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Captain America Dead at 66
Captain America Dead at 66

Captain America Dead at 66

(Newser) - In an issue of its comic book coming out July 5, Marvel Comics kills off superhero Captain America.  In "Fallen Son" Captain America is killed by an assassin on the steps of the federal courthouse in New York.  He was there after refusing to register his true...

Movie Critic Joel Siegel Dead at 63
Movie Critic
Joel Siegel
Dead at 63

Movie Critic Joel Siegel Dead at 63

GMA's long-time reviewer succumbs to colon cancer

(Newser) - Joel Siegel, the veteran film critic for Good Morning America known for concision and wit, died yesterday after a long battle with colon cancer. Siegel's good humor and enthusiasm for movies didn't stop him from delivering a well-aimed pan.  "No one had more fun writing about a bad...

Liz Claiborne Dead at 78
Liz Claiborne Dead at 78

Liz Claiborne Dead at 78

Designer was first woman to found Fortune 500 company

(Newser) - Designer Liz Claiborne, whose styles aimed at career women revolutionized everyday fashion sense in America and brought feminine new looks to the workplace, is dead at 78. She was the first woman founder of a Fortune 500 company. Claiborne died Tuesday in New York, after a lengthy battle with bone...

Rod Beck Found Dead at 38
Rod Beck Found Dead at 38

Rod Beck Found Dead at 38

Long-haired, hard-living closer was a favorite around the league

(Newser) - Rod Beck, a closer with the Giants, Cubs, Red Sox, and Padres who nailed down 286 saves, died yesterday in his home in Phoenix at 38. Police do not suspect foul play. Beck led a colorful life, drinking and carousing with fans after games; his final season was cut short...

Fashionista Ferre Dies at 62
Fashionista Ferre Dies at 62

Fashionista Ferre Dies at 62

Italian was known as the "architect of fashion"

(Newser) - Italian designer Gianfranco Ferre died in Milan yesterday of a brain hemorrhage, at age 62. Ferre became the top designer for Parisian fashion powerhouse Christian Dior, an honor almost exclusively reserved for French designers, in 1989. He left Dior in 1996 to build his own lines, which became some of...

Ex-UN Head Waldheim Dead at 88
Ex-UN Head Waldheim
Dead at 88

Ex-UN Head Waldheim Dead at 88

Military service under Nazis shadowed Austrian president

(Newser) - Haunted by his World War II German army service to the end, former UN secretary-general Kurt Waldheim died yesterday at 88. Reports that he served in a German army unit that committed atrocities during the war emerged in 1985, during his successful campaign for the Austrian presidency; at his death,...

Ruth Graham Dead at 87
Ruth Graham Dead at 87

Ruth Graham Dead at 87

Motorcycle-riding evangelist's wife recalled as spirited, opinionated

(Newser) - Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, stayed in the background of the legendary evangelist's ministry but was far from obscure. The missionary's daughter was at once demure, feisty, independent, and unpredictable, the LA Times reports. Graham, who died yesterday at 87, was also an accomplished poet and parent to five...

Philosopher Richard Rorty Dies at 75

Influential thinker blasted the existence of truth, espoused patriotism

(Newser) - Richard Rorty, a celebrated intellectual whose ponderous body of work spanned the gamuts of philosophy, politics, and literary theory, died of pancreatic cancer Friday, at 75. Rorty was known both as a resplendent thinker and as on old lion of the left. “At 12, I knew that the point...

Sen. Craig Thomas Dies of Leukemia
Sen. Craig Thomas Dies
of Leukemia

Sen. Craig Thomas Dies of Leukemia

Conservative stayed aloof from Washington in-fighting

(Newser) - Craig Thomas, GOP Senator from Wyoming, died yesterday of  leukemia at age 74. The popular conservative congressman began his Senate career in 1994; he was in the hospital when he was reelected by 70% of the vote last year, and announced his diagnosis shortly afterward.

NASCAR's 'Genial Dictator' Dead at 74

Bill France Jr. transformed NASCAR into a national pastime

(Newser) - Bill France Jr., the NASCAR chairman who took a Southern pastime and transformed it into a national mania, died at 74 on Monday. Sickly in his final years, the godfather of stock car racing from 1972 to 2000 was nonetheless fiery and irascible until the end. France's father had founded...

Televangelist Falwell Dead at 73
Televangelist Falwell Dead
at 73

Televangelist Falwell Dead at 73

Controversial conservative mixed religion, politics

(Newser) - The Rev. Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority and mixed evangelism with conservative social criticism, died today after collapsing in his office at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. He was 73. A lightning rod for controversy, Falwell once called AIDS "the wrath of a just God against homosexuals"...

Ex-Boxing Champ Dies in Crash
Ex-Boxing Champ Dies in Crash

Ex-Boxing Champ Dies in Crash

(Newser) - Diego "Chico" Corrales, a former boxing world champion, died last night in a Las Vegas motorcycle crash. Two years to the day before his death at 29, Corrales unified lightweight titles with a come-from-behind knockout of Jose Luis Castillo. "That fight with Jose Luis Castillo will be remembered...

Astronaut Wally Schirra Dies at 84
Astronaut
Wally Schirra Dies at 84

Astronaut Wally Schirra Dies at 84

Schirra the third American to orbit the earth, the fifth in space

(Newser) - Astronaut Wally Schirra, a reporter once said, geared up for space flight with "the ease of preparing for a family picnic." The third American to orbit the earth and the fifth ever to fly into space, Shirra died today. He was 84.

Cardinals Pitcher Killed In Crash
Cardinals Pitcher Killed In Crash

Cardinals Pitcher Killed In Crash

St. Louis reliever Josh Hancock drove into tow truck, died immediately

(Newser) - Josh Hancock, a Cardinals middle reliever who helped the team attain a championship last season, was killed after driving into a tow truck late at night. The death comes five years after St. Louis pitcher Darryl Kile died in his hotel room of coronary artery blockage.  It is not...

Rostropovich Dead at 80
Rostropovich Dead at 80

Rostropovich Dead at 80

Conductor, cellist and champion of artistic freedom dies in his native Russia

(Newser) - Cellist, conductor, and one-time Soviet gadfly Mstislav Rostropovich, who used to instruct his orchestras to "play as if you are being tickled in the sides," died today in Moscow. Rostropovich, whose 17-year-run as the head of the National Symphony Orchestra tranformed it from a middling ensemble to one...

Longtime Movie Lobbyist Valenti Dead at 85

Hollywood's man in Washington pioneered ratings system

(Newser) - Despite being neither movie star nor studio exec, Jack Valenti was one of Hollywood's most influential figures. An era ended Thursday when the longtime president of the film industry's trade association died at his home in Washington. The veteran lobbyist, who also served in the Johnson administration, was 85 and...

Halberstam Dies in Car Crash
Halberstam Dies in Car Crash

Halberstam Dies in Car Crash

Prize-winning writer who blended journalism with history was 73

(Newser) - David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote definitive annals of everything from the Vietnam War to pro football, was killed in a car crash in Menlo Park, Calif., today. Halberstam, who wrote 21 books, was on his way to interview former New York Giants quarterback Y.A. Tittle when...

Boris Yeltsin Dies at 76
Boris Yeltsin Dies at 76

Boris Yeltsin Dies at 76

(Newser) - Boris Yeltsin, who orchestrated Russia's uneasy transition to democracy, died this morning, according to the Kremlin. He was 76. The cause hasn't been released, but Russia's first democratically elected leader had a history of heart problems. Yeltsin ascended to power after a struggle with reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, who finally ceded...

Tiny Bubbles Stop
Tiny Bubbles Stop

Tiny Bubbles Stop

Legendary Hawaiian entertainer Don Ho dead at 76

(Newser) - Don Ho, perhaps the best known Hawaiian entertainer ever, died yesterday at age 76 of heart failure.   Ho worked Waikiki as its leading entertainer for 43 years, performing his last show just a few days before his death.  He is best known for his song "Tiny...

Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84
Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84

Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84

Genre-defying novelist was voice of more than one generation

(Newser) - Kurt Vonnegut, one of the most popular novelists of the 20th century, died yesterday at 84 in Manhattan. Defying genres, he wrote on everything from the firebombing of Dresden to alien abduction—and that was just Slaughterhouse-Five.

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