The RIP Famous Person Thread

[harrybarracuda]

I was too young but somewhere in my house is a cassette of "Baghdad Betty".

"Why do you come to the desert and be eaten by worms?".

[harrybarracuda]

Michael Jackson’s Thriller songwriter Rod Temperton dies aged 66 after cancer battle
The British musician also wrote songs for Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker and Quincy Jones

JENNIFER RUBY 25 minutes ago



Rod Temperton, the acclaimed songwriter behind Michael Jackson’s Thriller, has died at the age of 66.

The British musician, who hailed from Cleethorpes, passed away in London last week following a ‘brief but aggressive’ battle with cancer.

Jon Platt, chairman of music publisher Warner/Chappell, said in a statement: “His family is devastated and request total privacy at this, the saddest of sad times.”

The iconic songwriter worked with artists including Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones, Anita Baker and Herbie Hancock.

In 1979, Temerton was recruited by Jones to write a number of songs for Jackson’s first album in four years, Off the Wall.

After writing tracks including Rock With You, Temperton then penned the title track for 1982’s Thriller, which went on to become the biggest-selling album of all time.

He also had a career as a full-time musician in the 1970s, performing as part of funk band Heatwave, for whom he wrote Boogie Nights and Always & Forever.

Temperton won a Grammy Award back in 1990 for Birdland, which was written for Jones’ album Back on the Block.

He was also nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar for Miss Celie’s Blues, which he wrote for The Colour Purple.



Michael Jackson?s Thriller songwriter Rod Temperton dies aged 66 after cancer battle | London Evening Standard

[reddog]

Ross Higgins, Australian actor, aka the non pc Ted Bullpitt in the 1980's Australian
sitcom Kingwood Country has died aged 86.
Been watching re-runs of the show,liked his style, upped everyone,no pc with him.

[Cujo]

Ross Higgins, Australian actor, aka the non pc Ted Bullpitt in the 1980's Australian
sitcom Kingwood Country has died aged 86.
Been watching re-runs of the show,liked his style, upped everyone,no pc with him.

Bummer.
Enjoyed that show. Made me all nostalgic watching an episode or two on you tube.
"NOT THE KINGSWOOD!"

[blue]

Coronation Street's Hilda Ogden, Jean Alexander, dies aged 90






Alexander, who played the legendary character from 1964 until 1987, died in hospital three days after her 90th birthday.

[bobo746]

Phil Chess, co-founder of Chicago’s Chess Records, dead at 95

Phil Chess, co-founder of Chicago’s legendary Chess Records, a label credited with helping to invent rock ‘n’ roll, has died in Tucson, Ariz., at 95.

Mr. Chess and his brother Leonard Chess arrived in America as little boys, two Jewish immigrant kids from Poland. They started Chess in 1950, recording Muddy Waters, Etta James, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy and other top musicians who spread the gospel of the blues. Teens in England and around the world heard the so-called “race music” Chess helped popularize, and the cross-pollination helped birth rock.
As Waters once put it, “The blues had a baby, and they named it rock ‘n’ roll.”
Chess could be described as the midwife. In 1951, the label released what some consider the first rock record: “Rocket ’88,” by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, including a young Ike Turner.
In 1977, a Chess record went to outer space. The Voyager mission carried recordings including Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
Mr. Chess died Tuesday evening at his 30-acre ranch in Tucson, said his daughter, Pam. For decades, he kept in touch with many Chess artists, she said. “He talked to B.B. King all the time on the phone. He ran into Ramsey Lewis six or so years ago in San Diego,” she said. “He talked to Chuck Berry.”





Phil Chess, co-founder of Chicago's Chess Records, dead at 95 | Chicago Sun-Times

[Cujo]

Phil Chess, co-founder of Chicago’s Chess Records, dead at 95

Phil Chess, co-founder of Chicago’s legendary Chess Records, a label credited with helping to invent rock ‘n’ roll, has died in Tucson, Ariz., at 95.

Mr. Chess and his brother Leonard Chess arrived in America as little boys, two Jewish immigrant kids from Poland. They started Chess in 1950, recording Muddy Waters, Etta James, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy and other top musicians who spread the gospel of the blues. Teens in England and around the world heard the so-called “race music” Chess helped popularize, and the cross-pollination helped birth rock.
As Waters once put it, “The blues had a baby, and they named it rock ‘n’ roll.”
Chess could be described as the midwife. In 1951, the label released what some consider the first rock record: “Rocket ’88,” by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, including a young Ike Turner.
In 1977, a Chess record went to outer space. The Voyager mission carried recordings including Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
Mr. Chess died Tuesday evening at his 30-acre ranch in Tucson, said his daughter, Pam. For decades, he kept in touch with many Chess artists, she said. “He talked to B.B. King all the time on the phone. He ran into Ramsey Lewis six or so years ago in San Diego,” she said. “He talked to Chuck Berry.”





Phil Chess, co-founder of Chicago's Chess Records, dead at 95 | Chicago Sun-Times

[kmart]

^Those old Chess records are brilliant. Raw 4-track recordings where you can hear the musicians's feet tapping on the floorboards. The old versions without the digital remastering are fantastic.

RIP Mr Chess.

[harrybarracuda]

John Good, FBI agent whose famous sting inspired ‘American Hustle’, dies at 80
PUBLISHED : Friday, 21 October, 2016, 2:34pm



It featured undercover FBI agents posing as Arab sheiks and their agents, a con man in the service of the bureau, and a bevy of public officials caught on video in the baldfaced act of influence-peddling.

The investigation, conducted in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, was known as Abscam. It led to the conviction of six members of the US House of Representatives and one US senator in events dramatised in the 2013 film “American Hustle.”

John Good, the FBI agent who led the two-year sting, and whose character was played by Bradley Cooper in the movie, died on September 28 at his home in Island Park, New York. He as 80. His son-in-law, Paul Farrell, confirmed the death this week and said the family did not know the cause. Good had undergone a heart operation two months ago.

Good was a second-generation FBI employee.

By the 1970s, the younger Good was stationed at a field office on Long Island, where he was investigating public corruption in the construction of a sewer project. Eager to pursue bigger cases, he undertook a collaboration with Mel Weinberg, a convicted swindler who, by Weinberg’s account, “copped a plea” and signed on with the FBI as a paid informant.

With Weinberg’s assistance, FBI agents established a fictitious company, Abdul Enterprises, purportedly owned by an Arab sheik who was looking to make investments - licit or otherwise - in the United States.

Initially, the investigation exposed criminal dealings in stolen artwork and fraudulent financial transactions. Eventually, it drew in local and then national officials trading political favors for cash.

Good, Weinberg and the rest of the FBI team conducted their business at airports, in hotel rooms and in a rented home in the Georgetown neighbourhood of Washington, DC. Good oversaw the work.

To maintain the appearance of wealth, they hired private jets and entertained on a yacht. They recorded their interactions with officials in footage that would later dominate the headlines with its unseemliness.

“Money talks in this business and bulls*** walks,” Representative Michael “Ozzie” Myers memorably remarked on a tape in which he was seen accepting an envelope containing US$50,000 in cash in exchange for a promise to introduce a private immigration bill on behalf of the supposed sheik. Myers was among those convicted.
“The politicians were just unbelievably unethical and ruthless,” Good told the Newark Star-Ledger in 2013.

Decades later, the investigation is still regarded as one of the largest and most dramatic probes of its kind. Weinberg sold his life-story rights to the makers of American Hustle, in which he was portrayed by Christian Bale.

Good saw his relationship with Weinberg as central to the investigation’s success.
“There is one basic secret to dealing with informants,” Good once said.

“You’ve got to give them respect,” Good said. “No matter what they might have done in the past, they are still human beings. These people have pride. To be called a stool pigeon, a canary, a fink is demeaning. ... They have to know that you are sincere, that you will keep your promises.”

Weinberg, for his part, expressed similar admiration for Good and said that they had stayed in touch over the years, visiting one another and, on at least one occasion, went sailing.

“If it wasn’t for John Good there would have been no Abscam,” said Weinberg, 91, reached by telephone at his home in Florida. “I would back him up anytime, anywhere.”

John Good, FBI agent whose famous sting inspired ?American Hustle?, dies at 80 | South China Morning Post

[david44]

Michael Jackson’s Thriller songwriter Rod Temperton dies aged 66 after cancer battle
The British musician also wrote songs for Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker and Quincy Jones

JENNIFER RUBY 25 minutes ago



Rod Temperton, the acclaimed songwriter behind Michael Jackson’s Thriller, has died at the age of 66.

The British musician, who hailed from Cleethorpes, passed away in London last week following a ‘brief but aggressive’ battle with cancer.

Jon Platt, chairman of music publisher Warner/Chappell, said in a statement: “His family is devastated and request total privacy at this, the saddest of sad times.”

The iconic songwriter worked with artists including Aretha Franklin, Quincy Jones, Anita Baker and Herbie Hancock.

In 1979, Temerton was recruited by Jones to write a number of songs for Jackson’s first album in four years, Off the Wall.

After writing tracks including Rock With You, Temperton then penned the title track for 1982’s Thriller, which went on to become the biggest-selling album of all time.

He also had a career as a full-time musician in the 1970s, performing as part of funk band Heatwave, for whom he wrote Boogie Nights and Always & Forever.

Temperton won a Grammy Award back in 1990 for Birdland, which was written for Jones’ album Back on the Block.

He was also nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar for Miss Celie’s Blues, which he wrote for The Colour Purple.



Michael Jackson?s Thriller songwriter Rod Temperton dies aged 66 after cancer battle | London Evening Standard

That linky broken heres another



I prefer the heavier Weather report cover but this is also great

[bobo746]

Dad's Army creator, 'goliath' of British comedy writing Jimmy Perry dies aged 93

The creator of the popular UK television sitcom Dad's Army, Jimmy Perry, has died aged 93.
Perry co-wrote the series with David Croft where he drew on his time spent serving in the Home Guard during World War II.
Many of the show's characters were based on real people Perry had met, including Corporal Jones.
The nine-year series, beginning in 1968, ran for 80 episodes but the BBC was initially reluctant to produce the show as it poked fun at the Home Guard.
BBC Controller of Comedy Commissioning Shane Allen described Perry as a "goliath of British comedy writing".
"He was behind some of the longest-running and most-loved sitcoms on British television spanning the 60s, 70s and 80s," he said.
"His work will be enjoyed and appreciated for many years to come."
As well as Dad's Army, Perry and Croft also co-wrote It Ain't Half Hot Mum — inspired by Perry's wartime experience in the Royal Artillery Concert Party — and Hi-De-Hi — based on Perry's time as a Redcoat at a Butlins camp.
You Rang M'Lord? was the last Perry-Croft collaboration and drew on Perry's grandfather's experiences as a butler.
Perry was also musically inclined, and composed the theme songs to all his comedy series including the famous Dad's Army song, Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Hitler?
Perry was awarded an OBE in 1978.
Dad's Army creator, 'goliath' of British comedy writing Jimmy Perry dies aged 93 - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[harrybarracuda]

Sheikh Khalifa, former emir of Qatar, dies at 84
Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al-Thani, the former ruler of the Gulf nation of Qatar, has died. He oversaw the modernization of the energy-rich country until being deposed in a bloodless palace coup in 1995.



Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, who ruled Qatar from 1972 to 1995, died on Sunday at the age of 84, the royal court said in a statement.
The current emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the deceased ruler's grandson, declared three days of mourning.

Khalifa used Qatar's vast oil and gas resources to transform the tiny monarchy into a modern Gulf state, which has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.
He was deposed by his son Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, then the defense minister, in a bloodless palace coup in 1995 while vacationing in Switzerland. The former emir then stayed in Europe until returning to Qatar in 2005.

In 2013, Hamad transferred power to his son Tamim.

Khalifa is considered one of the founding fathers of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the political and economic union that includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

He ruled Qatar from shortly after it gained independence from Britain in 1971, taking over from his cousin in another coup.

During his rule, Khalifa strengthened political and military ties with the West, allowing US, Canadian and French warplanes to use his territory to bomb Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait.

After the war, Qatar reached a security pact with the United States. US Central Command's forward headquarters is currently based in Qatar, from where it conducts airstrikes on the "Islamic State" in Syria and Iraq.
Khalifa had four wives, five sons and 10 daughters.
cw/cmk (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

Sheikh Khalifa, former emir of Qatar, dies at 84 | News | DW.COM | 24.10.2016

[can123]

Bobby Vee, best known for hits including Rubber Ball, Take Good Care of My Baby and The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, has died at the age of 73.
Vee released more than 25 albums during his career, retiring in 2011 after being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Vee's son Jeff Velline said the singer died peacefully surrounded by family on Monday.

Bobby Vee: 1960s pop singer dies aged 73 - BBC News

[can123]

Dead or Alive singer Pete Burns has died aged 57 after suffering a cardiac arrest, his management has said.
A statement on Twitter said it was with "greatest sadness" that it had to break the "tragic news" that Burns died suddenly on Sunday.
Burns had a hit with You Spin Me Round in 1985 and appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006.
The management statement said: "All of his family and friends are devastated by the loss of our special star."
It continued: "He was a true visionary, a beautiful talented soul, and he will be missed by all who loved and appreciated everything he was and all of the wonderful memories the has left us with."


Dead or Alive singer Pete Burns dies - BBC News

[can123]

Obituary: Jimmy Perry - BBC News


Jimmy Perry was best known as the creator of Dad's Army, one of television's most popular, and long running sitcoms.
His 25-year partnership with David Croft also produced It Ain't Half Hot Mum, Hi-de-Hi and You Rang M'Lord?

[misskit]

Tom Hayden, Activist and Jane Fonda's Ex-Husband, Dies at 76



The 1960s anti-war activist's name became forever linked with the celebrated Chicago 7 trial and Vietnam War protests.
Tom Hayden, a 1960s anti-war activist whose name became forever linked with the celebrated Chicago 7 trial, Vietnam War protests and his ex-wife Jane Fonda, has died. He was 76.

Hayden died on Sunday after a long illness, said his wife, Barbara Williams, noting that he suffered a stroke in 2015.

Hayden, once denounced as a traitor by his detractors, won election to the California Assembly and Senate, where he served for almost two decades as a progressive force on such issues as the environment and education. He was the only one of the radical Chicago 7 defendants to win such distinction in the mainstream political world.

Hayden remained an enduring voice against war and spent his later years as a prolific writer and lecturer advocating for reform of America's political institutions.

more Tom Hayden Dead: Activist and Jane Fonda's Ex Dies at 76 | Hollywood Reporter

[harrybarracuda]

Famed aviator 'Bob' Hoover, who escaped Nazis by stealing a plane, dies at 94
by Jon Ostrower @CNNMoney
October 25, 2016: 6:56 PM ET



With his gravelly Tennessee drawl and his trademark straw panama hat, R.A. "Bob" Hoover was an icon of American aviation prowess and heroism.
One of his most flamboyant escapades was escaping the Nazis in World War II by stealing one of their planes.
The legendary aviator died at his home near Los Angeles on Tuesday, at age 94, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
Hoover was born January 24, 1922 in Nashville, Tenn., and began flying at age 15. In his early years, Hoover taught himself aerobatic flying and vanquished recurring air sickness through the force of repetition, according to a 2010 Smithsonian interview.
His precise flying and technical skill as a test pilot earned Hoover the title of the "greatest stick-and-rudder man who ever lived." That superlative was given to him by General James "Jimmy" Doolittle, his close friend and leader of the April 1942 Doolittle Raid on Tokyo.
An Army Air Corps and later Air Force veteran of both World War II and the Korean War, Hoover was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for rescuing a damaged B-26 from a beach in Sicily.
After being shot down in 1944, Hoover spent 16 months in a Stalag Luft I, a German prisoner of war camp on the northeastern coast of Germany, according to the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Hoover jumped a barbed wire fence while the guards were distracted by a staged fight. He stole a lightly-damaged Focke-Wulf Fw 190, flying it to freedom before ditching the plane in a field in the Netherlands.
After the war, Hoover became a test pilot and flew through a time when flying records would fall one-by-one and new aircraft were being developed to go higher, faster and farther.
In October 1947 he flew the chase plane alongside Gen. Chuck Yeager as he broke the sound barrier, traveling past Mach 1, for the first time in the skies over Southern California. As Yeager's backup, Hoover always expressed regret that he wasn't the first.
He spent the most tense days of the Cold War testing fighters at North American Aviation. Hoover served as captain of the 1966 U.S. Acrobatic Team in Moscow.

After leaving the aerospace business, Hoover became an hallmark of the air show and race circuit.
He flew in more than 2,500 civilian and military air shows in the U.S. and around the world, according to the Smithsonian, thrilling those on the ground with his trademark routine: Shutting off one or both of the engines on his North American Rockwell Shrike Commander 500S, while performing loops and dives.

A precise aviator, Hoover famously was able to pour a glass of iced tea in the middle of a barrel role. Hoover's famous green and white stunt plane sits prominently under the wing of the Concorde supersonic airliner at the National Air and Space Museum Annex in Chantilly, Va.



Famed aviator 'Bob' Hoover, who escaped Nazis by stealing a plane, dies at 94 - Oct. 25, 2016

[harrybarracuda]

R.I.P. actor Michael Massee
By William Hughes
Oct 26, 2016 8:23 PM



Michael Massee, an actor whose growling voice and intimidating mien made him one of Hollywood’s go-to portrayers of villains, murderers, and serial killers, has died. According to Variety, Massee was 61.

Appearing in everything from Criminal Minds to Rizzoli & Isles, to memorable cameos in the Amazing Spider-Man movies and a lead role on the first season of 24, Massee was an expert at projecting unwholesome and predatory intent. Whether he was playing 24’s darkly comic Ira Gaines, trading quips and bullets with Jack Bauer, or the satanic villain on NBC’s mid-2000s miniseries, Revelations, Massee captured the reptilian glee of pure evil with a commitment and relish matched by few character actors of his generation.

Unfortunately, Massee will most likely go down in history not for his skill as a performer, but for his involvement in a famous on-set tragedy. While co-starring as Funboy in the 1993 film The Crow, Massee fired an improperly loaded prop pistol at the film’s lead, Brandon Lee, discharging a bullet lodged in the barrel from a previous scene. The bullet struck Lee in the stomach with lethal force. Although the film was eventually completed—and Lee’s death ruled an accident—the shock of the incident forced Massee to retire from an acting for a year, returning to New York and refusing all work. Twelve years later, he would tell Extra, “I don’t think you ever get over something like that.”

R.I.P. actor Michael Massee · Newswire · The A.V. Club

[harrybarracuda]

Cambodian former PM and current opposition lawmaker dies at age of 80
Source: Xinhua 2016-10-29 2229



PHNOM PENH, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian former prime minister and current opposition lawmaker Pen Sovann died on Saturday night at the age of 80 due to illness, the opposition party said in a statement.

"His Excellency Pen Sovann, a member of parliament and former prime minister during the People's Republic of Kampuchea, died at 19:17 local time on Oct. 29, 2016 at the age of 80 due to illness at his house in (southern) Takeo province," the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) said in the statement.

Pen Sovann had suffered a stroke since January last year.

He used to be the prime minister of Cambodia for six months in 1981 after the fall of the Democratic Kampuchea in 1979.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20..._135790283.htm

[harrybarracuda]

Star Trek actor Don Marshall dies aged 80

FORMER Star Trek actor Don Marshall has passed away peaceful at the age of 80, it has been confirmed.

By HELEN KELLY
PUBLISHED: 02:34, Wed, Nov 2, 2016 | UPDATED: 02:41, Wed, Nov 2, 2016



The actor, who played Lt. Boma in the original TV series, died at the Cedars Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Actress BarBara Luna, who starred alongside Don in the episode Mirror, Mirror, confirmed the news on Facebook.

She shared: "It is with deep sadness and much difficulty to inform you that Don Marshall, another Star Trek and Land of the Giants member has passed away at Cedars Sinai Hospital on Sunday evening October 30, 2016 approximately 8.00pm.

"Don transitioned peacefully, at his bedside were his daughter, son, and twin brother Doug Marshall. A memorial service is to be determined."

Don made his onscreen debut as an aspiring doctor in The Interns in 1962 after studying acting at Los Angeles City College.

The veteran actor went on to star as Dan Erickson in sci-fi series Land of the Giants, which aired in the 1960s.

He made guest appearances in Julia, Bewitched, The Bionic Woman and Little House on the Prairie.

Speaking of his career, Don previously told StarTrek.com that he was "very grateful" to be given the opportunities he had because there were few jobs available to African-American actors.

"There weren't that many jobs, guest starring jobs, for African-Americans or any minorities, really," he explained.

"I was very grateful to get the opportunities I got, and it made me work very hard on each part, to make sure that whatever I was doing was right and that the characters I plays were very strong people. I tried to bring out the best in the person I played."

Star Trek and Land of the Giants actor Don Marshall dies aged 80 | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV | Daily Express

[harrybarracuda]

Janet Reno, first woman U.S. attorney general, dies at 78
By WILL DUNHAM
Reuters



Janet Reno, the first woman U.S. attorney general, who served eight tumultuous years with President Bill Clinton, has died at 78.

Reno's goddaughter, Gabrielle D'Alemberte, said she succumbed to complications of Parkinson's disease early Monday in Miami.

The blunt-spoken lawyer worked as the top U.S. law enforcement official under Clinton from 1993 to 2001, becoming the longest-serving attorney general of the 20th century.

Just weeks into the job, she authorized the deadly 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian cult compound at Waco, Texas.

Reno later authorized federal agents to seize six-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez from relatives in Miami in 2000 and headed the Justice Department during the government's huge antitrust case against Microsoft.

The former Miami prosecutor, picked by Clinton after his first two choices for the job ran into trouble at the confirmation stage, exhibited an independent streak and a brusque manner that often upset the White House.

Reno weathered White House complaints that she was not a team player and that she sought too many special prosecutors to investigate cases, including the Whitewater affair involving the finances of the President and first lady Hillary Clinton.

She always said she made decisions based on evidence and the law.

Waco, Gonzales

Reno was only 38 days into the attorney general's job when she approved the April 19, 1993, FBI raid that led to the deaths of about 80 people, including many children, at the Waco cult compound.

Federal agents had earlier tried to serve a warrant on the cult's leader, David Koresh, who said he was the Messiah, for stockpiling weapons. Four agents and six cult members were killed in an ensuing shootout, leading to a 51-day standoff.

With negotiations at an impasse, Reno gave the go-ahead for the raid after hearing reports of child abuse in the compound. The raid on the heavily armed cultists ended in an inferno that engulfed the site.

"I made the decision. I'm accountable. The buck stops with me," a grim-looking Reno told a later news conference.

Reno took a personal interest in the political tussle over Elian Gonzalez, the young shipwreck survivor whose mother drowned fleeing Cuba.

Reno met the boy and his Miami relatives who battled to keep him from returning to communist Cuba, and his father and grandmothers, who wanted to raise Gonzalez in his homeland.

Reno argued that Elian belonged with his father and acted after the Miami relatives defied a U.S. government order to hand him over. She authorized armed agents to take the boy from his relatives' home in a pre-dawn raid in April 2000 and reunite him with his father, who took him back to Cuba.

The raid infuriated Miami's Cuban exile community, whose members picketed her home and denounced her as a "witch" and lackey of Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Microsoft, Oklahoma

In 1998, Reno's Justice Department brought a huge antitrust case against Microsoft. Two years later, a federal judge ordered the breakup of the software giant because it had ignored his ruling that it had used unlawful monopolistic practices.

The case was settled in 2001 by the administration of George W. Bush, Clinton's Republican successor, in terms seen as favorable to Microsoft.

Reno appeared with Clinton after the 1995 truck bomb attack on the Oklahoma City federal building that killed 168 people, and vowed to seek the death penalty for the perpetrators.

Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 2001 become the first federal prisoner executed since 1963. McVeigh said he carried out the attack to punish the U.S. government for the Waco cult raid and another raid in Idaho.

Some comedians made fun of Reno during her time in office, lampooning her appearance and height, around 6 feet 2 inches, among them Will Ferrell who impersonated her on "Saturday Night Live."

Shortly after leaving office in January 2001 she appeared on the show next to Ferrell, both wearing identical outfits, in a sketch called "Janet Reno's Dance Party."

She was diagnosed in 1995 with Parkinson's disease, a progressive disorder of the central nervous system that caused trembling in her arms. "All it does is shake and you get used to it shaking after a while," she told a TV interviewer.

Reno was attorney general throughout Clinton's two terms as President and was in the job longer than anyone except William Wirt, who held it from November 1817 until March 1829.

After leaving Washington, Reno returned to Florida and ran for governor in 2002, but lost in the Democratic primary.

Reno was born on July 21, 1938, in Miami to parents who were newspaper reporters. She attended public schools in Miami and earned a chemistry degree at Cornell University in 1960.

She received her law degree from Harvard three years later and worked as a lawyer in Miami...

- See more at: Janet Reno, first woman U.S. attorney general, dies at 78 | New Hampshire

[harrybarracuda]

Veteran BBC broadcaster Sir Jimmy Young dies aged 95
Nov. 08, 2016, 3:00 am
By BBC




Veteran broadcaster Sir Jimmy Young has died aged 95.

The long-serving DJ, who spent almost three decades at BBC Radio 2, died "peacefully at home" on Monday afternoon with his wife Alicia by his side, a family spokesman said.

Sir Jimmy was one of the original Radio 1 DJs when the station launched in 1967.

He moved to Radio 2 in 1973 and filled the early afternoon slot until he retired in December 2002.

Before becoming a presenter on the airwaves, Sir Jimmy had a number of hit singles during the 1950s, including a cover of the Nat King Cole song, Too Young.

Tributes have been pouring in for the presenter, who was born Leslie Ronald Young in 1921.

The Queen was said to be amongst the millions who tuned in to his show on the BBC.

Sir Jimmy's working life began as a clerk for a minister of education and a manager of a hair salon before he achieved his dream of getting a career in entertainment.

The broadcaster left the BBC after more than 30 years behind the desk after a revamp at the station to attract younger viewers by new controller Jim Moir saw him replaced.

Sir Jimmy made no secret that it was not his choice to leave, and a motion was even put down in Parliament to keep him on.

But he made up with the BBC in later years, hosting a one-off special for his 90th birthday.

Veteran BBC broadcaster Sir Jimmy Young dies aged 95 | The Star, Kenya

[harrybarracuda]

Ralph Cicerone, Scientist Who Sounded Climate Change Alarm, Dies at 73
By SAM ROBERTS NOV. 7, 2016



Ralph J. Cicerone, who as a researcher and the president of the National Academy of Sciences issued an early warning about the grave potential risks of climate change, died on Saturday at his home in Short Hills, N.J. He was 73.

His death was announced by the academy, which he headed from 2005 until last June. It did not provide the cause.

In 2001, while he was the chancellor of the University of California, Irvine, Dr. Cicerone (pronounced SISS-er-own) headed an academy panel, commissioned by President George W. Bush, which concluded unequivocally that “greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.”

The 11 leading scientists who composed the panel, including some who had been climate-change skeptics, were unanimous in reaffirming the mainstream scientific view on global warming just as Mr. Bush was preparing to join environmental talks with European leaders. They were outraged that he had recently rejected the global warming pact known as the Kyoto Protocol.

The panel’s conclusion was based in part on research reported in 1974 by Dr. Cicerone and two colleagues from the University of Michigan. They were among the first to warn that the atmosphere’s ozone layer, which protects the planet from potentially lethal ultraviolet radiation, was being dissipated by chlorine gases.

Their research was credited in the citation for the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, which F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario J. Molina shared with Paul J. Crutzen for their discovery, also in 1974, that supposedly inert fluorocarbons like Freon, a propellant in products like aerosol spray cans and refrigerants, could deplete the ozone layer to dangerous levels.

They found that a single chlorine atom could absorb more than 100,000 ozone molecules and linger in the stratosphere for up to a century.

“The clarity and startling nature of what Molina and Rowland came up with — the notion that something you could hold in your hand could affect the entire global environment, not just the room in which you were standing — was extraordinary,” Dr. Cicerone told The New York Times in 2012.

Such research led in 1987 to the Montreal Protocol, the global treaty banning chlorofluorocarbons and other chemicals that had been used as aerosol propellants and coolants.

The academy, the nation’s leading independent scientific body, had been defending its positions on global climate change, stem-cell advances, genetic engineering and evolution when Dr. Cicerone took over. With a reputation for nonpartisan civility, he pursued the activist agenda that he had inherited even more aggressively, gaining the support of President Obama, who visited the academy twice, and working to rally public opinion behind scientific research.

Under Dr. Cicerone, the academy issued reports that advocated reducing greenhouse gas emissions while identifying strategies for adapting to a changing climate. It also renovated its historic headquarters on the National Mall in Washington and established a $500 million Gulf Research Program after the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.

Rush D. Holt, the chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, called Dr. Cicerone “a champion of science who helped scientists understand their obligations to society and helped nonscientists understand the importance of science to their lives, especially with respect to human induced changes of Earth’s climate.”

Ralph John Cicerone was born on May 2, 1943, in New Castle, in rural western Pennsylvania, the grandson of Italian immigrants. His father, Salvatore, was an insurance salesman who left math problems for Ralph to solve on the evenings he was making house calls to clients. His mother was the former Louise Palus.

The first in his family to attend college, Dr. Cicerone was inspired by the space race with the Soviet Union to pursue an engineering career. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering in 1965 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (where he was captain of the baseball team, a sport he later restored to Irvine) and earned a master’s degree and a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

He is survived by his wife, the former Carol Ogata; their daughter, Sara; two grandchildren; and two sisters, Sylvia Ferrare and Sally Golis.

Dr. Cicerone was an atmospheric chemist on the faculty of the University of Michigan from 1971 to 1978. After conducting research at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, part of the University of California, San Diego, he was named senior scientist and director of the atmospheric chemistry division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

He became a professor at Irvine in 1989. There he founded the earth system science department, served as dean of physical sciences and was chancellor from 1998 to 2005.

As president of the National Academy of Sciences, he lamented the partisanship in Congress over matters like climate change. “Does it take a crisis to get people to go along a new path,” he asked in 2007, “or can they respond to a series of rational, incremental gains in knowledge?”

By this year, though, he seemed more sanguine. “The general notion that humans are causing a global planetary problem is growing, especially among young people,” he said, “so I’m optimistic.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/sc...-73.html?&_r=0

[barrylad66]

Leonard Cohen dies aged 82...
Just seen it on BBC but no links yet.

[misskit]

^ Goodbye, Leonard

Leonard Cohen dies aged 82



A post to his official Facebook page today announced the musician’s passing.

“It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away. We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries,” the post said.

“A memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. The family requests privacy during their time of grief.”

In a recent interview with the New Yorker, Cohen spoke about the prospect of death with calmness and clarity: “I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”

The prolific musician had just released his 14th album, You Want it Darker, in October, to great acclaim.

Cohen came to prominence in the 1960s as a poet, novelist and singer-songwriter. Originally focusing on literary pursuits, he shifted his attention to music in the late 60s. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, was released in 1967 and became a cult hit.

You Want It Darker was co-produced by Leonard Cohen’s son, Adam. Speaking recently with CBC radio host Tom Power, Adam talked about working with his father on the album that many believed would be his last.

“This old man, who was truly in pain and discomfort, would at some intervals get out of his medical chair and dance in front of his speakers,” he said. “And sometimes, we would put on a song and listen to it on repeat just like teenagers, with the help of medical marijuana.

Leonard Cohen: You Want It Darker review – killer couplets over bare bones

The bleak and sparse arrangements of Leonard Cohen’s 14th studio album make his repeated leave-taking all the more exquisite
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“I think in states of pain and discomfort, what do you seek with more energy and more clarity than joy and jubilance?”

Adam described his father as “the last of his kind”.

“Unlike so many from that golden era, from which he comes, he’s not a nostalgia act,” he said.

“This guy is speaking from his particular vantage point, he’s speaking about things that are meaningful to him at his particular rung in life — he will be leaving a giant void when he leaves us.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...n-dies-aged-82