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The Mormon Media Observer looks back at the year filled with LDS newsmakers. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tops the list, based on a newsmaker's frequency in the news as well as the significance of their stories. 1. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada The Senate Majority Leader led the battle to push through health reform in the Senate. News coverage of Reid made a household name and the divisive debate made him out to be both villain and saint. He may still face a tough battle in his home state of Nevada to save his seat. On Christmas The New...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Elizabeth Smart testified Thursday she was raped repeatedly each day after she was abducted from her bedroom seven years ago and told she would be killed if she yelled or tried to escape. She described Brian David Mitchell, her alleged kidnapper, as "evil, wicked, manipulative, stinky, slimy, selfish, not spiritual, not religious, not close to God." Smart testified in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City as part of a competency proceeding for the man charged in her 2002 kidnapping. Mitchell has twice been found incompetent for trial in state court. Mitchell and his estranged...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A woman charged in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping who was court-ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment will have a competency review hearing next month. A Utah district court calendar shows Wanda Eileen Barzee will appear before Judge Judith Atherton on Oct. 23. It will be the first time Barzee has appeared in court since doctors at the Utah State Hospital began to forcibly medicate her in May 2008 in an effort to make her competent. If Barzee remains incompetent for trial, the state could seek to have her civilly committed.

Ed and Lois Smart tell the harrowing tale of the search for their abducted daughter Elizabeth. She'd been taken from her bed in her own home one night and as the Smart family suffered the insults of a community the Salt Lake Police blew this case so bad that Elizabeth suffered many more months for their dereliction of investigative duty.

Elizabeth Smart knows what Jaycee Dugard — the 29-year-old woman who surfaced after being abducted 18 years ago by a sex offender — is going through. "I would tell her to just relax and enjoy your family and spend some time reconnecting," Smart, 21, told Anderson Cooper on "AC 360" Thursday. Smart, who was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City bedroom in 2002 and held captive for almost a year, says one of the best things Dugard can do is to move forward and "not [let] this horrible event take over and consume the rest of your life." Story continues...

Elizabeth Smart vividly remembers being awakened in the middle of the night by "feeling something cold and sharp to my neck." She awoke to a bearded man armed with a knife who was wearing a stocking cap and whom she thought she had never seen before. He told her, "Don't make a sound. Get up out of bed quickly." Speaking Thursday at the annual Crime Victims Conference at the Capitol, Smart talked for the first time in detail about portions of her nine-month kidnapping in 2002, including an experience in San Diego where she was so weak from starvation that...

Utah man will be sent to a state hospital Updated: 5:26 p.m. ET July 26, 2005 SALT LAKE CITY - The man charged in the kidnapping of Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart was declared mentally incompetent to stand trial Tuesday. The decision by Judge Judith Atherton will send Brian David Mitchell to a state hospital until he is deemed capable of standing trial. Atherton issued her decision after six days of hearings over the past seven months. Mitchell repeatedly shouted Biblical admonitions and sang hymns during the hearings, prompting him to be removed from court several times.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Elizabeth Smart's uncle has faulted the police investigation into her disappearance in a new book, claiming the teen would still be a kidnap victim if the family had not gotten involved. ``I don't think she would be back,'' Tom Smart said. ``There's five or six things that had to happen, and all those things, thank God, happened, including help from the community, which raised awareness to find Elizabeth.'' The book, ``In Plain Sight: The Startling Truth Behind the Elizabeth Smart Investigation,'' went on sale Monday. Elizabeth was allegedly kidnapped from her home in June 2002...

Lawyers for the man accused of kidnapping US teenager Elizabeth Smart have filed a motion for the jury to be sequestered during the trial and the Bibles removed from their hotel rooms. Lawyers for Brian David Mitchell, 50, argued in motions that intense media coverage of the case could influence jurors if they are not sequestered. They asked that Bibles and other religious texts be removed from jurors' hotel rooms to "prevent prejudicial exposure". Authorities have said Mitchell, a self-proclaimed prophet, wrote a manifesto before kidnapping Utah teenager Elizabeth in which he declares himself a messenger of God and says...

By PAUL FOY Associated Press Writer December 11, 2003, 9:36 PM EST SALT LAKE CITY -- A judge on Thursday scheduled closed-door competency hearings in January for the homeless couple charged with kidnapping Elizabeth Smart. After each hearing, Judge Judith Atherton will decide whether the defendants are capable of standing trial. Atherton announced the hearing dates Thursday during a competency proceeding for Wanda Barzee in which her lawyers contested the findings of two experts who examined her mental state. The findings were not made public. "I hope they both will be held responsible for their actions, convicted and sentenced," Salt...

I was amazed by the response I got to last week’s column. I wrote about a report on CBS’s "The Early Show" concerning a young man named Brian Simpson. Simpson had so severe a case of asthma that doctors despaired of his ever living a normal life. In fact, they despaired of his living a normal life span; they feared he would die in a few more years, and that he would be terribly incapacitated in the interim. To make the time remaining to him as pleasant as possible, Simpson turned to the oboe. It seemed a perverse idea. Oboes...

They are real-life survivors whose perils captured the hearts and prayers of millions, not to mention the pixels and ink of the American media. Tonight, they become made-for-TV movie heroines as NBC's Saving Jessica Lynch goes head-to-head with CBS' The Elizabeth Smart Story. Both real-life women-in-jeopardy stories occurred in the spring, and both biopics were fast-tracked by their networks so they would be ready for the November sweeps. In a bizarre but not unprecedented coincidence, both are airing from 8 to 10 tonight. Each network blames the other for the scheduling conflict; neither would step forward and change its air...

Couric Defends Elizabeth Smart Interview 3 minutes ago By DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer NEW YORK - NBC's Katie Couric says kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart's first television interview was conducted with her parent's consent and included nothing that might traumatize her. Couric's interview with the 15-year-old Elizabeth, who was snatched at knifepoint from her Utah home and rescued nine months later, will be televised Friday at 10 p.m. EDT. As part of a media blitz attached to her parents' upcoming book, CBS will air a television movie about the kidnapping next month, less than eight months after Elizabeth was found...

The widow of the man once considered the top potential suspect in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping is suing Salt Lake City police and the Utah Department of Corrections. Angela Ricci Johanna Workman, Deseret Morning News In the civil lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, Angela Ricci says Salt Lake City police wrongfully blamed her husband, Richard Ricci, for Elizabeth's kidnapping and that the Department of Corrections ignored her husband's documented medical problems, which ultimately contributed to a fatal brain hemorrhage. "All the focus Salt Lake City police put on Richard was done with the knowledge he was not a viable...

<p>LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The story of Elizabeth Smart's nine-month abduction and miracle return is about to hit the small screen and the bookstores.</p> <p>CBS has reached an agreement with the family of the Utah teen for a TV movie about her ordeal, which was the subject of intense network interest, sources said. Dylan Baker and Lindsay Frost are set to play the girl's parents, Ed and Lois Smart, and Canadian actress Amber Marshall will play Elizabeth.</p>

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The story of Elizabeth Smart's nine-month abduction and miracle return is about to hit the small screen and the bookstores. CBS has reached an agreement with the family of the Utah teen for a TV movie about her ordeal, which was the subject of intense network interest, sources said. Dylan Baker and Lindsay Frost are set to play the girl's parents, Ed and Lois Smart, and Canadian actress Amber Marshall will play Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Doubleday Books, a division of Random House, has signed a deal with the Smarts to tell their story in "Bringing Elizabeth...

Tabloid targets Trib Newsroom angry over $20,000 Enquirer deal Copyright 2003 Deseret News By Lucinda Dillon Kinkead Deseret News staff writer The National Enquirer has demanded a retraction from the Salt Lake Tribune and threatened legal action, citing "false and defamatory" statements in a column by Salt Lake Tribune Editor James "Jay" Shelledy. "If a prominent and accurate correction and retraction is not immediately published, we will be left with no alternative but to file legal proceedings without further notice," wrote Enquirer attorney Michael B. Kahane in a letter, faxed early Monday and addressed to Shelledy. "I am hopeful that...

Smarts, tabloid settle Enquirer falsehoods are linked to 2 S.L. Tribune reporters Copyright 2003 Deseret NewsBy Lucinda Dillon KinkeadDeseret News staff writer       The family of Elizabeth Smart and the National Enquirer have reached a settlement that retracts salacious comments published by the tabloid last summer. Part of the settlement includes a rare apology to the family and admission it printed false information about Smart family members.       As an important side note, the Deseret News also has learned two Salt Lake Tribune reporters were paid $20,000 by the tabloid for information the Enquirer used to...

<p>There is a debate under way--an ethical debate, apparently--over whether it would be proper for NBC to make a movie about the life of the former POW, Pfc. Jessica Lynch, without her permission. When a news person shouted a question about this matter at her father, Mr. Lynch said it was "on the back burner." But simmering.</p>

Smart Family Hires Entertainment Lawyer SALT LAKE CITY, April 5, 2003 width="1" height="7" border="0"> Elizabeth Smart with her father, Ed (AP/Deseret News, Tom Smart) Elizabeth with her parents Lois and Ed (AP Photo/Deseret News, Tom Smart) (AP) Elizabeth Smart's family has hired a Los Angeles entertainment attorney to help them screen movie and book proposals about Elizabeth's abduction and remarkable return. Kelly Crabb, who reportedly has negotiated contracts for Paul McCartney, Dave Matthews and Muhammad Ali, was hired a week ago, said Chris Thomas, the family's spokesman. According to his firm's Web site, Crabb's areas of practice include motion picture, television and other...