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Despite their quaint maintenance of a monarchy, British politics are less respectful than ours, and the prime minister is afforded much less regal deference than our president -- though by the end of her reign Thatcher was always using the royal "we" -- so the death of Thatcher has and will be debated in the United Kingdom much more critically than the death of her comrade-in-arms against the postwar liberal consensus Ronald Reagan was in the United States. The more cowardly American press, though, calls her time in office "controversial" and then moves on to the much more comfortable territory of her extraordinary ambition, forceful personality and skill with a cutting remark. (Our weird class of privileged British expat media leeches have also guided the discussion of the Iron Lady along those lines.)

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Achebe describes with marvelous clarity -- in the essays of "Morning Yet on Creation Day" and "Hopes and Impediments" -- how he began to write partly in response to distorted Western views of Africa. Contesting Europe's invention of the "dark continent," Achebe retold the story of colonization from a Nigerian viewpoint, portraying a lost society warmly without overidealizing it. He aimed to restore the humanity of Africans -- both in their own eyes and those of Western readers. While early critics overemphasized the novel's anthropological aspects, with "Things Fall Apart" Achebe also pioneered the fusion of Ibo folklore and idioms with the Western novel, arriving at an African aesthetic in which the art of storytelling is central to the tale. As he wrote: "Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten."

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He died Feb. 4 in Delaware, according to Haley Funeral Directors in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, Mich., which is handling arrangements. It didn’t have details on his death.

Byrd, who was also a pioneer in jazz education, attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, played in military bands in the Air Force and moved to New York in 1955. The trumpeter, whose given name was Donaldson Toussaint L’Ouverture Byrd II, rose to national prominence when he joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers later that year, filling the seat in the bebop group held by his idol Clifford Brown.

He soon became one of the most in-demand trumpeters on the New York scene, playing with Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. He also began his recording career by leading sessions for Savoy and other labels.

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Lerner would say years later that the women taught her during those six weeks how to survive and that the experience taught her how society can manipulate people. It was a lesson that the women's history pioneer, who died Wednesday at age 92, said she saw reinforced in American academia by history professors who taught as though only the men were worth studying.

"When I was faced with noticing that half the population has no history and I was told that that's normal, I was able to resist the pressure" to accept that conclusion, Lerner told the Wisconsin Academic Review in 2002.

The author was a founding member of the National Organization for Women and is credited with creating the nation's first graduate program in women's history, in the 1970s in New York.

Her son said she died peacefully of apparent old age at an assisted-living facility in Madison, where she helped establish a doctoral program in women's history at the University of Wisconsin.

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But it was only on his terms. Openly critical of mainstream media, the onetime leader of the American Indian Movement often refused interviews and verbally blasted journalists who showed up to cover his public appearances. Instead, he chose to speak to his fan base through YouTube videos and blog posts on his personal website.

When he did speak out publicly, he remained steadfast in his defense of AIM. He found himself dogged for decades by questions about the group's alleged involvement in the slaying of a tribe member and the several gun battles with federal officers during the 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, but denied the group ever promoted violence.

"You people who want to continue to put AIM in this certain pocket of illegality, I can't stand you people," Means said, lashing out an at audience member question during an April gathering commemorating the uprising's 40th anniversary. "I wish I was a little bit healthier and a little bit younger, because I wouldn't just talk."

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It was a campaign in 1972 dishonored by Watergate, a scandal that fully unfurled too late to knock Republican President Richard M. Nixon from his place as a commanding favorite for re-election. The South Dakota senator tried to make an issue out of the bungled attempt to wiretap the offices of the Democratic National Committee, calling Nixon the most corrupt president in history.

A proud liberal who had argued fervently against Vietnam War as a Democratic senator from South Dakota and three-time candidate for president, McGovern died at 5:15 a.m. local time Sunday at a Sioux Falls hospice, surrounded by family and lifelong friends, family spokesman Steve Hildebrand told The Associated Press. McGovern was 90.

The family had said late last week that McGovern had become unresponsive while in hospice care.

"We are blessed to know that our father lived a long, successful and productive life advocating for the hungry, being a progressive voice for millions and fighting for peace. He continued giving speeches, writing and advising all the way up to and past his 90th birthday, which he celebrated this summer," the family said in the statement.

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Clarke died Monday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for a heart attack, said his fiancée, reality TV personality Rev. Omarosa Manigault, in a statement released by publicist Joy Fehily.

The muscular, 6-foot-4 Duncan, a former bodyguard who turned to acting in his 30s, "suffered a myocardial infarction on July 13 and never fully recovered," the statement said. "Manigault is grateful for all of your prayers and asks for privacy at this time. Celebrations of his life, both private and public, will be announced at a later date."

In the spring of 2012, Clarke had appeared in a video for PETA, the animal rights organization, in which he spoke of how much better he felt since becoming a vegetarian three years earlier.

"I cleared out my refrigerator, about $5,000 worth of meat," he said. "I'm a lot healthier than I was when I was eating meat."

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Support for Lighty and his family has been pouring in from celebrities, Twitter and media outlets as the hip-hop community comes to terms with his sudden death.

Many rappers and stars have commented on the beloved manager's death; DJ Scratch tweeted seven times today, expressing the tremendous impact Chris Lighty had on his career. He wrote, "I've lost a lot of people in my life but this one takes the cake for me. I'm physically sick from hearing this," and described Lighty as "the best manager." Nick Cannon called him "a pioneer, a mentor, and a great friend"

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"She died peacefully in her sleep with a smile on her face," her longtime manager, Milton Suchin, told The Associated Press.

Diller suffered a near-fatal heart attack in 1999. The cause of her death has not been released.

She was a staple of nightclubs and television from the 1950s — when female comics were rare indeed — until her retirement in 2002. Diller built her stand-up act around the persona of the corner-cutting housewife ("I bury a lot of my ironing in the back yard") with bizarre looks, a wardrobe to match (by "Omar of Omaha") and a husband named "Fang."

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An earlier version misstated the term Mr. Vidal called William F. Buckley Jr. in a television appearance during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. It was crypto-Nazi, not crypto-fascist. It also described incorrectly Mr. Vidal’s connection with former Vice President Al Gore. Although Mr. Vidal frequently referred jokingly to Mr. Gore as his cousin, they were not related. And Mr. Vidal’s relationship with his longtime live-in companion, Howard Austen, was also described incorrectly.  According to Mr. Vidal’s memoir “Palimpsest,” they had sex the night they met, but did not sleep together after they began living together. It was not true that they never had sex.

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Ephron also learned from Shakespeare and Jane Austen that the genre requires a little bite, the threat of emotional violence not far below the surface. Meg Ryan's last words to Billy Crystal in "When Harry Met Sally," right before the big clinch, are, "I hate you, Harry. I really hate you." Ephron was both a traditionalist and a revolutionary, or perhaps a traditional revolutionary; she brought romantic comedy into the era of feminism without challenging its fundamental assumptions about men and women and what they want. Maybe that reflects underlying truths about human nature and maybe it doesn't, but it certainly both reflected and affected the Zeitgeist of turn-of-the-century America. Ephron's best scripts offered the comfort of an old-fashioned love story in what felt like a fizzy, urbane contemporary setting.

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His lectures were memorable performances, sometimes wandering from one digression into another, Diderot-style, without quite losing the thread, and sometimes piercing right to the heart of the matter with a perfect bon mot. Some of Sarris' practiced witticisms have stuck with me ever since, like his description of the director of "L'Avventura" and "Red Desert" -- whom he largely admired! -- as "Antoni-ennui," or his quip about the soon-to-be-forgotten leading man of Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey": "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow."

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The catchy songs, with their falsetto vocals and relentless beat, are familiar pop culture mainstays. There are more than 6,000 cover versions of the Bee Gees hits, and they are still heard on dance floors and at wedding receptions, birthday parties, and other festive occasions.

Robin Gibb, 62, died Sunday "following his long battle with cancer and intestinal surgery," his family announced in a statement released by Gibb's representative Doug Wright.

Gibb was the second disco-era star to die this week. Donna Summer — who earned the Queen of Disco title by singing "Last Dance" and "I Feel Love" — died of cancer in Florida on Thursday.

The Bee Gees, born in England but raised in Australia, began their career in the musically rich 1960s but it was their soundtrack for the 1977 movie "Saturday Night Fever" that sealed their success. The album's signature sound — some called it "blue-eyed soul" — remains instantly recognizable more than 40 years after its release.

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For those of us who answer to the name Gen-X, Yauch's demise represents a very different kind of grief than the one experienced when Kurt Cobain died. Cobain's suicide, at age 27, represented the darkness of rock 'n' roll, the wild, terrible danger of it. Yauch's, 18 years later, is something else. It's random and cruel. It's the banal awfulness of disease.

When the Beasties first appeared in the mid-'80s, they seemed like a brash and bratty trio of white boys ripping off rap. They were. Have you heard "Cooky Puss"?  Their appeal – considerable even then – was largely in their naughtiness. But there was a knowingness to them, a clever, infectious style that couldn't be dismissed as mere frat boy posturing -- and a background in the fast, furious language of punk that gave them a whole different way of creating music. Their first album, "Licensed to Ill," was a breakthrough not just for its defiant party vibe but for its knowing wit, its infectious, irresistible and distinctive charm. Was rap ever truly charming before the Beastie Boys?

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