Word: utah
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...more than 17,600 people were killed in alcohol-related traffic crashes, according to a new study from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Utah, whose Mormon population largely shuns drinking, is the state with the lowest rate of alcohol-related fatalities: just 24%. Hawaii has the highest rate: 52% of its fatal crashes involved high alcohol levels. To fight drunk driving, state courts may require that prior DUI offenders install devices that prevent impaired drivers from starting their cars...
What makes the drama in the St. George, Utah, courtroom so confounding is that while this was a rape trial, the husband who allegedly assaulted Doe was a defense witness, not a defendant. And while the headlines referred to it as the POLYGAMY TRIAL, that was not the charge either, though attitudes about polygamy are clearly being put to the test. The defendant, Warren Jeffs, the 51-year-old prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), was being tried as an accomplice to rape for commanding Doe to agree to an arranged marriage despite her resistance...
...because he arranged it. But state prosecutors have long looked for some way to penetrate the remote FLDS enclave, whose apostate refugees tell stories of exploitation of children as workers, of incest and of sexual abuse. Sitting in court amid the throngs of reporters and silent church members was Utah attorney general Mark Shurtleff, a Republican and a practicing Mormon, come to offer moral support to his team. He has called Jeffs "a religious tyrant, a demagogue" with an "absolute disregard for the laws of the nation, of the state." But charges involving polygamy are notoriously hard to prove, especially...
...eternal principles" of Mormonism, teaching that men would be exalted in heaven by marrying multiple wives on earth. In 1890, after years of penalties, persecution and seizure of church property, a new divine revelation inspired church leaders to reject the practice--which, among other things, paved the way for Utah's statehood. But traditionalist Mormons thought the church was selling out and established their own fundamentalist sects, which continued the practice even as the larger church condemned...
...largest community, with some 8,000 members, settled in the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., just south of Zion National Park, along the Utah-Arizona border. It is typical for men to have three wives and about 30 children, though some have many more. Women wear their hair long and braided, their clothes modest. They will carry their iPods with them all day so they can listen to Jeffs' sermons. "Sister wives" share household chores and raise multitudes of children as their husbands rotate among bedrooms. It's virtually impossible for child-welfare officials to track...