Obituaries

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The official (and only authorized) photographer of the WWII-era 'closed city' of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

James Edward Westcott (January 20, 1922 – March 29, 2019) was an American photographer who was noted for his work with the United States government in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. As one of the few people permitted to have a camera in the Oak Ridge area during the Manhattan Project, he created the main visual record of the construction and operation of the Oak Ridge production facilities and of civilian life in the enclosed community of Oak Ridge.[1]

Much more at Wikipedia.

[Eric the Green]

(03-29-2019, 09:50 AM)Marypoza Wrote:

(03-28-2019, 03:43 PM)gabrielle Wrote:

(03-28-2019, 02:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Some of these new wave/punk musicians didn't take very good care of themselves, I guess. Along with some sixties ones, we know about them... too bad....

Cancer affects many people.  Sometimes it happens to people who have not necessarily taken poor care of themselves.  It sounds like he had lung cancer, he might have been a smoker.

-- this is true. Linda McCartney took good care of herself, wrote cookbooks about eating healthy, & she passed from cancer. I remember thinking @ the time, if cancer can take her it can take anybody

There is a reason it happens, but we may not know what it is.

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The man who created the modern paint-by-numbers craze. WTOL-TV, CBS-11, Toledo, Ohio.


TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — The artist who created the first paint-by-numbers pictures and helped turn the kits into an American sensation during the 1950s has died, his family confirmed.
Dan Robbins' son says his father died Monday in Sylvania, Ohio. He was 93.
Robbins came up with the idea for paint-by-numbers photos in the 1940s while working for the Palmer Paint Company in Detroit.
He remembered hearing that Leonardo de Vinci would use numbered backgrounds for his students and decided to try it.
By 1955, the company was selling 20 million kits a year. Sales dropped sharply within a few years.
Some critics mocked the paintings, but they've endured as slices of Americana.
The Smithsonian Institution celebrated the paint-by-numbers craze and its impact with a 2001 exhibition at the National Museum of American History.
Copyright 2019 Associated Press. All rights reserved.


http://www.wtol.com/2019/04/04/sylvania-artist-who-created-paint-by-numbers-pictures-dies/

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Former US Senator Fritz Hollings, 97

One of South Carolina’s political titans has passed.
Ernest F. Hollings died on Saturday.
Hollings was 97.
Better known as “Fritz” Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat served in the state’s House of Representatives before becoming Lieutenant Governor in 1954. He was elected governor of the state in 1958. He won a special election for one of South Carolina’s U.S. Senate seats in 1966 where he served until 2003.


Gov. Henry McMaster released a statement on Hollings’ death saying, “One of South Carolina’s greatest lions roars no more. Fierce, bold, and robust – the sounds of Fritz Hollings’ vision and drive for the Palmetto State will continue to be heard by generations. The greatness and success of this state has benefited from the hand of his leadership. Peggy and I are heartened at his reunion with Peatsy and offer our prayers and condolences to the family.”

Condolences and praise for the long-serving senator came in from across South Carolina.
Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said Hollings “was truly a man in full – a history-making governor, a titan of the US Senate, and a peerless friend to all who were fortunate enough to know him. Our state and nation have lost a real giant.”
Tecklenburg who helped Hollings in his political career also spoke to his marriage.
“For more than forty years, Fritz and Peatsy Hollings loved each other completely and without reservation,” Tecklenburg said. “Separately, they were smart and funny and formidable; together, they were magic. And when it became clear that Peatsy would be the first to move from this world to the next, Fritz responded with a manner and measure of tenderness that surprised even those who knew him best, and that none who witnessed it will ever forget.”
Sen. Tim Scott also penned a statement about Hollings.

“From his time as a solider in World War Two, to shepherding peaceful desegregation as Governor, or fighting for the American worker in the United States Senate, Fritz Hollings was a statesman who never lost his love for the Lowcountry, for South Carolina, and for his wife—Peatsy. I join the people of South Carolina in praying for the Hollings Family as we celebrate his lifetime of public service.”

Read more here: https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-g...rylink=cpy



Read more here: https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-g...rylink=cpy

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I don't understand the importance of his achievements because I don't understand the physics. The Nobel Committee did, and what he did sounds either currently or potentially important.

David James Thouless FRS[2] (/ˈθaʊlɛs/; 21 September 1934 – 6 April 2019)[5][6][7] was a British condensed-matter physicist.[8] He was a winner of the 1990 Wolf Prize and laureate of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics along with F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.[9]


Born in Bearsden, Scotland,[10] Thouless was educated at Winchester College and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge as an undergraduate student of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.[1] He obtained his PhD at Cornell University,[5][11] where Hans Bethe was his doctoral advisor.[4][12]

Thouless was a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California Berkeley (he also worked in the physics department) from 1958 to 1959.[13][14] He was the first Director of Studies in Physics at Churchill College, Cambridge in 1961–1965, professor of mathematical physics at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom in 1965–1978,[15] and professor of Applied Science at Yale University from 1979 to 1980,[14] before becoming a professor of physics at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1980.[15] Thouless made many theoretical contributions to the understanding of extended systems of atoms and electrons, and of nucleons.[16][17][18] His work includes work on superconductivity phenomena, properties of nuclear matter, and excited collective motions within nuclei.[16][17][18]

Thouless made many important contributions to the theory of many-body problems.[18] For atomic nucleii, he cleared up the concept of 'rearrangement energy' and derived an expression for the moment of inertia of deformed nuclei.[18] In statistical mechanics, he contributed many ideas to the understanding of ordering, including the concept of 'topological ordering'.[18] Other important results relate to localised electron states in disordered lattices.[2][18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Thouless

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The last surviving flyer of the Doolittle Raid:

Richard E. Cole (September 7, 1915 – April 9, 2019) was a retired career officer in the United States Air Force. He was one of the airmen who took part in the Doolittle Raid, serving as the co-pilot to Jimmy Doolittle in the lead plane of the raid.

Cole remained in China after the raid until June 1943, and served again in the China Burma India Theater from October 1943 until June 1944. He later served as Operations Advisor to the Venezuelan Air Force from 1959 to 1962. He retired from the Air Force in 1966 and in 2016, became the last living Doolittle Raider.[1]

Cole enlisted as an aviation cadet on November 22, 1940 at Lubbock, Texas. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in July 1941 and rated as a pilot.[2]


Main article: Doolittle Raid
Cole was assigned as the co-pilot of the 1st aircraft, Plane # 40-2344. This was the first B-25 to depart the deck of the Hornet, and it was piloted by the leader of the raid, Jimmy Doolittle.[3]
On April 18, 1942, Doolittle and his B-25 crew took off from the Hornet, reached Japan, bombed their target, then headed for their recovery airfield in China. Doolittle and his crew bailed out safely over China when their B-25 ran out of fuel. By then, they had been flying for about 12 hours, it was nighttime, the weather was stormy, and Doolittle was unable to locate their landing field. Doolittle came down in a rice paddy near Chuchow (Quzhou). He and his crew linked up after the bailout and were helped through Japanese lines by Chinese guerrillas and American missionary John Birch.[citation needed]

Cole is the last surviving airman to participate in the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in April 1942; David Thatcher died on June 23, 2016.[2][4][5]
On September 19, 2016, the Northrup Grumman B-21 was formally named "Raider" in honor of the Doolittle Raiders.[6] As the last surviving Raider, Cole was present at the naming ceremony at the Air Force Association conference.[7]
He died on April 9, 2019, aged 103.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_E._Cole

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Hall of Fame female golfer.

Marilynn Smith (April 13, 1929 – April 9, 2019)[1] was an American professional golfer. She was one of the thirteen founders of the LPGA in 1950. She won two major championships and 21 LPGA Tour events in all. She is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame. 


Smith turned pro in 1949 and joined the Spalding staff. She was one of the thirteen women who founded the LPGA in 1950. She won her first tournament in 1952 at the Fort Wayne Open. She would go on to win a total of 21 events on the LPGA Tour, including two major championships, the 1963 and 1964 Titleholders Championships. She finished in the top ten on the money list nine times between 1961 and 1972, with her best finishes being fourth places in 1963, 1968 and 1970. She was named the LPGA Most Improved Player in 1963. She was the LPGA's president from 1958 to 1960. She was selected for membership of the World Golf Hall of Fame in the Lifetime Achievement category in June 2006 and was inducted in October 2006.[2]

In 1973 she became the first woman to work on a men's golf television broadcast.[3]
She died on April 9, 2019, four days before her 90th birthday.


http://www.lpga.com/players/marilynn-smi...1/overview

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Yes -- there can be life after a scandal!



Charles Lincoln Van Doren (February 12, 1926 – April 9, 2019)[1] was an American writer and editor who was involved in a television quiz show scandal in the 1950s. In 1959 he testified before the United States Congress that he had been given the correct answers by the producers of the show Twenty-One. Terminated by NBC, he joined Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., in 1959, becoming a vice-president and writing and editing many books before retiring in 1982. 


On November 28, 1956, Van Doren made his first appearance on the NBC quiz show Twenty-One.[3] Twenty-One was not Van Doren's first game show interest. He was long believed to have approached producers Dan Enright and Albert Freedman, originally, to appear on Tic-Tac-Dough, another game they produced. Van Doren eventually revealed—five decades after his Twenty-One championship and fame, in a surprise article for The New Yorker—that he did not even own a television set, but had met Freedman through a mutual friend, with Freedman initiating the idea of Van Doren going on television by way of asking what he thought of Tic-Tac-Dough.[4]
Enright and Freedman were impressed by Van Doren's polite style and telegenic appearance, thinking the youthful Columbia teacher would be the man to defeat their incumbent Twenty-One champion, Herb Stempel, and boost the show's slowing ratings as Stempel's reign continued.[citation needed]

In January 1957, Van Doren entered a winning streak that ultimately earned him $129,000 (the equivalent of $1,150,759 today) and made him famous, including an appearance on the cover of Time on February 11, 1957. His Twenty-One run ended on March 11, when he lost to Vivienne Nearing, a lawyer whose husband Van Doren had previously beaten. After his defeat he was offered a three-year contract with NBC.[citation needed]

Numerous writings since have suggested Van Doren was offered a job as a special "cultural correspondent" for The Today Show almost at once—but Van Doren subsequently reminded people that his first job was as a newswriter, short-lived, before he began doing small pieces for Today host Dave Garroway's weekend cultural program, Wide Wide World—pieces that led quickly to Garroway's inviting Van Doren to join Today. Van Doren also made guest appearances on other NBC programs, even serving as Today's substitute host when Garroway took a brief vacation.[citation needed]

On November 28, 1956, Van Doren made his first appearance on the NBC quiz show Twenty-One.[3] Twenty-One was not Van Doren's first game show interest. He was long believed to have approached producers Dan Enright and Albert Freedman, originally, to appear on Tic-Tac-Dough, another game they produced. Van Doren eventually revealed—five decades after his Twenty-One championship and fame, in a surprise article for The New Yorker—that he did not even own a television set, but had met Freedman through a mutual friend, with Freedman initiating the idea of Van Doren going on television by way of asking what he thought of Tic-Tac-Dough.[4]
Enright and Freedman were impressed by Van Doren's polite style and telegenic appearance, thinking the youthful Columbia teacher would be the man to defeat their incumbent Twenty-One champion, Herb Stempel, and boost the show's slowing ratings as Stempel's reign continued.[citation needed]

In January 1957, Van Doren entered a winning streak that ultimately earned him $129,000 (the equivalent of $1,150,759 today) and made him famous, including an appearance on the cover of Time on February 11, 1957. His Twenty-One run ended on March 11, when he lost to Vivienne Nearing, a lawyer whose husband Van Doren had previously beaten. After his defeat he was offered a three-year contract with NBC.[citation needed]

Numerous writings since have suggested Van Doren was offered a job as a special "cultural correspondent" for The Today Show almost at once—but Van Doren subsequently reminded people that his first job was as a newswriter, short-lived, before he began doing small pieces for Today host Dave Garroway's weekend cultural program, Wide Wide World—pieces that led quickly to Garroway's inviting Van Doren to join Today. Van Doren also made guest appearances on other NBC programs, even serving as Today's substitute host when Garroway took a brief vacation.[citation needed]


When allegations of cheating were first raised by Stempel and others, Van Doren denied any wrongdoing, saying, "It's silly and distressing to think that people don't have more faith in quiz shows." As the investigation by the district attorney's office and eventually the United States Congress progressed, Charles Van Doren, now host on The Today Show, was under pressure from NBC to testify but went into hiding in order to avoid the committee's subpoena. It was another former Twenty-One contestant, the artist James Snodgrass, who would finally provide indisputable corroborating proof that the show had been rigged. Snodgrass had documented every answer he was coached on in a series of registered letters he mailed to himself prior to the show's being broadcast.[5]

One month after the hearings began, Van Doren emerged from hiding and confessed before the committee that he had been complicit in the fraud.[6] On November 2, 1959, he admitted to the House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight, a United States Congress subcommittee, chaired by Arkansas Democrat Oren Harris, that he had been given questions and answers in advance of the show.

Quote:I was involved, deeply involved, in a deception. The fact that I, too, was very much deceived cannot keep me from being the principal victim of that deception, because I was its principal symbol. There may be a kind of justice in that. I don’t know. I do know, and I can say it proudly to this committee, that since Friday, October 16, when I finally came to a full understanding of what I had done and of what I must do, I have taken a number of steps toward trying to make up for it. I have a long way to go. I have deceived my friends, and I had millions of them. Whatever their feeling for me now, my affection for them is stronger today than ever before. I am making this statement because of them. I hope my being here will serve them well and lastingly.

I asked (co-producer Albert Freedman) to let me go on (Twenty-One) honestly, without receiving help. He said that was impossible. He told me that I would not have a chance to defeat Stempel because he was too knowledgeable. He also told me that the show was merely entertainment and that giving help to quiz contests was a common practice and merely a part of show business. This of course was not true, but perhaps I wanted to believe him. He also stressed the fact that by appearing on a nationally televised program I would be doing a great service to the intellectual life, to teachers and to education in general, by increasing public respect for the work of the mind through my performances. In fact, I think I have done a disservice to all of them. I deeply regret this, since I believe nothing is of more vital importance to our civilization than education.[7]

Authorities differ regarding the audience's reaction to Van Doren's statement. David Halberstam writes in his book The Fifties:

Quote:Aware of Van Doren's great popularity, the committee members handled him gently and repeatedly praised him for his candor. Only Congressman Steve Derounian announced that he saw no particular point in praising someone of Van Doren's exceptional talents and intelligence for simply telling the truth. With that, the room suddenly exploded with applause, and [Congressional investigator] Richard N. Goodwin knew at that moment ordinary people would not so easily forgive Van Doren.[8]

By contrast, William Manchester, in his narrative history The Glory and the Dream, recounts a diametrically opposite response:

Quote:The crowd at the hearing had been with Van Doren, applauding him and his admirers on the subcommittee and greeting Congressman Derounian's comment with stony silence.[9]

An Associated Press story dated November 2, 1959, seems to verify Halberstam's version of events:

Quote:While there was a burst of applause when Mr. Harris dismissed Mr. Van Doren with a "God bless you", there was applause, too, when Rep. Steven B. Derounian, Republican, New York, declined to go along with compliments that other committee members showered on the witness for telling the truth. "I don't think an adult of your intelligence ought to be commended for telling the truth," Mr. Derounian declared in severe tones. Mr. Van Doren winced, flushed, and ducked his head.[10][11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Van_Doren

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Catalan politician in Republican Spain (the Spanish Republic of the 1930s allowed much autonomy for regions of Spain, member of the French Resistance, and survivor of a Nazi concentration camp.

Neus Català Pallejà (6 October 1915 – 13 April 2019),[1] was a member of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (Catalan: Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya, PSUC) during the Spanish Civil War and is the only Spanish survivor of the concentration camp of Ravensbrück. She turned 100 in October 2015.[2]

 
Neus Català was born on 6 October 1915 in Els Guiamets (Priorat, Tarragona, Catalonia). However, her godmother officially registered her birth on 15 June that year, because of the disappearance of the documentation of the Municipality of Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War. This date is considered official and was used to celebrate the centenary of her birth. Català obtained her nursing degree in 1937 and moved to Barcelona at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, she crossed the French border, taking with her 180 orphaned children of the colony Las Acacias from Premià de Dalt, better known as the Children of Negrin. She collaborated with her husband, the Occitan, Albert Roger,[3] in the activities of the French Resistance, centralizing (at her home) the reception and transmission of messages, documents, weapons, and sheltering political refugees. She was reported to the national socialist authorities by a pharmacist of Sarlat. She and her husband were later arrested by the Nazis in 1943. Català was imprisoned and mistreated in Limoges, and in 1944 she was deported to Ravensbrück, where she was forced to work in the armaments industry. There, she was part of the "Lazy Commandos" (Spanish: Comando de las gandulas), a group of women who boycotted the manufacture of weapons in Holleischen, a factory which depended on the concentration camp of Flossenburg.[4] Thanks to sabotage, the facility produced about 10 million faulty bullets and marred numerous weapons making machines.[5] After her release, she returned to France where she continued her clandestine struggle against Francoist Spain. She lived in Sarcelles, near the city of Paris, and chaired the Association of Victims of Ravensbrück.[6] Currently, she continues her membership in the Communist Party of Catalonia (PCC), United and Alternative Left (EUiA), and the Pere Ardiaca Foundation, of which she is a member of honor.

Neus Català's graphic material about Spanish Civil War, Germany Nazi, concentration camps, 1933-2006. It is located in the Pavelló de la República CRAI Library - University of Barcelona .
She died on 13 April 2019, at the age of 103.[7]

 
he Generalitat of Catalonia awarded her the Cross of St. George in 2005, and later she was chosen Catalan Person of the Year in 2006 for her defense of the memory of the more than 92,000 women who died in Ravensbrück. In 2006 she also received the Award for Alternative granted by the United and Alternative Left. On 29 October 2014, at the age of 99, the Barcelona City Council awarded Català the Gold Medal of Civic Merit, in recognition for her work to preserve historical memory, the fight against fascism, and the defense of women. In 2015, she received the Gold Medal of the Generalitat of Catalonia, for her struggle for justice and democratic freedom, the memory of those deported to Nazi death camps, and the defense of human rights.[8]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neus_Catal%C3%A0

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Bibi Andersson, Swedish actress

Berit Elisabeth Andersson (11 November 1935 – 14 April 2019),[1] known professionally as Bibi Andersson (Swedish: [²bɪbːɪ ²anːdɛˌʂɔn]), was a Swedish actress who was best known for her frequent collaborations with the filmmaker Ingmar Bergman.


Andersson was born in Kungsholmen, Stockholm, the daughter of Karin (née Mansion), a social worker, and Josef Andersson, a businessman.[3][4][5]

Her first collaboration with Ingmar Bergman came in 1951,[6] when she participated in his production of an advertisement for the detergent Bris.[7] She also worked as an extra on film sets as a teenager, and studied acting at the Terserus Drama School and at the Royal Dramatic Theatre School (1954–1956).[3][4] She then joined the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, with which she was associated for 30 years.[citation needed]

In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Andersson starred in eleven pictures directed by Bergman, including The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Brink of Life, The Magician, The Passion of Anna, The Touch, and Persona.[6]


In 1963, Andersson won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival for her performance in Vilgot Sjöman's The Mistress.[8]

Her intense portrayal of a nurse in the 1966 film Persona led to an increase in the number of cinematic roles offered to her, and she appeared that same year alongside James Garner and Sidney Poitier in the violent western Duel at Diablo.[1] For her performance in Persona, she won the award for Best Actress at the 4th Guldbagge Awards.[9] More Bergman collaborations followed, and she also worked with John Huston (The Kremlin Letter, 1970)[10] and Robert Altman (Quintet, 1979).[11]

Andersson made her debut in American theatre in 1973 with a production of Erich Maria Remarque's Full Circle.[12] Her most famous American film is I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977), which also starred Kathleen Quinlan.[13]
In 1990, Andersson worked as a theatre director in Stockholm, directing several plays at Dramaten.[14] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she worked primarily in television and as a theatre actress, working with Bergman again, and others. She was also a supervisor for the humanitarian project the Road to Sarajevo.[15]

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibi_Andersson

[sbarrera]

Talented and prolific science fiction/fantasy author.

Gene Rodman Wolfe (May 7, 1931 – April 14, 2019) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short-story writer and novelist and won many science fiction and fantasy literary awards.

Wolfe is best known for his Book of the New Sun series (four volumes, 1980–83), the first part of his "Solar Cycle". In 1998, Locus magazine ranked it the third-best fantasy novel published before 1990 based on a poll of subscribers that considered it and several other series as single entries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe

https://www.tor.com/2019/04/15/gene-wolf...1931-2019/

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Classical pianist heavily recorded:



Jörg Demus (2 December 1928[citation needed] – 16 April 2019) was an Austrian pianist.

At the age of six, Demus received his first piano lessons. Five years later, at the age of 11, he entered the Vienna Academy of Music, studying piano and conducting. His debut as a pianist came when he was still a student: at the age of 14, Demus played in the Brahms-Saal for the prestigious Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.[2] He graduated in 1945, then 17 years old, after which he continued to study conducting with Josef Krips and Hans Swarowsky.[3] Demus studied in Paris with Yves Nat from 1951 to 1953. In 1953 he studied interpretation further with Wilhelm Kempff, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, and Edwin Fischer, and attended master classes with Walter Gieseking.[3] In 1956 he won first prize at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition.[4]

He was active as a Lied accompanist and a chamber music partner, appearing with such singers as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elly Ameling and Peter Schreier and string players like Josef Suk and Antonio Janigro. He performed widely as a soloist both on modern and on historical instruments and collaborated with Paul Badura-Skoda on the concert platform and in a book on the interpretation of Beethoven's piano sonatas. In 1972 he toured southern Africa with sold out and acclaimed performances in all the major cities.[5] In 1974, Demus performed for the Peabody Mason Concert series in Boston.[6] Demus played Romantic works quite often: among his recordings are sets of the complete piano works of Schumann; he recorded also the complete piano works of Debussy.[citation needed]

Among his students was the pianist Domenico Piccichè.[citation needed]
Demus was also a composer, chiefly of music for the piano, chamber music and songs, composing in a generally conservative style. Recorded works include Schubert Impromptus on the Deutsche Grammophon label; and a recital of chamber music for cello and piano taking their inspiration from the poems of Paul Verlaine and the later music of Robert Schumann.[7]

He received the Mozart Medal of the Mozartgemeinde Wien [de] in 1979.
He died on 16 April 2019, aged 90.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6rg_Demus

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Former Peruvian President:


Alan Gabriel Ludwig García Pérez (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈalaŋ ɡaβˈɾjel luðˈwiɣ ɡaɾˈsi.a ]; 23 May 1949 – 17 April 2019)[2] was a Peruvian politician who served as President of Peru from 1985 to 1990 and again from 2006 to 2011.[3] He was the second leader of the Peruvian Aprista Party and the only party member ever to have served as President.

His first term was marked by a severe economic crisis, social unrest and violence. He ran unsuccessfully for the presidency in 2001, losing in a run-off to Alejandro Toledo.[4] He ran again in 2006 and was elected to a second term, even though his first term in the 1980s was considered by many to have been disastrous. During García's second term, due to the increase in global metal prices, Peru averaged seven percent GDP growth a year, held inflation below three percent annually and accumulated foreign exchange reserves worth US$47 billion; however, his tenure also resulted in increased environmental damage, according to critics, and increased social conflict, according to the national human rights ombudsman's office.

On 17 April 2019, García shot himself as police officers were preparing to arrest him over matters relating to the Odebrecht scandal; he died hours later.[5]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Garc%C3%ADa

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War criminal, Rwandan genocide. Good riddance!

Ignace Murwanashyaka (14 May 1963 – 16 April 2019) was a leader of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Rwandan Hutu rebel group that absorbed a number of military people responsible for the Rwanda genocide, and operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The FDLR are responsible for large scale human rights violations and crimes against humanity, including rape on a massive scale.[1][2]

Murwanashyaka was born in Butare and has studied economic sciences in West Germany, including a doctor's degree, and lived there since 1989, on asylum since 2000. He was married to a German woman and has children with her. Since 2001 he had been travelling between Germany and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In November 2005 he was blacklisted by the United Nations for violating an arms embargo aimed at promoting peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and subjected to a travel bans and assets freeze.[3]

He was arrested on 7 April 2006 in Mannheim, Germany for immigration violations and released shortly after.[4][5] On 26 May 2006 preliminary investigation were opened against him for "Initial suspicion of involvement in crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of Congo", but the prosecution has since been abandoned.[6] Rwanda indicated it would seek his extradition for alleged crimes committed during the Rwandan Genocide[7] and has issued an arrest warrant.[8]

He was arrested again on 17 November 2009 by the German authorities. The trial for him and his alleged aide Straton Musoni began on May 4, 2011 before the Oberlandesgericht in Stuttgart. They are accused of several counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity according to the German Völkerstrafgesetzbuch. Their trial is the first held in Germany for crimes against this law.[9][10] In September 2015, Murwanashyaka was sentenced to 13 years, Musoni to 8 years, in prison.[11]

On 16 April, Murwanashyaka died in a German hospital after a sudden deterioration in health.[12]

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignace_Murwanashyaka

Old material:

[JURIST] German officials Sunday announced the arrest in Mannheim of Ignace Murwanashyaka [Wikipedia profile], leader of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) [backgrounder]. While the arrest was based on immigration violations, Murwanashyaka could face deportation or extradition to Rwanda for alleged war crimes committed during the 1994 genocide [Human Rights Watch backgrounder; JURIST news archive] of Tutsis. Rwanda plans to formally seek his extradition, despite the lack of an international arrest warrant. The FDLR commander is on a UN black list [text] for violating an arms embargo aimed at restoring peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo [JURIST news archive] and has been living in Germany. In 2005, Murwanashyaka announced [JURIST report] that the FDLR would end its war against the Rwanda government and transform its fight into a political struggle.

Hutu rebels fled Rwanda [JURIST news archive] and crossed into eastern Congo 12 years ago after their alleged involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. It is estimated that 15,000 Hutu rebels remain active and represent one of the main threats to security in the area. AP has more.


http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/20...rested.php

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Yugoslav-Serb "Dragon Lady", First Lady of Yugoslavia as wife of Slobodan Milosevic:

Mirjana "Mira" Marković (Serbian Cyrillic: Мирјана "Мира" Марковић, pronounced [mǐrjana mǐːra mǎːrkɔʋit͡ɕ]; 10 July 1942 – 14 April 2019) was a Serbian politician, academic and the wife of the Yugoslav and Serbian president Slobodan Milošević (1941-2006).[2] Among her opponents, she was known as The Red Witch) and the Lady Macbeth of Belgrade. She was the leader of the now defunct Yugoslav United Left (JUL) political party which governed in coalition with her husband's Socialist Party of Serbia after the Bosnian War ended in 1995.[2] Marković lived under political asylum in Russia from February 2003 until her death on 14 April 2019.[3] In June 2018, she was convicted of fraud by a court in Belgrade, and sentenced in absentia to a year's imprisonment,[4] but the verdict was overturned on appeal in March 2019.[5]


Marković was the daughter of Moma Marković and Vera Miletić, who were both fighting for the Yugoslav Partisans at the time of her birth. Her aunt was Davorjanka Paunović, private secretary and alleged mistress of Josip Broz Tito. Her mother Vera was captured by German troops and allegedly released sensitive information, under torture.[6] She was then executed in the Banjica concentration camp by the Nazis.

Marković met Slobodan Milošević when they were in high school together. They married in 1965.[1] The couple had two children, son Marko and daughter Marija, who founded TV Košava in 1998 and was its owner until 5 October 2000.

Marković held a Ph.D. in Sociology and taught the subject at the University of Belgrade. Later, she became an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She wrote a political column in the weekly Duga during her husband's years in power.

She was considered to be the only person her husband trusted, her influence being considered a source for the increase in Milošević strong anti-western rhetoric and actions. Also, as the leader of her own political party, Yugoslav United Left she held some political influence.[7] Marković was largely responsible for erecting the Eternal Flame monument, shortly before the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević in 2000.[8] She was believed to have been involved in the murders of the journalist Slavko Ćuruvija in 1999 and the Serbian politician Ivan Stambolić, Milošević's former mentor, in 2000.[1]

Marković was the author of numerous books, which were translated and sold in Canada, Russia, China and India.[9]

Pursued by legal authorities, Marković settled in Russia in 2003.[1] The authorities of Serbia issued an arrest warrant for her on fraud charges which was circulated via Interpol, but the Russian authorities refused to arrest her.
In March 2012 a collection of her columns for Pravda from 2007 to 2008, as well as for online portal Sloboda from 2010 to 2011, titled Destierrada e imperdida was published in Belgrade by Treći milenijum, a publishing house owned by Hadži Dragan Antić.[10][11]

After the 2012 elections, a government minister, Milutin Mrkonjić of the Socialist Party (which he co-founded with Milošević) said that Marković and her son were welcome to return.[12] In June 2018, Marković was found guilty in absentia of real estate fraud charges, and sentenced to a year in prison.[4] The Serbian Appeals Court in March 2019 rejected her conviction, finding it unsound, and ordered a new trial.[5]

Marković underwent several operations, and died in a spa hospital in Sochi on 14 April 2019.[3]

 Marković's political views tended to be hard-line Communist. Although she often claimed that she agreed with her husband on everything, Milošević seems to have had fewer authoritarian tendencies than Marković.[13] She claimed also to be a feminist.[14]
Marković reportedly had little respect for the Bosnian Serb leaders. Vojislav Šešelj appeared before a court on 18 June 1994 to face charges of breaking microphone cables in Parliament. He read a statement, saying, "Mr. Judge, all I can say in my defense is that Milošević is Serbia's biggest criminal." Marković replied by calling Šešelj a "primitive Turk who is afraid to fight like a man, and instead sits around insulting other people's wives."[15] Radovan Karadžić was apparently unable to telephone Milošević because Marković would not tolerate his calls.
Commenting on her husband's arrest to face war crimes charges, Marković stated:

Quote:Neither East nor West has betrayed him. The only person that can betray him is me. But people have short memories and you have to remind everyone of everything. In the early 1990s, my husband was accused by many circles, in Yugoslavia and abroad, that he had wanted to keep Yugoslavia alive, even though it was falling apart and the Croats and the Slovenes wanted to leave. That was his big sin. "Crazy Serbs and Crazy Slobo," they said, they want Yugoslavia. Now, in The Hague, they say he broke up Yugoslavia. Let them make up their minds.[16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirjana_Markovi%C4%87

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It sounds much like the closest equivalent to America's Chief Justice -- in the People's Republic of China. Actually a reformer!

Xiao Yang (Chinese: 肖扬; August 1938 – 19 April 2019) was a Chinese judge and politician. He served as Minister of Justice from 1993 to 1998 and President of the Supreme People's Court from 1998 to 2008. His tenure as China's Chief Justice was marked by the implementation of major reforms. Most significantly, he restored the Supreme Court's right of final review for capital punishment cases, sharply reducing the number of executions in China after 2007. Another of his reforms was to professionalize the rank of judges by requiring most new judges to pass the National Judicial Examination. He also advocated judicial independence in the country, but was ultimately unsuccessful.


In 1990, Xiao was transferred to the national government to serve as deputy procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.[2] Three years later, he was appointed Minister of Justice in the cabinet of Li Peng.[3] He initiated a number of reforms, including the establishment of a legal aid system in China.[2] He also promoted the rule of law, which was officially adopted in 1997 as a governing principle by the Communist Party.[2]

In March 1998, Xiao was elected President (Chief Justice) of the Supreme People's Court, succeeding Ren Jianxin. He was re-elected in March 2003 for a second term.[2][3]

Starting in 1999, he initiated a series of reforms,[4] the most important being the restoration of the Supreme Court's right of review for capital punishment.[2][3] In the 1980s, the National People's Congress had passed legislation to grant provincial high courts the final say in death-penalty cases. Provincial judges, many of whom were former police or military officers without formal legal training, often imposed overly harsh punishments. This resulted in high numbers of executions, including some that later proved to be wrongful.[2][3] After the implementation of Xiao's reform in 2007, the number of executions in China was sharply reduced, by half to two-thirds in some provinces.[2]

Another reform by Xiao was to professionalize China's rank of judges, who were formerly appointed like normal politicians, with little regard to their education and experience in law. Xiao's efforts resulted in the National Congress amending the Judges Law in 2001 to require all new judges to pass the National Judicial Examination. Except for presidents of the courts, who remain political appointees, all other judges are henceforth required to have legal qualifications.[3]

Other reforms implemented by Xiao include opening most trials to the general public (since 1998), and some trials were even televised. He also advocated but failed to make the court independent from political influence. Despite his efforts, the Communist Party retains absolute control of China's judicial system, and after his retirement in 2008, none of his successors have advocated judicial independence again.[3]
Xiao was a member of the 15th and the 16th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China.[1]




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiao_Yang_(judge)

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Heather Mary Harper CBE (8 May 1930 -- 22 April 2019) was an operatic soprano from Northern Ireland.
She was born in Belfast, where she received her early musical training. She studied piano at the Trinity College of Music in London, with voice as a second subject. She was initially a mezzo-soprano, and sang as such in the Ambrosian Chorus; her fellow altos included Jean Allister, Pamela Bowden, and Helen Watts.[1] She also sang in the BBC Chorus, before retraining as a soprano with Professor Frederick Husler and Yvonne Rodd-Marling, authors of Singing: The Physical Nature of the Vocal Organ.[2]

Her professional debut came in 1954 in Macbeth at the Oxford University Opera Club. From 1956 to 1975, she was a member of the English Opera Group. She is noted for her performance of Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin, the title role in Strauss's Arabella, Ellen Orford in Britten's Peter Grimes, and the Governess in Britten's The Turn of the Screw. She appeared at Covent Garden, Bayreuth, San Francisco and the Metropolitan Opera (Contessa Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro and in Peter Grimes). She also sang Charlotte in Massenet's Werther, for San Francisco Opera. She was a regular guest at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires where she sang many roles such as Marguerite (Gounod's Faust), Arabella, Antonia (Tales of Hoffman), and Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito). Her farewell performance in Buenos Aires was as Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes. In 1975 in Kingsway Hall London, she was soprano in Verdi's Requiem, directed by Carlos Païta with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Harper also had an extensive concert career, including singing in the premiere of Britten's War Requiem in 1962, substituting for Galina Vishnevskaya on 10 days' notice.[3][4] In 1965 she was the soprano soloist in only the second UK performance (and only the fourth performance in the work's history) of Delius's Requiem, in Liverpool, under Charles Groves. She sang in it again in 1968 in London under Meredith Davies, and made the world premiere recording with the same forces. At the Belfast Last Night of the Proms in 1985, she gave the world première of Malcolm Williamson's song-cycle Next Year in Jerusalem to international critical acclaim.
She retired from her singing career in 1994 after singing Berg's Altenberg Lieder and Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music at the BBC Promenade Concerts.[5][6]

Her recordings include Peter Grimes in both audio and video[7] formats, as well as the War Requiem (Chandos).[8] She took part in 1957 performances (conducted by Antony Hopkins) of sacred works by Michel-Richard Delalande, recorded in LP format on the L'Oiseau-Lyre label; these pieces had never previously found their way to disc. Superb renditions in the 1970s (conducted by Sir Georg Solti) are now available, notably Mahler's 8th Symphony with Watts, Minton, Popp, Kollo, Shirley-Quirk and Talvela (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 1972, Decca) and Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten with Dernesch, Hesse, King and Berry (Covent Garden, 1976, Fiori). More recently, a live concert performance of Britten's Our Hunting Fathers has been issued on the London Philharmonic Orchestra's own label.[9]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Harper

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Nils John Nilsson (February 6, 1933 – April 23, 2019)[1] was an American computer scientist. He was one of the founding researchers in the discipline of artificial intelligence.[citation needed] He was the first Kumagai Professor of Engineering (Emeritus) in Computer Science at Stanford University, position that he held since the chair was established in 1990 until his death. He is particularly famous for his contributions to search, planning, knowledge representation, and robotics.

His research was based mainly on the premise that intelligence is based on knowledge that must be represented explicitly.

Starting in 1966, Nilsson, along with Charles A. Rosen and Bertram Raphael, led a research team in the construction of Shakey, a robot that constructed a model of its environment from sensor data, reasoned about that environment to arrive at a plan of action, then carried that plan out by sending commands to its motors. This paradigm has been enormously influential in AI. (Textbooks such as (Charniak & McDermott 1985), (Ginsberg 1993) and the first edition of (Russell & Norvig 1992) show this influence in almost every chapter, although the entire field has not always stayed under its spell.) Although the basic idea of using logical reasoning to decide on actions is due to John McCarthy (McCarthy), Nilsson's group was the first to embody it in a complete agent, along the way inventing the A* search algorithm (Hart, Nilsson & Raphael 1968) and founding the field of automated temporal planning. In the latter pursuit, they invented the STRIPS planner (Fikes & Nilsson 1971), whose action representation is still the basis of many of today's planning algorithms. The subfield of automated temporal planning called classical planning is based on most of the assumptions built into STRIPS. 

In 1985 Nilsson became a faculty member at Stanford University, in the Computer Science Department. He was chair of the department from 1985 to 1990. He was the fourth President of the AAAI (1982–83) and a Founding Fellow of that organization. Nilsson has written or coauthored several books on AI, including two that have been especially widely read (Nilsson 1980, Genesereth & Nilsson 1987).

In 2011, Nilsson was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI's Hall of Fame for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems".[3][4]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_John_Nilsson

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The "H" in H & R Block:


Henry Wollman Bloch (July 30, 1922 – April 23, 2019)[1] was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was the co-founder and (since 2000)[1] the chairman emeritus of the American tax-preparation company H&R Block. Henry and his brother, Richard Bloch, founded H&R Block in 1955 in Kansas City, Missouri.


Bloch was born to a Jewish family[2] in Kansas City, the son of Hortense (Bienenstock) and Leon Bloch.[3] He attended Southwest High School, and was an undergraduate at University of Missouri–Kansas City. He later attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, graduating in 1944. He was initiated as a brother of Zeta Beta Tau Fraternity's Phi Chapter at the University of Michigan in 1940. [1] Through the U.S. Army Air Corps he received graduate training at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Following the war in 1945, Bloch and his brother Leon founded United Business Company, joined later by his brother Richard in 1946 after Leon left to pursue a law degree. The company provided bookkeeping and tax preparation services in Kansas City, then expanded tax preparation services after a successful advertising campaign in the Kansas City Star and the Internal Revenue Service decision to phase out free preparation services. Bloch officially founded the H&R Block company with his brother Richard in 1955.

As Henry often explained in interviews, the misspelling in their corporate name of their surname was to reflect their family's proper pronunciation, as opposed to "blahch" or "blowch". By 1962, H&R Block became a public company, and in 2019, there are more than 12,000 H&R Block offices.[4] Bloch himself became a fixture for many years in television ads, delivering slogans like "Don't face the laws alone."[5]

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_W._Bloch

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A leader of the dangerous Camorra -- in prison on a life term for murder:

Mario Fabbrocino (January 5, 1943 – April 23, 2019) was a powerful Italian crime boss of the Camorra – the Neapolitan mafia.

Mario Fabbrocino was the leader of the Fabbrocino clan, based in the Vesuvius area, with its sphere of influence around Nola, Ottaviano, San Giuseppe Vesuviano, San Gennaro Vesuviano. *He was nicknamed "ò gravunaro" ("the charcoal burner").[1]

He was one of the leaders of the Nuova Famiglia, created in the 1980s to face the rising power of Raffaele Cutolo's Nuova Camorra Organizzata. The feud with Cutolo intensified, when Cutolo ordered the killing of Fabbrocino’s brother Francesco.[2] Fabbrocino later avenged his brothers death by ordering the murder of Cutolo's only son, Roberto, on December 19, 1990.[3][4]

On the run since 1988, he was among the most wanted fugitives of Italy for a murder in 1982. He was arrested in Buenos Aires, Argentina on September 3, 1997.[5] After a long legal battle, he was extradited to Italy in March 2001.
He was released in July 2002 because the legal term for preventive custody expired. However, he received an arrest warrant for cocaine trafficking and was arrested again.[6] Fabbrocino was sentenced to 6 years and 4 months in January 2003. He was released in August 2004, because he had served in his prison term ( the time he had spent in jail in Argentina waiting for extradition was included).[7]

He was sentenced to life on April 13, 2005, for the killing of Roberto Cutolo[8][9] (b. 1962 ; the son of Raffaele Cutolo and historical enemy of Fabbrocino) on December 19, 1990, in Tradate.[10] He became a fugitive once more. On August 15, 2005, he was arrested again in his home in San Giuseppe Vesuviano.[1][5][11]
On April 23, 2019, Fabbrocino died in the hospital of the Parma prison, where he was serving a life sentence.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Fabbrocino

*John Gotti's immigrant parents came from there, which might be more than a coincidence.