Human Race

CRASH: Africa Inland Mission (AIM) pilot Frank Toews, 35, died when his Cessna 206 crashed while flying over the Nairobi slum of Kibera with two Americans filmmakers. AIM mechanic Ryan Williams, 33, died of severe burn injuries Aug. 7 after being medevacked from Kenya to a hospital in South Africa. Both are survived by their wives and four children each. St. Louis filmmakers Rob Lehr and Dan Parris were hospitalized with injuries after the Cessna hit power lines and crashed during aerial photography above one of the largest slums in the world (no one on the ground was hurt). The film crew began work last month on Give a Damn, a documentary about the 1 billion people worldwide who live on less than $1.25 a day.

DIED: Former Filipino President Corazon Aquino, 76, who as a "plain housewife" in a yellow dress rallied millions of Filipinos during the "People Power Revolution" to depose dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, died Aug. 1.

CONVICTED: A federal jury convicted former Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., Aug. 5 on bribery, racketeering, and money laundering charges stemming from accusations he took more than $400,000 in bribes and sought millions more in exchange for brokering business deals in Africa. The jury also ruled that Jefferson, 62, must forfeit approximately $470,000 in bribery receipts. His sentencing is set for Oct. 30.

DIED: Eunice Kennedy Shriver, President John F. Kennedy's sister who championed the rights of the mentally disabled and started the Special Olympics in 1968, died Aug. 11. She was 88.

MONITORED: Pam Key, the Naked Emperor News founder who uncovered footage of presidential candidate Barack Obama advocating in 2007 for a single-payer healthcare system that would eliminate private insurance, said she's not intimidated by the White House response: a monitoring program aimed at rooting out any "disinformation about health insurance reform." Key has left the matter in God's hands: "I'm surprised the White House would even bother."

DIED: Leszek Kolakowski, 81, a leading Polish philosopher whose Main Currents of Marxism explains the intellectual roots of a lethal worldview. Kolakowski laid a thoughtful foundation for the Solidarity movement in his country and in that way contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the freeing of many Central and Eastern European countries. He wrote, "The only medicine communism has invented"-centralized economic control-"is worse than the illness it is supposed to cure."

DIED: Mary Vanden Bosch, who in 1944 co-founded the nation's largest adoption agency, Bethany Christian Services, died Aug. 3 at the age of 93.

DIED: Ernest Lefever, who in 1976 founded the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and served as its president until 1989, died July 29 at the age of 89.