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☆ Ricardo M. Urbina, Trailblazing Latino Judge in Capital, Dies at 79
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-19 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ricardo M. Urbina, a trailblazing Latino lawyer who scored victories for civil liberties as an empathetic federal judge and for civil rights as a record-breaking track star — helping to fuel an epochal protest at the 1968 Olympics — died on Monday in Washington. His death, in an assisted living facility, was caused by complications of Parkinson’s disease, his son, Ian Urbina, said. Judge Urbina, the first Latino appointed to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and the United States District Court in Washington, figured most prominently in cases that originated with the federal government’s war against terrorism and that put him at odds with the administration of President George W. Bush. In 2007, he extended habeas corpus rights to Shawqi Ahmad Omar, a citizen of Jordan and the United States who was about to be transferred to Iraqi custody to be tried as a terrorist.

Persons: Ricardo M, —, Ian Urbina, Judge Urbina, George W, Bush, Shawqi Ahmad Omar Organizations: Superior, District of Columbia, United States, Court, United Locations: Washington, Jordan, United States

☆ Edward Stone, 88, Physicist Who Oversaw Voyager Missions, Is Dead
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-14 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Edward C. Stone, the visionary physicist who dispatched NASA’s Voyager spacecraft to run rings around our solar system’s outer planets and, for the first time, to venture beyond to unravel interstellar mysteries, died on Sunday at his home in Pasadena, Calif. His death was confirmed by his daughter Susan C. Stone. Inspired by the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957, while he was a college student, Dr. Stone went on to oversee the Voyager missions 20 years later for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which the California Institute of Technology manages for NASA. Twin spacecraft, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched separately in the summer of 1977 from Cape Canaveral, Fla. Almost five decades later, they are continuing their journeys deep into space and still collecting data.

Persons: Edward C, NASA’s, Susan C, Stone Organizations: Soviet, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, NASA Locations: Pasadena , Calif, Cape Canaveral, Fla

☆ Trump got special treatment from NYC probation, and defense lawyers are crying foul
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-11 | by ( Laura Italiano | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

In New York, probation officers talk to the defendant and the prosecutor in separate pre-sentencing interviews in preparation for what's known as a pre-sentencing report. AdvertisementTrump is not getting preferential treatment by being allowed to do his interview via video and with his lawyer, a city spokeswoman told Business Insider. It is true that defendants who are locked up while awaiting sentencing typically do pre-sentencing interviews via video, defense lawyers told Business Insider. But defendants like Trump, who are at liberty, are almost always required to appear alone and in person for their probation interviews, lawyers told BI. "I've never been present at a probation interview," said veteran Legal Aid attorney Sam Roberts.

Persons: —, Donald Trump, Todd Blanche, Trump, it's, Ivette Davila, Richards, it's President Trump, Justice Manhattan Juan Merchan, Blanche, I've, Sam Roberts, he's, Thomas Eddy, there's, Eddy, Blanche wasn't Organizations: Service, of, Business, Associated Press, Legal Aid Society, The Bronx Defenders, Defender Services, Neighborhood, Service of Harlem, it's, New, Justice Manhattan Locations: New York City, Mar, New York, Manhattan, York City, Rochester , New York

☆ Susanne Page, Who Took Rare Photos of the Hopi and Navajo, Dies at 86
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-29 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Susanne Page, whose intimate photographs of the Hopi tribe and Navajo nation opened a rare window on the everyday culture of Indigenous people in America’s Southwest, died on May 13 in Alexandria, Va. She was 86. The cause of her death, at the home of her daughter, Kendall Barrett, was brain cancer, another daughter, Lindsey Truitt, said. Page was in the midst of a 40-year career as a photographer for the United States Information Agency when she began creating vivid images of Native Americans and the flora and fauna that sustained them — work that embraced the beauty of the natural world and its profound spiritual significance to those Indigenous people. Her work appeared in magazines like National Geographic and Smithsonian and in several books. Along the way she introduced the subject of Native Americans of the Southwest to Jake Page, an editor and columnist at Smithsonian.

Persons: Susanne Page, Kendall Barrett, Lindsey Truitt, Page, Jake Page Organizations: United States Information Agency, Geographic, Smithsonian Locations: Navajo, Southwest, Alexandria, Va

☆ Jury in trial of tech CEO Fahim Saleh's killer hears grisly 911 call: 'His head is not there anymore!'
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-24 | by ( Laura Italiano | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

the operator asks, to which the woman sobs, "No! the 911 operator asks Saleh's cousin in the recording played Friday. the operator asks. Prosecutors told jurors that these bags held Saleh's head and limbs. A crime scene photo showing tech CEO Fahim Saleh under attack by his killer just inside the victim's Manhattan condominium.

Persons: —, Gokada, Fahim Saleh, Saleh, Tyrese Haspil, Linda Ford, Sam Roberts, Alan Chin, Haspil, Chavaux, Roberts, he'd, sobs, gasps, Prosecutors, he's, Gigi Jordan Organizations: Service, Business, Manhattan, Prosecutors Locations: Bangladeshi, Nigeria, Manhattan, France

☆ Alfonso Chardy, Who Helped Expose Iran-Contra Scandal, Dies at 72
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-24 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Alfonso Chardy, whose methodical reporting ushered The Miami Herald to a Pulitzer Prize for exposing the Iran-contra scandal in 1986 and contributed to three other Pulitzers that the newspaper won, died on April 9 in a Miami hospital. The cause was a heart attack, said his wife, Siobhan T. Morrisey. Mr. Chardy was instrumental in uncovering a link between the illegal sale of weapons to Iran orchestrated by senior Reagan administration officials to facilitate the release of Western hostages, and the covert diversion of proceeds from that sale to support right-wing rebels in Nicaragua known as the contras. The Westerners were being held in Lebanon by the Iranian-supported militant group Hezbollah. In Nicaragua, the contras were battling the leftist Sandinista government.

Persons: Alfonso Chardy, Siobhan T, Chardy, Reagan, Oliver L Organizations: Miami Herald, Sandinista Locations: Iran, Miami, Nicaragua, Lebanon, Iranian

☆ Terry Anderson, Reporter Held Hostage for Six Years, Dies at 76
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-21 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Terry Anderson, the American journalist who had been the longest-held Western hostage in Lebanon when he was finally released in 1991 by Islamic militants after more than six years in captivity, died Saturday at his home in Greenwood Lake, N.Y., in the Hudson Valley. The cause was apparently complications of recent heart surgery, said his daughter, Sulome Anderson. Mr. Anderson, the Beirut bureau chief for The Associated Press, had just dropped his tennis partner, an A.P. The same car had tried to cut him off the day before as he returned to work from lunch at his seaside apartment. The militants, supported by Iran, were retaliating against Israel’s use of American weapons in earlier strikes against Muslim and Druze targets in Lebanon.

Persons: Terry Anderson, Sulome Anderson, Anderson, Reagan Organizations: Islamic, Associated Press, Benz, Islamic Jihad Organization Locations: American, Lebanon, Greenwood Lake, N.Y, Hudson, Beirut, South Lebanon, Iran, Nicaragua

☆ Martin Wygod, a Winner on Wall Street and the Racetrack, Dies at 84
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-20 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Martin J. Wygod, a Wall Street whiz who graduated from walking horses after races to owning and breeding championship thoroughbreds when he made millions from investing in online companies that sold pharmaceuticals by mail and pruned medical paperwork, died on April 12 in San Diego. His daughter, Emily Bushnell, said he died in a hospital from complications of lung disease. Raised near two racetracks in suburban New York and mentored by a software pioneer, an investor and a gambler, Mr. Wygod was said to have been the youngest managing partner of a New York Stock Exchange brokerage in the 1960s. The sale netted Mr. Wygod $250 million. “Marty Wygod made $6 billion for himself because he developed a data base.”

Persons: Martin J, Emily Bushnell, Wygod, ” Jan Buck, “ Marty Wygod Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, Merck, Princeton Group International, New York Times Locations: San Diego, New York

☆ Don Wright, Editorial Cartoonist With a Skewer for a Pen, Dies at 90
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-13 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Don Wright, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist whose pointed work punctured duplicity and pomposity and resonated with common-sense readers, died on March 24 at his home in Palm Beach, Fla. His death was confirmed by his wife, Carolyn Wright, a fellow journalist. In a 45-year career, Mr. Wright drew some 11,000 cartoons for The Miami News, which folded in 1988, and then The Palm Beach Post, where he worked until he retired in 2008. But he reached a readership far beyond Florida: His cartoons appeared in newspapers nationwide through syndication. Mr. Wright’s readers knew where he stood, and especially what he was against, whether it was the Vietnam War; Israel’s military support for the pro-apartheid regime in South Africa (he depicted a menorah with missiles in place of candles); sexual abuse by clergymen; the John Birch Society, the anti-Communist fringe group; and racial segregationists, notably the violent Ku Klux Klan.

Persons: Don Wright, Carolyn Wright, Wright Organizations: The Miami News, John Birch Society, Communist, Klux Klan Locations: Palm Beach, Fla, Florida, Vietnam, South Africa

☆ Nijole Sadunaite, Lithuanian Nun Who Opposed Soviet Rule, Dies at 85
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-10 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Nijole Sadunaite, a fearless but forgiving Roman Catholic nun and anti-Soviet Lithuanian nationalist who was inspired by Pope John Paul II and publicly hailed by President Ronald Reagan, died on March 31 in Vilnius. Her death was confirmed by Sister Gerarda Elena Suliauskaite, laureate of the Freedom Prize of the Republic of Lithuania, which was also given to Sister Sadunaite in 2018 for her defense of democracy and human rights. In 1975, Sister Sadunaite (pronounced sah-DOO-nay-teh) was arrested by K.G.B. agents who had stormed an apartment where she was writing an underground newspaper, The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, which documented abuses against Christians in the Baltic state. “I had typed six pages when I was caught, so I effectively got one year for every page,” she told The Atlantic in 1994.

Persons: Nijole, Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, Sister Gerarda Elena Suliauskaite, Sadunaite, “, ” Organizations: Catholic Church Locations: Soviet Lithuanian, Vilnius, Republic of Lithuania, Lithuania, Baltic

☆ Stephen Adams, Who Made Yale Music School Tuition-Free, Dies at 86
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-27 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Stephen Adams, a billionaire whose anonymous $100 million gift to the Yale School of Music granted a tuition-free education to talented students embarking on careers in a capricious profession, died on March 14 at his home in Roxbury, Conn. His death was confirmed by his wife, Denise (Rhea) Adams. Mr. Adams, who graduated from Yale College in 1959, was not a musician himself. In 1999, he marked his class’s 40th-anniversary reunion by donating $10 million to the music school — the largest contribution it had ever received. Six years later, he and his wife surpassed that record when they made their $100 million gift, anonymously.

Persons: Stephen Adams, Denise, Rhea, Adams Organizations: Yale School of Music, Yale College, Wine Spectator Locations: Roxbury, Conn

☆ Malachy McCourt, Actor, Memoirist and Gadabout, Dies at 92
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-11 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Malachy McCourt, who fled a melancholic childhood in Ireland for America, where he applied his blarney and brogue to become something of a professional Irishman as a thespian, a barkeep and a best-selling memoirist, died on Monday in Manhattan. His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his wife, Diana McCourt. In 1952, when he was 20, the Brooklyn-born Mr. McCourt reunited with New York. Frank would also become a late-blooming author, whose books included the Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical work “Angela’s Ashes” (1996). The family, Malachy would write, was “not poor, but poverty-stricken.”

Persons: Malachy McCourt, Diana McCourt, McCourt, Frank McCourt, Frank, Malachy, Angela, ” Organizations: America Locations: Ireland, Manhattan, Brooklyn, New York, Limerick

☆ William Whitworth, Revered Writer and Editor, Is Dead at 87
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-09 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

William Whitworth, who wrote revealing profiles in The New Yorker giving voice to his idiomatic subjects and polished the prose of some of the nation’s celebrated writers as its associate editor before transplanting that magazine’s painstaking standards to The Atlantic, where he was editor in chief for 20 years, died on Friday in Conway, Ark., near Little Rock. His daughter, Katherine Whitworth Stewart, announced the death. She said he was being treated after several falls and operations in a hospital. As a young college graduate, Mr. Whitworth forsook a promising career as a jazz trumpeter to do a different kind of improvisation as a journalist. He covered breaking news for The Arkansas Gazette and later for The New York Herald Tribune, where his colleagues eventually included some of the most exhilarating voices in American journalism, among them Dick Schaap, Jimmy Breslin and Tom Wolfe.

Persons: William Whitworth, Katherine Whitworth Stewart, Whitworth forsook, Dick Schaap, Jimmy Breslin, Tom Wolfe Organizations: Yorker, The Arkansas Gazette, The New York Herald Tribune Locations: Conway, Little Rock

☆ Brooke Ellison, Prominent Disability Rights Advocate, Is Dead at 45
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-09 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Brooke Ellison, who after being paralyzed from the neck down by a childhood car accident went on to graduate from Harvard and became a professor and a devoted disability rights advocate, died on Sunday in Stony Brook, N.Y., on Long Island. Her death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of quadriplegia, her mother, Jean Ellison, said. As an 11-year-old, Brooke had been taking karate, soccer, cello and dance lessons and singing in a church choir. But on Sept. 4, 1990, she was struck by a car while running across a road near her home in Stony Brook. After waking from a 36-hour coma, she spent six weeks in the hospital and eight months in a rehabilitation center.

Persons: Brooke Ellison, Jean Ellison, Brooke Organizations: Harvard Locations: Stony Brook, N.Y, Long

☆ Si Spiegel, War Hero Who Modernized Christmas Trees, Dies at 99
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-08 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Before he became known as the father of artificial Christmas trees, Si Spiegel was a valiant Army aviator. In the closing days of World War II, he was piloting his B-17 Flying Fortress in an armada of 1,500 Allied bombers that pummeled Berlin. Struck by antiaircraft flak, two of the plane’s four engines lost power as Mr. Spiegel reversed course to return to England. Rather than bail out over Germany and risk being captured as a prisoner of war — especially given that he was Jewish — Mr. Spiegel managed to crash-land in Soviet-occupied Poland. After being stuck there for weeks, he improvised a daring escape, using parts of his own plane to jury-rig another B-17 that had crashed nearby, then flying to an American base in Italy.

Persons: Si Spiegel, Spiegel Locations: Berlin, England, Germany, Soviet, Poland, Italy

☆ Anne Edwards, Best-Selling ‘Queen of Biography,’ Dies at 96
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-31 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Anne Edwards, a prodigious and peripatetic author who published best-selling books about the actresses Vivien Leigh and Katharine Hepburn as well as 14 other celebrity biographies, eight novels, three children’s books, two memoirs and one autobiography, died on Jan. 20 in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 96. Her daughter, Catherine Edwards Sadler, said she died of lung cancer at a senior living facility. A child performer on radio and the stage, Ms. Edwards sold her first screenplay in 1949, when she was 22 (the movie “Quantez,” a western starring Fred MacMurray, was released in 1957); her first novel (the mystery “The Survivors”) in 1968; and her first biography (of Judy Garland) in 1975. Her “Vivien Leigh: A Biography” (1977) spent 19 weeks on The New York Times’s hardcover best-seller list. Reviewing that book for The Times, Richard R. Lingeman wrote that Ms. Edwards “has, with tact, sympathy and intelligence, given us an admirable portrait of Vivien Leigh that is a portrait of an admirable lady.”

Persons: Anne Edwards, Vivien Leigh, Katharine Hepburn, Catherine Edwards Sadler, Edwards, Fred MacMurray, Judy Garland, Richard R, Lingeman, Edwards “, ” Organizations: York, The Times Locations: Beverly Hills, Calif, ”

☆ Howard Weaver, Who Helped an Alaska Newspaper Win 3 Pulitzers, Dies at 73
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-12 | by ( Sam Roberts | More About Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Howard Weaver, a self-described “poor kid from a shabby neighborhood,” was 24 years old and terrified when he was assigned by the floundering Anchorage Daily News to expose a rapacious chapter of the Teamsters union that was corruptly profiting from Alaska’s oil pipeline boom. “Any way you sliced it,” he recalled, “the odds were against us, a mismatch of Goliathian proportions.”But Mr. Weaver was hungry. Hungry enough that after months of investigative reporting, he and his colleagues exposed “a complex maze of political, economic and social power,” which, they wrote, “challenges at times both mighty industry and state government itself.”Three weeks before The Daily News declared that it was on the brink of bankruptcy, the scrappy newspaper with a circulation of about 13,000 was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 1976 for its reporting on Teamsters Local 959. It was the smallest paper and the first in Alaska to win the coveted medal.

Persons: Howard Weaver, ”, Weaver Organizations: Anchorage Daily, Teamsters, Daily News Locations: Anchorage, Alaska

☆ John Nichols, Author of ‘The Milagro Beanfield War,’ Dies at 83
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-02 | by ( Sam Roberts | More About Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

John Nichols, a New York City transplant to New Mexico whose exuberant novels, notably “The Milagro Beanfield War,” transformed him from an urban gringo into a local idol, died on Monday at his home in Taos. Imbued with a heady pedigree and a peripatetic upbringing, Mr. Nichols evolved instinctively from a cosmopolitan New Yorker and world traveler to a Western writer of the purple sage. He was best known for “The Milagro Beanfield War” (1974), a 445-page political allegory that tells the story of farmers in the fictional town of Milagro Valley who are denied the right to irrigate their farms because water is being diverted to a huge development. “The Milagro Beanfield War” became a crowd pleaser on college campuses, was venerated in his adopted state, and for a while was considered among the most widely read novels about Latinos. In 1988 it was adapted into a film, directed by Robert Redford and starring Rubén Blades, Christopher Walken and Melanie Griffith.

Persons: John Nichols, ”, Tania Harris, Nichols, Robert Redford, Rubén Blades, Christopher Walken, Melanie Griffith Organizations: Yorker Locations: New York City, New Mexico, Taos, Western, Milagro

☆ William Casey, Who Uncovered Police Corruption, Dies at 78
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-24 | by ( Sam Roberts | More About Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

William M. Casey, a former New York City deputy police chief who was the unheralded hero of the “Dirty 30” corruption investigation that ensnared one-sixth of the officers assigned to a West Harlem precinct, died on Nov. 9 at his home in Pleasantville, N.Y. The cause was complications of a stroke and Parkinson’s disease, his daughter, Kimberly Wildey, said. The scandal — often described as the largest police corruption case involving a single precinct in the department’s history — was uncovered by a commission on police corruption appointed by Mayor David N. Dinkins in 1992 and headed by Justice Milton Mollen of the New York State Supreme Court. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York under Mary Jo White. The operation resulted in charges against 34 officers, 30 of whom were either convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes ranging from perjury and civil rights violations to stealing drugs or cash from narcotics dealers.

Persons: William M, Casey, Kimberly Wildey, —, David N, Dinkins, Milton Mollen, Mary Jo White Organizations: New York, Court, U.S, Southern, of, West 151st Locations: New York City, West Harlem, Pleasantville, N.Y, of New York, Amsterdam Avenue

☆ Joe Sharkey, Travel Writer Who Survived Midair Collision, Dies at 77
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Sam Roberts | More About Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The cause was a hypertensive stroke, said his wife, Nancy Sharkey, a retired Times editor. The executive jet managed to land safely at a remote military airport, but the Gol Linhas Aéreas commercial airliner it collided with did not have such a fortunate fate: It nose-dived to the ground, killing all 154 people on board. It was the deadliest civilian aviation accident in Brazil at the time. The collision prompted inquiries by Brazil’s military and by American transportation safety investigators. Both placed blame on air traffic controllers but never fully resolved who was at fault or why the planes were flying at the same altitude.

Persons: Joe Sharkey, Nancy Sharkey, Mr, Sharkey Organizations: The New York Times, Boeing, Business Jet, Embraer Locations: The, Brazil, Tucson, Ariz

☆ David Mitchell, Weekly Editor Who Exposed a Corrupt Cult, Dies at 79
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-01 | by ( Sam Roberts | More About Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

David Mitchell, a muckraker whose tiny California newspaper challenged the violent drug rehabilitation cult Synanon and, as a result, became one of only a handful of weeklies to win a Pulitzer Prize, died on Oct. 25 at his home in Point Reyes Station, Calif., in Marin County. His wife, Lynn Axelrod Mitchell, said the cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease. A gangly, grizzled former literature teacher, Mr. Mitchell also figured in a retaliatory libel suit by Synanon, the results of which advanced the rights of investigative reporters. In 1984, the California Supreme Court ruled that in certain cases they could keep the names of confidential sources secret without forfeiting their defense in libel and other civil cases. Mr. Mitchell’s newspaper, The Point Reyes Light, was struggling financially, and the strain of keeping it afloat ultimately cost Mr. Mitchell his second marriage; his wife at the time, Catherine Mitchell, was co-publisher with him.

Persons: David Mitchell, Lynn Axelrod Mitchell, Mitchell, Synanon, Reyes, Catherine Mitchell, ”, David Organizations: California Supreme Locations: California, Point Reyes, Calif, Marin County

☆ Michael Bragman, 83, Dies; Led a Failed Legislative Coup in New York
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-27 | by ( Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Michael J. Bragman, a Democratic powerhouse who was deposed as the majority leader of the New York State Assembly and retired from politics after mounting an unsuccessful and politically suicidal coup against the speaker, Sheldon Silver, in 2000, died on Oct. 13 in Syracuse, N.Y. Mr. Bragman exerted a profound influence in the Assembly. He was credited with successfully sponsoring more than 300 bills and pumping some $200 million in pork-barrel funding for local projects in his Central New York State district, which was centered in Syracuse. The legislation, which became known as Jenna’s Law, had already been approved in the Republican-controlled State Senate but was stalled in the Assembly. Mr. Silver was swayed after meeting with the victim’s parents and Mr. Bragman.

Persons: Michael J, Sheldon Silver, Leslie Bragman, Bragman, Jenna Grieshaber Honis, Silver Organizations: Democratic, New York State Assembly, Central New, Mr, Republican, Senate Locations: Syracuse, N.Y, Central New York State

☆ Peter C. Newman, 94, Journalist and Scourge of Canada’s Powerful, Dies
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-13 | by ( Sam Roberts | More About Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Peter C. Newman, a maverick journalist and historian who skewered the political establishment in Canada while evolving into a fervent nationalist there, his adopted country, to which he had fled as a boy from Nazi-occupied Europe, died on Sept. 7 in Belleville, in southeast Ontario. His death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of Parkinson’s disease, which he developed after a stroke last year, said his wife, Alvy Newman. In a long and prolific career, Mr. Newman had stints as editor of the Toronto-based Maclean’s magazine and of The Toronto Star while churning out nearly three dozen books, some delving into the inner sanctums of four Canadian prime ministers, the Canadian-based Bronfman liquor dynasty and the Canadian media mogul Conrad Black. He also wrote a history of the Hudson’s Bay Company, founded in 1670; a three-volume dissection of “The Canadian Establishment” (1975); and a memoir that began with his Jewish family’s escape from Europe under fire from a dive bomber.

Persons: Peter C, Newman, Alvy Newman, Bronfman, Conrad Black Organizations: The Toronto Star, Canadian, Hudson’s, Company Locations: Canada, Nazi, Europe, Belleville, Ontario, Toronto

☆ Bill Richardson, Champion of Americans Held Overseas, Dies at 75
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-02 | by ( Sam Roberts | More About Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Bill Richardson, who served two terms as governor of New Mexico and 14 years as a congressman before devoting himself to the cause of Americans who were being held hostage or who he believed were being wrongfully detained overseas, died on Friday at his summer home in Chatham, Mass., on Cape Cod. His death was announced by the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which he founded. The cause was not given. Under President Bill Clinton, Mr. Richardson was ambassador to the United Nations, succeeding Madeleine Albright in early 1997, and then secretary of energy, beginning in August 1998. He served in the House of Representatives, as a member of the New Mexico delegation, from January 1983 to February 1997 and as the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Persons: Bill Richardson, Bill Clinton, Richardson, Madeleine Albright, William Brewster Organizations: Richardson Center, Global, United Nations, Representatives, New, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Mayflower Locations: New Mexico, Chatham , Mass, Cape Cod, California, Pasadena, Mexico City

☆ Keith Spicer, Canada’s Offbeat Envoy of Reconciliation, Dies at 89
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-31 | by ( Sam Roberts | More About Sam Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Keith Spicer, who as a spirited government official pushed his fellow Canadians to define their national identity and reconcile their bilingual heritage more than two centuries after the British defeated the French to capture Quebec, died on Aug. 24 in Ottawa. His death, in a hospital, was confirmed to The Canadian Press by Nick Spicer, one of his three children. Raised by Protestant parents who were anti-Catholic and anti-French, Mr. Spicer began his professional career as a political science professor before being drafted by two prime ministers into ombudsman’s jobs that more risk-averse Canadians might have rejected. One task was to get all Canadians to accept their country as officially bilingual; the other was hear them out if they complained about language mandates and other irritants.

Persons: Keith Spicer, Nick Spicer, Spicer Organizations: British, The Canadian Press, Catholic Locations: Quebec, Ottawa

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