By PEGGY FLETCHER STACK, Salt Lake Tribune

SALT LAKE CITY - A Mormon church member last month posthumously baptized the parents of Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor and Jewish rights advocate, and the Los Angeles center named for him is incensed.

SALT LAKE CITY - My personalized Ramadan experiment ended last week, and people ask if I'm happy it's over. They congratulate me for the ability to forgo eating and drinking during daylight hours for 31 days and ask me if I've lost weight (yes, thank you, about 7 pounds). They either remark on my stamina or joke about my lunacy.

SALT LAKE CITY - Polygamy still clings to the image of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- even though the Utah-based faith abandoned the practice more than a century ago.

It was the No. 1 negative quality cited by 28 percent of respondents in a national Salt Lake Tribune poll who were "uncomfortable" with voting for a Mormon for U.S. president.

SALT LAKE CITY - With two Mormons in the presidential campaign and a hit Broadway show about the church's missionaries, a group of loyalists felt the time was ripe to begin scrutinizing media reports for inaccuracies about the Utah-based faith.

SALT LAKE CITY - Sixteen years after a Jewish genealogist alerted his peers that Mormons were performing so-called "proxy baptisms" for Jewish Holocaust victims, both sides have reached a breakthrough settlement.

SALT LAKE CITY - There is no hint of a Mormon presence in the high-rise where the Beijing LDS branches meet.

Visitors must pass through a lobby featuring several boutiques, including a liquor store, find their way to the elevator, take it to the fourth floor and then stroll down a long hallway. No familiar logo above the door. No church name or meeting times on the directories.

SALT LAKE CITY - After convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner announced that he wants to be executed by a firing squad on June 18, national and international reporters suggested it was a throwback to the Wild, Wild West.

Some Utahns, though, had a different explanation for why such an anachronistic execution technique remained an option in the 21st century: blood atonement.

SALT LAKE CITY - After a decade-long moratorium, Mormon is back. The name, that is.

It will be on display everywhere this weekend as thousands gather for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' 180th Annual General Conference in Salt Lake City.

The thought of going to church in her Southern California LDS ward makes Carol Oldham cry. She can't face one more sermon against same-sex marriage. She can't tolerate the glares at the rainbow pin on her lapel.

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Vatican's recent ban on Mormon microfilming and digitizing of Catholic parish records out of concern they will be used for the LDS practice of baptizing the dead may have a wide-ranging and chilling effect on the whole family history enterprise, some professional genealogists say.