Free Republic

In life, they were united in their tireless work saving countless British soldiers in Afghanistan. In death, they were united in tragedy. Shortly after Lance Corporal Liam Tasker was killed in a firefight with the Taliban, his devoted Army search dog Theo suffered a seizure and passed away too. The pair had uncovered 14 home-made bombs and hoards of weapons in just five months – a record for a dog and his handler in the conflict. L/Cpl Tasker, 26, this week became the 358th British serviceman to die in the ten-year conflict. Only last month he described his joy at...

(CBS) Robert Sargent Shriver Jr., or Sargent as he was better known, has died, CBS News confirmed Tuesday. Shriver had Alzheimer's disease. Shriver was perhaps the most accomplished man never elected to public office. His career in public service and civic leadership spanned the second half of the 20th century. A call from President Kennedy ignited that career. In 1961, Mr. Kennedy asked Shriver to launch a project called the Peace Corps. It only took him six months to get the program up and running. "They have to have an internal motivation, an internal conviction," Shriver said. Born in Maryland...

Astronomer Brian G. Marsden, a comet and asteroid tracker who stood sentinel to protect the Earth from collisions with interplanetary rocks and other remnants of the solar system's creation, died Thursday of cancer at Lahey Clinic Medical Center in Burlington, Mass. He was 73. Director emeritus of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., Marsden was perhaps best known for his 1998 announcement that an asteroid known as 1997 XF11 might strike the Earth in 2028, causing untold damage. The announcement sparked additional studies which quickly showed that such an impact was unlikely. Marsden,...

Allan R. Sandage, who spent his life measuring the universe, becoming the most influential astronomer of his generation, died Saturday at his home in San Gabriel, Calif. He was 84. The cause was pancreatic cancer, according to an announcement by the Carnegie Observatories, where he had spent his whole professional career. Over more than six decades, Dr. Sandage was like one of those giant galaxies that sit at the center of a cluster of galaxies, dominating cosmic weather. He wrote more than 500 papers, ranging across the cosmos, covering the evolution and behavior of stars, the birth of the Milky...

PINE CITY, Minn. (AP) -- A highly decorated bomb disposal technician from Pine City has been killed by a roadside bomb in Helmand province, Afghanistan. Master Sgt. Daniel L. Fedder was 34. The Pentagon says he died Friday while assigned to the 1st Marine Logistics Group out of Camp Pendleton, Calif. Marine Corps spokesman 1st Lt. Ken Kunze says it wasn't immediately clear if Fedder was attempting to defuse the bomb that killed him. An investigation is ongoing. The 16-year corps veteran was on his third combat deployment. He has previously deployed to Iraq in 2004 and 2006. Fedder is...

HOUSTON—One man may have accidentally caused his own death after he intentionally crashed his vehicle on the Highway 59 North feeder road early Tuesday, according to police. Police found the man's body after responding to a fatal accident call on the 59/Eastex Freeway at Cavalcade around 2 a.m. Police said the witness on the scene was a friend who was traveling behind the victim's big rig. The witness said they were driving on the feeder road when his friend suddenly fell out of the big rig. Police said the victim’s wounds were not consistent with the story and they called...

Manute Bol, who became a basketball sensation in the 1980s as a skeletally thin shot-blocking giant with the Washington Bullets and other professional teams, and who devoted his post-basketball life to improving the lot of his fellow natives of Sudan, died June 19 at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. He was 47. His cousin George Bol said Mr. Bol had internal bleeding and other complications from Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a rare skin disease that he contracted from a medication he received in Africa. Mr. Bol, one of the two tallest players in NBA history, was also one of...

A high school student from California is dead after falling 30 metres from a viewing platform into a rocky canyon at the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. The teenage boy reportedly fell from a viewing platform on the west side of the canyon at around 7 p.m. Sunday. Rescue crews were able to reach the boy quickly, but he was not alive by the time they arrived, according to RCMP Inspector Davis Wendell. "Emergency responders attended the scene and undertook a very difficult high-angle rescue attempt. Unfortunately the male in question had fallen to his death," said Wendell. It...

A local man serving an eight year prison term for ripping a safe containing $100,000 worth of prescription drugs from the Sharon Pharmacy two years ago died Wednesday. State Police detectives from the Eastern District Major Crime Squad are investigating the untimely death of Frank Campbell, two days after he suffered a choking episode at Osborn Correctional Institutional in Somers.

John Wooden dies at 99; coach won 10 national basketball titles at UCLA Known as the 'Wizard of Westwood,' Wooden's accomplishments with the Bruins during his 27-season tenure made him one of the greatest coaches in sports history. He also created the 'Pyramid of Success' motivational program. By Bill Dwyre and David Wharton 10:18 PM CDT, June 4, 2010 1 2 next Wooden delivers instructions during a timeout in the 1972 NCAA championship game at the L.A. Sports Arena. UCLA defeated Florida State, 81-76; Bill Walton, seated at left, was named the tournament's most outstanding player. (Rich Clarkson / Sports...

LONDON – John Shepherd-Barron, the Scotsman credited with inventing the world's first automatic cash machine, has died after a short illness. He was 84. Shepherd-Barron died peacefully in northern Scotland's Raigmore Hospital on Saturday, .. Shepherd-Barron once said that he came up with the idea of the cash dispensers after being locked out of his bank. He also said that his invention was inspired by chocolate vending machines.

MONROE, Utah – Walter Fredrick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died. He was 90. State Rep. Kay McIff, an attorney who once represented Morrison in a royalties case, says Morrison died at his home Tuesday. McIff is from Richfield, Morrison's original hometown. Morrison sold the production and manufacturing rights to his "Pluto Platter" in 1957. The plastic flying disc was later renamed the "Frisbee," with sales surpassing 200 million discs. It is now a staple at beaches and college campuses across the country and spawned sports like Frisbee golf and the team sport Ultimate.

Movie star Brittany Murphy is dead of a heart attack at 32. She went into full cardiac arrest early Sunday and could not be revived, the Website TMZ reported. The Los Angeles City Fire Department got a call from the home of Murphy's husband Simon Monjack about 8 a.m., fire officials told TMZ. She was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead on arrival Murphy starred in "8 Mile," and "Don't Say a Word." The starlet became a household name among teens in 1995 as the sidekick in "Clueless," who went from awkward wall flower to snotty...

Liza Northrop Beale, the general manager of The Almanac, a weekly newspaper in Washington, Pa. died Saturday of complications related to the H1N1 virus. She was 49 and lived in Peters Township which is suburban Pittsburgh.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Vitaly Ginzburg, a Russian physicist who survived Stalin's purges by working on the Soviet atomic bomb project and later won the Nobel Prize for physics, died in Moscow late on Sunday after a long illness. He was 93. Ginzburg won the 2003 Nobel physics prize for developing the theory behind superconductors, materials which allow electricity to pass without resistance at very low temperatures. He shared the prize with British-American Anthony Leggett and Russian-born U.S. scientist Alexei Abrikosov. But Ginzburg's career as a Soviet scientist almost ended when he took as his second wife a woman arrested in...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Gunmen with automatic weapons burst into a Mexican strip club on the U.S. border, opened fire on patrons and killed six people including an American soldier, the army said on Wednesday. The hooded gunmen stormed into the bar in Ciudad Juarez as strippers were dancing for customers, sought out the six men and shot them each several times. A 26-year-old off-duty U.S. soldier who had crossed over from El Paso, Texas, was among the dead, army spokesman Enrique Torres said. "It appears drugs were being sold at the place," Torres said of the strip joint....

WASHINGTON – Jack Nelson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who covered the civil rights movement and the Watergate scandal for the Los Angeles Times and was the paper's Washington bureau chief for 20 years, died Wednesday. He was 80. Nelson, who had pancreatic cancer, died at his home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Md., said Richard Cooper a family friend and longtime Times associate. Nelson spent more than 35 years with the Los Angeles Times, stepping down as its chief Washington correspondent in 2001. He joined the Times in 1965 and in 1970 began working in its Washington bureau....

SPRINGFIELD, Pa. – The singer who played the Frank Sinatra-type role of Johnny Fontane in "The Godfather" has died at his childhood home in suburban Philadelphia. Publicist Sandy Friedman says Al Martino died Tuesday afternoon in Springfield, in Delaware County. He was 82. Starting in 1952, Martino was known for hit songs including "Here in My Heart," "Spanish Eyes," "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "Volare." Besides acting in the Marlon Brando classic "The Godfather," he sang the 1972 film's title score, "The Love Theme From The Godfather." His Fontane character is a singer and occasional actor.

WASHINGTON – A close associate says Jody Powell, who was White House press secretary during Jimmy Carter's presidency, has died. Powell, a Georgia native known for his deep Southern drawl, worked on Carter's presidential campaign in 1976 and served as the Carter's spokesman between 1977 and 1981. The cause of death was not immediately known.

HAVANA (AFP) – Cuban Vice President Juan Almeida Bosque, a revolutionary commander who fought alongside Fidel Castro to bring down a pro-American dictatorship, has died. He was 82. An official communique issued through state media said Almeida, the number three official in the Americas' only communist regime, died late Friday from cardiac arrest. Almeida was one of just three top Cuban leaders to hold the title of revolutionary commander. As a black man in racially diverse Cuba, Almeida was an important visual symbol of a break with the past, particularly in 1950s Cuba, when racism and discrimination were common. His...