Human Race

Opposed

Basketball Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas shouldn’t represent the WNBA’s New York Liberty, critics cried after his May 5 hiring. The Liberty named Thomas its president and part owner, despite a 2007 federal court ruling that Thomas as president and coach of the New York Knicks sexually harassed female Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders. The jury award her $11.6 million. Women’s groups and the Seattle Storm criticized his hiring, implying they will seek to derail his confirmation as owner. Thomas was unbending: “I’ve always maintained my innocence.”

Persisted

Doctors for Dr. Ian Crozier, the third American treated for Ebola last year, found Ebola blinding him months after his recovery, The New York Times reported on May 7. Crozier, 44, has also faced hearing loss and disabling muscle pain. Similar symptoms are emerging in African survivors, challenging aid workers. “By far the sickest” American treated in Atlanta in September, doctors said, Crozier spent Christmas rehospitalized. The left eye baffled doctors as it swelled, deflated to mush, then changed from blue to green. Yet over time, his sight and eye color returned to normal. Crozier returned to Liberia in April to study the epidemic’s roughly 10,000 survivors.

Detained

Qatar authorities arrested German journalists filming a documentary critical of the country’s 2022 FIFA World Cup bid, the West German Broadcasting Corporation revealed on May 4. Claiming the journalists had no permission to film, the government detained the crew for 14 hours and confiscated its equipment, returning it weeks later wiped clean. The journalists planned to highlight reports of financial corruption in FIFA bids, including in Qatar.

Defended

Christian music artist Amy Grant is under fire from pro-life fans for partnering with Melinda Gates to promote contraceptives to poor women abroad. On Facebook May 6, Grant defended the Gates Foundation as “NOT pro-abortion,” apparently referring to the Gates-backed Hope Through Healing Hands. The wider Gates Foundation has funded directly abortionists like Planned Parenthood. Yet Gates wrote last year abortion is not women’s healthcare and is counterproductive to promoting maternal health—a position widely criticized by abortion advocates. Grant said she appreciated meeting Gates and hearing “her faith journey.”

Claimed

Tens of thousands of infertile men could soon father children, a French company claimed May 8. The Kallistem laboratory says it has taken underdeveloped sperm from a man with the fertility condition spermatogonia and, over 72 days in test tubes, developed enough to be used in IVF. But the company refuses to release its scientific evidence while the patent is pending, causing many scientists to be skeptical.

Mourned

Roughly 250 mourners attended a Scottish graveside service May 1 for an infant no one knew. The boy, no more than 6 weeks old, was found dead on an Edinburgh bicycle path in July 2013, and inquiries and DNA searches failed to produce any leads on his identity. Witnesses say many tears honored the “baby with no name,” whom police report was healthy before being abandoned. Teddy bears, flowers, and notes of symbolic adoption covered the grave, where a tombstone will reportedly read, “This baby was … known to God.”

Admitted

Jim Staley, pastor of Passion for Truth Ministries, admitted in a Missouri courtroom April 30 to defrauding 16 investors of $3.3 million. Staley, 40, pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud through a consulting firm he ran before starting the church in 2008. The acknowledgment of guilt came nearly one year after his indictment by a federal grand jury. With a large online following, he remains pastor of the St. Louis–area church, though he may face up to eight years in prison. Sentencing is July 29.

Died

Former House Speaker and World War II veteran Jim Wright, 92, died May 6. The Texas Democrat in 1989 was the first speaker forced from office midterm after a campaign by then-Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., uncovered gifts and reporting violations. Wright made his mark on significant policy issues, including the 1978 Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt. After leaving Congress, he taught political science at Texas Christian University.

Died

Guy Carawan, the folksinger who helped create the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,” died May 2 at 87. He did not write the folk song, which has 18th-century roots. But as he sang to 200 African-American students in Raleigh, N.C., in 1960, the students linked arms, then immediately “choir-ized” it on the street. It soon spread throughout the South, including the Selma-Montgomery marches. President Lyndon Johnson would employ the mantra introducing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Died

Jean Nidetch, who helped form Weight Watchers in 1963 after losing 72 pounds, died May 6. She was 91. Food was always her mother’s way to pacify her when she was young, Nidetch said. The diet support system, started with her husband and two friends, grew to include cookbooks, weight-control classes and camaraderie, and summer camps for children. Five million persons had enrolled worldwide by 1968.

By the numbers

483 | The number of new congregations planted by the Anglican Church of North America since 2009, according to Archbishop Foley Beach.

960 | The number of tax cheats between 2003 and 2012 found to be working at the IRS whom the agency retained as employees, according to an April audit. The IRS, required by law to fire known tax cheats, instead gave the employees counseling, reprimands, or suspensions.

31-0 | The number of times Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders was available to the media in the first week of May, compared with candidate Hillary Clinton, according to the McClatchy news service.