Human Race

CHARGED: A jury pool four times the normal size will report Oct. 20 to an Alabama courtroom to begin jury selection in a trial dating back to a 1965 killing that made civil rights history. In a bid to seat an impartial panel, Circuit Court Judge Tommy Jones ordered 600 jurors to report for questioning in the trial of former Alabama state trooper James Bonard Fowler. When a Feb. 18, 1965, civil-rights demonstration erupted into a mêlée between marchers and police, Fowler shot Jimmie Lee Jackson, who later died at a Selma, Ala., hospital. A grand jury in 1965 did not return an indictment against Fowler.

DIED: Hollywood icon Paul Newman, the Oscar-winning actor who starred in films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, died Sept. 26 from cancer. Married for 50 years to actress Joanne Woodward, in 1982 Newman helped launch Newman's Own, a multimillion-dollar food company that donates all of its profits to charity-a sum totaling more than $250 million thus far. Newman once told friends that of all his achievements, he wanted to be remembered for the "Hole in the Wall" camps he founded around the world for severely ill children.

BARRED: When Rev. Jack Wisor opened the doors of his Brookville, Pa., church parsonage to the homeless, he saw it as an opportunity to help those in need. But local officials weren't supportive: A district judge slapped Wisor with a $500 fine for violating a zoning code that prohibits him from using the First Apostles Doctrine Church parsonage as a homeless shelter because it's in a commercial district. Wisor is appealing.

GRANTED: A federal judge ruled last month that the Army erred when it refused to grant conscientious objector status and an honorable discharge to an Alaska paratrooper who says he experienced a religious awakening that left him conflicted about his role in the military. Pfc. Michael Barnes, 26, said he had the change of heart while serving a 15-month deployment in Iraq and wrote in his December 2006 request that he could "no longer justify spending my short time in this world participating in or supporting war. . . . I must try to save souls, not help take them. I fear not for my life, but for my soul."

OUT: Gospel singer Ray Boltz, known for such songs as "Thank You" and "The Anchor Holds," rocked Contemporary Christian Music circles last month by announcing that he is gay. Boltz, whose 33-year marriage ended in divorce earlier this year, told the pro-gay Washington Blade that after years of struggling with homosexual desires, he decided to go public with the news.