Died

Charles “Chuck” Yeager, the United States Air Force brigadier general most well known for being the first person to break the sound barrier, died Dec. 7. Yeager became an ace fighter pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II despite insufficient education. After the war, he became a test pilot at Muroc Army Air Field in Southern California. In 1947, Yeager flew the BX-1 (nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis” after his wife, Glennis Yeager), which carried him faster than the speed of sound and earned him the MacKay, Collier, and Harmon international trophies. He did it with two broken ribs. “We didn’t know if we could break the sound barrier,” he said later. “But it was our duty to try. That’s the way I looked at it.” At the test field, Yeager reached 670 mph and would accelerate to 1,650 mph years later.

Died

Walter E. Williams, who built a career as a professor and writer, died Dec. 2 at age 84. Despite growing up in poverty in Philadelphia with his single mother, he earned his doctorate in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1972. His 10 books and newspaper column often pitted the deep researcher against popular thought. His book More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well explains the often harmful outcomes of well-meaning minimum-wage increases, welfare programs, and judicial leniency. In The State Against Blacks, he spoke against occupational licensing, taxicab regulations, and other practices that hurt black entrepreneurs.

Picked

President-elect Joe Biden chose California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In 2017 Becerra filed 15 felony charges against pro-life activists for their undercover investigation of Planned Parenthood. He and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris spearheaded the prosecution of David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, alleging they illegally recorded conversations during their 2015 investigation of Planned Parenthood and the sale of aborted babies’ body parts. Becerra did not investigate Planned Parenthood over the sales. Under Becerra, HHS could work to undo pro-life regulations the Trump administration instituted.

Sentenced

Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong will spend 13½ months in prison after protesting excessive use of force outside a Hong Kong police station in 2019. Fellow activists Ivan Lam and Agnes Chow received seven- and 10-month sentences, respectively. The West Kowloon magistrates court handed down the sentences on Dec. 2. The activists belonged to the defunct Demosisto political party and helped to draw international attention to Hong Kong’s crackdown on dissent. The semi-autonomous territory of China has detained at least 31 people under a national security law Beijing imposed in June.