Human Race: Nonnegotiable payment

The 77-year-old mayor of Emo, Ontario, said he wouldn’t pay a $5,000 fine levied on him for refusing to celebrate Pride Month. But by early December, Harold McQuaker learned he had little choice in a case illustrating the strength of Canada’s LGBTQ lobby.

McQuaker’s troubles began in 2020, when the activist group Borderland Pride asked the town of Emo, with just over 1,200 residents, to recognize the annual LGBTQ Pride celebration, adopt a motion celebrating sexual diversity, and fly the rainbow flag. The council, including the mayor, voted 3-2 against the motion, prompting Borderland Pride to file a discrimination claim against city officials. The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in November ordered the city to pay the group $10,000 and Mayor McQuaker to pay an additional $5,000.

McQuaker called the fine extortion and refused to pay it. But on Dec. 8, a GiveSendGo profile set up to raise money for the mayor and city council reported that McQuaker’s bank account had been garnished for the money. The city council has yet to vote on whether or not to pay its fine. Borderland Pride earlier offered to drop its complaint if McQuaker and council members published an apology, instituted diversity training for the members, agreed to adopt future LGBTQ Pride proclamations, and hosted a drag queen story hour at the public library.

Cartel leader freed

U.S. authorities released drug lord Fabio Ochoa Vásquez, 67, on Dec. 3 after he served 25 years of a 30-year prison sentence in a U.S. federal facility for his role in a drug smuggling conspiracy orchestrated by a prominent Colombian cartel. Ochoa and his brothers, Jorge Luis and Juan David, were key players in the Medellín cartel’s trafficking of cocaine that inundated the United States during the 1970s and ’80s, earning so much drug money that Forbes included the brothers on its 1987 list of billionaires. According to a retired assistant U.S. attorney who helped prosecute the kingpin, the U.S. gov­ernment was unable to seize all of Ochoa’s drug-related profits, so he most likely “won’t be retiring a poor man” when he returns home to Colombia. —Addie Offereins

Judge charged anew

The Massachusetts Judicial Conduct Commission on Dec. 2 filed formal charges against Judge Shelley Joseph, alleging she committed misconduct in an immigration enforcement case. The state authorities said Joseph helped an illegal immigrant evade capture by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2018 by letting him leave through the back door of her Newton, Mass., courthouse—then lied to authorities about what happened. Joseph faced criminal obstruction charges in 2019 for the same circumstance, but prosecutors dropped them in 2022 following the end of Donald Trump’s presidency. The case was one of several clashes at the time between the Trump administration and state officials over immigration. If convicted, Joseph could be removed from the bench. —Elizabeth Russell

Penny acquitted

A Manhattan jury found former U.S. Marine Daniel Penny not guilty of negligent homicide on Dec. 9. The verdict, coming three days after the jury deadlocked on a charge of second-degree manslaughter, meant the end of the criminal trial against Penny—though not the end to controversy over the case. In May 2023 Penny, who is white, placed a black homeless man, Jordan Neely, in a chokehold after Neely boarded a subway train and began making threatening comments to passengers. Neely was pronounced dead at a hospital following the altercation. The NAACP said Penny’s acquittal gave white Americans license to execute vigilante justice against black Americans, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called Penny a hero who never should have faced trial. Closer to home, New York State Assemblyman Zohran Kwame Mamdani said Neely’s death represented decades of policy failures in mental healthcare and housing. —Josh Schumacher

Apologist accused

Christian apologist and The Line of Fire radio show host Michael Brown said he would comply with a third-party investigation following accusations of sexual impropriety involving a former secretary at Brown’s FIRE School of Ministry in 2002. Brown, 69, admitted a “serious lack of judgment” in his interactions with the secretary, who was 21 at the time, but said he considered her “like a family member” and the relationship was “neither sexual nor amorous in any way.” Speaking under a pseudonym in a Dec. 2 online article published at The Roys Report, the accuser said she viewed Brown as a father figure and said his purported conduct—kisses on the lips, holding her hand, and slapping her backside—ultimately undermined her faith. In a statement on its website, The Line of Fire said it is seeking a “trauma informed” investigative firm and would make the report public once it is complete. —Mary Jackson

Pro-lifer freed

Jailed since June, Canadian pro-life advocate Linda Gibbons regained her freedom Dec. 5. Toronto officers arrested the 76-year-old grandmother for carrying a sign emblazoned with the words “Why Mom? When I Have So Much Love To Give” outside an abortion center last spring. Since 2017, Ontario’s Safe Access to Abortion Services Act has banned praying, sidewalk counseling, and showing “disapproval” of abortion within roughly 165 feet of eight Ontario abortion facilities. Gibbons was placed behind bars after she deliberately skipped a court hearing—her fourth arrest in a year—but Justice Maria Speyer of the Ontario Court of Justice ultimately decided Gibbons’ abortion protest did not amount to criminal mischief. —Kim Henderson

Pitching for Jesus

England’s Premier League is requiring soccer team captains to wear Pride-themed rainbow armbands as part of its LGBTQ+ inclusion initiative, but Crystal Palace defender Marc Guéhi has put his own spin on things. The son of a minister, Guéhi wrote “I love Jesus” on his armband before Crystal Palace’s Nov. 30 draw with Newcastle United and “Jesus loves you” during his club’s Dec. 3 victory over Ipswich Town. Guéhi earned a warning but no discipline from England’s Football Association for the pro-­Christian messages despite a uniform regulation prohibiting the display of religious or personal slogans. Asked by reporters about the meaning of the messages, Guéhi appeared to be intentionally vague: “It was a ­message of love and truth as well, and a message of inclusivity, so I think it speaks for itself.” —Ray Hacke