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Longtime civil rights leader; TV comedy trailblazer

• Through the tough struggles of the civil rights movement, Julian Bond always kept his sense of humor, and it was his steady demeanor that helped him persist despite the inevitable difficulties involved, his wife recalled.

Bond "never took his eyes off the prize and that was always racial equality," Pamela Horowitz said.

Bond died at age 75.

Bond's life traced the arc of the civil rights movement, from his efforts as a militant young man to start a student protest group, through a long career in politics and his leadership of the NAACP almost four decades later.

Year after year, the calm, telegenic Bond was one of the nation's most poetic voices for equality, inspiring fellow activists with his words in the 1960s and sharing the movement's vision with succeeding generations as a speaker and academic.

"He always ... in that hard struggle kept a sense of humor, and I think that's what allowed him to do that work for so long - his whole life really," Horowitz said.

Former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young said Bond's legacy would be as a "lifetime struggler."

"He started when he was about 17 and he went to 75," Young said. "And I don't know a single time when he was not involved in some phase of the civil rights movement."

Bond's death was first announced by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group that he founded in 1971 and helped oversee for the rest of his life.

The son of a college president burst into the national consciousness after helping to start the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, where he rubbed shoulders with committee leaders Stokely Carmichael and John Lewis. As the committee grew into one of the movement's most important groups, the young Bond dropped out of Morehouse College in Atlanta to serve as communications director. He later returned and completed his degree in 1971.

Bond was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1965 but fellow lawmakers, many of them white, refused to let him take his seat because of his anti-war stance on Vietnam. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor. Bond finally took office in 1967.

"If this was another movement, they would call him the PR man, because he was the one who wrote the best, who framed the issues the best. He was called upon time and again to write it, to express it," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, who was Bond's colleague on the student committee and later wrote a friend-of-the-court brief for the American Civil Liberties Union when Bond's case was before the high court.

President Barack Obama called Bond "a hero."

"Justice and equality was the mission that spanned his life," Obama said in a statement. "Julian Bond helped change this country for the better."

• Egon Bahr, the German statesman who helped pioneer the "Ostpolitik" policy of improving relations with the communist East under West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, has died. He was 93.

"Egon Bahr's work for Germany and Europe achieved historic significance even during his lifetime," said Gabriel, adding that Bahr's greatest reward was seeing the Berlin Wall come down in November 1989.

"(Bahr) put his trust in the might of freedom and the power of dialogue, that was the basis for 'change through rapprochement,"' said Gabriel.

As a state secretary under Brandt, Bahr helped guide negotiations between divided East and West Germany, as well as with the Soviets, and played a key role in the negotiation of several treaties. He also served as minister for special affairs, then minister for economic cooperation under Brandt's successor, Helmut Schmidt.

• Lev Durov, one of Russia's most prolific and best loved actors, has died. He was 83.

Durov was in more than 200 films from 1955 to 2014, often playing character or supporting roles. Among them was the role of Agent Klaus in the 1973 film "Seventeen Moments of Spring."

Durov also performed on stage. He was in a Moscow production of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest," playing Prospero, when he fell ill in early August and was hospitalized with heart trouble.

His death on Thursday led Russian news broadcasts. Actors and directors who had worked with him remembered him not only for his acting talent but for his sense of humor.

• Bernie Beglane was a multitasker decades before the word was invented.

"Mr. B." was a sports writer for 25 years, a freelancer for The Associated Press for almost 60 years, and an academic dean who founded the Athletic Administration program at St. John's. He could be interviewing one person while finishing a different story and dialing - yes, dialing - a phone to get more information, the correct information.

Beglane died Wednesday at his home in Hampton Bays after a long illness. He was 88.

• Frederick R. "Fritz" Payne, a World War II fighter ace who left his mark on aviation and wartime history by shooting down six Japanese warplanes during the Battle of Guadalcanal, a bloody, months-long confrontation that helped change the course of the war, has died at age 104.

The retired Marine Corps brigadier general, who was believed to be the oldest surviving U.S. fighter ace, died Aug. 6 at his home in Rancho Mirage.

What Payne did between September and October 1942 was take to the skies in an F4F Wildcat and shoot down four Japanese bombers and two fighter planes during a crucial, months-long battle for control of the Pacific that Allied forces had launched with no clear indication they could win.

"Fritz came along at a time when we were essentially losing the war," said Bell, adding Payne and others who "stood their ground at Guadalcanal" kept the Japanese from gaining control of the Pacific Ocean from the east coast of Australia to the western United States. The battle marked a turning point in the war's Pacific theater.

Payne, meanwhile, would be honored with the Navy Cross, silver star, Distinguished Flying Cross and other medals during a long military career.

When Congress decided earlier this year to honor all of the nation's fighter aces with a Gold Medal, its highest civilian honor, he was too frail to attend the ceremony in Washington, D.C. Instead, Rep. Raul Ruiz, of Palm Springs, brought it to him at the Air Museum.

The title fighter ace is reserved for those who have shot down at least five enemy aircraft in battle. Technically Payne was awarded 5 1/2 kills because he had help from another pilot in downing one plane.

• Yvonne Craig, who played the sexy, crime-fighting Batgirl in the 1960s TV hit "Batman," has died. She was 78.

She began her career as a ballet dancer, the youngest member of The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, with which she toured for three years.

Then she was discovered by Hollywood, appearing in a 1958 episode of "Perry Mason" and in the 1959 feature "The Young Land."

After that, she won dozens of roles in TV shows, as well as co-starring in two 1960s Elvis Presley films, "It Happened at the World's Fair" and "Kissin' Cousins."

But she was best known as Batgirl (and her alter ego, librarian Barbara Gordon, Commissioner Gordon's daughter) in the 1967-68 season of ABC's "Batman." Another memorable TV role, from an episode of the original "Star Trek": the green Orion Slave Girl who wanted to kill Captain Kirk.

Her many other TV appearances included "Dobie Gillis," "77 Sunset Strip," "Dr. Kildare," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "Mod Squad," "Love, American Style," "Kojak" and "The Six Million Dollar Man."

• Former U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes, a 15-term congressman from Ohio who took on tough assignments looking into assassinations and scandals, has died at the age of 90, his family said.

Stokes was elected to the House in 1968, becoming Ohio's first black member of Congress and one of its most respected and influential. Just a year earlier, his brother, Carl, had been elected mayor of Cleveland - the first black elected mayor of a major U.S. city.

Stokes headed the House's Select Committee on Assassinations that investigated the slayings of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the late 1970s and concluded there "probably" had been a conspiracy in both cases.

Later, he served on the Iran-Contra investigative committee, where he drew attention for his unflinching interrogation of Lt. Col. Oliver North.

He was just as unflinching with his probe of fellow Democrats when he led the ethics committee investigation of a corruption scandal known as ABSCAM, which led to convictions of one senator and six House members. The senator and five of the House members were Democrats.

Stokes was one of only nine blacks in the 435-member House when he first took the oath of office in 1969 and never forgot his roots as the child of poverty and great-grandson of a slave.

He spoke often of his admiration for his younger brother, who served two terms as Cleveland mayor and was later a broadcaster and judge. Stokes lost some of his zest for politics after his brother died of cancer in 1996.

• A New Jersey woman has used her obituary to make a final request to friends and family: Please don't vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton for president.

Elaine Fydrych's husband said Wednesday she was a registered Democrat and not "a political person."

But he said she grew to strongly dislike Clinton after the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi and believed Clinton's handling of the matter as secretary of state was "terrible."

A bipartisan report on the Benghazi attack spread blame among the State Department, the military and U.S. intelligence but didn't name Clinton.

Joe Fydrych, of Runnemede, said his 63-year-old wife told him a few weeks before she died Aug. 13 of her plan for her obituary. She told him it was up to him whether to include the line about Clinton, but he said he felt he had to honor his wife's wishes.

The last line of her obituary says: "Elaine requests, 'In lieu of flowers, please do not vote for Hillary Clinton."'

• Bud Yorkin, a director and producer who helped forge a new brand of topical TV comedy with the 1970s hit "All in the Family," died Tuesday, a family spokesman said. He was 89.

Yorkin, who started as a writer and director in the early days of TV, made his biggest mark after joining writer-producer Norman Lear to form Tandem Productions.

Tandem turned out a number of movies and TV shows in the 1960s before Yorkin and Lear adapted the English comedy "Till Death Us Do Part" as "All in the Family" with star Carroll O'Connor in 1971.

After the CBS sitcom became an unexpected hit with its unvarnished take on race, women's rights and other social issues, Tandem produced a string of more successes including "The Jeffersons," "Sanford and Son" and "Maude."

The sitcoms were embraced by TV viewers who had been spoon-fed bland, carefully sanitized fare.

In a statement, Lear recalled starting his partnership with Yorkin in 1959, the year that a Fred Astaire TV special directed and written by Yorkin won multiple Emmy Awards.

"His was the horse we rode in on and I couldn't love or appreciate him more," Lear said.

It was Lear, 93, a social activist who is still developing projects, who became best known for Tandem's groundbreaking TV series.

Yorkin also directed for the big screen, with credits including "Arthur 2: On The Rocks," "Start The Revolution Without Me" and "Come Blow Your Horn."

He was a producer on the planned sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 science- fiction film "Blade Runner," set to begin production next year, Sanderson said.

• Music producer Bob Johnston, who played a key role in landmark recordings like Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" and Johnny Cash's "At Folsom Prison," is being remembered as a maverick who helped bring folk rock to Nashville.

Johnston died at age 83.

In his memoir, "Chronicles: Volume One," Dylan wrote that Johnston called him on the phone one day and asked if he was thinking about recording. "Of course I was," Dylan added.

On the album "Nashville Skyline," when Dylan can be heard asking, "Is it rolling Bob?" at beginning of one song, it was Bob Johnston he was talking to, said Michael Gray, another editor at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Dylan wrote that working with Johnston "was like a drunken joyride." He described the producer as "built like a wrestler, thick wrists and big forearms, barreled chest, short but with a personality that makes him seem bigger than he really is ..."

He added, "His idea for producing a record was to keep the machines oiled, turn 'em on and let 'er rip ..."

• Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, a former FIFA and UEFA official who also served as the president of the German soccer federation, has died. He was 82.

Mayer-Vorfelder headed the DFB from 2001-06 and oversaw the organization of the 2006 World Cup in Germany before leaving the organization. He also served two terms on the FIFA execitive committee and was UEFA vice president from 2007-09.

• A Michigan woman who was believed to be the nation's oldest veteran at 110 has died, about a month after meeting President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.

Emma Didlake died in West Bloomfield, northwest of Detroit, according to the Oakland County medical examiner's office.

Didlake was a 38-year-old wife and mother of five when she signed up in 1943 for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. She served about seven months stateside during the war, as a private and driver.

She spent time with the president in July during a trip to Washington that was arranged by Talons Out Honor Flight, a southwest Michigan chapter of a national nonprofit that provides free, one-day trips for veterans to visit monuments and memorials in the nation's capital.

• Hamid Gul, who led Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency as it funneled U.S. and Saudi cash and weapons to Afghan jihadis fighting against the Soviets and later publicly supported Islamic militants, has died of a brain hemorrhage. He was 78.

Gul's tenure at the ISI and his outspoken backing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and other extremists highlighted the murky loyalties at play years later when the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath tested the U.S.-Pakistani alliance.

President Barack Obama meets with Emma Didlake, 110, of Detroit, the oldest known World War II veteran, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Associated Press/July 17, 2015
Larry Harvey poses for a photo outside the federal courthouse in Spokane, Wash. Associated Press
Former German Social Democratic politician Egon Bahr in Berlin. Associated Press/Oct. 16, 2007
Well-known Russian actor Lev Durov. Associated Press/Dec. 29, 2011
Yvonne Craig portrays the crime-fighting Batgirl in the 1960s TV hit "Batman." Associated Press/Warner Bros. Entertainment
Actress Yvonne Craig poses on the set of "The Gene Krupa Story," in Los Angeles. Associated Press/July 11, 1959
Rep. Louis Stokes, D-Ohio, announces, at the Carl B. Stokes Social Services Mall in Cleveland, that he will retire from Congress at the end of the year. Associated Press/Jan. 17, 1998
Film and television director, producer and writer, Bud Yorkin. A family spokesman for Yorkin says the film and TV producer best known for his work on the pioneering sitcom "All in the Family" has died at 89. Associated Press/courtesy of the Yorkin Family
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