizing sexual religious rituals with underage girls and threatening them with damnation if they did not participate, according to court documents filed in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Wednesday.

Former House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, Saturday called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to be removed from office, saying that may be a cure for the "deep systemic problems" in the Department of Justice. "It pains me to say this a little bit [but] I don't think the attorney general is up to the job he's doing," Chaffetz, now a contributor for Fox News, told the "Fox and Friends Saturday" program. Sessions "had to remove himself from everything" involving President Donald Trump and that led to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special investigator in the investigation into Russian...

A leaked Mormon church document has revealed the church's teaching that self-pleasuring can make you homosexual. The handbook for church leaders, simply titled 'Homosexuality', was published in 1981 and leaked on Wednesday by the Las Vegas-based transparency group MormonLeaks.

It’s Monday. It’s December. I believe that calls for recipes. I saw a couple of teases in the comments over the weekend, such as 3XLady’s pictures of Potato Candy – candy? With potatoes? We need a recipe! And MichellenotTHATone was bragging about making white chocolate popcorn – White. Chocolate. Popcorn.!! Recipe please!For my part I want to harken back to our discussion on the November 21 ham and cheese sliders recipe post. Somebody commented that they are called “funeral sandwiches” in the South and I responded that in Utah the ubiquitous cheesy potato casserole was known as “funeral potatoes.” Behold,...

FULL TITLE: Polygamous fundamentalists say they are victims of 'cultural cleansing' as they are evicted from their homes by the Government A polygamous group of religious fundamentalists fears their community is being destroyed by 'cultural cleansing'. Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have been evicted from their homes in Hildale, a 100-year-old red rock community on the Utah-Arizona border. The evictions stem from an order by a Utah state judge who became fed up with people not paying $100-a-month occupancy fees.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now owns the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon — for $35 million, the sellers say. The Community of Christ, formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, announced the sale, and the price tag, on Wednesday. The Independence, Missouri-based church has owned the manuscript since 1903. Steven E. Snow, LDS Church historian and recorder, confirmed the acquisition, calling the document both a spiritual and historic treasure. Church officials did not immediately confirm, but also did not challenge, the stated sales price when contacted Thursday.

The very serious problems of abiogenesis and technological intelligence and the mathematical odds against finding intelligent extraterrestrials explain why we’ve never been able to detect extraterrestrial intelligences—and probably never will. We can all sleep soundly at night without worrying that aliens are going to come down from the sky to destroy or invade us. This then brings us to what is usually ignored in science: God. Since I am a Christian, this article is limited to the Christian worldview, which is centered on Jesus Christ. (Note: This section does not imply the biblical text is necessarily “true,” only that this...

FULL TITLE: How a one-in-400million disability became common in a tiny polygamist Mormon town after generations of inbreeding A polygamist Mormon enclave on the Arizona-Utah border is seeing more and more children being born with an extremely rare disorder that causes severe mental and physical retardation. Dr. Theodore Tarby, who specialized in rare childhood diseases, first discovered the problem in 1990, when a woman in the community brought her 10-year-old son to him. The boy had unusual facial features, such as a prominent forehead, low-set ears, widely-spaced eyes and a small jaw. He was also severely physically and mentally disabled....

FULL TITLE: Paid parental leave, pantsuits for women, colored shirts for men — those changes are coming for Mormon church employees Like their peers, many contemporary Mormon women work side by side with men in boardrooms and courtrooms, surgical theaters and sports franchises, college labs and city halls. Such women are smart and sophisticated in their manner and their dress, overseeing multimillion-dollar projects and donning Hillary-esque power suits. And they certainly don't see having a baby as the end of their careers. Now the LDS Church is acknowledging that new reality among its Mormon employees by changing what some see...

FULL TITLE: 'God loves me this way... no part of me is a mistake': Moment a 12-year-old Mormon girl has her microphone CUT OFF at church as she comes out as gay A 12-year-old Mormon girl courageously stood up in front of members of her Utah church to tell them she was gay - only to have officials cut off her microphone and tell her to sit down. Savannah revealed to churchgoers in Utah County, south of Salt Lake City, last month that she was a lesbian and told them she was proud God had made her that way. Standing...

Lyle Jeffs, who was among 11 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints indicted in what prosecutors have called a conspiracy to defraud a federal food stamp program, was captured late Wednesday in South Dakota. Few details of the capture were immediately provided. An online log at the Minnehaha County, S.D., jail lists Jeffs as an inmate. He is being held without bond. The FBI Field Office in Salt Lake City sent a tweet Thursday morning saying Jeffs was arrested in South Dakota about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. The FLDS has a compound in South Dakota, though...

The seven women whose allegations ended Rob Miller's bid to lead Utah's Democrats say the party should continue an investigation of Miller because "a culture of pervasive sexual harassment has been revealed." The group, which includes a former Salt Lake County Democratic chairwoman and a former state Senate candidate among other well-known Democrats, sent a letter to party leadership Thursday after Miller announced his exit from the race to become chairman and his withdrawal from the party.

Fear, stereotypes, ignorance and hunger have this in common: They seldom survive sharing a meal, honest conversation, a desire to learn and making eye contact with the stranger across the table. On the evening of June 4, two Salt Lake City Mormon congregations — the Yale Ward, 1431 E. Gilmer, and the Gregson Ward, 3151 S. 900 East — will do just that, hosting iftar dinners for Muslim neighbors during Ramadan, which begins Friday evening. Sariah Toronto, of the Yale Ward, says the idea came up during a discussion a few months ago about "what else we can do as...

In my humble opinion Pontius Pilate was not only NOT evil but he will probably be saved at the judgment. He certainly had the potential to be a very good man. The Jews at the time of Christ were the only people in the history of mankind that were so wicked they would crucify their own God. This fact plays into God's plan for our salvation. Jesus would come to earth, gain a physical body, learn through mortal experiences pain, anquish, temptation, and joy. He would overcome all things, suffer to pay the price for sin, then His body would...

Older teenagers will be pulled from the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), the Mormon church announced Thursday. The announcement from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints means an estimated 130,000-180,000 teenagers ages 14-18 will no longer participate in Boy Scouts starting next year. The Mormon church is the largest sponsor of Boy Scouts troops in the United States. The Boy Scouts' "Varsity" and "Venturing" programs for older teens had become difficult to implement within the religion, Mormon officials said in a news release. "Instead, Young Men activities will focus on spiritual, social, physical and intellectual outlined by the...

SALT LAKE CITY — The LDS Church, the oldest and largest charter organization of the Boy Scouts of America, will drop Scouting from its Young Men's program for boys ages 14 through 17. Effective Jan. 1, the move will carve about 180,000 Mormon boys from the Varsity and Venturing Scout programs in the United States and Canada, replacing them with activities created for boys in those age groups by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church will continue to sponsor Cub Scouts for boys 8 to 10 and Boy Scout programs for those 11 through 13 in...

Complaints are mounting against a Utah County judge who earlier this week praised a former Mormon bishop before sending him to prison for sexually abusing two women. Fourth District Judge Thomas Low on Wednesday became emotional as he handed down a prison sentence to Keith Robert Vallejo. Julia Kirby — who was 19 when Vallejo, her brother-in-law, abused her — told The Tribune after the sentencing that she was shocked by the judge's words to her abuser. Now, she plans to file a judicial complaint against him. And she's not the only one. "He completely disregarded her," Lawrence said. "He...