A polygamist leader in Arizona has been sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Growing numbers of people are flocking to U.S. churches that center their practice around a psychedelic tea known as ayahuasca.

Authorities say the leader of a small polygamous group near the Arizona-Utah border had taken at least 20 wives and punished followers who didn't treat him as a prophet.

That the faith widely known as the Mormon church would feel the need to make such a clarification amid a tragedy underscored the conundrum the church faces when big news happens with splinter groups that practice polygamy. Early church members practiced polygamy in the 1800s at the instruction of founder Joseph Smith, but the church disavowed it in 1890. The Mexican community is one of a handful of Mormon splinter groups who still practice plural marriage. A recent push by church President Russell M. Nelson to eradicate the use of previously embraced shorthand terms for the faith — "Mormon," ''LDS" and "Mormon church" — has added an interesting wrinkle to the discussion, said W. Paul Reeve, the Simmons Professor of Mormon Studies at the University of Utah. Also muddling the issue is Smith's revelation that God told him to practice plural marriage remains canonized in church scripture, the scholars noted.