Occult fever has gripped the Russian city of St. Petersburg. With Soviet control a thing of the past, the city's penchant for the paranormal is again coming into the open. The Rev. Jimmy Creech, pastor of First United Methodist Church of Omaha, was acquitted of the charge that he disobeyed denominational rules when he performed a covenanting service uniting two women last September. After a three-day church trial, eight of thirteen juror pastors from Nebraska voted that Creech had violated church rules, but nine votes were necessary to convict. Creech was reinstated as pastor.
China now has an abortion clinic on wheels.
The mobile hospital unit provides abortion, sterilization, and birthing. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently reported that hate groups are growing in the United States. In an article detailed by the New York Times, the research group says 474 hate groups and their chapters engaged in some form of racist behavior in 1997, a 20 percent increase from 1996. Most of the newer groups, according to the center, come from a growth in the number of chapters of groups like the Ku Klux Klan and churches belonging to the Christian Identity movement, whose followers cite the Bible as the source for their racist views. A man and two women petition a judge to declare their three-way relationship a legal marriage.