Human Race

Died

Best-selling Christian author and speaker Gary Smalley died March 6 at the age of 75. Smalley wrote or co-authored dozens of books, including If Only He Knew and For Better or for Best, dishing out biblical and practical advice on marriage and relationships. Smalley and his wife, Norma, began conducting marriage seminars in the 1970s while he served as a pastor in Waco, Texas. They went on to found what became known as the Smalley Relationship Center, and Smalley appeared on Oprah and NBC’s Today Show as couples from around the world looked to him for insight on their marriages. Smalley’s son Greg said his dad followed his own advice, prioritizing his family and marriage in spite of a busy ministry: “He was always working on the next thing in his life to grow in. … He would say, ‘I’ve never arrived. I’ll arrive when I get to heaven.’”

Arrested

The Secret Service apprehended Kyle Odom in Washington, D.C., on March 8, two days after Odom allegedly shot an Idaho pastor six times. Odom, a former Marine who suffered a breakdown in 2014, had flown to Washington to try to deliver a message about a Martian invasion to President Obama. According to a paranoid manifesto written by Odom, he believed Pastor Tim Remington of The Altar Church in Coeur d’Alene to be one of hordes of froglike aliens that had invaded the country in human disguise. Remington is expected to recover from his wounds.

Nominated

President Barack Obama on March 16 announced his choice for the next Supreme Court justice: Merrick Garland, the chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia Circuit. Garland, 63, would be expected to cast often liberal votes, although he has a reputation as a centrist. Bill Clinton first nominated Garland to the D.C. Circuit in 1995, and 32 Republican senators eventually voted for his confirmation. That may not happen this time: Republican senators have repeatedly promised to oppose any Supreme Court nomination before the next president takes the White House.

Jailed

A federal court sentenced Matthew Lane Durham, 21, to 40 years in prison on March 7 for sexually assaulting children at a Kenyan orphanage. The former missions volunteer from Oklahoma was convicted in January for misconduct at Nairobi’s Upendo Children’s Home between April and June of 2014. Durham’s case highlights a need for better volunteer vetting at many foreign orphanages: It and similar cases in recent years have stirred local suspicion against foreign volunteers in Kenya.

Sentenced

A Turkish court on March 4 sentenced two migrant smugglers to more than four years in prison for their role in the drowning deaths of five persons, including 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi. Photos of Aylan’s body on a Turkish beach last year brought international attention to the migrant crisis in Europe. Aylan’s brother and mother also died. The court convicted the smugglers, Syrian nationals Muwafaka Alabash and Asem Alfrhad, of human trafficking, but acquitted them of causing the deaths through deliberate negligence. The smugglers blamed the boy’s father, saying he had organized the trip. Since January more than 400 migrants have died attempting to reach Greece or Italy by sea.

Compensated

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal awarded Christian university graduate Bethany Paquette $8,500 on March 3 in a landmark religious discrimination case. When Paquette applied for a guide position at Amaruk Wilderness Corp. in 2014, the company rejected her application and attacked her Christian beliefs and education at Trinity Western University, whose community covenant permits sex only within heterosexual marriage. The tribunal concluded Paquette ultimately wasn’t qualified for the wilderness job, but agreed Amaruk had engaged in discrimination. It ordered the company to pay for “injury to her dignity.”

Disclosed

Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova admitted she tested positive for a banned substance at the Australian Open. In a public apology on March 7, Sharapova, 28, blamed herself for not doing research on 2016 rule changes, which banned a drug called meldonium she said she’d taken for 10 years for health reasons. Sharapova, the world’s highest-paid female athlete, could be temporarily banned from tennis, and several sponsors have suspended their relationship with her. Fellow tennis champion Serena Williams applauded Sharapova’s “courage” in taking responsibility for the failed drug test.

Captured

Authorities arrested suspected killer Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino in Missouri on March 9 after a multistate manhunt. Serrano-Vitorino, an illegal immigrant, was charged with shooting five men to death in Kansas and Missouri in March. He had been deported in 2004 after threatening a woman, but re-entered the United States and last year slipped away from Immigration and Customs Enforcement because of an agency communications blunder. He is due in court April 28.

Died

George Martin, the producer who oversaw The Beatles’ rise to stardom, died on March 8 at the age of 90. In 1962, the classically trained Londoner thought the first Beatles recording he heard was “rather unpromising.” But his work with the soon-to-be iconic band over the next eight years forged a career that won him six Grammys. Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, Martin entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.

By the numbers

112 | The age of Israel Kristal of Haifa, Israel, now the world’s oldest living man, according to Guinness World Records. During World War II, Kristal survived internment at Auschwitz and Nazi slave labor camps.

393-0 | The tally on March 14 as the U.S. House of Representatives voted unanimously to declare Islamic State atrocities against Christians, Yazidis, and other Middle East minorities “genocide.”

340 | The number of days astronaut Scott Kelly spent in space aboard the International Space Station before returning to Earth in March.