Carter the Carpenter Honored as a Builder of Peace

--Former President Jimmy Carter received the World Methodist Peace Award, honoring him as a champion of human rights, a negotiator for peace and arms control and a carpenter who builds houses for the poor. Carter, the first American to receive the award, told about 200 persons crowded into a small chapel at Emory University in Atlanta for a 45-minute ceremony that “the world rightly looks to the United States of America to be a champion of peace and human rights. When we betray this confidence by the unnecessary use of force or belligerence, the shock of fear and disillusionment encircles the globe.” Bishop William R. Cannon, chairman of the executive committee of the World Methodist Church, told Carter that he also was being recognized for his “efforts since leaving higher office to reduce conflict in our world, to lift the plight of the poor and to further understanding among all people.”

--A woman who received national publicity last week when she reported that she was expecting sextuplets despite her husband’s vasectomy is not pregnant and is undergoing psychiatric care, her family said in Kittery, Me. Richard Perham, 33, said his wife, Kim, 27, has been admitted for observation to an institution he declined to name. She is “very confused right now” and is under psychiatric care, he told the Daily Democrat of Dover, N.H. Kim Perham, mother of 2-year-old twins, said last week that an ultrasound test at Portsmouth, N.H., Hospital on Feb. 28 had shown she was pregnant with two boys and four girls. However, doctors disputed key parts of her story.

--The Domino’s pizza chain in Catonsville, Md., announced that it will rehire a delivery man who foiled knife-wielding robbers in violation of company policy requiring drivers to cooperate when being robbed. John Gilson, 18, will be given his delivery job back if he wants it, with no strings attached, said Domino’s spokesman Ron Hingst. The spokesman said Gilson was fired in accordance with strict company policy designed to protect delivery people from being hurt during holdups. He said Domino’s was “simply trying to abide by police instructions.” However, Hingst said Gilson was a martial arts student who knew how to defend himself against the two men who tried to hold him up last Friday.