Human Race

Excavated

Archaeologists believe they found the bodies of four of America’s earliest leaders buried beneath a former church at the country’s first successful English colony, Jamestown, Va. The men were likely Capt. Gabriel Archer, Sir Ferdinando Wainman, Capt. William West, and pastor Robert Hunt. Chemical tests, skeletal analyses, genealogical records, and 3-D scans of artifacts in the graves helped lead the Jamestown Rediscovery team to the identities. Most Jamestown settlers died of disease, famine, or war with Native Americans.

Appeared

A Christian pastor detained in North Korea “confessed” to trying to “overthrow the state” in a perhaps scripted press conference July 30. Authorities have held Hyeon Soo Lim, the Korean pastor of a Canadian megachurch, since January. Lim’s statement spoke of drawing crosses on food sacks to “create the impression that it is God, and not the Workers’ Party,” that sustains the North Korean people. The Toronto church says Lim, 60, has made more than 100 trips to the communist nation.

Stated

Missouri state Sen. Bob Dixon has become one of the nation’s most well-known gubernatorial candidates after media dredged up his homosexual past. The Republican issued a statement on July 27 saying that sexual abuse he endured as a child led to years of “teenage confusion” he has put behind him. Dixon, who is 46 and has a wife and three daughters, said his Christian faith will continue to guide his actions. He criticized those “who tear down others for their gain.”

Reversed

An anonymous Alabama prisoner who went to federal court seeking an abortion changed her mind July 29. The American Civil Liberties Union helped the unnamed woman sue her sheriff July 20, while the state sought to terminate the woman’s parental rights, with a court-appointed attorney representing the child. But the suit dissolved when the prisoner revealed, in a sworn statement, she now wishes to give birth. The statement didn’t explain the reasons for her decision, but said she acted without “undue influence, duress, or threat of harm.”

Released

Jailed at 12, the nation’s youngest convicted killer walked free July 28 at age 29. Curtis Jones is now an ordained minister, and he faces lifetime probation. Jones and sister Catherine, now 30, killed their father’s girlfriend in 1999. Child welfare investigators had found signs of sexual abuse in the family and did nothing. The siblings had also planned to kill their father and a male relative, but panicked after murdering the girlfriend. Prosecutors charged them as adults, and they pled guilty to second-degree murder. Catherine was released Aug. 1.

Declined

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh on July 27 withdrew the city’s bid for the 2024 Olympics, saying he would not “mortgage the future of the city away” by signing a host city contract that would leave the city liable to cover cost overruns. Los Angeles, which hosted the games in 1932 and 1984, remains in the running for the 2024 games and faces competition from cities such as Paris, Rome, Hamburg, and Budapest.

Killed

Three relatives of late terrorist Osama bin Laden were among four killed July 31 when a private jet crashed in southern England. Arab media said the former al-Qaida leader’s stepmother Rajaa Hashim, sister Sana bin Laden, and brother-in-law Zuhair Hashim were passengers when the plane nose-dived in Hampshire. The bin Ladens remain one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest families thanks to the construction conglomerate Saudi Binladin Group. The family disowned Osama in 1994 because of his terrorist activities, long before his 2011 death from U.S. special forces.

Appointed

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper named Russell Brown to the Supreme Court of Canada on July 27. Brown will replace retiring Justice Marshall Rothstein and will be the seventh justice appointed by Harper, whose Conservative Party took power in 2006. Before going to the bench, the professing Christian and law professor’s internet presence appeared conservative. He criticized legal precedent that led to this year’s unanimous decision to legalize assisted suicide. Brown also appeared to endorse an organization that defended a Christian law school provinces had blacklisted for upholding biblical sexuality.

Paroled

Jonathan Pollard, a former civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy convicted of spying for Israel, will likely leave prison soon, after 30 years in jail. The Obama administration announced it would not oppose Pollard’s scheduled parole in November. Pollard stole entire databases of highly sensitive information and sold it to Israel in 1985 until he was caught and arrested in November of that year.

Died

James Jude, a doctor credited with helping pioneer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), died July 27 at age 87. Before Jude’s work, doctors would open the chests of patients in cardiac arrest to massage the heart directly. Jude partnered with two electrical engineers, Guy Knickerbocker and William Kouwenhoven (inventor of the portable defibrillator), to publish a chest compression technique in 1960. The trio then combined their work with Baltimore doctors working on the respiratory system to create CPR.

By the numbers

57 | The percentage of American voters who oppose President Obama’s nuclear pact with Iran, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll released on Aug. 3. Only 27 percent of American voters support the nuclear deal.

$546,000 | Amount of money the University of California paid former president Mark Yudof in 2014, the year after he left office, according to a July 29 report in The Sacramento Bee. Yudof told the Bee: “This is the typical arrangement for presidents and chancellors who leave administration and prepare to begin teaching again.”