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Young Australians are subject to powerful indoctrination and enticements to join the Israel Defence Forces. Yaakov Aharon investigates the links between youth group Hatzofim Australia and IDF recruiters. While the Scouts typically wear a uniform emblazoned with the flag of their own country, Hatzofim Australia’s khaki uniform only has the Israeli flag. It’s a not-for-profit Zionist youth group and a wing of the Israeli Scouts. Recently, MWM published an investigation into the Garin Tzabar Australia program, whose staff and services are closely intertwined with Hatzofim Australia. The Garin Tzabar program is the result of a joint venture partnership between the Israeli Scouts and IDF’s recruitment unit. Hatzofim Australia provides services to children aged 8-25 and is granted special access to children through public and private Jewish schools. Their services include teaching classes and school activities, hosting regular weekend meetings and camps during school holidays, and sending children on Israel study tours. Sometimes these Israel study tours are a one way trip. After all, Garin Tzabar translates to ‘seeds of Israeli identity’, and seeds are meant to be buried. Israeli immigrants who show they are willing to die for a foreign country are then enticed to stay for a lifetime. It is not a crime if an Australian chooses to join a foreign army. However, S119.7 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 states that “a person commits an offence if the person recruits, in Australia, another person to serve in any capacity in or with an armed force in a foreign country.” It is a further offence to facilitate or promote recruitment for a foreign army and to advertise or publish recruitment materials. This includes information relating to how a person may serve, make applications to serve, or travel to a foreign country to serve with a foreign armed force. The maximum penalty for each offence is ten years. MWM is not alleging any parties mentioned in this article have broken the law. Hatzofim Australia is the local wing of the Israeli Scouts. Its mission statement says it intends to... “to operate and develop educational programs and values, in which children and young adults – members of the Jewish-Israeli community in North America, Australia and Western Europe – will engage in a variety of social and educational Zionist experiences, which will help them build knowledge of and love for the Land of Israel. Weekly activities are planned and executed by high school children leading kids grades 3-9. ... [Hatzofim Members] take a meaningful part in Israeli society through our different programs, such as Shnat Sherut [national service volunteer work] Gap Year program and Garin Tzabar IDF service.” Garin Tzabar is a program for Israel’s Lone Soldiers, or soldiers without parents living in Israel, who qualify for special benefits, including free accommodation, free plane tickets to Israel, better pay for their IDF service, and more time on leave. When they finish their service, they qualify for subsidised accommodation and university scholarships. The official IDF website states that Garin Tzabar was founded through a joint venture partnership with the Israeli Scouts, the IDF Metav Unit for recruitment, and the Ministries of Defence and Immigration. The Garin Tzabar website specifically advertises to Australian recruits . Prior to an MWM investigation into Garin Tzabar, the contact point was listed as Shoval Magal. Her LinkedIn listed her as ‘Executive Director Hatzofim Australia & Garin Tzabar Australia.’ MWM reached out to Magal on multiple occasions through multiple avenues, seeking clarification as to how Magal separates her two roles and at what age Hatzofim’s children are exposed to advertisements for Garin Tzabar’s services. Magal did not respond to requests for comment, however she did scrub references to Garin Tzabar from her LinkedIn and Hatzofim Australia’s website. Magal was preceded in her Executive Director roles by Michael Manhaim (2018-2023), who continues to live in Australia, where he works as the Growth and Marketing Lead for Tzofim Tzabar Olami (Israeli Scouts and Garin Tzabar International). Manhaim was also a leading organiser in the 2024 Better Council pro-Israel election campaign. During his army service, Manhaim served in Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s most elite Special Forces unit. In his former role as the ‘Shaliach [Emissary] and Executive Director of Hatzofim and Garin Tzabar Australia’, Manhaim wrote an article, ‘Becoming A Lone Soldier’, for an Australian Zionist youth group’s newsletter: “How can we be Zionists but choose to live in the diaspora? While some will continue to live with this dilemma, some choose to take action. The Israeli Defence Force is the melting pot of Israeli society. “The program starts with the unique preparation process in Australia. ...It only takes one step; you just need to choose which foot will lead the way. We will be there for the rest.” In November 2021, Manhaim posted an advertisement for a job at Hatzofim Australia. The responsibilities included “maintaining mailing lists” for Garin Tzabar and “liaising with Tzofim Garin Tzabar and partners.” When his 5-year contract as Emissary and Executive Director had finished in 2023, Manhaim wrote a lengthy farewell to those he worked with, reminiscing on how the Australian Zionist Youth Council coordinated with him to: “Assist dozens of community members who made Aliyah [immigrated] to Israel. Garin Tzabar [is] undoubtedly the most excellent Zionist enterprise of the 21st century. Young olim [immigrants] who choose to make Israel their home, influence Israeli society from within, and dedicate their best years to defending the land. I’m proud that a program fully supports these inspiring young people. ... To our partners in the Garin Tzabar: the Ministry of Aliyah [Immigration] and absorption, the Jewish Agency, the Israeli Consulate, the IDF Unit “Metav,” the Ministry of Defense. ... Thanks to everyone.” During her time in the army , Magal worked as an ‘education guide’ for soldiers, but she did not teach them target shooting, fitness, or battle tactics. A job listing on an IDF e-store site describes Magal’s role as teaching the soldiers about Israeli culture, history, and ideology. There is a concept in Zionism of ‘Hagshama’: that it is the responsibility of all Jews living outside of Israel to ‘actualise’ their ideology by making Aliyah (immigrating). Some organisations – like the Israeli scouts – take it a step further. An Israeli immigrant of fighting age must respond to the conscription mandate. Therefore, Israeli Scouts ‘rank’ their members according to age groups. Those aged 17 to 18 are addressed as ‘Magshimim’ (‘actualizers’), both in Israel , where their members are subject to the draft and also abroad . Prior to having scrubbed their website of references to Garin Tzabar, the first words on Hatzofim’s Hagshama page were an endorsement of the program. Every Hatzofim Australia newsletter provides a link, “DONATE NOW – 100% of your donations go to Israel.” The link goes to the Friends of Hatzofim page, a secondary Australian non-profit, where visitors are asked to ‘Give $10,000 – Support a lone soldier full scholarship throughout the entire program.’ The tax-deductible donations are then sent overseas to Tzofim-Garin Tzabar. The address of Hatzofim Australia and of Tzofim-Garin Tzabar in Australia is the building belonging to NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Zionist Council of NSW, the Jewish community’s peak roof bodies in the state. Michael Gencher is a director of Hatzofim Australia and also served as acting CEO of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies from 2023-2024. Hatzofim Australia is overseen, alongside nine other Zionist youth groups, by the roof body Australian Zionist Youth Council (AZYC), which is in turn represented and overseen by the peak body Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA). MWM sought comment from AZYC and ZFA regarding their responsibilities for their constituent organisations, but we did not receive a reply. In August 2020, Michael Manhaim congratulated four Australians who had become IDF recruits through the Garin Tzabar program. He wrote: “There is nothing more powerful than fulfilling a Zionism dream! ...Those young adults are joining today to the Garin Tzabar program. ...‘For you are about to cross the Jordan to enter and possess the land that your God is assigning to you.’ Deuteronomy 11:31” In November 2023’s Hatzofim newsletter, Shoval Magal is smiling for a selfie. She is standing next to six Australians who look barely out of high school. “The participants are eager to have Aliya [immigrate] to Israel, start the program and join the army,” Magal said. These six recruits are the attendees of just one of several seminars that Magal has organised in Melbourne for the summer 2023 cycle, having also organised separate events across multiple cities in Australia. In Hatzofim Australia’s June 2024 newsletter, Magal said she was “in the advanced stages of the preparation phase in Australia for the August 2024 Garin.” In October 2024, she was “getting ready for Garin Tzabar’s 2024 December cycle.” The Israeli welcome ceremony for Garin Tzabar participants is on January 12, 2025. MWM sought comment from the Australian Federal Police, Australian Border Force, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Only the Department of Home Affairs spokesperson, Tarek Al Issawi, was willing to respond. He said: In July, Home Affairs stated it had identified only four Australians whom it suspects of having travelled to Israel since October 2023 with the intention of serving in the IDF. The Australian Border Force intervened with three of the four persons but did not necessarily prevent them from leaving.Pep Guardiola admits he is questioning himself after Man City lose to Juventus
The New England Patriots will go back to their navy and silver jersey combination for their Week 12 road game against the Miami Dolphins . The team announced the look on Friday via a social media post. Miami attire. @dreeday32 | #NEPats pic.twitter.com/f7YjCAFqQi The Patriots using their navy-silver combo on Sunday will mark the third time this season they have gone back to what was their primary look between 2000 and 2019. They also wore that same outfit in Week 2 against the Seattle Seahawks and in Week 11 versus the Los Angeles Rams . Looking at their jersey decisions throughout the year so far, we can see that navy-silver is now the second most-used look behind the classic white-navy road combination: The Patriots made the switch to all-navy as their primary look in 2020, but they have only worn it twice so far this year — a possible sign of things to come.ATLANTA (AP) — Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War, endured humbling defeat after one tumultuous term and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, has died. He was 100 years old. The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, more than a year after entering hospice care , at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023 , spent most of their lives, The Carter Center said. Businessman, Navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world — Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office. The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s. “My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Carter once said. A president from Plains A moderate Democrat, Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile, outspoken Baptist mores and technocratic plans reflecting his education as an engineer. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and U.S. defeat in southeast Asia. “If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who had lost popularity pardoning Nixon. Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights and America’s global role. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Mideast peace deal that he brokered by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978. That Camp David experience inspired the post-presidential center where Carter would establish so much of his legacy. Yet Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, gasoline lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan. Carter acknowledged in his 2020 “White House Diary” that he could be “micromanaging” and “excessively autocratic,” complicating dealings with Congress and the federal bureaucracy. He also turned a cold shoulder to Washington’s news media and lobbyists, not fully appreciating their influence on his political fortunes. “It didn’t take us long to realize that the underestimation existed, but by that time we were not able to repair the mistake,” Carter told historians in 1982, suggesting that he had “an inherent incompatibility” with Washington insiders. Carter insisted his overall approach was sound and that he achieved his primary objectives — to “protect our nation’s security and interests peacefully” and “enhance human rights here and abroad” — even if he fell spectacularly short of a second term. And then, the world Ignominious defeat, though, allowed for renewal. The Carters founded The Carter Center in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international peacemakers and champions of democracy, public health and human rights. “I was not interested in just building a museum or storing my White House records and memorabilia,” Carter wrote in a memoir published after his 90th birthday. “I wanted a place where we could work.” That work included easing nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, helping to avert a U.S. invasion of Haiti and negotiating cease-fires in Bosnia and Sudan. By 2022, The Carter Center had declared at least 113 elections in Latin America, Asia and Africa to be free or fraudulent. Recently, the center began monitoring U.S. elections as well. Carter’s stubborn self-assuredness and even self-righteousness proved effective once he was unencumbered by the Washington order, sometimes to the point of frustrating his successors . He went “where others are not treading,” he said, to places like Ethiopia, Liberia and North Korea, where he secured the release of an American who had wandered across the border in 2010. “I can say what I like. I can meet whom I want. I can take on projects that please me and reject the ones that don’t,” Carter said. He announced an arms-reduction-for-aid deal with North Korea without clearing the details with Bill Clinton’s White House. He openly criticized President George W. Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He also criticized America’s approach to Israel with his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” And he repeatedly countered U.S. administrations by insisting North Korea should be included in international affairs, a position that most aligned Carter with Republican President Donald Trump. Among the center’s many public health initiatives, Carter vowed to eradicate the guinea worm parasite during his lifetime, and nearly achieved it: Cases dropped from millions in the 1980s to nearly a handful. With hardhats and hammers, the Carters also built homes with Habitat for Humanity. The Nobel committee’s 2002 Peace Prize cites his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.” Carter should have won it alongside Sadat and Begin in 1978, the chairman added. Carter accepted the recognition saying there was more work to be done. “The world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place,” he said. “The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.” ‘An epic American life’ Carter’s globetrotting took him to remote villages where he met little “Jimmy Carters,” so named by admiring parents. But he spent most of his days in the same one-story Plains house — expanded and guarded by Secret Service agents — where they lived before he became governor. He regularly taught Sunday School lessons at Maranatha Baptist Church until his mobility declined and the coronavirus pandemic raged. Those sessions drew visitors from around the world to the small sanctuary where Carter will receive his final send-off after a state funeral at Washington’s National Cathedral. The common assessment that he was a better ex-president than president rankled Carter and his allies. His prolific post-presidency gave him a brand above politics, particularly for Americans too young to witness him in office. But Carter also lived long enough to see biographers and historians reassess his White House years more generously. His record includes the deregulation of key industries, reduction of U.S. dependence on foreign oil, cautious management of the national debt and notable legislation on the environment, education and mental health. He focused on human rights in foreign policy, pressuring dictators to release thousands of political prisoners . He acknowledged America’s historical imperialism, pardoned Vietnam War draft evaders and relinquished control of the Panama Canal. He normalized relations with China. “I am not nominating Jimmy Carter for a place on Mount Rushmore,” Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s domestic policy director, wrote in a 2018 book. “He was not a great president” but also not the “hapless and weak” caricature voters rejected in 1980, Eizenstat said. Rather, Carter was “good and productive” and “delivered results, many of which were realized only after he left office.” Madeleine Albright, a national security staffer for Carter and Clinton’s secretary of state, wrote in Eizenstat’s forward that Carter was “consequential and successful” and expressed hope that “perceptions will continue to evolve” about his presidency. “Our country was lucky to have him as our leader,” said Albright, who died in 2022. Jonathan Alter, who penned a comprehensive Carter biography published in 2020, said in an interview that Carter should be remembered for “an epic American life” spanning from a humble start in a home with no electricity or indoor plumbing through decades on the world stage across two centuries. “He will likely go down as one of the most misunderstood and underestimated figures in American history,” Alter told The Associated Press. A small-town start James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924, in Plains and spent his early years in nearby Archery. His family was a minority in the mostly Black community, decades before the civil rights movement played out at the dawn of Carter’s political career. Carter, who campaigned as a moderate on race relations but governed more progressively, talked often of the influence of his Black caregivers and playmates but also noted his advantages: His land-owning father sat atop Archery’s tenant-farming system and owned a main street grocery. His mother, Lillian , would become a staple of his political campaigns. Seeking to broaden his world beyond Plains and its population of fewer than 1,000 — then and now — Carter won an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating in 1946. That same year he married Rosalynn Smith, another Plains native, a decision he considered more important than any he made as head of state. She shared his desire to see the world, sacrificing college to support his Navy career. Carter climbed in rank to lieutenant, but then his father was diagnosed with cancer, so the submarine officer set aside his ambitions of admiralty and moved the family back to Plains. His decision angered Rosalynn, even as she dived into the peanut business alongside her husband. Carter again failed to talk with his wife before his first run for office — he later called it “inconceivable” not to have consulted her on such major life decisions — but this time, she was on board. “My wife is much more political,” Carter told the AP in 2021. He won a state Senate seat in 1962 but wasn’t long for the General Assembly and its back-slapping, deal-cutting ways. He ran for governor in 1966 — losing to arch-segregationist Lester Maddox — and then immediately focused on the next campaign. Carter had spoken out against church segregation as a Baptist deacon and opposed racist “Dixiecrats” as a state senator. Yet as a local school board leader in the 1950s he had not pushed to end school segregation even after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, despite his private support for integration. And in 1970, Carter ran for governor again as the more conservative Democrat against Carl Sanders, a wealthy businessman Carter mocked as “Cufflinks Carl.” Sanders never forgave him for anonymous, race-baiting flyers, which Carter disavowed. Ultimately, Carter won his races by attracting both Black voters and culturally conservative whites. Once in office, he was more direct. “I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over,” he declared in his 1971 inaugural address, setting a new standard for Southern governors that landed him on the cover of Time magazine. ‘Jimmy Who?’ His statehouse initiatives included environmental protection, boosting rural education and overhauling antiquated executive branch structures. He proclaimed Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the slain civil rights leader’s home state. And he decided, as he received presidential candidates in 1972, that they were no more talented than he was. In 1974, he ran Democrats’ national campaign arm. Then he declared his own candidacy for 1976. An Atlanta newspaper responded with the headline: “Jimmy Who?” The Carters and a “Peanut Brigade” of family members and Georgia supporters camped out in Iowa and New Hampshire, establishing both states as presidential proving grounds. His first Senate endorsement: a young first-termer from Delaware named Joe Biden. Yet it was Carter’s ability to navigate America’s complex racial and rural politics that cemented the nomination. He swept the Deep South that November, the last Democrat to do so, as many white Southerners shifted to Republicans in response to civil rights initiatives. A self-declared “born-again Christian,” Carter drew snickers by referring to Scripture in a Playboy magazine interview, saying he “had looked on many women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.” The remarks gave Ford a new foothold and television comedians pounced — including NBC’s new “Saturday Night Live” show. But voters weary of cynicism in politics found it endearing. Carter chose Minnesota Sen. Walter “Fritz” Mondale as his running mate on a “Grits and Fritz” ticket. In office, he elevated the vice presidency and the first lady’s office. Mondale’s governing partnership was a model for influential successors Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Biden. Rosalynn Carter was one of the most involved presidential spouses in history, welcomed into Cabinet meetings and huddles with lawmakers and top aides. The Carters presided with uncommon informality: He used his nickname “Jimmy” even when taking the oath of office, carried his own luggage and tried to silence the Marine Band’s “Hail to the Chief.” They bought their clothes off the rack. Carter wore a cardigan for a White House address, urging Americans to conserve energy by turning down their thermostats. Amy, the youngest of four children, attended District of Columbia public school. Washington’s social and media elite scorned their style. But the larger concern was that “he hated politics,” according to Eizenstat, leaving him nowhere to turn politically once economic turmoil and foreign policy challenges took their toll. Accomplishments, and ‘malaise’ Carter partially deregulated the airline, railroad and trucking industries and established the departments of Education and Energy, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He designated millions of acres of Alaska as national parks or wildlife refuges. He appointed a then-record number of women and nonwhite people to federal posts. He never had a Supreme Court nomination, but he elevated civil rights attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the nation’s second highest court, positioning her for a promotion in 1993. He appointed Paul Volker, the Federal Reserve chairman whose policies would help the economy boom in the 1980s — after Carter left office. He built on Nixon’s opening with China, and though he tolerated autocrats in Asia, pushed Latin America from dictatorships to democracy. But he couldn’t immediately tame inflation or the related energy crisis. And then came Iran. After he admitted the exiled Shah of Iran to the U.S. for medical treatment, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979 by followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Negotiations to free the hostages broke down repeatedly ahead of the failed rescue attempt. The same year, Carter signed SALT II, the new strategic arms treaty with Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union, only to pull it back, impose trade sanctions and order a U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. Hoping to instill optimism, he delivered what the media dubbed his “malaise” speech, although he didn’t use that word. He declared the nation was suffering “a crisis of confidence.” By then, many Americans had lost confidence in the president, not themselves. Carter campaigned sparingly for reelection because of the hostage crisis, instead sending Rosalynn as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy challenged him for the Democratic nomination. Carter famously said he’d “kick his ass,” but was hobbled by Kennedy as Reagan rallied a broad coalition with “make America great again” appeals and asking voters whether they were “better off than you were four years ago.” Reagan further capitalized on Carter’s lecturing tone, eviscerating him in their lone fall debate with the quip: “There you go again.” Carter lost all but six states and Republicans rolled to a new Senate majority. Carter successfully negotiated the hostages’ freedom after the election, but in one final, bitter turn of events, Tehran waited until hours after Carter left office to let them walk free. ‘A wonderful life’ At 56, Carter returned to Georgia with “no idea what I would do with the rest of my life.” Four decades after launching The Carter Center, he still talked of unfinished business. “I thought when we got into politics we would have resolved everything,” Carter told the AP in 2021. “But it’s turned out to be much more long-lasting and insidious than I had thought it was. I think in general, the world itself is much more divided than in previous years.” Still, he affirmed what he said when he underwent treatment for a cancer diagnosis in his 10th decade of life. “I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said in 2015 . “I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.” By Bill Barrow Former Associated Press journalist Alex Sanz contributed to this report.
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Illinois’ minimum wage to increase to $15 on Jan. 1, completing 6-year transitionThemis Qi Pak Shek Kok's development plan may be adjusted to focus on private housing, the Development Bureau said, adding that the government aims to release a preliminary proposal as early as the second quarter of 2025. After reviewing the housing area next to Science Park, the Development Bureau found it more appropriate to develop private homes, just four months after the government was reported to have planned to build 10,000 private and public units there. In response to an inquiry from Sing Tao Daily, The Standard's sister newspaper, the bureau also attributed the U-turn to the government having already identified sufficient land to meet the public housing supply target in the next 10 years. Considering the changes to housing supply and the challenges in building Pak Shek Kok MTR station and its surrounding infrastructure, the government deferred the unveiling of the development plan from the end of this year to the second or third quarter of next year. But the government maintains its goal of putting the Pak Shek Kok station in service no later than 2033. Over 24,000 staff work in Science Park. Moreover, the adjacent Chinese University of Hong Kong had over 21,000 students for the 2023/24 academic year. Pak Shek Kok is one of many low-density luxury home communities in the New Territories, including Great Eagle's Ontolo, due to its harbor view and the government's efforts to set up an innovation and technology hub there. Celebrities such as Wong Cho-lam bought a unit in the area. However, the previous plan revealed in August to build public homes raised concerns about the impact on private properties in Pak Shek Kok. Pak Shek Kok homes have traded at HK$15,915 per square foot on average for the past 30 days, down by 9.5 percent from the previous 30-day period, data from Midland Realty showed. But Sun Hung Kai Properties won a site in the region in 2019 for over HK$6.3 billion or HK$6,646 per sq ft, the highest in a decade. Lo Hiu-fung, member of the District Council for Tai Po South, agreed with changing to a private home-focused plan, saying high-density public flats will conflict with Pak Shek Kok's development. Scott Leung Man-kwong, a member of the Legislative Council, thinks Pak Shek Kok should focus on meeting middle-class demand and development could be accelerated if all residential properties are built by the private sector. But both Lo and Leung urged the government to announce more details in order to leave enough time for consultations for the sake of public interest.Conte’s last public act as Spurs head coach after a 3-3 draw at St Mary’s in 2023 was to launch a furious tirade against his own “selfish” players who he claimed “don’t want to play under pressure” before he seemed to turn on the board as he questioned the club’s ongoing trophy drought. Eight days later Conte had left Tottenham by mutual consent after a whirlwind 16-month period, with Postecoglou his eventual permanent successor. Postecoglou has been in charge of the Premier League club for two months longer than the Italian, but managed 12 fewer matches and is currently in the middle of an injury crisis which has resulted in a drop in form, with Spurs only able to claim one victory from their last eight fixtures. However, when Postecoglou was asked if he would jump ship in the wake of making remarks like Conte did in March, 2023, he said: “Look, I don’t think it’s fair to comment. “Antonio is a world-class manager and has his own way of doing things, his own reasons for doing that. “I am here, I am in for the fight. I am in a fight, for sure. For better or worse I am not going anywhere at the moment because everything is still in my power and my responsibility. “I still have a real desire to get us through this stage so that people see what is on the other side. My resolve and determination hasn’t wavered one little bit. “I love a fight, I love a scrap, I love being in the middle of a storm when everyone doubts because I know what it is on the other side if you get through it. My job is to get through it.” Postecoglou was Celtic boss when Conte’s extraordinary 10-minute press conference made waves around the world, but acknowledged being aware of his predecessors’ comments and attempted to explain the psyche behind why a manager would make such a move. “I was on Planet Earth at that time, and yes I was well aware of it,” Postecoglou smiled. “I think you know when a manager gets to that point that there’s obviously some underlying issues. “I think most of the time when managers do that they’re trying to get a reaction, trying to get some sort of impact on the team. “In difficult moments, what you want from your leaders is action rather than inaction of just letting things drift along. He did it to try and get a positive impact on the group, one way or another. We’ve all been in that situation as a manager where you feel this is time to send a message.” Postecoglou sent out his own message on Thursday after a 1-1 draw away to Rangers when he insisted Timo Werner’s display “wasn’t acceptable” at Ibrox. Werner was replaced at half-time following an error-strewn performance, but was not alone in being below-par in Glasgow. A day later Postecoglou explained how with Spurs missing several key first-teamers, the onus is on their fit senior players to deliver a level of application and commitment – and admitted Werner will be required at St Mary’s on Sunday. “I’ve got no choice. Who else am I going to play? I’m pulling kids out of school, I literally am,” Postecoglou mentioned in reference to 16-year-old duo Malachi Hardy and Luca Williams-Barnett, who have recently made the bench. “That was the reasoning for me pointing it out last night. We need Timo. We need all of them. “In normal times if you have a poor game, there’s a price to pay. It doesn’t exist right now. We need everybody we’ve got.”
The U.S. says it pushed retraction of a famine warning for north Gaza. Aid groups express concernInvesting in young people by providing training in new technologies and digital systems will be critical to the development of Barbados’ economy, says Minister of State in the Ministry of Education Sandra Husbands. She was delivering the feature address at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Institute of Technology 2024 graduation ceremony held at the Wildey Gymnasium on Saturday night. Husbands said the world was undergoing a fourth industrial revolution centred around new technological advancements and it was important for the nation’s youth to be exposed to these new technologies and carry the island forward. “You have emerged into a world in which there is the fourth industrial revolution; it is here disrupting all technologies and processes. At its heart is the digital revolution and this ushers in new ways to do new things and new ways of doing old things,” she said. “Digital technology must be understood, digital technology must be mastered and then digital technology must be integrated into the Barbadian landscape and into the skill sets of our people, hence the necessity of SJPI’s mission to produce skilled and innovative graduates through competency based training and the promotion of lifelong learning.” You Might Be Interested In Ross University opens Barbados campus UWI supports innovation for regional growth St George Secondary closed next week The minister said the vocational institution therefore had a significant role to play in ensuring young people were well equipped and prepared for the new world of work. “The work of SJPI is essential to the capacity of Barbados to continue to form enterprises which can attract business from a sophisticated global environment. If we are going to attract new investment, that will bring jobs that pay well, that provide Barbadians with the opportunity to live a good life. It is important that we build the skill sets of all of our citizens because it is for those skills that those businesses will make a determination that they will establish business in Barbados. “So you are important to that process, investing in you and investing in your skills is what will help us to generate that type of economic growth that guarantees all of you an opportunity to live that best life by providing a new generation of the Barbadian workforce with the ability to perform to a global standard in technical and vocational skills. And in so doing, the SJPI pursues its vision to be a global centre of excellence for technological and vocational education.” Additionally, Husbands told the graduates that they will need more than certificates and other qualifications to be successful in their careers. She told them that good moral standing will take them far and positive characters reflecting Barbadian culture will make them stand out as global citizens. “We also want to make sure that we send you forth in such a way that you demonstrate to the world the core values which govern this esteemed establishment. Those values are integrity, accountability, credibility, excellence, innovation, professionalism, and increasing value. And why are these important? People in the world judge you first of all, by how you look, by how you speak and then how you act and people in the world want to engage persons, they can trust. “You will be trusted if people feel you are comfortable that you will stand and act truthfully that you are disciplined, that no matter what, your word can be relied on to execute a task, that you will act fairly with others, that you will be objective in your views and that you will conduct yourself in a way that allows them to feel safe around you and to trust you and having sent you forth with a skill set, it was necessary for us to ensure that we also help you to understand these values at the SJPI and encourage you to integrate them into your way of living, into your way of acting because this is how you will not only get an opportunity, secure an opportunity but be able to use each opportunity to move on to a higher one because your reputation will go before you and you will be in high demand,” she said. Sharia Hall, who earned a diploma distinction in office administration was the valedictorian. During her address, she said that this milestone was an important one and although the journey to securing accreditation was difficult, she congratulated her fellow graduates for persevering and not giving up. She shared her experience pursuing her qualification. “For me excelling in school wasn’t always a given. I faced moments of frustration or even failure that made me question if I could succeed.There were times when balancing school, family and personal struggles felt overwhelming. The fear of failure and disappointing those I cared about the most seemed to overpower everything else. But it was in those moments that I learned what excelling purely means. “Excelling in school is often seen as a result of natural talent but what I’ve learned is that it’s about so much more. It’s not about perfection. It’s about perseverance, it’s about showing up every day even when it feels impossible,” she said. Close to 300 students graduated from the institution. Hall and two other students-Rynell Weekes and Jenita Clarke- received special wards for their academic performance. The theme of the graduation ceremony was: Embracing Technology, Empowering the Future. (SZB)In relationships, it’s not perfection that binds us, but the choice to embrace and love each other ... [+] exactly as we are. Many people believe that the greatest love stories should be free of flaws, misunderstandings or heartache. Movies, books and social media feeds show us perfectly curated moments, often creating an illusion of what love should look like. But real love doesn’t thrive in perfection. It lives and breathes in the beautifully messy, unpredictable and deeply human moments we share with one another. Here are four reasons why “imperfect love” is not only inevitable, but also deeply healing. 1. Imperfection Is Authentic The concept of “perfect love” is a pervasive myth, shaped by fairy tales and romantic comedies that idealize flawless relationships where problems vanish with a kiss or a grand gesture. In reality, unlike these polished narratives, authentic love is imperfect, human and far more fulfilling. When we try to present an idealized version of ourselves to others, we create a façade that hinders genuine connection. Authentic love, by contrast, removes these barriers, creating relationships where partners truly know and accept one another. Research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology supports this, showing that perceived partner authenticity is strongly associated with positive relationship outcomes, such as greater interpersonal trust, satisfaction and commitment. Apple Cancels iPhone 14 And iPhone SE For Millions Of Users Samsung’s Android 15 Leak—Bad News For Nearly All Galaxy Owners Critical Gmail Warning—Don’t Click Yes To These Google Security Alerts Being truly authentic involves embracing one’s quirks, vulnerabilities and flaws without fear of judgment. It transforms the relationship into a safe space where both individuals feel seen and valued for who they are. For instance, admitting you don’t know how to handle a difficult situation or laughing off a burned dinner instead of feeling embarrassed can build trust and openness. Such moments are an opportunity to signal to a partner: “You don’t need to pretend for me. I accept you as you are.” This mutual vulnerability creates a foundation of honesty, allowing both partners to show up as their true selves. 2. Imperfection Is Love’s Greatest Teacher While society often portrays love as effortless and harmonious when “done right,” the reality is that moments of imperfection are what strengthen relationships. These experiences offer valuable lessons in patience, communication and understanding, helping couples grow closer. Every challenge faced together is an opportunity to deepen your bond. Disagreements can reveal unmet needs, unspoken desires or hidden fears, while mistakes remind us of our shared humanity, teaching humility, accountability and forgiveness. A relationship that embraces imperfection values growth and learning over blame and the illusion of perfection. For example, consider an argument where you feel misunderstood. Instead of reacting defensively, take a moment to ask, “What is my partner really trying to communicate?” Shifting from self-defense to curiosity creates room for meaningful dialogue, transforming conflict into collaboration. Similarly, when a mistake occurs—whether it’s forgetting a special date or saying something hurtful in frustration—a sincere apology and a conversation about how to improve next time can strengthen the relationship. Moments of repair are where love proves its resilience, evolving into something deeper and more enduring. 3. Imperfection Inspires Creativity When love doesn’t conform to a prepackaged ideal, it opens the door to creativity. Relationships aren’t one-size-fits-all, and the rigid script of perfect date nights, grand romantic gestures and flawless communication can feel stifling. Embracing imperfection allows you to break free from these constraints, crafting a love story that reflects your unique personalities, values and circumstances. Ample research shows that creativity can enhance relationships, with creative individuals often perceiving their partners as more attractive than their partners’ self-assessments or objective ratings. Longitudinal data, from a 2019 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that creativity buffers against the decline of passion, acting as an antidote to monotony and routine in relationships. Embracing imperfection grants you the freedom to experiment, adapt and redefine what love looks like. Instead of adhering to traditional notions, you can design a relationship that works best for you both. So next time, be open to the idea that maybe date night isn’t candlelit dinners but spontaneous hikes. Maybe “I love you” isn’t necessarily spoken every day but shown in consistent acts of service or small gestures. By letting go of rigid ideals, you allow love to take a shape that’s uniquely yours, full of spontaneity, innovation and authenticity. 4. Imperfection Nurtures Acceptance Imperfect love creates a space where you can show up as your true self—flaws, vulnerabilities and all—and still be cherished. This acceptance goes beyond surface-level affection and reaches the core of who you are. Hiding your imperfections in a relationship creates a barrier to intimacy. Maintaining a façade of perfection is also exhausting and prevents your partner from truly knowing you. However, when you let go of the fear of judgment and allow your flaws to be seen, you create a connection based on trust and authenticity. In imperfect love, the focus isn’t on “fixing” each other but on embracing each other’s humanity. A 2023 study published in the Journal of Family Psychology found that both accepting your partner and feeling accepted by them are crucial to relationship satisfaction. Partner acceptance enhances satisfaction by increasing the other person’s sense of being accepted, while also boosting one’s own satisfaction through their own felt acceptance. Perhaps the next time you’re grumpy after a long day, instead of retreating or putting on a happy face, share how you feel with your partner. When they show their love on these difficult days, support you through struggles and embrace you when you’re not at your best, it acts as a reminder that love doesn’t depend on perfection. It’s also essential to remember that imperfect love celebrates human flaws, not harmful or abusive behavior. Healthy love always prioritizes safety, respect, accountability and care. Such imperfect love, in essence, invites you to be real. And in that realness, you find the true beauty of connection. In the end, it’s not about loving your partner despite their flaws, but about loving them because of the complete, multifaceted person they are. Do you find it hard to let go of the idea that love must be flawless? Take the Authenticity In Relationships Scale to find out if perfectionism stands in the way of your connection.Jimmy Carter, 39th U.S. president, has died at 100
Canada kicks off its quest for a 21st title when it takes on Finland tonight to headline the opening day of the 2025 world junior hockey championship. Canada will field a team of top young prospects at the Ottawa-based tournament, including 17-year-old Gavin McKenna of the Western Hockey League’s Medicine Hat Tigers. Winnipeg Jets prospect Brayden Yager is Canada’s captain at this edition of the world juniors. He was part of the Canadian team that finished a disappointing fifth at the 2024 tournament in Sweden after back-to-back titles and will be looking to help Canada get back to the top of the podium. Finland is looking for its sixth title and first since 2019. The United States won the title in 2024 and will face Germany in the afternoon. Sweden will face Slovakia and Switzerland will take on Czechia in the other opening-day games. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 26, 2024. The puck drops against Canada and Finland at 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT on Dec. 26. For more information, visit Hockey Canada .
Cal didn’t face USC or UCLA this season in its first year away from the Pac-12, but the Bears will play in Southern California, after all. The Bears (6-6, 2-6 ACC) were selected Sunday to play in the LA Bowl against UNLV (10-3, 6-1 Mountain West) on Dec. 18. Kickoff at SoFi Stadium is set for 6 p.m. and the bowl will air on ESPN. In Justin Wilcox’s eighth year leading the program, Cal finished tied for 14th in the 17-team ACC after going 4-0 in non-conference play. The former Pac-12 teams kept the ties to the conference’s bowl games rather than taking on new affiliations in their new conferences, and Cal ended up with the shortest commute possible. The Bears will travel further than the Rebels, though, for a game that could help both teams recruit the Los Angeles area. Cal has never played in the LA Bowl, which only began in 2019. Cal will be the more rested team as UNLV played Friday night in the Mountain West championship game, losing 21-7 on the road to College Football Playoff-bound Boise State. The Golden Bears will look to bounce back from a regular-season finale in which they were blown out 38-6 by Southern Methodist , another team headed to the playoff. Sophomore quarterback Fernando Mendoza missed that game with an illness and should be available for the bowl game. Dual threat quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams will pose questions for the Bears defense through the air and on the ground after accounting for 26 total touchdowns in 10 games following the departure of starter Matthew Sluka in an NIL dispute. Mendoza may have a chance to pile up yardage as the Rebels are No. 105 nationally allowing 241.2 passing yards per game, but UNLV only allows 109.8 rush yards per game, good for 17th in the FBS, one spot behind the Bears. Perhaps surprisingly, the Bears have only played the Rebels once in the teams’ history, winning 20-14 in Berkeley in 2022 . Cal played in the Independence Bowl last year, losing 34-14 to Texas Tech . The last time the Bears made consecutive bowl appearances was 2018 and 2019 in Wilcox’s second and third seasons in Berkeley.The wine , finally, was on the move. For two weeks, a team of 14 professionals had been in the mountains, methodically transferring thousands of rare bottles from a cavernous cellar into a nondescript box truck that shuttled the cargo to a pair of tractor trailers several miles away, tucked in a private way station overseen by an armed protection detail. Even the security team didn’t know what they were guarding. All they saw were scores of black-wrapped pallets slowly filling the giant holds. When the last of the wine was finally secured and the drivers strapped in, the semis, each escorted by an armored truck, rumbled past the steel gates and then diverged, assigned to separate routes down the mountain, across more than a thousand miles and three state lines, headed for California. In Boston, Brahm Callahan received a GPS ping every 30 minutes with the trucks’ locations and the temperatures inside the cargo bays; they were holding steady at 55 degrees. The deal had been nearly two years in the making and killed and resurrected over half a dozen times during that span. Callahan, master sommelier, 35 years old, had seen some of the most incredible wine collections in the world, but never anything like the cellar he had just bought. He knew from the moment he stepped inside it that he would never encounter another collection so miraculous, so meticulously curated, so impeccably cataloged and stored, and so impossibly stocked with unheard-of rarities. Now he and his partners were about to take possession of the entire haul. The first step of the plan was nearly complete. The trucks would converge again at a bonded warehouse in Sonoma County, where Dan O’Brien, 40, was waiting to take possession of eight figures’ worth of wine while trying not to think about all the money they owed, or everything that needed to happen before they could pay it back. First, the wine had to show up as planned—the convoys were taking separate routes at the insistence of the insurance companies, to mitigate risks such as avalanches and hijackers—and then the designated portion, several thousand bottles of valuable rare wines, had to make its way by boat to Hong Kong in time to be received and cataloged for a Sotheby’s auction in February. The various lots needed to sell for enough to cover the money they owed to the hard-money lender who had financed the deal at terms that would make a loan shark shudder. From his condo in Boston, Scott Leverenz ran the numbers again, out of habit. He took into account the projected auction figures, that Mafia rate of monthly interest, the roughly $700,000 they had already accrued in legal fees, the potential appreciation of the remaining portfolio, and every other variable he could think of. As usual, Leverenz, 34, was gaming out the worst-case scenario, but the numbers looked good: Even if the total from the auction came in at the low end, and even assuming it took the full 90 days to collect all the money, the three of them would hit their target: They could use the sale of the bottom two-thirds of the cellar to clear the debt and keep the most valuable top third—millions of dollars of wine—for free. The wine arrived in Sonoma as scheduled, where it was stored for 72 hours before being taken to Oakland and put on a container ship headed to Hong Kong, due to dock just before Christmas. It was late November 2019 and the juice was running. The loan would reset every 30 days, the principal growing each month alongside the compounding interest in a convoluted death trap of penalties, fees, and clawbacks. Time was not on their side. Shortly after the wine arrived, the news began reporting an unknown respiratory illness killing people in China. The country would lock down a few weeks later. Callahan, Leverenz, and O’Brien had just borrowed $12.5 million to buy a store of wine that now might as well be on the moon. The Crew Callahan first outlined his plan to Leverenz one morning in 2016 in the Amtrak bar car heading back to Boston from Philadelphia. They were fending off hangovers after a Guns N’ Roses concert; neither had slept. But kicking ideas back and forth across a bartop was how they had always done their best thinking, going back to when they first met as Boston sommeliers in 2009. Callahan had made master sommelier by 30, pin number 222 of 228 in the world at the time. There is nothing achievable in the wine world above it. The final examination, administered by the Court of Master Sommeliers, is like trying to prove a physics thesis by doing backflips, meant to plumb the depth of one’s theoretical understanding, sensory abilities, and practical skills simultaneously. Callahan had lived like a monk while studying for it, forgoing shaving and taping laminated study guides throughout his apartment—on tables and mirrors, lining the cupboards, inside the shower—so there wasn’t a minute he couldn’t be learning. In the blind-tasting portion alone, candidates must correctly identify six different wines by grape variety, country of origin, district, appellation, and, finally, vintage. Not only had Callahan passed the test, he had eventually become a member of the Court. Leverenz had a head for numbers. He and Callahan had both passed through Grill 23 & Bar , a revered Boston steak house that operated as a sort of elite boot camp for those forging a career in wine. Unlike most restaurants with encyclopedic wine lists, Grill 23 actually moved the juice, and opportunities to taste rare and notable vintages were frequent. Leverenz went on to become a somm and wine director for some of Boston’s top restaurants before managing national sales for major importers; he also traded in rare and fine wines. Having experience in both buying and selling had stripped away the varnish of romance that dazzled so many people into ostensibly bad business decisions: Leverenz liked to say that the best way to end up with a million-dollar winery was to start with a $2 million winery. He loved the industry and wasn’t immune to the glamour, of course—he just preferred to understand it for what it was, and to make a profit off of it when he could. Like Callahan and Leverenz, O’Brien had cut his teeth at Grill 23 and had a natural allergy to all of the stupid money sloshing around the wine industry, though unlike the other two, he wasn’t much for sitting on appreciating assets for the sake of a tidy profit down the line—he’d rather drink a Dujac Grand Cru immediately after buying it, maybe with a burger. With his beard and glasses and easygoing grin, the onetime Boston somm now looked the part of an affable San Francisco garage winemaker, but there were few areas of the industry he hadn’t touched, from developing wine programs for luxury hotel groups to producing blends for private-label clients to revamping a historic Calistoga vineyard as COO. He had extensive experience buying, storing, and transporting wine—easier said than done given that alcohol is a highly regulated substance, which makes moving it across state lines a costly, time-consuming, and tediously complicated bureaucratic process. He had the bonded storage, insurance premiums, and drawers full of licenses and permits to attest to that. Callahan had worked with both separately, but despite all being Grill 23 alums, the trio had never worked together until now. They sealed their partnership over omelets and coffee at a grungy diner down the street from an impound lot. The Plan What Callahan pitched was this: Raise enough money to buy a white whale of a cellar, a highly secretive monster collection somewhere in the Rocky Mountains—one of those murmured opportunities that surface from time to time in the tight, clubby world of master somms and elite collectors. It supposedly contained vast quantities of vanishingly rare wine, the kinds of bottles that simply didn’t come to market anymore or were never supposed to have existed in the first place: unheard-of large-format Burgundies; decades of Hermitage; massive stores of cult Champagne. The collector had started acquiring in the ’80s, back when you could just show up in Vosne-Romanée, knock on the door of some family producer that had been making Burgundy in the region for hundreds of years, and walk off with however many cases you felt like shipping home. Provenance and documentation were said to be perfect. And yet the cellar had been quietly on the market for some time, with no takers. Why? First, the asking price, a vast sum even in the voracious world of high-stakes wine collecting, kept rising—first $8 million, then $10 million, now likely more—the longer the collection sat and the more the wines inside kept appreciating. More challengingly, it had to be all in one go, to one buyer: no cherry-picking, no allocation, a single check for the entire lot, non-negotiable. The seller didn’t need the money and seemed in no rush to part with the wine. Normally, anyone walking into a cellar with an eight-figure check is going to expect to set some of the terms of the deal, so the sheer ego slap delivered by the take-it-or-leave-it nature of the offer cleared a host of private buyers from the table. Resellers are more pragmatic, but it was still a huge amount of cash, and a significant chunk of the inventory wouldn’t reach peak profitability for years; gray-market prospectors rarely buy and hold, preferring to flip bottles for quick profit rather than leave capital tied up in a basement. Callahan figured he had a way to leverage the volume of the cellar. A collection of that size and caliber would otherwise take decades to procure, and this one was said to be composed of some of the best-performing wines on the market, heavily over-indexing for Burgundy, Northern Rhônes, and Champagne. If you could price the inventory correctly, acquire it at reasonable value, then engage an auction house to move the most immediately profitable tranches of wine in one push, you could repay the loan plus interest while holding on to the best long-term investments. Essentially, between loan, acquisition, and auction, you could triangulate an extremely small aperture through which it would be possible to come into a few million bucks’ worth of unbelievable rare wine, for free—but if you miss the window, don’t bother preparing for impact. Taking on the whole thing at once meant they could play the long game. The cellar had such vast stores of specific vintages that you could effectively corner the market, taking advantage of short-term price fluctuations by strategically liquidating bottles at their most lucrative while continuing to accrue yearly appreciation on the rest. The remaining top slice of inventory, the cream of a once-in-a-lifetime crop, could be used as the basis for a wine-backed investment fund, or a high-end wine retailer. Or, put the profits into a négociant winery, buying grapes or juice and bottling under their own brand, and for private labels. Or, depending on how the auction went, all three. But first they needed to get their hands on a whole lot of cash. The Money You can’t just walk into a bank and ask for, say, $10 million to buy a bunch of fine wine—or Picassos or vintage Ferraris or ancient Sumerian manuscripts—even if everyone knows they’re going to appreciate. It’s just not what banks are set up for, which mostly is to deal in simple, stable assets like homes and cars and small businesses. So Callahan went to Dave S. instead. Callahan first met Dave S. over a magic trick of sorts at Grill 23. A bearded, broad-shouldered hedge-fund type, he had ordered a beguiling 1998 Bordeaux, a great Right Bank vintage—enough to pique Callahan’s interest. Either this guy made a lucky guess, he thought, or he knew something about wine. Dave S. knew enough to see an opportunity to stump the somm. He pulled out his phone and flashed a picture of himself from a recent shooting weekend, barely hoisting a gargantuan Nebuchadnezzar of ’67 Château d’Yquem—had Callahan ever seen a bottle like that in person? Callahan said he had, and then did Dave S. one better: He told him where the picture had been taken. The hedge funder, who was a professional magician in his youth, felt the hairs go up on the back of his neck—now that was a magic trick. Callahan explained that he knew the total number of bottles of ’67 Yquem in the 15-liter format in existence, plus who owned them around the world—including a certain prominent billionaire with three in his New Jersey cellar, which is where Dave S. was standing in the picture. He and Callahan became fast friends after that. Yet despite his decades allocating capital and executing complex financial deals, Dave S. wasn’t the one to finance this play—but he knew who was. The guy who connects the pipes that make the money flow. The man they called the Plumber. When the federal government needs to underwrite some sprawling, unprecedented, staggeringly complex program—say, a nationwide rebate for used-vehicle trade-ins, with all the labyrinthine financing that entails—the secretary of the Treasury picks up the phone and calls the Plumber. A math whiz since his teens, he was legendary in New York banking for never assuming risk and always making money, a deal-structuring genius who could put 28 hooks into you without your ever realizing, until God forbid something bad happened and suddenly your pecuniary guts were sliding all over the floor. The Plumber had a sideline in exotic investment plays—heady, esoteric, out-of-the-box stuff. Like backing the acquisition of a multimillion-dollar wine cellar for an unprecedented flip. Dave S. didn’t mince words: The numbers would have to work, down to the penny. These people didn’t care about wine except insofar as it represented collateral for the deal—and as a regulated substance it made for complicated surety. The path of custody would need to be rigorously established and precisely controlled, and execution would have to be flawless or the various frictions would eat them alive: First, the buyer needed to assess and document over 12,000 bottles of wine, checking fill rates and bottle stamps and backtracking the ownership trail, then take and retain legal control of it through several stages of storage and transport across state lines and national borders—a notorious minefield of red tape—all while insurance, taxation, fees, governmental regulation, and the rest gnawed away at the bottom line from all angles. Every shipment, every transaction, every license, every insurance policy, every fee—thousands of variables—had to be accounted for, across all conceivable scenarios, until the sale was complete, the money collected and transacted, and everyone repaid. And the three of them were going to be put through their paces. The Plumber’s people needed to understand who they were giving their millions of dollars to. Did they have a grasp of the details? Could they problem-solve under pressure? Were their industry contacts as solid as they claimed? The Plumber only dealt with people vibrating at the highest frequency, Dave S. said, and his crew would mess with them—changing deadlines at the last minute or giving them 24 hours to turn around a half dozen pages of analysis for no reason—just to see how they reacted to stress. The deal would come down to numbers, sure, but it wasn’t the only consideration. The Plumber wanted to know: How badly did they want it? Which meant, even as Callahan and Leverenz were cautiously wooing the seller with polite correspondence and the occasional highly orchestrated visit, and O’Brien was laying the groundwork for the eventual possession and transport, they were simultaneously being put through rigorous crash courses in debt financing and tax law. The seller, meanwhile, was rarely available and seemed to have a knack for going dark the moment they felt any momentum begin to build. The deal was always under threat of collapsing from one end or the other—either because the seller had walked away or because the loan-to-value ratio had tipped a cent into the red and the money did. At one point, the deal hinged on whether Callahan could procure luxury portable toilets on short notice; at another, the cost of an overlooked California permit—the difference of maybe a few thousand dollars in a deal worth millions—was enough to get the Plumber’s people to start packing up, until O’Brien realized he had the necessary paperwork via another company he owned. This dragged on for months. Then a year. Then longer. The motivation to press on, reenergized every time Callahan and Leverenz were able to inspect the wine, was that the cellar was even more impressive than advertised, unlike anything either had seen in both quality and scale, in fundamentally pristine condition. The attrition rate of unsellable bottles due to oxidation, lack of proper documentation, breakage, or improper storage was basically nil; even the small percentage of bottles they couldn’t send to auction—say, due to a detached label—they knew to be genuine. And then, just like that, a switch flipped and it was go time. The seller agreed to the terms; in response, they wired $1 million into an escrow account as a sign of good faith. A short time later, a cashier’s check in the low eight figures was delivered by hand to the seller’s lawyer; there was the flurry of planes and trucks and boats; and the plan for a massive 90-day flip was in motion at last—until Covid reared its head and the entire world came screeching to a halt. The Auction The early days of pandemic lockdown for Callahan, Leverenz, and O’Brien were pretty much the same as for everyone else—awkwardly wiping down groceries, uncertain about whether you were supposed to buy masks or not buy masks because medical personnel needed them. Without its normal daily punctuations, time became a run-on—except for that charged moment every month when they recalculated what they owed to the Plumber. That always had a way of standing out. The monthly interest alone, which had started around $110,000, had jumped to $115,000, then to over $125,000, then to $130,000. The months dragged on. February came and went. Then March, then April, then May, then June, the debt ballooning. Dave S. kept the mood up: Keep finessing the numbers, keep working the plan, these are just obstacles, you’ll find your way around. The Sotheby’s people pushed the auction, then pushed it again, then said they weren’t quite sure when it would take place despite being very upbeat that it would, in fact, happen; they were storing a gargantuan haul of wine they weren’t selling and so were as desperate as anyone to see it all across the auction block. Finally, the dates were set—a two-day affair, July 5 and 6, 2020. There was only one problem: Online auctions were still a fairly new format, and a remote wine sale of this size was unprecedented. Hong Kong is 13 hours ahead of the east coast of the U.S. and 16 hours ahead of the west, which meant that it was July 4, America’s Independence Day, when the Summit: A Complete Cellar auction kicked off in Asia. O’Brien was at a backyard cookout in California wine country; Callahan and Leverenz were at a party at Dave S.’s house in Massachusetts. Everything they had done to this point, work now measured in years, hinged on these results. Had their proprietary valuation system—based on an intricate matrix of scarcity, reputation, current and future market interest, time to peak drinkability, and profit potential—priced the wine correctly? Difficult enough to gauge under normal circumstances, but this situation was sui generis. There was literally nothing to compare it to. As it turned out, it was a perfect storm. The stir-craziness of isolation, collector appetite bottled up to bursting, and a global customer base newly comfortable with spending serious cash over the internet meant that the entire wine world was watching—and desperate to bid. It was a frenzy from the opening hammer. The guys streamed the action on laptops, O’Brien holed up in a TV room as the party carried on outside, Leverenz and Callahan roaming the halls of Dave S.’s sprawling house and dipping into his pool in between calculating conversion rates. The numbers exploded from the jump and never relented, with world records shattering one after the other. In the six-liter format alone, a 1989 Ramonet Montrachet hammered for over $61,000, a 1999 La Tâche for over $90,000, and a 1990 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Richebourg for over $154,000. The final sale clocked in over $15.6 million; they would clear $3.1 million in profit, minus some additional friction, while still holding what they considered to be the most valuable third of the original cellar, calculated to be worth between $3.5 million and $4 million. Of course, they couldn’t actually get their hands on the money yet, which would be collected in dribs and drabs by the auction house over the next 90 days and deposited into a Hong Kong bank, in Hong Kong dollars. That currency is pegged to the U.S. dollar and therefore reliably stable—unless the President of the United States starts antagonizing China by threatening to decouple the HKD, as then-President Trump did later that month. It was a new emergency: If Trump carried out his threat, the stroke of a pen would catastrophically evaporate their profits—meaning that, despite an auction bonanza far beyond their most optimistic projections, which set scores of world records, the three would still find themselves deeply in the red. The bulk of the wine was gone, they were out of money and had paid off virtually none of the debt—which was still accruing all sorts of replicating interest and spring-loaded fees. Even the inventory they had held back was out of reach: Until he got his money back, everything belonged to the Plumber. This was the point at which O’Brien tapped out. Whatever happened between now and the end, he said to Callahan and Leverenz, whether it all worked out or everything collapsed, he didn’t need to know. He would be in California. Wake him when it was all over. Coda On a warm Boston night this past May at Grill 23 & Bar, I sat with the three cofounders of Faucet Wine —CEO Brahm Callahan, CFO Scott Leverenz, and COO Dan O’Brien—as they recalled the party they threw when the dust finally settled. Callahan and Leverenz had gone back to the Plumber asking for a $1 million hedge against the currency decoupling, and he was only too happy to oblige: The move further protected his investment, and the interest charged on the extra million would net him even more profit. In the end, Trump moved on from poking China, all of the auction money was collected, a check was issued from the Hong Kong bank and converted to U.S. dollars. All outstanding bills were paid. The Plumber was made whole. For the first time, some four years after Callahan had initially launched his scheme on the train, they were money good. They even wound up making a tidy six-figure profit from the hedge thanks to all the volatility. The victory party took place in November 2020, still at the height of Covid, when congregating in person required nasal swabs and temperature checks and weeks of negotiation. A small group gathered at O’Brien’s house. The celebration was wine-country casual—tiki torches, a sprawling deck overlooking a creek, dogs clambering up and down stairs, a rap-heavy playlist bumping in the background—though few if any Sonoma Valley cookouts before or since have poured a magnum of 1990 Bâtard-Montrachet alongside a 1949 Musigny from Camille Giroud. Or a dream-haunting 1974 Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet “Les Ruchottes.” And these were just some of many astonishing and wondrous vintages. They were the best of the authentic but unsellable stock, plus a small number of bottles they had held back for themselves, even if it sliced into the profit margin. The three had survived a long swim with some of the biggest sharks in the financial world, but they were ultimately all wine geeks at heart: If now wasn’t the time to finally taste your greatest-hits list of once-in-a-lifetime vintages, when would be? O’Brien in particular relished the chance to share these treasures with his friends and neighbors—farmers and blenders and small winemakers who otherwise might never get the chance to experience a 1971 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-St.-Vivant or a 1991 Chave “Cuvée Cathelin.” As he watched the fall sun inch below the horizon, sitting with friends and contemplating some of the greatest wines ever made, all seemed right with the world. They were in the black. He could exhale at last. And now, finally, they could get to work. Securing the auction money wasn’t the end of things, after all, but the beginning. They still had a company to build. The profit from the sale eventually produced Faucet, a wine-focused venture-capital fund with a portfolio of proprietary businesses, from négociant winery Where With All to investments in rare bottles to the Sonoma Valley producer Gail Wines . There’s even a fine-wine purveyor, Berkeley and Stuart , named after the intersection where Grill 23 sits, and where each of the partners got his start in the industry. Where, in some sense, it all began. Callahan is now an investor in that restaurant and stores some of the group’s wine there. After dinner, he walked me through the cellar, showing off various bottles. One label stood out, faded yellow and black, with an image like an Art Deco clamshell opening over a twinkling cosmos. It read: “25th Anniversary, Windows on the World, 1976–2001,” part of a store Faucet had acquired of custom Veuve Clicquot produced for the famous restaurant that once straddled the 106th and 107th floors atop the North Tower of the World Trade Center, which collapsed into rubble along with everything else on September 11, 2001. Another marvel in a seemingly never-ending saga of them. As I walked down the steak-house steps into a humid late-spring evening, passing under the lamplit street signs, a snippet from the auction catalog popped into my head: “Put simply,” wrote Serena Sutcliffe, honorary chairman of Sotheby’s Wine, “it would be beyond comprehension if it did not exist in reality.” Exactly so.
By MIKE FITZPATRICK AP Sports Writer NEW YORK — Same iconic statue, very different race. With two-way star Travis Hunter of Colorado and Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty leading the field, these certainly aren’t your typical Heisman Trophy contenders. Sure, veteran quarterbacks Dillon Gabriel from top-ranked Oregon and Cam Ward of No. 15 Miami are finalists for college football’s most prestigious award as well, but the 90th annual ceremony coming up Saturday night at Lincoln Center in New York City (5 p.m. PT, ESPN) offers a fresh flavor this year. To start with, none of the four are from the powerhouse Southeastern Conference, which has produced four of the past five Heisman winners – two each from Alabama and LSU. Jeanty, who played his home games for a Group of Five team on that peculiar blue turf in Idaho more than 2,100 miles from Manhattan, is the first running back even invited to the Heisman party since 2017. After leading the country with 2,497 yards rushing and 29 touchdowns, he joined quarterback Kellen Moore (2010) as the only Boise State players to be named a finalist. “The running back position has been overlooked for a while now,” said Jeanty, who plans to enter the 2025 NFL Draft. “There’s been a lot of great running backs before me that should have been here in New York, so to kind of carry on the legacy of the running back position I think is great. ... I feel as if I’m representing the whole position.” With the votes already in, all four finalists spent Friday conducting interviews and sightseeing in the Big Apple. They were given custom, commemorative watches to mark their achievement. “I’m not a watch guy, but I like it,” said Hunter, flashing a smile. The players also took photos beneath the massive billboards in Times Square and later posed with the famous Heisman Trophy, handed out since 1935 to the nation’s most outstanding performer. Hunter, the heavy favorite, made sure not to touch it yet. A dominant player on both offense and defense who rarely comes off the field, the wide receiver/cornerback is a throwback to generations gone by and the first full-time, true two-way star in decades. On offense, he had 92 catches for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns this season to help the 20th-ranked Buffaloes (9-3) earn their first bowl bid in four years. On defense, he made four interceptions, broke up 11 passes and forced a critical fumble that secured an overtime victory against Baylor. Hunter played 688 defensive snaps and 672 more on offense – the only Power Four conference player with 30-plus snaps on both sides of the ball, according to Colorado research. Call him college football’s answer to baseball unicorn Shohei Ohtani. “I think I laid the ground for more people to come in and go two ways,” Hunter said. “It starts with your mindset. If you believe you can do it, then you’ll be able to do it. And also, I do a lot of treatment. I keep up with my body. I get a lot of recovery.” Hunter is Colorado’s first Heisman finalist in 30 years. The junior from Suwanee, Georgia, followed Coach Deion Sanders from Jackson State, an HBCU that plays in the lower level FCS, to the Rocky Mountains and has already racked up a staggering combination of accolades this week, including The Associated Press Player of the Year. Hunter also won the Walter Camp Award as national player of the year, along with the Chuck Bednarik Award as the top defensive player and the Biletnikoff Award for best wide receiver. “It just goes to show that I did what I had to do,” Hunter said. Next, he’d like to polish off his impressive hardware collection by becoming the second Heisman Trophy recipient in Buffaloes history, after late running back Rashaan Salaam in 1994. “I worked so hard for this moment, so securing the Heisman definitely would set my legacy in college football,” Hunter said. “Being here now is like a dream come true.” Jeanty carried No. 8 Boise State (12-1) to a Mountain West Conference championship that landed the Broncos the third seed in this year’s College Football Playoff. They have a first-round bye before facing the SMU-Penn State winner in the Fiesta Bowl quarterfinal on New Year’s Eve. The 5-foot-9, 215-pound junior from Jacksonville, Florida, won the Maxwell Award as college football’s top player and the Doak Walker Award for best running back. Jeanty has five touchdown runs of at least 70 yards and has rushed for the fourth-most yards in a season in FBS history – topping the total of 115 teams this year. He needs 132 yards to break the FBS record set by Heisman Trophy winner Barry Sanders at Oklahoma State in 1988. In a pass-happy era, however, Jeanty is trying to become the first running back to win the Heisman Trophy since Derrick Henry for Alabama nine years ago. In fact, quarterbacks have snagged the prize all but four times this century. Gabriel, an Oklahoma transfer, led Oregon (13-0) to a Big Ten title in its first season in the league and the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff. The steady senior from Hawaii passed for 3,558 yards and 28 touchdowns with six interceptions. His 73.2% completion rate ranks second in the nation, and he’s attempting to join quarterback Marcus Mariota (2014) as Ducks players to win the Heisman Trophy. “I think all the memories start to roll back in your mind,” Gabriel said. Ward threw for 4,123 yards and led the nation with a school-record 36 touchdown passes for the high-scoring Hurricanes (10-2) after transferring from Washington State. The senior from West Columbia, Texas, won the Davey O’Brien National Quarterback of the Year award and is looking to join QBs Vinny Testaverde (1986) and Gino Torretta (1992) as Miami players to go home with the Heisman. “I just think there’s a recklessness that you have to play with at the quarterback position,” Ward said. Finalists: QB Dillon Gabriel, Oregon; WR/CB Travis Hunter, Colorado; RB Ashton Jeanty, Boise State; QB Cam Ward, Miami When: Saturday, 5 p.m. PT Where: Lincoln Center, New York City TV: ESPN
It was a murder case almost everyone had an opinion on. O.J. Simpson ‘s “trial of the century” over the 1994 killings of his ex-wife and her friend bared divisions over race and law enforcement in America and brought an intersection of sports, crime, entertainment and class that was hard to turn away from . In a controversial verdict, the football star-turned-actor was acquitted in the criminal trial but later found civilly liable in the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Years later, he served nine years in prison on unrelated charges. His death in April brought an end to a life that had become defined by scrutiny over the killings. But he was just one of many influential and noteworthy people who died in 2024. Read more: 26 notable Oregonians who died in 2024 shaped food, culture, science and politics Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in February, was a fierce political foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, crusading against corruption and staging protests against the Kremlin. He had been jailed since 2021 when he returned to Russia to face certain arrest after recovering in Germany from nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. Other political figures who died this year include: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi; former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney; Vietnamese politician Nguyen Phu Trong; U.S. congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee; former Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov; pundit Lou Dobbs; Greek politician Vasso Papandreou; former U.S. senators Joe Lieberman, Jim Inhofe, Tim Johnson and Jim Sasser; Namibian President Hage Geingob; and former Lebanese prime minister Salim Hoss. The year also brought the deaths of several rights activists, including the reverends Cecil L. “Chip” Murray and James Lawson Jr.; Dexter Scott King; Hydeia Broadbent; and David Mixner. Business leaders who died this year include: Indian industrialist Ratan Tata, The Home Depot co-founder Bernard “Bernie” Marcus, financier Jacob Rothschild and Daiso retail chain founder Hirotake Yano. Simpson wasn’t the only athlete with a complex legacy who died this year. Pete Rose, who died in September, was a career hits leader in baseball whose achievements were tarnished when it was revealed he gambled on games. Other noteworthy sports figures who died include: basketball players Jerry West and Dikembe Mutombo; baseball players Willie Mays and Fernando Valenzuela; and gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi. The music industry lost a titan in producer Quincy Jones , who died in November. His many contributions included producing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album and working with hundreds of other musicians over a long and storied career. Other artists and entertainers who died this year include: actors James Earl Jones, Chita Rivera, Donald Sutherland, Gena Rowlands, Louis Gossett Jr., Shelley Duvall, Kris Kristofferson, Sandra Milo, Anouk Aimée, Carl Weathers, Joyce Randolph, Tony Todd, Shannen Doherty and Song Jae-lim; musicians Sergio Mendes, Toby Keith, Phil Lesh, Melanie, Dickey Betts, Françoise Hardy, Fatman Scoop, Duane Eddy and Frankie Beverly; filmmakers Roger Corman and Morgan Spurlock; authors Faith Ringgold, Nikki Giovanni and N. Scott Momaday; TV fitness guru Richard Simmons; sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer; talk show host Phil Donahue; and poets Shuntaro Tanikawa, John Sinclair and Kazuko Shiraishi. Here is a roll call of some noteworthy figures who died in 2024 (cause of death cited for younger people, if available): JANUARY Zvi Zamir , 98. A former director of Israel’s Mossad spy service who warned that Israel was about to be attacked on the eve of the 1973 Mideast war. Jan. 2. Glynis Johns , 100. A Tony Award-winning stage and screen star who played the mother opposite Julie Andrews in the classic movie “Mary Poppins” and introduced the world to the bittersweet standard-to-be “Send in the Clowns” by Stephen Sondheim. Jan. 4. David Soul , 80. The actor-singer was a 1970s heartthrob who co-starred as the blond half of the crime-fighting duo “Starsky & Hutch” and topped the music charts with the ballad “Don’t Give Up on Us.” Jan. 4. Franz Beckenbauer , 78. He won the World Cup both as a player and coach and became one of Germany’s most beloved personalities with his easygoing charm. Jan. 7. Joyce Randolph , 99. A veteran stage and television actor whose role as the savvy Trixie Norton on “The Honeymooners” provided the perfect foil to her dimwitted TV husband. Jan. 13. Jack Burke Jr. , 100. He was the oldest living Masters champion and staged the greatest comeback ever at Augusta National for one of his two majors. Jan. 19. Marlena Shaw , 81. The jazz and R&B vocalist whose “California Soul” was one of the defining soul songs of the late 1960s. Jan. 19. Mary Weiss , 75. The lead singer of the 1960s pop group the Shangri-Las, whose hits included “Leader of the Pack.” Jan. 19. Gigi Riva , 79. The all-time leading goalscorer for Italy’s men’s national team was known as the “Rombo di Tuono” (Rumble of Thunder). Jan. 22. Dexter Scott King , 62. He dedicated much of his life to shepherding the civil rights legacy of his parents, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. Jan. 22. Charles Osgood , 91. He anchored “CBS Sunday Morning” for more than two decades, was host of the long-running radio program “The Osgood File” and was referred to as CBS News’ poet-in-residence. Jan. 23. Melanie , 76. The singer-songwriter who rose through the New York folk scene, performed at Woodstock and had a series of 1970s hits including the enduring cultural phenomenon “Brand New Key.” Jan. 23. N. Scott Momaday , 89. A Pulitzer Prize-winning storyteller, poet, educator and folklorist whose debut novel “House Made of Dawn” is widely credited as the starting point for contemporary Native American literature. Jan. 24. Herbert Coward , 85. He was known for his “Toothless Man” role in the movie “Deliverance.” Jan. 24. Car crash. Sandra Milo , 90. An icon of Italian cinema who played a key role in Federico Fellini’s “81⁄2” and later became his muse. Jan. 29. Jean Carnahan , 90. She became the first female senator to represent Missouri when she was appointed to replace her husband following his death. Jan. 30. Chita Rivera , 91. The dynamic dancer, singer and actress who garnered 10 Tony nominations, winning twice, in a long Broadway career that forged a path for Latina artists and shrugged off a near-fatal car accident. Jan. 30. FEBRUARY Carl Weathers , 76. A former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, starring with Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore.” Feb. 1. Ian Lavender , 77. An actor who played a hapless Home Guard soldier in the classic British sitcom “Dad’s Army.” Feb. 2. Hage Geingob , 82. Namibia’s president and founding prime minister who played a central role in what has become one of Africa’s most stable democracies after returning from a long exile in Botswana and the United States as an anti-apartheid activist. Feb. 4. Bob Beckwith , 91. A retired firefighter whose chance encounter with the president amid the rubble of ground zero became part of an iconic image of American unity after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Feb. 4. Toby Keith , 62. A hit country crafter of pro-American anthems who both riled up critics and was loved by millions of fans. Feb. 5. Stomach cancer. John Bruton , 76. A former Irish prime minister who played a key role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland. Feb. 6. Sebastián Piñera , 74. The two-time former president of Chile faced social upheaval followed by a pandemic in his second term. Feb. 6. Helicopter crash. Seiji Ozawa , 88. The Japanese conductor amazed audiences with the lithe physicality of his performances during three decades at the helm of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Feb. 6. Henry Fambrough , 85. The last surviving original member of the iconic R&B group The Spinners, whose hits included “It’s a Shame,” “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love” and “The Rubberband Man.” Feb. 7. Robert Badinter , 95. He spearheaded the drive to abolish France’s death penalty, campaigned against antisemitism and Holocaust denial, and led a European body dealing with the legal fallout of Yugoslavia’s breakup. Feb. 9. Bob Edwards , 76. He anchored National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” for just under 25 years and was the baritone voice who told many Americans what had happened while they slept. Feb. 10. Hirotake Yano , 80. He founded the retail chain Daiso known for its 100-yen shops, Japan’s equivalent of the dollar store. Feb. 12. Alexei Navalny , 47. The fiercest foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests. Feb. 16. Lefty Driesell , 92. The Hall of Fame coach whose folksy drawl belied a fiery on-court demeanor that put Maryland on the college basketball map and enabled him to rebuild several struggling programs. Feb. 17. Hydeia Broadbent , 39. The HIV/AIDS activist came to national prominence in the 1990s as a young child for her inspirational talks to reduce the stigma surrounding the virus she was born with. Feb. 20. Jacob Rothschild , 87. The financier and philanthropist was part of the renowned Rothschild banking dynasty. Feb. 26. Richard Lewis , 76. An acclaimed comedian known for exploring his neuroses in frantic, stream-of-consciousness diatribes while dressed in all-black, leading to his nickname “The Prince of Pain.” Feb. 27. Nikolai Ryzhkov , 94. A former Soviet prime minister who presided over botched efforts to shore up the crumbling national economy in the final years of the USSR. Feb. 28. Brian Mulroney , 84. The former Canadian prime minister forged close ties with two Republican U.S. presidents through a sweeping free trade agreement that was once vilified but is now celebrated. Feb. 29. MARCH Iris Apfel , 102. A textile expert, interior designer and fashion celebrity known for her eccentric style. March 1. Akira Toriyama , 68. The creator of the best-selling Dragon Ball and other popular anime who influenced Japanese comics. March 1. Blood clot. Chris Mortensen , 72. The award-winning journalist covered the NFL for close to four decades, including 32 as a senior analyst at ESPN. March 3. David E. Harris , 89. He flew bombers for the U.S. military and broke barriers in 1964 when he became the first Black pilot hired at a major U.S. airline. March 8. Eric Carmen , 74. The singer-songwriter fronted the power-pop 1970s band the Raspberries and later had soaring pop hits like “All by Myself” and “Hungry Eyes” from the hit “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack. March 11. Paul Alexander , 78. A Texas man who spent most of his life using an iron lung chamber and built a large following on social media, recounting his life from contracting polio in the 1940s to earning a law degree. March 11. David Mixner , 77. A longtime LGBTQ+ activist who was an adviser to Bill Clinton during his presidential campaign and later called him out over the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer personnel in the military. March 11. M. Emmet Walsh , 88. The character actor brought his unmistakable face and unsettling presence to films including “Blood Simple” and “Blade Runner.” March 19. Lou Whittaker , 95. A legendary American mountaineer who helped lead ascents of Mount Everest, K2 and Denali, and who taught generations of climbers during his more than 250 trips up Mount Rainier, the tallest peak in Washington state. March 24. Joe Lieberman , 82. The former U.S. senator of Connecticut nearly won the vice presidency on the Democratic ticket with Al Gore in the disputed 2000 election and almost became Republican John McCain’s running mate eight years later. March 27. Complications from a fall. Louis Gossett Jr. , 87. The first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots.” March 28. William D. Delahunt , 82. The longtime Massachusetts congressman was a Democratic stalwart who postponed his retirement from Washington to help pass former President Barack Obama’s legislative agenda. March 30. Chance Perdomo , 27. An actor who rose to fame as a star of “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” and “Gen V.” March 29. Motorcycle crash. Barbara Rush , 97. A popular leading actor in the 1950s and 1960s who co-starred with Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman and other top film performers and later had a thriving TV career. March 31. APRIL Lou Conter , 102. The last living survivor of the USS Arizona battleship that exploded and sank during the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. April 1. John Sinclair , 82. A poet, music producer and counterculture figure whose lengthy prison sentence after a series of small-time pot busts inspired a John Lennon song and a star-studded 1971 concert to free him. April 2. The Rev. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray , 94. An influential pastor and civil rights leader who used his tenure at one of Los Angeles’ oldest churches to uplift the predominantly Black neighborhoods following one of the country’s worst race riots. April 5. Peter Higgs , 94. The Nobel prize-winning physicist proposed the existence of the so-called “God particle” that helped explain how matter formed after the Big Bang. April 8. Ralph Puckett Jr. , 97. A retired Army colonel awarded the Medal of Honor seven decades after he was wounded leading a company of outnumbered Army Rangers in battle during the Korean War. April 8. O.J. Simpson , 76. The decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial. April 10. William Strickland , 87. A longtime civil rights activist and supporter of the Black Power movement who worked with Malcolm X and other prominent leaders in the 1960s. April 10. Robert MacNeil , 93. He created the even-handed, no-frills PBS newscast “The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour” in the 1970s and co-anchored the show with his late partner, Jim Lehrer, for two decades. April 12. Faith Ringgold , 93. An award-winning author and artist who broke down barriers for Black female artists and became famous for her richly colored and detailed quilts combining painting, textiles and storytelling. April 12. Carl Erskine , 97. He pitched two no-hitters as a mainstay on the Brooklyn Dodgers and was a 20-game winner in 1953 when he struck out a then-record 14 in the World Series. April 16. Bob Graham , 87. A former U.S. senator and two-term Florida governor who gained national prominence as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks and as an early critic of the Iraq war. April 16. Dickey Betts , 80. The guitar legend who co-founded the Allman Brothers Band and wrote their biggest hit, “Ramblin’ Man.” April 18. Roman Gabriel , 83. The first Filipino-American quarterback in the NFL and the league MVP in 1969. April 20. Terry Anderson , 76. The globe-trotting Associated Press correspondent became one of America’s longest-held hostages after he was snatched from a street in war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years. April 21. William Laws Calley Jr. , 80. As an Army lieutenant, he led the U.S. soldiers who killed hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai massacre, the most notorious war crime in modern American military history. April 28. Duane Eddy , 86. A pioneering guitar hero whose reverberating electric sound on instrumentals such as “Rebel Rouser” and “Peter Gunn” helped put the twang in early rock ‘n’ roll and influenced George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and countless others. April 30. MAY Dick Rutan , 85. He, along with copilot Jeana Yeager, completed one of the greatest milestones in aviation history: the first round-the-world flight with no stops or refueling. May 3. Jeannie Epper , 83. A groundbreaking performer who did stunts for many of the most important women of film and television action of the 1970s and ’80s, including star Lynda Carter on TV’s “Wonder Woman.” May 5. Bernard Hill , 79. An actor who delivered a rousing cry before leading his people into battle in “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” and went down with the ship as the captain in “Titanic.” May 5. Steve Albini , 61. An alternative rock pioneer and legendary producer who shaped the musical landscape through his work with Nirvana, the Pixies, PJ Harvey and more. May 7. Kim Ki Nam , 94. A North Korean propaganda chief who helped build personality cults around the country’s three dynastic leaders. May 7. Pete McCloskey , 96. A pro-environment, anti-war California Republican who co-wrote the Endangered Species Act and co-founded Earth Day. May 8. Ralph Kennedy Frasier , 85. The last surviving member of a trio of African American youths who were the first to desegregate the undergraduate student body at North Carolina’s flagship public university in the 1950s. May 8. Roger Corman , 98. The “King of the Bs” helped turn out such low-budget classics as “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Attack of the Crab Monsters” and gave many of Hollywood’s most famous actors and directors early breaks. May 9. Alice Munro , 92. The Nobel laureate was a Canadian literary giant who became one of the world’s most esteemed contemporary authors and one of history’s most honored short story writers. May 13. Dabney Coleman , 92. The mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains like the chauvinist boss in “9 to 5” and the nasty TV director in “Tootsie.” May 16. Peter Buxtun , 86. The whistleblower who revealed that the U.S. government allowed hundreds of Black men in rural Alabama to go untreated for syphilis in what became known as the Tuskegee study. May 18. Ebrahim Raisi , 63. The Iranian president was a hard-line protege of the country’s supreme leader who helped oversee the mass executions of thousands in 1988 and later led the country as it enriched uranium near weapons-grade levels, launched a major attack on Israel and experienced mass protests. May 19. Helicopter crash. Hossein Amirabdollahian , 60. Iran’s foreign minister and a hard-liner close to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard who confronted the West while also overseeing indirect talks with the U.S. over the country’s nuclear program. May 19. Helicopter crash. Ivan F. Boesky , 87. The flamboyant stock trader whose cooperation with the government cracked open one of the largest insider trading scandals in the history of Wall Street. May 20. Morgan Spurlock , 53. The documentary filmmaker and Oscar nominee whose most famous works skewered America’s food industry and who notably ate only at McDonald’s for a month to illustrate the dangers of a fast-food diet. May 23. Complications of cancer. Bill Walton , 71. He starred for John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins before becoming a Hall of Fame center for his NBA career and one of the biggest stars in basketball broadcasting. May 27. Robert Pickton , 74. A Canadian serial killer who took female victims to his pig farm during a crime spree near Vancouver in the late 1990s and early 2000s. May 31. Injuries from a prison assault involving another inmate. JUNE Tin Oo , 97. One of the closest associates of Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi as well as a co-founder of her National League for Democracy party. June 1. Janis Paige , 101. A popular actor in Hollywood and in Broadway musicals and comedies who danced with Fred Astaire, toured with Bob Hope and continued to perform into her 90s. June 2. David Levy , 86. An Israeli politician born in Morocco who fought tirelessly against deep-seated racism against Jews from North Africa and went on to serve as foreign minister and hold other senior governmental posts. June 2. Brigitte Bierlein , 74. The former head of Austria’s Constitutional Court became the country’s first female chancellor in an interim government in 2019. June 3. Paul Pressler , 94. A leading figure of the Southern Baptist Convention who was accused of sexually abusing boys and young men and later settled a lawsuit over the allegations. June 7. The Rev. James Lawson Jr. , 95. An apostle of nonviolent protest who schooled activists to withstand brutal reactions from white authorities as the Civil Rights Movement gained traction. June 9. Lynn Conway , 86. A pioneer in the design of microchips that are at the heart of consumer electronics who overcame discrimination as a transgender person. June 9. Françoise Hardy , 80. A French singing legend and pop icon since the 1960s. June 11. Jerry West , 86. Selected to the Basketball Hall of Fame three times in a storied career as a player and executive, his silhouette is considered to be the basis of the NBA logo. June 12. George Nethercutt , 79. The former U.S. congressman was a Spokane lawyer with limited political experience when he ousted Democratic Speaker of the House Tom Foley as part of a stunning GOP wave that shifted national politics to the right in 1994. June 14. Kazuko Shiraishi , 93. A leading name in modern Japanese “beat” poetry, she was known for her dramatic readings — at times with jazz music. June 14. Willie Mays , 93. The electrifying “Say Hey Kid” whose singular combination of talent, drive and exuberance made him one of baseball’s greatest and most beloved players. June 18. Anouk Aimée , 92. The radiant French star and dark-eyed beauty of classic films including Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” and Claude Lelouch’s “A Man and a Woman.” June 18. Donald Sutherland , 88. The Canadian actor whose wry, arresting screen presence spanned more than half a century of films from “M.A.S.H.” to “The Hunger Games.” June 20. Bill Cobbs , 90. The veteran character actor became a ubiquitous and sage screen presence as an older man. June 25. Martin Mull , 80. His droll, esoteric comedy and acting made him a hip sensation in the 1970s and later a beloved guest star on sitcoms including “Roseanne” and “Arrested Development.” June 27. Pål Enger , 57. A talented Norwegian soccer player turned celebrity art thief who pulled off the sensational 1994 heist of Edvard Munch’s famed “The Scream” painting from the National Gallery in Oslo. June 29. JULY Jim Inhofe , 89. A powerful fixture in Oklahoma politics for over six decades, the Republican U.S. senator was a conservative known for his strong support of defense spending and his denial that human activity is responsible for the bulk of climate change. July 9. Joe Bonsall , 76. A Grammy award winner and celebrated tenor of the country and gospel group the Oak Ridge Boys. July 9. Tommy Robinson , 82. A former U.S. congressman who gained notoriety as an Arkansas sheriff for tactics that included chaining inmates outside a state prison to protest overcrowding. July 10. Shelley Duvall , 75. The intrepid, Texas-born movie star whose wide-eyed, winsome presence was a mainstay in the films of Robert Altman and who co-starred in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” July 11. Dr. Ruth Westheimer , 96. The diminutive sex therapist became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics. July 12. Shannen Doherty , 53. The “Beverly Hills, 90210” star whose life and career were roiled by illness and tabloid stories. July 13. Richard Simmons , 76. He was television’s hyperactive court jester of physical fitness who built a mini-empire in his trademark tank tops and short shorts by urging the overweight to exercise and eat better. July 13. James Sikking , 90. He starred as a hardened police lieutenant on “Hill Street Blues” and as the titular character’s kindhearted dad on “Doogie Howser, M.D.” July 13. Jacoby Jones , 40. A former NFL receiver whose 108-yard kickoff return in 2013 remains the longest touchdown in Super Bowl history. July 14. Cheng Pei-pei , 78. A Chinese-born martial arts film actor who starred in Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” July 17. Bob Newhart , 94. The deadpan accountant-turned-comedian became one of the most popular TV stars of his time after striking gold with a classic comedy album. July 18. Lou Dobbs , 78. The conservative political pundit and veteran cable TV host was a founding anchor for CNN and later was a nightly presence on Fox Business Network for more than a decade. July 18. Nguyen Phu Trong , 80. He was general secretary of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party and the country’s most powerful politician. July 19. Sheila Jackson Lee , 74. The longtime congresswoman from Texas helped lead federal efforts to protect women from domestic violence and recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday. July 19. Abdul “Duke” Fakir , 88. The last surviving original member of the beloved Motown group the Four Tops, which was known for such hits as “Reach Out, I’ll Be There” and “Standing in the Shadows of Love.” July 22. Edna O’Brien , 93. Ireland’s literary pride and outlaw scandalized her native land with her debut novel “The Country Girls” before gaining international acclaim as a storyteller and iconoclast that found her welcomed everywhere from Dublin to the White House. July 27. Francine Pascal , 92. A onetime soap opera writer whose “Sweet Valley High” novels and the ongoing adventures of twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield and other teens captivated millions of young readers. July 28. Betty Prashker , 99. A pioneering editor of the 20th century who as one of the first women with the power to acquire books published such classics as Kate Millett’s “Sexual Politics” and Susan Faludi’s “Backlash” and helped oversee the careers of Jean Auel, Dominick Dunne and Erik Larson among others. July 30. Ismail Haniyeh , 62. Hamas’ top leader in exile landed on Israel’s hit list after the militant group staged its surprise Oct. 7 attacks. July 31. Killed in an airstrike in Iran. AUGUST Jack Russell , 63. The lead singer of the bluesy ’80s metal band Great White, whose hits included “Once Bitten Twice Shy” and “Rock Me,” and who was fronting his band the night 100 people died in a 2003 nightclub fire in Rhode Island. Aug. 7. Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez , 88. A Hall of Fame golfer whose antics on the greens and inspiring life story made him among the sport’s most popular players during a long professional career. Aug. 8. Susan Wojcicki , 56. A pioneering tech executive who helped shape Google and YouTube. Aug. 9. Wallace “Wally” Amos , 88. The creator of the Famous Amos cookie empire went on to become a children’s literacy advocate. Aug. 13. Gena Rowlands , 94. She was hailed as one of the greatest actors to ever practice the craft and a guiding light in independent cinema as a star in groundbreaking movies by her director husband, John Cassavetes. She later charmed audiences in her son’s tear-jerker “The Notebook.” Aug. 14. Peter Marshall , 98. The actor and singer turned game show host who played straight man to the stars for 16 years on “The Hollywood Squares.” Aug. 15. Alain Delon , 88. The internationally acclaimed French actor embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world. Aug. 18. Phil Donahue , 88. His pioneering daytime talk show launched an indelible television genre that brought success to Oprah Winfrey, Montel Williams, Ellen DeGeneres and many others. Aug. 18. Ruth Johnson Colvin , 107. She founded Literacy Volunteers of America, was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and received the nation’s highest civilian award: the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Aug. 18. Al Attles , 87. A Hall of Famer who coached the 1975 NBA champion Warriors and spent more than six decades with the organization as a player, general manager and most recently team ambassador. Aug. 20. John Amos , 84. He starred as the family patriarch on the hit 1970s sitcom “Good Times” and earned an Emmy nomination for his role in the seminal 1977 miniseries “Roots.” Aug. 21. Salim Hoss , 94. The five-time former Lebanese prime minister served during some of the most tumultuous years of his country’s modern history. Aug. 25. Leonard Riggio , 83. A brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller before it was overtaken by the rise of Amazon.com. Aug. 27. Edward B. Johnson , 81. As a CIA officer, he traveled into Iran with a colleague to rescue six American diplomats who fled the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran. Aug. 27. Johnny Gaudreau , 31. An NHL player known as “Johnny Hockey,” he played 10 full seasons in the league. Aug. 29. Killed along with his brother when hit by a car while riding bicycles. Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII , 69. As New Zealand’s Māori King, he was the seventh monarch in the Kiingitanga movement. Aug. 30. Fatman Scoop , 56. The hip-hop artist topped charts in Europe with “Be Faithful” in the early 2000s and later lent his distinctive voice and ebullient vibe to hits by artists including Missy Elliott and Ciara. Aug. 30. Died after collapsing on stage. SEPTEMBER Linda Deutsch , 80. A special correspondent for The Associated Press who for nearly 50 years wrote glittering first drafts of history from many of the nation’s most significant criminal and civil trials including Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson. Sept. 1. James Darren , 88. A teen idol who helped ignite the 1960s surfing craze as a charismatic beach boy paired off with Sandra Dee in the hit film “Gidget.” Sept. 2. Sergio Mendes , 83. The Grammy-winning Brazilian musician whose hit “Mas Que Nada” made him a global legend. Sept. 5. James Earl Jones , 93. He overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen, eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, “The Lion King” and Darth Vader. Sept. 9. Frankie Beverly , 77. With his band Maze, he inspired generations of fans with his smooth, soulful voice and lasting anthems including “Before I Let Go.” Sept. 10. Jim Sasser , 87. He served 18 years in the U.S. Senate and six years as ambassador to China. Sept. 10. Alberto Fujimori , 86. His decade-long presidency began with triumphs righting Peru’s economy and defeating a brutal insurgency only to end in autocratic excess that later sent him to prison. Sept. 11. Joe Schmidt , 92. The Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team. Sept. 11. Tito Jackson , 70. One of the brothers who made up the beloved pop group the Jackson 5. Sept. 15. John David “JD” Souther , 78. A prolific songwriter and musician who helped shape the country-rock sound that took root in Southern California in the 1970s with his collaborations with the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt. Sept. 17. Kathryn Crosby , 90. She appeared in such movies as “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad”, “Anatomy of a Murder,” and “Operation Mad Ball” before marrying famed singer and Oscar-winning actor Bing Crosby. Sept. 20. John Ashton , 76. The veteran character actor who memorably played the gruff but lovable police detective John Taggart in the “Beverly Hills Cop” films. Sept. 26. Maggie Smith , 89. The masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for the 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films. Sept. 27. Hassan Nasrallah , 64. The Hezbollah leader who transformed the Lebanese militant group into a potent paramilitary and political force in the Middle East. Sept. 27. Killed in an Israeli airstrike. Kris Kristofferson , 88. A Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and an A-list Hollywood actor. Sept. 28. Drake Hogestyn , 70. The “Days of Our Lives” star appeared on the show for 38 years. Sept. 28. Pete Rose , 83. Baseball’s career hits leader and fallen idol who undermined his historic achievements and Hall of Fame dreams by gambling on the game he loved and once embodied. Sept. 30. Dikembe Mutombo , 58. A Basketball Hall of Famer who was one of the best defensive players in NBA history and a longtime global ambassador for the game. Sept. 30. Brain cancer. Gavin Creel , 48. A Broadway musical theater veteran who won a Tony Award for “Hello, Dolly!” opposite Bette Midler and earned nominations for “Hair” and “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” Sept. 30. Cancer. Humberto Ortega , 77. The Nicaraguan guerrilla fighter and a Sandinista defense minister who later in life became a critic of his older brother President Daniel Ortega. Sept. 30. Ken Page , 70. A stage and screen actor who starred alongside Beyoncé in “Dreamgirls,” introduced Broadway audiences to Old Deuteronomy in “Cats” and scared generations of kids as the voice of Oogie Boogie, the villain of the 1993 animated holiday film “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Sept. 30. OCTOBER Megan Marshack , 70. An aide to Nelson Rockefeller who was with the former New York governor and vice president when he died under circumstances that spurred intense speculation. Oct. 2. Mimis Plessas , 99. A beloved Greek composer whose music was featured in scores of films, television shows and theatrical productions and who provided the soundtrack to millions of Greeks’ lives. Oct. 5. Cissy Houston , 91. A two-time Grammy-winning soul and gospel artist who sang with Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley and other stars and knew triumph and heartbreak as the mother of singer Whitney Houston. Oct. 7. Tim Johnson , 77. The former U.S. senator was the last Democrat to hold statewide office in South Dakota and was adept at securing federal funding for projects back home during his nearly three decades in Washington. Oct. 8. Ratan Tata , 86. One of India’s most influential business leaders, the veteran industrialist was former chairman of the $100 billion conglomerate Tata Group. Oct. 9. Leif Segerstam , 80. The prolific Finnish conductor and composer was one of the most colorful personalities in the Nordic country’s classical music scene. Oct. 9. Ethel Kennedy , 96. The wife of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy raised their 11 children after he was assassinated and remained dedicated to social causes and the family’s legacy for decades thereafter. Oct. 10. Lilly Ledbetter , 86. A former Alabama factory manager whose lawsuit against her employer made her an icon of the equal pay movement and led to landmark wage discrimination legislation. Oct. 12. Philip G. Zimbardo , 91. The psychologist behind the controversial “Stanford Prison Experiment” that was intended to examine the psychological experiences of imprisonment. Oct. 14. Liam Payne , 31. A former One Direction singer whose chart-topping British boy band generated a global following of swooning fans. Oct. 16. Died after falling from a hotel balcony. Yahya Sinwar , 61. The Hamas leader who masterminded the surprise Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel that shocked the world and triggered the longest, deadliest and most destructive war in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Oct. 16. Killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. Mitzi Gaynor , 93. The effervescent dancer and actor starred as Nellie Forbush in the 1958 film “South Pacific” and appeared in other musicals with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. Oct. 17. Vasso Papandreou , 79. A trailblazing Greek politician who served as a government minister, European commissioner and leading advocate for women’s representation in politics. Oct. 17. Thelma Mothershed Wair , 83. One of nine Black students who integrated a high school in Arkansas’ capital city of Little Rock in 1957 while a mob of white segregationists yelled threats and insults. Oct. 19. Fethullah Gülen , 83. A reclusive U.S.-based Islamic cleric who inspired a global social movement while facing unproven accusations that he masterminded a failed 2016 coup in his native Turkey. Oct. 20. Fernando Valenzuela , 63. The Mexican-born phenom for the Los Angeles Dodgers who inspired “Fernandomania” while winning the NL Cy Young Award and Rookie of the Year in 1981. Oct. 22. The Rev. Gustavo Gutiérrez , 96. The Peruvian theologian was the father of the social justice-centered liberation theology that the Vatican once criticized for its Marxist undercurrents. Oct. 22. Phil Lesh , 84. A classically trained violinist and jazz trumpeter who found his true calling by reinventing the role of rock bass guitar as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. Oct. 25. Teri Garr , 79. The quirky comedy actor rose from background dancer in Elvis Presley movies to co-star in such favorites as “Young Frankenstein” and “Tootsie.” Oct. 29. Multiple sclerosis. Colm McLoughlin , 81. An Irishman who landed in the deserts of the United Arab Emirates and helped lead Dubai Duty Free into becoming an airport retail behemoth generating billions of dollars. Oct. 30. NOVEMBER Quincy Jones , 91. The multi-talented music titan whose vast legacy ranged from producing Michael Jackson’s historic “Thriller” album to writing prize-winning film and television scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other recording artists. Nov. 3. Bernard “Bernie” Marcus , 95. The co-founder of The Home Depot, a billionaire philanthropist, and a big Republican donor. Nov. 4. Murray Sinclair , 73. A former First Nation judge, senator and chair of the commission that delved into Canada’s troubled history of residential schools for First Nations students. Nov. 4. Elwood Edwards , 74. He voiced America Online’s ever-present “You’ve got mail” greeting. Nov. 5. Tony Todd , 69. An actor known for his haunting portrayal of a killer in the horror film “Candyman” and for roles in many other films and television shows. Nov. 6. Bobby Allison , 86. He was founder of racing’s “Alabama Gang” and a NASCAR Hall of Famer. Nov. 9. Reg Murphy , 90. A renowned journalist whose newsgathering career included stints as an editor and top executive at newspapers in Atlanta, San Francisco and Baltimore — and who found himself the subject of national headlines when he survived a politically motivated kidnapping. Nov. 9. Vardis J. Vardinoyannis , 90. A powerful and pivotal figure in Greek shipping and energy who survived a terrorist attack and cultivated close ties with the Kennedy family. Nov. 12. Timothy West , 90. A British actor who played the classic Shakespeare roles of King Lear and Macbeth and who in recent years along with his wife, Prunella Scales, enchanted millions of people with their boating exploits on Britain’s waterways. Nov. 12. Song Jae-lim , 39. A South Korean actor known for his roles in K-dramas “Moon Embracing the Sun” and “Queen Woo.” Nov. 12. Shuntaro Tanikawa , 92. He pioneered modern Japanese poetry — poignant but conversational in its divergence from haiku and other traditions. Nov. 13. Bela Karolyi , 82. The charismatic, if polarizing, gymnastics coach turned young women into champions and the United States into an international power in the sport. Nov. 15. Olav Thon , 101. A billionaire entrepreneur recognizable for his bright red cap who went from selling leather and fox hides in his youth to building one of Norway’s biggest real estate empires. Nov. 16. Arthur Frommer , 95. His “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” guidebooks revolutionized leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad. Nov. 18. Alice Brock , 83. Her Massachusetts-based eatery helped inspire Arlo Guthrie’s deadpan Thanksgiving standard, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree.” Nov. 21. Fred Harris , 94. A former U.S. senator from Oklahoma, presidential hopeful and populist who championed Democratic Party reforms in the turbulent 1960s. Nov. 23. Chuck Woolery , 83. The affable, smooth-talking game show host of “Wheel of Fortune,” “Love Connection” and “Scrabble” who later became a right-wing podcaster, skewering liberals and accusing the government of lying about COVID-19. Nov. 23. Barbara Taylor Bradford , 91. A British journalist who became a publishing sensation in her 40s with the saga “A Woman of Substance” and wrote more than a dozen other novels that sold tens of millions of copies. Nov. 24. Mary McGee , 87. A female racing pioneer and subject profiled in the Oscar-contending documentary “Motorcycle Mary.” Nov. 27. Prince Johnson , 72. The Liberian former warlord and senator whose brutal tactics shocked the world. Nov. 28. Ananda Krishnan , 86. One of Malaysia’s richest tycoons with a vast business empire including telecommunications, media, petroleum and real estate. Nov. 28. Lou Carnesecca , 99. The excitable St. John’s coach whose outlandish sweaters became an emblem of his team’s rousing Final Four run in 1985 and who was a treasured figure in New York sports. Nov. 30. DECEMBER Debbie Nelson , 69. The single mother of rapper Eminem whose rocky relationship with her son was known widely through his hit song lyrics. Dec. 2. Nikki Giovanni , 81. The poet, author, educator and public speaker who rose from borrowing money to release her first book to decades as a literary celebrity sharing her blunt and conversational takes on everything from racism and love to space travel and mortality. Dec. 9. George Joseph Kresge Jr. , 89. He was known to generations of TV watchers as the mesmerizing entertainer and mentalist The Amazing Kreskin. Dec. 10. Jim Leach , 82. A former congressman who served 30 years as a politician from eastern Iowa and later headed the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dec. 11. John Spratt , 82. A former longtime Democratic congressman from South Carolina who successfully pushed for a balanced budget deal in the 1990s but was unseated decades later when his district turned Republican. Dec. 14. Zakir Hussain , 73. One of India’s most accomplished classical musicians who defied genres and introduced tabla to global audiences. Dec. 15. Fred Lorenzen , 89. A NASCAR Hall of Famer and the 1965 Daytona 500 champion. Dec. 18. Tsuneo Watanabe , 98. The powerful head of the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s largest newspaper, who had close ties with the country’s powerful conservative leaders. Dec. 19. – Bernard McGhee, The Associated PressThe China Fund, Inc. Declares Distributions
