Human Race

Upheld

The Colorado Court of Appeals on Aug. 13 upheld earlier rulings against Christian baker Jack Phillips, ruling that he had violated Colorado law by refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding event. A judge in December 2013 had ordered Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, to “cease and desist from discriminating” after refusing to make the cake in 2012. The state Civil Rights Commission later ordered Phillips to change company policies and retrain staff, which the appeals court also upheld. Phillips’ attorneys said they were considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Diagnosed

Former President Jimmy Carter announced on Aug. 12 he has metastatic cancer. Carter, 90, said surgeons discovered the cancer during his recent liver surgery. Since leaving office in 1980, the Georgia Democrat has traveled extensively on diplomatic and humanitarian missions. The former president is set to undergo treatment at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Carter’s father, brother, and two sisters all died of pancreatic cancer.

Killed

Mexican activist Miguel Angel Jimenez Blanco was shot to death in his car on Aug. 8 in his hometown of Xaltianguis. Jimenez, 45, had helped organize search parties in Mexico’s violent Guerrero state for 43 missing students who had been abducted by police believed to be working with drug gangs. The searches have yielded the body of only one of the students but uncovered the remains of 129 other bodies. An associate of Jimenez told the Los Angeles Times that a car had been following Jimenez in the days leading up to the murder.

Sentenced

A jury in Centennial, Colo., on Aug. 7 sentenced James Holmes to life in prison without the possibility of parole (instead of death) for the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting. Holmes, 27, killed 12 and wounded dozens at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises.

Died

Former NFL star and longtime Monday Night Football sportscaster Frank Gifford died Aug. 9. He was 84. Gifford, a Hall of Famer who played running back, defensive back, wide receiver, and special teams positions, helped the New York Giants win an NFL championship in 1956. He went on to announce 588 consecutive NFL games on ABC. His widow, Kathie Lee Gifford, co-hosts NBC’s Today.

Released

Officials in Sudan released two South Sudanese pastors on Aug. 6, following a judge’s order. Sudanese authorities detained Yat Michael Ruot and Peter Yein Reith last winter, charging them with more than half a dozen crimes against the state. The judge convicted them on lesser charges and sentenced them to time served, though authorities prevented the pastors from leaving the country to return home. “I am feeling free because I was in jail for many months,” Ruot told Christian Solidarity Worldwide. “I have become like I’m born again.”

Born

An 11-year-old rape victim in Paraguay gave birth by C-section to a baby girl on Aug. 14. Mother and daughter are reportedly healthy. The girl’s alleged attacker, her stepfather, remains in jail. The case gained international attention after groups like Amnesty International accused Paraguayan officials of human rights violations for forbidding an abortion. (Abortion is illegal in the Catholic nation, except in life-threatening conditions.) The baby girl’s name is Milagros—Spanish for “miracles.”

Related

Nan Britton, who died in 1991, wasn’t lying when she controversially claimed in a 1927 memoir that former President Warren Harding fathered her daughter. DNA tests by Ancestry.com confirmed that the son of Britton’s daughter, James Blaesing, 65, is related to two of Harding’s relatives. Harding, believed to be childless, died in office in 1923. Elizabeth Ann Blaesing, Harding’s daughter with Britton, died in 2005.

By the numbers

0 | The number of new polio cases detected in Africa in the year preceding Aug. 11, 2015, a first on the continent according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

$250 million | The amount of taxpayer money Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker agreed to provide to help the Milwaukee Bucks build a new arena. Walker is seeking the GOP nomination for president in 2016.

$412,390 | The hotel bill for President Obama and his entourage in Ethiopia from July 26 through July 28, according to The Weekly Standard. The president and his team also had $7,540 in cell phone expenses during the Ethiopia trip.

52 | The percentage of registered voters, according to a Monmouth University survey, who support a criminal investigation into the Hillary Clinton email scandal (see "Christian crossroads" in this issue).