Fired

Baylor University’s Board of Regents announced May 26 it had removed Ken Starr as president of the school. Baylor fired Starr, WORLD’s first Daniel of the Year and the leader of the Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky investigation, along with football coach Art Briles after an independent report concluded school officials had mishandled multiple claims of sexual assault committed by football players. Two former players have been convicted of sexual assaults since 2014. Starr also resigned as chancellor of the Baptist school June 1, and athletics director Ian McCaw resigned May 30.

Died

Jane Fawcett, a British code-breaker who helped sink the German battleship Bismarck, died May 21 at the age of 95. Later a singer and preservationist, Fawcett served at Britain’s Bletchley Park decoding center during World War II and was among those tasked with finding the Bismarck after it sank a powerful English vessel. On May 25, 1941, she typed out a message revealing the Nazis’ mightiest ship was headed to France for repairs. The Royal Navy sank the Bismarck two days later.

Died

Flamboyant televangelist and pink-wig enthusiast Janice Crouch died May 31. She was 78. Crouch co-founded Trinity Broadcasting Network in the 1970s with her late husband, Paul. Now the world’s largest religious broadcaster, TBN and its 24-hour programming included the couple’s nightly talk show, Praise the Lord. Two granddaughters later accused the lavish couple of mishandling money and covering up sexual abuse (see “Courtroom storm,” April 30, 2016). Janice Crouch also managed a Bible-times theme park in Orlando, Fla.

Proposed

The Council of Islamic Ideology, a Quranic and Sharia advisory body in Pakistan, recommended allowing husbands to “lightly beat” their wives in a bill claiming to protect women. The draft proposal, revealed in May, said husbands may beat wives for refusing sexual advances, interacting with strangers, and speaking so loudly as to be overheard by strangers. The 20-member council’s recommendations to Parliament are nonbinding. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan called the proposal “ridiculous.”

Murdered

UCLA associate professor William Klug, 39, died June 1 in a campus shooting that prompted a school lockdown. The shooter, former student Mainak Sarkar, reportedly killed his own estranged wife in Minnesota before driving to Los Angeles, where he shot Klug and then killed himself. The apparently unstable Sarkar, 38, had accused Klug of stealing his intellectual property, an assertion authorities said was “a making of his own imagination.” Klug, a professing Christian and a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, left behind a wife, Mary Elise, and two young children.

Elected

A prominent lay attorney from Liberia will lead the United Methodist Judicial Council until 2020, the denomination announced May 19. N. Oswald Tweh Sr. became the first African named council president following a vote at The United Methodist Church’s 2016 General Conference in Portland, Ore. The General Conference’s African contingent helped rein in the denomination’s long-standing support for abortion and helped thwart efforts to endorse homosexuality. Tweh has a law degree from Harvard and served as president of the Liberian National Bar Association from 2006 to 2008. The nine-member council is the UMC’s highest court.