Notable deaths last week

• Jean-Claude Duvalier, who presided over what was widely acknowledged as a corrupt and brutal regime as the self-proclaimed "president for life" of Haiti until a popular uprising sent him into a 25-year exile, has died. He was 63.

Duvalier died from a heart attack at the home of a friend in Port-au-Prince where he had been staying, said his lawyer, Reynold Georges.

The former leader, known as "Baby Doc," made a surprise return to Haiti in 2011, allowing victims of his regime to pursue legal claims against him in Haitian courts and prompting some old allies to rally around him. Neither side gained much traction, however, and a frail Duvalier spent his final years quietly in the leafy hills above the Haitian capital.

Haitian President Michel Martelly expressed his condolences to the former dictator's family, making no mention of the widespread human rights abuses that occurred under Duvalier and his more notorious predecessor and father, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier.

The elder Duvalier was a medical doctor-turned-dictator who promoted "Noirisme," a movement that sought to highlight Haiti's African roots over its European ones while uniting the black majority against the mulatto elite in a country divided by class and color.

"Papa Doc" tortured and killed political opponents, relying on a dreaded civilian militia known as the Tonton Macoutes.

In 1971, Francois Duvalier suddenly died of an illness after naming his son to succeed him. At 19, Jean-Claude Duvalier became the world's youngest president.

Jean-Claude Duvalier ruled for 15 years, retaining the Tonton Macoutes and the brutality of his father's regime, though to a lesser extent. The son's administration was seen as less violent and repressive than that of the father, though it perhaps was more corrupt.

Under mounting pressure from the administration of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Duvalier made pretenses of improving the country's human rights record by releasing political prisoners. Still, journalists and activists were jailed or exiled. Haitians without visas or money left by boarding flimsy boats in a desperate effort to reach Florida shores.

While in exile in France, Duvalier occasionally made public statements about his eagerness to return to Haiti. Supporters periodically marched on his behalf in the Haitian capital.

• Martin Perl, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist from Stanford University who discovered a subatomic particle known as the tau lepton, has died at age 87.

The retired professor was one of two American scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1995. He was recognized for work he did during the 1970s at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, a federally funded laboratory where scientists investigate the tiniest pieces of nature.

• Geraldine "Jerrie" Mock, the Ohio housewife who 50 years ago became the first female pilot to fly solo around the world, has died. She was 88.

Mock flew her single-engine Cessna 180 "Spirit of Columbus" 23,000 miles in 29-plus days before landing in Ohio's capital city on April 17, 1964. On her trip, she made stops in such places as the Azores, Casablanca, Cairo and Calcutta.

Dubbed "the flying housewife" at the time, the Newark, Ohio, native was a mother of three in suburban Columbus but also an experienced pilot who studied aeronautical engineering at Ohio State University. She spent months planning her flight with aviation experts and veteran pilots.

A life-sized bronze statue depicting Mock holding a globe was unveiled in April at Port Columbus airport on the 50th anniversary of her flight, and it was also commemorated with an exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum.

• Former Tel Aviv mayor Shlomo Lahat, who presided over the city's transformation into a vibrant and open urban center, has died at the age of 87.

Born in Germany in 1927, Lahat rose to the rank of major general in the Israeli army and went into politics in 1973. He was elected Tel Aviv mayor the following year and remained in office until 1993.

• Floyd "Creeky" Creekmore, a former Montana rancher who held the record as the world's oldest performing clown, has died at age 98.

Creeky turned to rubber noses and orange wigs in the 1980s, after retiring from his previous life ranching and building homes. He joined the Shriners, which holds circus performances to raise money for its hospitals, and he put in thousands of hours of entertaining sick and well children, his son said.

In 2012, Guinness World Records recognized the then-95-year-old Creeky as the world's oldest performing clown. A previous stroke had knocked the juggling out of his act, but he still regularly donned the multicolored jacket and yellow hat to delight the young and old with a magic trick or a gag.

He stopped performing later that year when his wife of 74 years, Betty Creekmore, died. Creeky continued to attended Shriners' clown meetings, but he never put on the makeup again, Dave Creekmore said.

Creeky performed his last trick in July at a friend's 90th birthday party in Lewistown. He told a woman to tie two scarves together and then - with a leering eye toward his audience - announced that he would stuff the scarves down the front of her blouse.

Two men grabbed an end of each scarf and pulled as hard as they could. A bra popped out, tied between the scarves, leaving the crowd to roar and the lady to grasp at her blouse.

• Lily McBeth, the teacher whose battles with school boards in conservative areas of New Jersey made her a reluctant symbol of the transgender rights movement, has died. She was 80.

The former William McBeth had undergone sex reassignment surgery in 2005 after nine years of substitute teaching in Eagleswood Township, and she sought to continue in the job.

But vocal opposition from some parents concerned about the impact of a transgender teacher on young students led to a contentious debate that ended with her rehiring. She later substituted at the Pinelands Regional school district as well.

McBeth was a ukulele player and an avid carver of wooden decoy ducks. She acted in local theater productions, sang in a church choir and was active in a group seeking to re-establish clam populations in Barnegat Bay.

• George "Shotgun" Shuba, a member of the 1955 World Series champion Brooklyn Dodgers who was best known for offering a congratulatory handshake to minor league teammate Jackie Robinson, has died at 89.

Shuba, who was white, congratulated his teammate on the Montreal Royals near home plate after Robinson hit a three-run homer on April 18, 1946, off Jersey City Giants pitcher Warren Sandell. The moment shared by a smiling Robinson and Shuba was captured in a famous photograph and dubbed "A Handshake for the Century."

Shuba reportedly hung a copy in his living room.

Robinson went on to break major league baseball's color barrier when he started at first base for Brooklyn on April 15, 1947.

Shuba had a .259 career batting average with 24 homers and 125 RBIs in 355 games as a utility outfielder with the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1948-55. The left-handed hitter was the first National League pinch hitter to homer in the World Series, connecting in Game 1 against the New York Yankees in 1953.

He practiced his swing for hours with a rope tied to the ceiling, making knots in the rope where the strike zone would be. He swung a bat at the rope, helping to develop the powerful swing that later produced line drives in the major leagues.

• Raymond F. DeVoe Jr., who wrote the DeVoe Report, a financial newsletter, for 35 years, has died. He was 85.

In a Wall Street career dating to 1955, DeVoe was a voice for investors looking for long-term stakes in undervalued companies. He said in a 2011 interview with Bloomberg News that David Dodd, co-author with Benjamin Graham of the value investing classic "Securities Analysis" (1934), "was my finance professor and guidance counselor" at Columbia University's business school.

• Boxing promoter Dan Goossen, who handled a number of world champions in a lengthy career, has died after a short illness. He was 64.

Goossen died early Monday in Southern California after battling liver cancer that was only recently diagnosed, his family said in a statement.

Goossen was involved in boxing most of his life, promoting it through a succession of companies he headed. At the time of his death he was promoting undefeated super middleweight champion Andre Ward among other fighters.

• A Romanian Orthodox bishop who was the first senior cleric to acknowledge collaborating with the feared Securitate communist secret police has died. He was 90.

Nicolae Corneanu, the bishop of Banat, who irritated Romanian Orthodox Church leaders with his non-traditional views, died at his residence, church spokesman Lucian Florea said. Bells rang out at Orthodox and Catholic churches upon news of his death.

In 1997, Corneanu confessed he had been recruited as an informer in 1948 when he was arrested by the communists. He said he had signed papers that led to the excommunication of five dissident priests in 1981 who had accused church leaders of prostituting the church to the demands of communist rulers.

He also informed on priests visiting communist Romania.

• Richard F. Thompson, the University of Southern California neuroscientist whose experiments with rabbits led to breakthrough discoveries on how memories are physically stored in the brain, has died. He was 84.

In the 1980s Thompson expanded on work done by Ivan Pavlov a century earlier and cracked the mystery of how memories are "hard-wired" into the brain.

He taught at Harvard and Stanford before arriving in 1987 at USC, where he developed the neuroscience research program.