President Yeltsin appeared stiff and stumbled Sunday when he arrived in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, on the second stage of a Central Asia tour. The Uzbek President, Islam Karimov, supported the pale Russian president upon arrival. Later during an official welcoming ceremony, one of Yeltsin's bodyguards had to support him when he stumbled. Yeltsin's chief spokesman said his boss was suffering from a cold, in addition to having just had a bad flight from Moscow. Because earlier bouts of ill-health were played down by the Kremlin, the Russian media has been debating over what this cold and cough might mean, as Yeltsin's earlier colds always concealed more serious illnesses. For example, in June 1996, aides said Yeltsin suffered from a sore throat. Five months later he underwent a quintuple bypass operation.

The Los Angeles 911 system was down for 17 hours after sprinklers flooded a communications room. Workers used hair dryers to clean hundreds of delicate circuit boards. A backup system did kick in, and calls were routed to individual police stations while power was shut off at the dispatch center. One supervisor said that cables were floating in six inches of water, and they were lucky the computers came back on at all.

Remember Phil, Dan, and Andy - the faces of the three owners of Carpet Town at 3300 South and Highland Drive for 40 years? The faces are staying but there's a contest to name them, as the building is about to become Tres Hombres restaurant. It is scheduled to open in December. The owners want the public to name the guys with "ethnically correct" names to reflect a Mexican restaurant. Submit ideas to Tres Hombres, 3298 Highland Drive, Salt Lake City, UT 84106. The winner gets dinner for two at the restaurant and a surprise expense-paid trip for two.

A Montgomery County jury awarded a 13-year-old boy $4 million after finding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints negligent for not protecting him from a pedophile who won children over by giving them candy after Sunday services. Blome also molested at least four other boys between 1982-1994. The jury found that the LDS Church and four former bishops named in the personal injury case did not act with malice or conscious indifference. If they had, punitive damages of millions more would have been possible. The perpetrator, 70-year-old Charles John "Chuck" Blome, is serving a 15-year sentence for molesting the child in 1993. The plaintiff's attorney argued during the trial that former Magnolia Bishop Jerry Togeson alerted Blome that he was under suspicion, two days after the boy's family alerted him of the abuse. This gave Blome time to destroy evidence that could have meant a longer sentence. The LDS Church spokesman in Salt Lake confirmed the church's intent to appeal, expressing disapproval of Blome's actions.

Last Friday smugglers threw a group of mothers and their babies into the sea while trying to avoid capture by the Italian coastguard. Italy's Interior Minister, Giorgio Napolitano, said the incident was shocking and showed "the total absence of scruples by those who exploit the desire of emigration to Italy and other European countries." The boatload of 30 immigrants from Albania and Kosovo was just 20 meters from shore when a coastguard patrol appeared. Caught by surprise, the smugglers threw nine children, including three babies, into the water forcing their relatives to jump in and save them. The Italian patrol boat crew had no choice but to dive into the sea and help. The smugglers escaped. Most of the immigrants came from Kosovo or northern Iraq, where civilians are suffering repression from national security forces. They were refugees from fighting in their homeland, seeking to join up with friends or relatives in Europe. Many refugees are repatriated but some are allowed to stay while their legal status is investigated.