Human Race

Botched

Hospital records allegedly reveal that Tonya Reaves, 24, who died after a second trimester abortion at a Chicago Planned Parenthood clinic on July 20, bled for five hours before clinic personnel summoned an ambulance that delivered her to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. There doctors operated twice to repair a perforation and "an uncontrolled bleed" before pronouncing her dead at 11:20 p.m., 12 hours after the abortion.

Killed

Ohio Mennonite businessman Al Geiser, 65, was shot and killed July 23 in rural Afghanistan. Two Afghan co-workers also were killed, and the Taliban claimed responsibility for their deaths in Parwan Province. Geiser, who has served in Afghanistan for more than a decade, was working on a hydroelectric project under International Assistance Mission (IAM), an organization which had 10 aid workers killed in 2010 by Taliban-affiliated gunmen in Badakhshan Province. In 2008 Geiser himself was kidnapped by an armed group and held 56 days.

Freed

Nearly a week after five armed terrorists kidnapped Ponnachan George from a Bible school campus in Assam, India, the gunmen freed the Gospel for Asia (GFA) pastor on July 30. GFA founder K.P. Yohannan said the terrorists let George go after telling him repeatedly they would kill him, and thinking they could force a ransom payment. George, who was hospitalized after the ordeal, oversees 200 churches, 26 Bridge of Hope centers that educate children, three radio broadcasts, and a Bible college in northeastern India.

Wed

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un married Ri Sol Ju, state media reported July 25. She made her first public appearance alongside the communist leader on July 5.

Fired

The board of deacons at First Baptist Church of Hammond, Ind., dismissed senior pastor Jack Schaap on July 31 after Schaap confessed to an improper relationship with a 16-year-old girl, now 17. The church, which has 15,000 weekly attendees, invited the Christian Law Association to investigate misconduct under Schaap's 11-year leadership. County and local FBI authorities also are investigating: Indiana's age of consent is 16, but a source said Schaap, 54, may have met with the girl in Michigan and Illinois, where the relationship could be illegal. Schaap is the son-in-law of the late Jack Hyles, whose fundamentalist preaching grew First Baptist into a megachurch boasting the "nation's largest Sunday school."

Resigning

Richard Land, 65, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, announced July 31 he will retire from the post in 2013. Land, who also served until last year on the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom, lost his weekend radio program earlier this year over controversial statements he made concerning the Trayvon Martin case and over accusations of plagiarism. His retirement falls 25 years after his start in 1988.

Died

Edward John "Buddy" Robeson, 91, a World War II veteran, businessman, and missionary, died Aug. 5. Robeson was one of the founding members of the Presbyterian Church in America, served as a church elder for 61 years, and helped to establish the early work of Colorado-based Summit Ministries.