DIED
Magician and actor Ricky Jay, who was once called the world’s “most gifted sleight-of-hand artist,” on Nov. 24 at 72.
Stephen Hillenburg, the marine-biology teacher who created the SpongeBob SquarePants children’s show, on Nov. 26 at 57. He announced last year that he had Lou Gehrig’s disease.
José Peralta, the first Dominican American elected to the New York state senate, on Nov. 22 at 47, after a brief illness. Peralta, who represented part of Queens, lost his re-election bid in September.
ELECTED
Kristine Guillaume, as the first black woman to lead the Harvard Crimson, one of America’s oldest college newspapers.
DEPARTED
The first of 8,300 Cuban doctors, from Brazil, after their government ordered them to return home when Brazil’s far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro said he’d change a program that…