Winners: Five Utah youth are the latest winners of the Smith's Personal Best Scholarship, which rewards students who have distinguished themselves through determination and courage in the face of immense personal challenges. The awards program, affiliated with the Utah Education Association's Children at Risk Foundation, has provided $200,000 in scholarships over the past eight years. This year's crop of winners included students who have endured serious illness, rid themselves of gang ties and one who was forced into a labor camp at age 7 while living in Vietnam. That student, Lieu Tran, aspires to study law at Yale University.

Loser: While it's easy to play Monday morning quarterback on this side of the Continental Divide; one has to question the process by which Jefferson County authorities have offered for public sale copies of the Littleton Fire Department's training videotape that shows Columbine High School's interior after the April 20, 1999 rampage, which left 15 people dead. After a judge ruled Monday that the victims' families receive copies of tape, county officials then announced a day later that it would be made available to the public. While the Deseret News advocates open government and access to records, government officials should have done a better job of communicating their plans to the victims' families, some of whom felt revictimized by the video's release. To further complicate matters, it appears that the videotape may violate copyright law because of the unauthorized use of songs by recording artists Sarah McLachlan and Cheryl Wheeler.

Winner: Gene therapy has apparently succeeded in in assisting three babies who could not grow complete immune systems. French doctors added working genes to the infants' cells, which apparently spared them from death from a severe immune disorder. Scientists are optimistic but caution the method might not be immediately applicable to other diseases.

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Winner: There's clearly some political motivation at work, but Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush is correct to call for a return to civility in politics. He has pledged to set the tone as the presidential campaign heads down the home stretch. Both political parties share blame for Americans' disillusionment over partisan politics, which suggests both should attempt to fix it.

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