Fairfield

Utah college student body presidents are uniting to get state legislators to drop the sales tax on text books.

The student leaders, including Summer Price from Brigham Young University and Utah Valley State College student body president Kris Coles, gathered at the state Capitol on Wednesday to support a proposed bill to exempt textbooks from the tax.

The statewide ban on diapered kids in pools has been lifted.

Since the beginning of June, 1,912 cases of cryptosporidiosis have been reported statewide. But in the last three weeks, there have been only six additional cases.

Cryptosporidium is a parasite that causes long-lasting, often debilitating, diarrhea that is traditionally transmitted from fecal matter in swimming pools.

Hey, toddlers, back in the pool.

Utah health officials say swimming restrictions have been lifted for kids who aren't potty-trained and anyone else who wears a swim diaper. The number of cases tied to cryptosporidium are finally slowing down.

There have been only six cases of crypto in the last three weeks.

It's not the sewer plant and it's not lake stink.

That big ol' smell is from a small agricultural burn that was started near 1500 South and Geneva Road last week. The fire spread to peat several feet under the soil.

The fire's stench may be causing a few hundred thousand people to press firmly on each side of their nose, but it poses little health hazard.

Clinging to a potato box in the Kula Gulf, Ernal Underwood didn't have much time to think about his second brush with Japanese torpedoes.

When a big ship sinks, it creates a certain amount of suction (think Titanic if you must) and Underwood and his fellow seamen were trained to get at least 50 yards away lest they get pulled under.

That July 6, 1943, the Salem resident floated near remains of the USS Helena.

PROVO, Utah -- People who live in voting precincts near Brigham Young University had the lowest voter turnout in all of Utah County.

The 10 precincts with the lowest voter turnout surround the BYU campus.

Although there are about 7,000 registered voters within the precincts' boundaries, only 890 showed up at the polls.

COUNTYWIDE

• People Against Narcotics in the Community will present the documentary "Happy Valley" at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday at Spanish Fork High School, 99 N. 300 West. Admission is free.

"Happy Valley" depicts the stories of several Utah residents affected by prescription drug abuse, street drug abuse and addiction.

Marie Hansen of Spanish Fork says something changed the day she took her son Dylan to his 1-year-old doctor's appointment.

Until then, Dylan had been successfully overcoming developmental problems caused by his low birth weight. But when he got his MMR and chicken pox immunization shots, he started crying uncontrollably and stopped breathing regularly.

The night before her father died, Marie Osmond chose one of his favorite songs, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," to accompany her performance on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars."

"And now," she said at his funeral Friday, "he's dancing in the stars."

George Osmond, father of one of America's most famous musical families, died of natural causes Tuesday at his home in Provo.

The LDS Church has changed a word in the introduction in The Book of Mormon that alters the description of Lamanites, one of several ancient American civilizations chronicled in LDS scripture.

The introduction, written by Bruce R. McConkie in 1981, will be changed to say that Lamanites are "among the ancestors" of American Indians, instead of McConkie's version, which refers to them as the "principal ancestors" of American Indians.

"After

WASHINGTON -- President Bush suffered the first veto override of his seven-year-old presidency Thursday as the Senate enacted a $23 billion water resources bill despite his protest that it was filled with unnecessary projects.

The 79-14 vote included 34 Republicans who defied the president, among them Utah's Sens.

STATEWIDE

• The state board of regents named a new president of the Utah College of Applied Technology Thursday. Dr. Richard L. White, who is currently the executive vice president for the Richfield Campus of Snow College, was selected. He is scheduled to assume his role at the beginning of the year.