By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A But where do they hang their Britney Spears posters? The photos torn out of Tiger Beat and YM? The loving mash note never sent to Johnny in Miss Thompson’s homeroom? At Birdville High School, students have somehow learned to live without what for generations has been a bedrock […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A SAN ANTONIO – It’s within the city limits, but Harcourt Educational Measurement qualifies as its own boomtown. Like other champions of the No. 2 pencil and the properly filled-in bubble, Harcourt has exploded in size over the last decade thanks to education reform. Its campus, a 560,000-square-foot string […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A Eighty-eight-year-old John “Jack” Jackson never had children, but his generosity will help generations of Texas young people. The University of Texas will announce Saturday that Mr. Jackson, a retired Dallas oilman, will give at least $150 million to improve UT’s program in earth and environmental sciences. It is […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A SALT LAKE CITY – When Olympic organizers announced Kiss would be performing at Sunday night’s closing ceremony, conservative Utahans weren’t sure how to react. The Deseret News, a local daily owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ran a story quoting several local citizens concerned […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 10A SALT LAKE CITY – Police fired about 40 foam-tipped bullets to disperse a rowdy crowd outside an alcohol-themed venue Saturday night, officials said. Twenty people were arrested. The melee began when Bud World, a downtown beer garden set up for the Olympics, became overcrowded, forcing people out onto […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 29B SALT LAKE CITY – When Brigham Young entered the Great Salt Lake Basin, legend has it he had but four words to say: “This is the place.” But if history had unfolded slightly differently, “the place” might have been Corpus Christi. In 1844, Mormon leaders were in serious […]
Read More… from Could’ve been Texas; Forthcoming book: Mormon Church nearly settled here
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 28B LEHI, Utah – “We’ve been through a lot as a family,” said Merrill Osmond, sweating profusely after more than an hour on stage, playing the greatest hits of Utah’s first family. “But we’ve gotten through it all. And we appreciate all the love and support you’ve given us […]
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 15B SALT LAKE CITY – At the start of the Winter Olympics, organizers feared protesters on the streets. Instead, the protests are coming from Olympians themselves. In a two-page handwritten fax, Russian officials claimed “unobjective judging by the majority of the panel” cost figure skater Irina Slutskaya a gold […]
Page 14B It sounds like a cut-rate riddle of the Sphinx: If you go the Olympics but don’t go to any events, are you really there? Wednesday was my 14th day in Salt Lake City, and as of 4:30 p.m., I had been to exactly zero Olympic events. Zero. At every Olympiad, the kind folks […]
Read More… from Reporter’s Notebook: There’s more to Games than the games
By Joshua Benton Staff Writer Page 1A SALT LAKE CITY – One day before a Cold War hockey rematch, Russian officials revived a Cold War technique when they threatened to pull out of the Olympic Games. But this time, Russians say that “unobjective decisions” by Olympic judges, not international politics, are forcing them to consider […]