BREAKING: LA Times: Michael Jackson hospitalized – Yahoo News Michael Jackson has been rushed to the hospital, a fire department official told the Los Angeles Times. Capt. Steve Ruda said Thursday that Jackson was not breathing when Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics responded to a call at his Los Angeles home about 12:30 p.m. The [...]

Breaking: Actress Farrah Fawcett dies at 62, according to AP CNN (Farrah Fawcett, sex symbol and actress, dies): Farrah Fawcett, the blonde-maned actress whose best-selling poster and “Charlie’s Angels” stardom made her one of the most famous faces in the world, has died. She was 62. People (Farrah Fawcett Dies of Cancer at 62): Farrah [...]

Breaking:  Ed McMahon, who gained fame as Johnny Carson’s sidekick on “The Tonight Show,” has died, his representative says. NBC: Ed McMahon died at a hospital in Los Angeles this morning, his agent said today. The 85-year-old TV personality and former “Tonight Show” host died this morning at Ronald Regan UCLA Medical Center, his agent said [...]

My condolences go out to videoblogging pioneer John Amato,  who is mourning the loss of his father. Despite living on opposite coasts, I’ve had the good fortune to meet and spend time with John on a couple of occasions. While our politics and personalities couldn’t be much more different, he’s one of the good guys, a [...]

Alex Massie and Radley Balko remind me that John Wayne died 30 years ago today. I recall it well, having just recently returned to the States from Germany and waiting to start 8th grade in El Paso.  I’ve seen most of his movies since and become a bigger fan. Someone (Robert Prather, perhaps) shared via [...]

Jack Kemp has died. Jack Kemp, the ex-quarterback, congressman, one-time vice-presidential nominee and self-described “bleeding-heart conservative” died Saturday. He was 73. His spokeswoman Bona Park and longtime friend and former campaign adviser Edwin J. Feulner confirmed that Kemp died after a lengthy illness. Kemp had announced in January 2009 that he had been diagnosed with [...]

Bea Arthur, star of “Maude” and “The Golden Girls,” has died of cancer at 86. Beatrice Arthur, the tall, deep-voiced actress whose razor-sharp delivery of comedy lines made her a TV star in the hit shows “Maude” and “The Golden Girls” and who won a Tony Award for the musical “Mame,” died Saturday. She was [...]

Freddie Mac CFO David Kellerman has killed himself, DC’s WUSA9 reports. David Kellermann, Acting Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Freddie Mac, was found dead this morning. Fairfax County Police officials tell 9NEWS NOW they responded to his home around 5 a.m. after his wife alerted them to his suicide. Kellermann was 41 [...]

Tom Braden has passed at the ripe old age of 92. Tom Braden, the creator and co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire,” which pioneered the talk-show format that pitted a conservative against a liberal, died Friday at age 92.  Daughter Susan Braden said he died of natural causes at his home in Denver, Colorado. In 1982, Braden [...]

Our heartfelt condolences go out to OTB contributor John Burgess on the loss of his brother, Roger.

Paul Harvey, one of the pioneers of broadcast journalism, has died, aged 90. Known for his deliberate delivery and pregnant pauses, Harvey’s broadcasts were heard on more than 1,200 radio stations and 400 Armed Forces networks and his commentaries appeared in 300 newspapers, according to his Web site. He had been hosting his radio shows [...]

Paul Weyrich has died. Rob Bluey: Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and first president of The Heritage Foundation, died this morning around 1 a.m. He was 66 years old. Weyrich was a good friend to many of us at Heritage, a true leader and a man of unbending principle. [...]

Sad news: Robin Toner, who was the first woman to be the national political correspondent of The New York Times and who had a significant hand in the coverage of five presidential elections, innumerable Congressional and gubernatorial campaigns and the great legislative debates of the day, died early Friday at her home in Washington. She [...]

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. wipes a tear as he talks about his grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, at a rally in Charlotte, N.C., Monday, Nov. 3, 2008. Obama Madelyn Payne Dunham, Barack Obama’s maternal grandmother, died Sunday, the campaign announced earlier this evening.  She was 86. Obama announced the news from the campaign [...]

Studs Terkel, radio actor, activist, speech writer, journalist, author, Chicagoan, has died at 96: A television institution for years, a radio staple for decades, a literary lion since 1967, when he wrote his first best-selling book at the age of 55, Louis Terkel was born in New York City on May 16, 1912. “I came [...]

Townhall blogger, Weekly Standard writer, and Hugh Hewitt guest host Dean Barnett died yesterday at the age of 41 after a lifelong struggle with cystic fibrosis. Bill Kristol: “It’s my sad duty to report that our good friend and valued contributor Dean Barnett passed away today. He was a remarkable man–principled, witty, and to all [...]

BREAKING: Legendary actor Paul Newman has died of cancer at the age of 83. His philanthropic foundation has issued a statement: Paul Newman’s craft was acting. His passion was racing. His love was his family and friends. And his heart and soul were dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all. Paul [...]

Gregory McDonald, author of the Fletch books, passed away yesterday: Gregory Mcdonald, whose best-selling “Fletch” mystery books also were made into films, has died, according to his manager. He was 71. Mcdonald died Sunday at his farm in Pulaski, Tennessee, about 60 miles southwest of Nashville, according to Mcdonald’s manager, Dan List. List said Wednesday [...]

Jerry Reed, a country guitar player, comedian, and actor perhaps best known for  “Smokey and the Bandit” and other Burt Reynolds vehicles from the 1970s and 1980s, has died from emphysemia at age 71. Sony BMG Nashville Chairman Joe Galante called Reed a larger-than-life personality. “Everything about Jerry was distinctive: his guitar playing, writing, voice [...]

It’s a bad weekend for famous black men I’m fond of, after Bernie Mac’s passing. The legendary Isaac Hayes has also passed away: Soul singer and arranger Isaac Hayes, who won Grammy awards and an Oscar for the theme from the 1971 action film “Shaft,” has died, sheriff’s officials in Memphis, Tennessee, reported Sunday. Hayes [...]

Comedian Bernie Mac died early this morning from complications from pneumonia. Comedian and Chicago native Bernie Mac died early Saturday morning from complications due to pneumonia, his publicist confirmed. Mac, 50, had been hospitalized for about a week at Northwestern Hospital, according to his spokeswoman. A few years ago, Mac disclosed that he suffered from [...]

Longtime Atlanta Braves announcer Skip Caray died in his sleep Sunday. He had been suffering from myriad health problems the last couple of years. Tim Tucker eulogizes him for the AJC: Skip Caray made the call when the Atlanta Braves won the World Series in 1995: “Yes! Yes! Yes! The Atlanta Braves have given you [...]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel laureate whose Gulag Archipelago trilogy made him perhaps the most visible Soviet dissident, has died from heart disease at the age of 89. CNN: “Russian novelist, former dissident, Solzhenitsyn dead” Awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 for “The First Circle,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn was considered a moral voice for Russia. [...]

Randy Pausch finally succumbed to pancreatic cancer this morning. Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose “last lecture” about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, has died. He was 47. Pausch died early Friday at his home in Virginia, university spokeswoman Anne Watzman said. Pausch and his family [...]

Tony Snow has died. He was only 53. CNN Breaking: Former White House press secretary Tony Snow has died at the age of 53 after a second battle with cancer. Snow, who had been undergoing chemotherapy treatments for a recurrence of the disease, left his White House job September. 14, 2007, and joined CNN as [...]

Joe Dwyer, made famous in a March 2003 Warren Zinn photo for his heroic service in Iraq, has died, apparently a casualty of that service. During the first week of the war in Iraq, a Military Times photographer captured the arresting image of Army Spc. Joseph Patrick Dwyer as he raced through a battle zone [...]

Former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms died this morning, joining John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in the distinction of passing on Independence Day. Raleigh’s WTVD notes, In North Carolina Helms was a polarizing figure, and he freely admitted that many people in the state strongly disliked him: “They (the Democrats) could nominate Mortimer Snerd and [...]

George Carlin, a comedian known for his combination of raunchy language and intellectual humor, died of heart failure last evening. He was 71. Carlin was an interesting guy, combining brilliant observational humor with political activism. Like too many comics in the HBO era, though, it often seemed that he was vulgar and outrageous simply because [...]

Tim Russert has died of a heart attack at the age of 58. Family members say NBC’s Tim Russert has died. They tell The New York Times that Russert died of an apparent heart attack. The host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” was 58. Longtime NBC anchor Tom Brokaw has now confirmed Russert’s death, in [...]

James Fallows passes on the said news that Charlie Moskos, the preeminent military sociologist of his era, died yesterday at the age of 74. The email from his wife of 41 years, Ilca, began: “Charles C. Moskos, of Santa Monica, Calif, formerly of Evanston, Ill, draftee of U.S. Army, died peacefully in his sleep after [...]

Yves Saint Laurent has died. A longtime friend and associate of Yves Saint Laurent says the famed couturier has died at his Paris home at the age of 71. Pierre Berge says that Saint Laurent died Sunday evening following a long illness. He did not give details. The innovative designer was an institution for decades [...]

General Bill Odom, one of the nation’s most respected national security analysts, has died. William E. Odom, 75, a retired Army lieutenant general who was a senior military and intelligence official in the Carter and Reagan administrations and who, in recent years, became a forceful critic of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, died May 30 [...]

Legendary comic actor Harvey Korman has died. He was 81. Comic actor Harvey Korman has died at 81, according to the UCLA Medical Center. Korman died at the center four months after suffering complications from the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. “It was a miracle in itself that he survived the incident at all. [...]

California wine impresario Robert Mondavi has died at the ripe old age of 94. Robert Mondavi, the man hailed as the ambassador of the Napa Valley and the godfather of California wine, no longer owned a winery when he died today at his home in Yountville at the age of 94. The winery that bears [...]

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called “DC Madam” has (apparently) killed herself. Police were called to the home of DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey’s mother on Thursday to investigate her apparent suicide. Police have confirmed that the dead person is Palfrey who was 52. Palfrey was dubbed “The DC Madam” by the national media after her [...]

Albert Hofmann, who accidentally invented the most popular hallucinogenic drug ever, has died. Albert Hofmann, the father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical discovery inspired — and arguably corrupted — millions in the 1960s hippie generation, has died. He was 102. Hofmann died Tuesday at his home in Burg im Leimental, said Doris Stuker, [...]

Lt. Dennis van Uhm, the son of Holland’s top general, was killed today in Afghanistan. The son of the Dutch defense chief was killed Friday by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and the Taliban claimed they deliberately made the young lieutenant a high-profile target. While the Dutch quickly cast doubt on the Taliban claim, the [...]

Edward Lorenz has died, thus conforming to a recurring pattern. Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist who became the father of the modern field of chaos theory, died Wednesday of cancer in Massachusetts aged 90, MIT announced Thursday. A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lorenz was the first to identify chaotic behavior in the [...]

Abu Ubaida al-Masri, the planner of the 7/7/05 London subway bombing and various other al Qaeda operations has been confirmed dead. No word on whether he was the #2 or #3 ranked man in al Qaeda. Abu Ubaida al-Masri, one of Al Qaeda’s top operatives and the mastermind behind a plot to use liquid explosives [...]

Hollywood legend and longtime NRA spokesman Charlton Heston had died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Robert W. Welkos and Susan King for the LAT: Charlton Heston, the Oscar-winning actor who achieved stardom playing larger-than-life figures including Moses, Michelangelo and Andrew Jackson and went on to become an unapologetic gun advocate and darling of [...]

The body of Staff Sergeant Keith Maupin, the American soldier who was captured and murdered nearly four years ago, has finally been officially identified. Sgt. Keith Matthew Maupin’s parents vowed to never let the U.S. Army forget about finding their son. Their efforts included trips to the Pentagon and even meeting with President Bush, but [...]

Ivan Dixon, best known for his role as Sergeant James Kinchloe on “Hogan’s Heroes,” died Sunday. Actor Ivan Dixon, who brought the problems and promise of contemporary blacks to life in the film “Nothing But a Man” and portrayed the levelheaded POW Kinchloe in TV’s “Hogan’s Heroes,” has died. He was 76. Dixon died Sunday [...]

Kathryn Jean Lopez has the sad news that “William F. Buckley Jr., died overnight in his study in Stamford, Connecticut. After year of illness, he died while at work.” Sad news, indeed. More from AP: Author and conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. has died at age 82. His assistant Linda Bridges says Buckley died [...]

Congressman Tom Lantos died this morning at the age of 80. Rep. Tom Lantos, who as a teenager twice escaped from a Nazi-run forced labor camp in Hungary and became the only Holocaust survivor to win a seat in Congress, has died. He was 80. Spokeswoman Lynne Weil said Lantos, a Californian, died early Monday [...]

Gordon B. Hinckley, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died Sunday of complications arising from old age, according to a church spokesman. He was 97. By tradition, at a church president’s death, the church’s most senior apostle is ordained within days on a unanimous vote of the Council of the Twelve [...]

Australian movie actor Heath Ledger is reported to have died: NEW YORK (CBS) “ Heath Ledger, who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the critically-acclaimed movie Brokeback Mountain, has died, sources tell CBS 2. The Australian-born actor was just 28. He was pronounced dead at 3:26 p.m. in his downtown Manhattan residence [...]

Suzanne Pleshette has died. Suzanne Pleshette, the husky-voiced star best known for her role as Bob Newhart’s sardonic wife on television’s long-running “The Bob Newhart Show,” has died at age 70. Pleshette, whose career included roles in such films as Hitchcock’s “The Birds” and in Broadway plays including “The Miracle Worker,” died of respiratory failure [...]

Major Andrew Olmsted, a longtime blogger and Army Reservist, was killed in action yesterday when his unit was ambushed. His Obsidian Wings colleague Hilzoy had the sad honor of posting his final blog missive. Her lead-in: Andrew Olmsted, who also posted here as G’Kar, was killed yesterday in Iraq. Andy gave me a post to [...]

Dan Fogelberg has died after a long battle with prostate cancer. He was only 56. Here’s a video of Fogelberg performing his signature hit, “Same Auld Lang Syne,” along with a voiceover reflecting on its impact:

Legendary stuntman Robert Craig Evel Knievel has died after a long illness at the age of 69. Evel Knievel, the hard-living motorcycle daredevil whose jumps over Greyhound buses, live sharks and Idaho’s Snake River Canyon made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69. Knievel’s death was confirmed by his granddaughter, [...]