Human Race

Elected

Mia Love on Nov. 4 became the first black female Republican and the first Haitian-American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives when she defeated Doug Owens in Utah’s 4th District. Love, 38, is a Mormon and the former mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah. She and her husband Jason Love, a former Mormon missionary, have three children. Her favorite economist: 19th-century French laissez-faire writer Frederic Bastiat.

Elected

U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., defeated Democrat Joyce Dickerson on Nov. 4 to become the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate from the South since reconstruction. Gov. Nikki Haley appointed Scott to the office when Sen. Jim DeMint retired before the end of his term in 2012. In winning his Senate race, Scott also became the first African-American in U.S. history to win election to both the House and the Senate. “In South Carolina, in America,” he tweeted after his win, “it takes a generation to go from having a grandfather who is picking cotton, to having a grandson in Congress.”

Victorious

Nurse Kaci Hickox won a legal battle on Nov. 3 when Maine officials agreed that she could move about freely as long as she monitored her health. Hickox arrived on Oct. 24 in New Jersey from Sierra Leone, where she had worked with Ebola patients for Doctors Without Borders, and was immediately placed in quarantine. She objected to the quarantine and officials allowed her to go to her home in Maine, where Gov. Paul LePage had sought a court order to require her to stay indoors until she was confirmed Ebola-free.

Freed

Mexican officials released U.S. Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi on Nov. 7, 214 days after they had taken him into custody for illegally entering Mexico with three weapons and ammunition. Tahmooressi, who served two tours in Afghanistan, said he crossed the border mistakenly and was severely beaten after being taken into custody. He said at one point he tried to escape and, when that failed, to kill himself with a broken light bulb. Mexican officials said they released him on humanitarian grounds.

Captured

A 48-day, $10 million manhunt ended on Oct. 30 when a team of U.S. marshals captured accused cop killer Eric Frein at an abandoned air strip in Tannersville, Pa. Prosecutors charged Frein with first-degree murder and attempted murder in the Sept. 12 ambush of a police barracks in Blooming Grove, Pa., and said they will seek the death penalty. He allegedly murdered Cpl. Bryon Dickson and wounded Trooper Alex T. Douglass.

Retired

Saying he lost his passion for the game, seven-time all-star Alfonso Soriano, 38, on Nov. 4 announced his retirement from major league baseball. The native of the Dominican Republic stands 50th all time in home runs with 412, but his production had declined in the final year of his eight-year, $136 million contract. The New York Yankees released him in July when his batting average had fallen to .221.

Died

Tom Magliozzi, who with his brother Ray formed “Click and Clack, the Tappett Brothers” for NPR’s Car Talk, died on Nov. 3 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. The brothers, both MIT graduates, began the popular automotive advice show in Boston in 1977 and took it to a national audience in the 1980s. They ended the show in 2012, but in response to listener requests, NPR reran old episodes of the show on Saturday mornings. Tom Magliozzi was 77.

Died

Phil Crane, a long-time congressman from Illinois and conservative leader, died of lung cancer on Nov. 8. Crane, during his 35 years in the House, unsuccessfully opposed the Panama Canal Treaty, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Department of Education, but he helped plant the seeds of conservative renewal as founder of the House Republican Study Committee and as chairman of the American Conservative Union. He was 84.

Died

Brittany Maynard took her own life on Nov. 1 by taking a drug prescribed by a doctor to kill her. Maynard, 29 and diagnosed with terminal cancer, decided she wanted to die before suffering in hospice care, and she and her husband moved to Oregon, where physician-assisted suicide is legal. Maynard became the public face of the movement to legalize assisted suicide elsewhere. Before Maynard’s death, Kara Tippetts pleaded with Maynard in an open letter not to kill herself. “Hastening death was never what God intended,” Tippetts, who also has terminal cancer, wrote. “But in our dying, He does meet us with His beautiful grace. I get to partner with my doctor in my dying, and it’s going to be a beautiful and painful journey for us all. But, hear me—it is not a mistake—beauty will meet us in that last breath.”

By the numbers

63

The percentage of Americans, according to a November poll, who say having a firearm in a home makes the home safer. In a 2000 Gallup survey, 35 percent of Americans took that position.

12

The percentage of the 2.8 million Roman Catholics in the New York Archdiocese who regularly attend Sunday Mass, according to archdiocese officials. The archdiocese on Nov. 2 announced that 31 churches would stop having regular services.

-2

The percent savings rate of Americans under age 35, according to Moody’s Analytics. In contrast, older age groups had positive savings rates of between 3 and 13 percent.