Human Race

Stated

President Barack Obama gave his sixth State of the Union message Jan. 20. The president outlined his proposal to raise $320 billion in new revenue through higher taxes and revealed a laundry list of items the Republican-led Congress deems dead on arrival. “Obama claims his budget is practical, not partisan—what about it being balanced?” said U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Twitter. Even the evening’s guest list fell out along party lines, the president inviting a recently released Cuban prisoner while Republicans invited Cuban dissidents as a sign of protest over the president’s executive action on Cuba.

Kindled

Hundreds of faith leaders rallied in Atlanta Jan. 13 to support “humbled” former Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, fired Jan. 6 for biblical beliefs on sexuality expressed in a book. Marchers delivered 35,000 petitions for his job to the Georgia State Capitol as Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece Alveda King and others called for religious freedom. Mayor Kasim Reed said the matter is closed and Cochran’s judgment, including statements since his suspension in November, led to his firing. He called Cochran’s writings “discrimination” inconsistent with making “Atlanta a more welcoming city.”

Appointed

Baylor University has named recently retired Congressman Frank Wolf its Jerry and Susan Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom. Wolf (WORLD’s 2014 Daniel of the Year) advocated against religious persecution during his 34 years in Congress. In 1998, legislation he authored created the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

Reassigned

Acting Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy reassigned four top officials in the wake of scandals. Clancy told The Washington Post he made the moves after a December report maligned agency leadership and culture. Clancy has been the interim leader since a knife-wielding man broke deep into the White House last year. The four officials were Dale Pupillo, protective operations; Paul Morrissey, investigations; Jane Murphy, public relations; and Mark Copanzzi, technology and mission support. Clancy’s report did not specify their reassignments.

Restored

The late Joe Paterno is again the winningest college football coach after the NCAA reached a settlement in a lawsuit with Pennsylvania officials. In 2012, the NCAA removed 111 of the Penn State football coach’s 409 wins over his inaction regarding assistant Jerry Sandusky, who is serving 30-60 years for molesting 10 boys. Some in State College say this helps revive Paterno’s reputation while others maintain Paterno knew of the abuse in 2001 and only told the athletic director.

Recanted

North Korean defector Shin Dong-hyuk, who escaped prison camp to tell human rights abuses firsthand, has changed his story’s details. Shin now claims to have spent time in a less restrictive camp before returning to the infamous Camp 14. Shin told Blaine Harden, author of Shin’s best-selling story, that he didn’t think specific dates, places, and circumstances mattered. The revelation gave Pyongyang fodder to combat fallout from Sony cyberattacks and U.S.-led efforts to put North Korea before the International Criminal Court. Shin told Harden, “I am asking for forgiveness.”

Banned

In the name of safety, Russian leaders effectively banned transgender and sexually disordered people from driving. The new regulations targeted roadway hazards that injure or kill 280,000 Russians yearly. Regulators used as guidelines the World Health Organization’s “mental and behavioral disorders,” which include transexualism and abnormal sexual preferences like voyeurism. Whether the rules are poorly written or an example of Russian LGBT suppression, as accused, remains unclear. A Russian Health Ministry spokesman told the Interfax news agency the ban would target only conditions that may affect drivers’ decision-making.

Died

Clarence E. Huntley Jr. and Joseph Shambrey, lifelong friends and 91-year-old Tuskegee Airmen, died hours apart on Jan. 5. Track teammates in their Los Angeles neighborhood in the 1930s, the friends’ World War II enlistments in 1942 kept them together by chance. The mechanics for the famed all-black Tuskegee squadron in later years rarely went one month without meeting or talking.

Died

Conservative political scientist and World War II veteran Walter Berns, 95, died Jan. 10 of lung failure. The constitutional scholar controversially resigned from Cornell University in 1969 after it capitulated to armed student civil rights activists who captured a building. A Georgetown professor from 1979-1994, he criticized liberalism as a path to tyranny when liberty has no restraint. In his final years as resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Berns maintained that a democracy depends on the character of its people: “The purpose of law is and must be to promote virtue.”

By the numbers

65 | The number of U.S. counties, out of 3,069, that have fully recovered from the 2007 recession, according to the National Association of Counties. The NAC study measured economic output, unemployment rates, jobs, and home prices.

2 | The number of ambulances diverted or delayed by a Jan. 15 protest that shut down rush hour traffic on Interstate 93 in Boston. The protest was against alleged “police and state violence against black people.”

9-0 | The Jan. 20 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of Arkansas prison inmate Gregory Holt, a Muslim who said a state prison policy banning beards violated his religious liberty.