Sometime this year, online video comedian Shay Butler and his family’s YouTube channels will likely pass a half-billion upload views. At the heart of that success is a quintessential man-child. Butler, best known as Shaycarl, has created a series of reality shows that could draw comparisons to a cleaned-up Osbournes, adds a dash of “Tool Time” sensibility and finishes with a question that sparks many classic American family sitcoms: How did HE get HER to marry HIM?

Among the knickknacks on the shelves of Pamay Bassey's home office in Chicago is small black urn with a gold motif standing next to a Bible written in Ibibio, a Nigerian language.

The surge of new full-time missionaries entering its existing Missionary Training Centers has prompted The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to announce it will close a high school it operates in Mexico City and convert it into an MTC that will accommodate missionaries called to serve in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Elder Russell M. Nelson and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, both members of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, presided at a Tuesday night meeting during which the establishment of what will be the church’s second-largest MTC was announced. The meeting was held on the campus of the church’s privately owned high school, Benemerito de las Americas, which will be closed and its facilities used for the new MTC.

At age 14, Daila Vizulis came across a small newspaper advertisement that would change the lives of her and two of her close friends forever.

At the beginning of Lehi in the Desert, the late, legendary Hugh Nibley reviews the distinguished American archaeologist William F. Albright’s criteria for determining the historical plausibility of the Middle Egyptian tale of Sinuhe, which Albright considers to be “‘a substantially true account of life in its milieu’ on the grounds (1) that its ‘local color [is] extremely plausible,’ (2) it describes a ‘state of social organization’ which ‘agrees exactly with our present archaeological and documentary evidence,’ (3) ‘the Amorite personal names contained in the story are satisfactory for that period and region,’ and (4) ‘finally, there is nothing unreasonable in the story itself.’”[i] Nibley then asks about the story of Lehi: “Does it correctly reflect ‘the cultural horizon and religious and social ideas and practices of the time’? Does it have authentic historical and geographical background?

So far, we don't know much about Romney's tastes in food, aside from the occasional ice cream scooped from Bailey's Bubble in Wolfeboro, N.H., and his affection for feeding Jimmy John's subs to the press on the bus. However, parsing the eating habits of presidential candidates (to say nothing of sitting presidents) is now firmly embedded in America's cultural milieu. Just think: Ronald Reagan and jelly beans. Bill Clinton and fast food. President Obama and, well, most things chili-related, plus a bit of home-brewed beer.

On Dec. 25, 1964, as Mitt Romney enjoyed his last Christmas break as a high school student in Michigan, two Mormon missionaries visited Darius Gray in Colorado Springs and asked him if he had any last questions before joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He had one. A proud African American, Gray expressed wariness over a description in the Book of Mormon of a dark-skinned tribe being out of favor with God and asked, “How, in any way, does that relate to me?” The younger of the two missionaries stood off to the side as his senior companion explained, “‘Well, Brother Gray, the primary implication is that you won’t be able to hold the priesthood.’”

Soon there will be two Mormons running for president if Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, follows through on his plans to join former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican nomination. We look forward to hearing more from them but otherwise would note only that they seem to meet the qualifications prescribed in the Constitution: They are both natural-born citizens over 35 years old who have resided in the United States for at least 14 years.

Packed into several communities in and around Palmyra, a quiet village of nearly 3,500 people in upstate New York, are well-defined religious historic sites, which are also a part of American history. To members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the area surrounding Palmyra has significance few other areas have. It is where a 14-year-old boy named Joseph Smith, serious about following God’s teachings, found a quiet spot in a grove of trees near his home and prayed for answers to many of the perplexing spiritual questions of 1820. It was there Latter-day Saints believe God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to the young Joseph. That experience was the humble beginning of a worldwide religion that dots the globe with more than 14 million members.

Brad Mills knew he was ruining his hockey career. His pattern of late-night partying typically left him dehydrated the next day and translated into injuries and poor performances. As a result, the center/wingman was struggling in his role as a “depth” player for the Lowell Devils, an American Hockey League affiliate for the New Jersey Devils. It was like he was living in a dark cloud, he said.