Rest in Peace Tommy.
Tommy “Tiny” Lister, best known for his roles in The Dark Knight and the Friday film series, has died at the age of 62.
While he had not tested positive for the novel coronavirus prior to his death, Lister died on Thursday after exhibiting “COVID symptoms” for a week, his manager Cindy Cowan tells PEOPLE.
Bobby Brown Jr., the son of singer Bobby Brown, was found dead in his Los Angeles home on Wednesday, authorities confirmed to CNN.
Brown Jr., the half brother of Bobbi Kristina Brown who died in 2015, was 28.
Officers with the Los Angeles Police Department responded to a call for a medical emergency on Wednesday around 1:50 p.m., spokesman Jeff Lee confirmed to CNN.
Brown Jr. was pronounced deceased at the scene. No foul play is suspected, Lee added.
In a statement to CNN, Nick Szatmari, the agent for Brown senior, said he had “no comment” regarding the death.
The cause of death is not yet known, but Bishop Harry Jackson Jr’s death was announced by the Hope christian Church today.
Bishop Harry Jackson Jr., an influential Maryland pastor and evangelical adviser to President Trump, died Monday at the age of 66, according to his church.
“It is with a heavy heart that we notify you that our beloved Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr. has transitioned to be with the Lord on November 9, 2020,” officials with Hope Christian Church said in a statement.
Jackson, whose cause of death remains unclear, was invited to the White House for multiple events over the last few years, including a Good Friday prayer that he led at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
He also attended Trump’s closing speech at the Republican National Convention in August and recently joined a Rose Garden event where the president nominated now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Religious News Service reported.
Sad to report that Scott Wilson, the actor that played Hershel in The Walking Dead, has died. He was 76.
The Walking Dead on Twitter issued this tweet: We are deeply saddened to report that Scott Wilson, the incredible actor who played Hershel on #theWalkingDead, has passed away at the age of 76. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. Rest in paradise, Scott. We love you!
I second that sentiment.
His website was a frequent place for me to get political stories to blog about. Then around a week or so ago, Alan left a message on the site saying that he’s taking a brief leave from blogging, and assured his visitors that he will return soon. Today, I made my usual visit to alan.com to see what was going on and was shocked to the core with the news that Mr. Colmes had died.
Rest In Peace Mr. Colmes. You’re already missed.
America’s Newsroom co-anchor Bill Hemmer announced the news during Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox program.
“We have, yet again, some sad news to report here at the Fox News Channel,” said Hemmer. “Fox News contributor and frequent guest here in America’s Newsroom, Alan Colmes, has passed away.”
Colmes is survived by his wife, Jocelyn Crowley, who issued the following statement to the network:
“Alan Colmes passed away this morning after a brief illness. He was 66-years-old. He leaves his adoring and devoted wife, Jocelyn Elise Crowley. He was a great guy, brilliant, hysterical, and moral. He was fiercely loyal, and the only thing he loved more than his work was his life with Jocelyn. He will be missed. The family has asked for privacy during this very difficult time.”
He sold over 100 million albums over his 40 years career, but on Sunday, December 25th, the sultry voice of George Michael went silent. He was 53 years old. His publicist released a statement confirming the death of the star.
“It is with great sadness that we can confirm our beloved son, brother and friend George passed away peacefully at home over the Christmas period, his publicist said, “The family would ask that their privacy be respected at this difficult and emotional time. There will be no further comment at this stage.”
Police investigating the death say they were called to a property in Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire shortly before 2pm on Christmas Day. “Sadly, a 53-year-old man was confirmed deceased at the scene” the reports say. “At this stage the death is being treated as unexplained but not suspicious.”
According to The Daily Beast, Gwen was diagnosed with endometrial cancer about a year ago.
“I am very sad to tell you that our dear friend and beloved colleague Gwen Ifill passed away today in hospice care in Washington,” WETA President and CEO Sharon Percy Rockefeller wrote in a staff-wide email obtained by Politico. “I spent an hour with her this morning and she was resting comfortably, surrounded by loving family and friends… Earlier today, I conveyed to Gwen the devoted love and affection of all of us at WETA/NewsHour. Let us hold Gwen and her family even closer now in our hearts and prayers.”
So many thoughts. So many questions. So much controversy. So much for us to learn from his actions. Such was the man and his effect on the country. Others have written with far more eloquence than I ever could about the legacy of Muhammad Ali, but from where we are now, we had better pay attention because he had so much to teach us about ourselves and where we are as a culture.
Has boxing been the same since he thankfully retired from the ring in 1980? A rhetorical question, to be sure. Yes, we did have Mike Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns and Ray Mancini, but those were strictly fighters. Boxers. Sportsmen. Boxing has fallen farther than politics into the realm of parody, and as an entertainment choice is pretty much irrelevant. Yes, there was that fight between those two guys about a year ago that promised a great match up, but all I can remember is that people complained bitterly about how much they had to shell out for the Pay-Per-View for a fight that was decidedly terrible to watch. I could look up the fighters’ names, but I figure that if I can’t remember the latest fight of the century, it couldn’t have been memorable. That never happened for an Ali fight, even the ones that only got shown in movie theaters where the cigar smoke was so thick it’s a wonder that the fire alarms didn’t go off. Ali was vital. He was a compelling star. And you couldn’t take your eyes off him.
And, no, I do not ever remember wondering how much money any of his big fights raised, nor how much anybody had to pay to see them.
Ali also became the template for the political athlete. He paved the way for Bill Russell, Bill Walton, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, Billie Jean King and others (though not countless others, unfortunately) who saw that sports was intricately connected to politics and to world events. Anyone like me who grew up during the Cold War must remember the protestations by Olympic officials and sportscasters who said that sports and politics must not mix, only to be roundly and crushingly contradicted by the black gloves, Munich, steroids and doping, the Apartheid banishments, the boycotts of 1980 and 1984, and a certain hockey game in Lake Placid. Ali took a stand on the most controversial issues of his day, Vietnam and Civil Rights and spoke truth to power. He didn’t worry, at least outwardly, about shoe contracts or his personal wealth. He was banished, then reinstated, and won more titles. Then he became the ambassador to the world. He led, and that’s what’s made it possible for other athletes to stand up to racist basketball owners and to speak out when members of minority groups are shot by police under dubious and outright illegal circumstances.
Ali was a Muslim. Think about that if you need to. Imagine Ali and Kareem and Ahmad Rashad and every other athlete and entertainer who became a Muslim and changed their name doing so today in the age of know-nothing politicians and citizens who are utterly ignorant of the religion. Would he ever get a fight? Would the government put him on the no-fly list? How much twitter shame would he have to endure? As controversial as it was for people to become Muslims in the 1960s and 70s, and it was controversial, today we would see boycotts and, likely, violence. Ali was able to take his conversion and make it all about peace. He used his religious beliefs as the basis for his pacifism and his sense of justice. And he was right; institutional racism was far more of a threat to him and other African-Americans in 1967 than the Vietcong.
Ali was neither universally popular nor loved during his athletic heyday, nor should we expect that he would be. But as we are entering another era of domestic change and upheaval, we do need to remember that all people in all professions need to stand up for what is right and for the equal treatment of all people.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest
“It is with profound sadness that I am confirming that the legendary, iconic performer, Prince Rogers Nelson, has died at his Paisley Park residence this morning at the age of 57,” the pop star’s publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, said in a statement. “There are no further details as to the cause of death at this time.”
The Carver County’s Sheriff’s Office had confirmed earlier that it was investigating a death at Prince’s Paisley Park complex in Minnesota. But the sheriff’s office didn’t release details about the identity of the person who died or the circumstances.
Prince — a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and arranger — “was widely acclaimed as one of the most inventive musicians of his era, drawing upon influences ranging from James Brown to the Beatles to Jimi Hendrix,” the Associated Press noted. Born Prince Rogers Nelson, the Minnesota native was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.
Mr. Bond died in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., after a brief illness, the center said in a statement Sunday morning.
He was one of the original leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, while he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta.
He moved from the militancy of the student group to the top leadership of the establishmentarian N.A.A.C.P. Along the way, he was a writer, poet, television commentator, lecturer, college teacher, and persistent opponent of the stubborn remnants of white supremacy.
He also served for 20 years in the Georgia Legislature, mostly in conspicuous isolation from white colleagues who saw him as an interloper and a rabble-rouser.
Mr. Bond’s wit, cool personality and youthful face became familiar to millions of television viewers during the 1960s and 1970s. He attracted adjectives — dashing, handsome, urbane — the way some people attract money.
On the strength of his personality and quick intellect, he moved to the center of the civil rights action in Atlanta, the unofficial capital of the movement, at the height of the struggle for racial equality in the early 1960s.
Moving beyond demonstrations, he became a founder, with Morris Dees, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy organization in Montgomery, Ala. Mr. Bond was its president from 1971 to 1979 and remained on its board for the rest of his life.
She held on and fought as long as she could, but on Sunday, Bobby Kristian Brown, daughter of Bobby and Whitney Houston, died according to representative of the Houston family. She was 22 years old.
“Bobbi Kristina Brown passed away Sunday, July, 26 2015, surrounded by her family,” the statement said. “She is finally at peace in the arms of God. We want to again thank everyone for their tremendous amount of love and support during these last few months.”
She was treated in a hospital and then a hospice facilityin the nearly six months since she was found unresponsive and not breathing in the bathtub at her Roswell home on January 31 — nearly three years to the day after her mother accidentally drowned in a bathtub in Beverly Hills, a victim of the vices she had fought for much of her career.
It’s not often that you come across someone who, through nothing more than his sense of humor in less than 180 characters, draws you into his world. I was lucky to see @whisper1111’s tweets a couple of years ago and we began following each other on Twitter and I must say I learnt from his political wisdom.
I was greatly sadden today when I received a tweet from @deniseromano – mutual twitter friend – stating that @Whisper1111, known to his friends and family as Michael Fogelsanger, had died. He was 63 years old.
According to his obituary, Michael died on July 14th, 2015. He was born in Philadelphia and was a teacher for 40 years working for the Philadelphia School District, the Upper Township School District, the Middle Township School District, Penn State University and Nittany Valley Charter School before retiring in June of 2014. And you would never know this from reading his tweets but according to his obituary, Michael created an at-risk program for students called “Team Infinity” with both the Philadelphia School District and the Middle Township School District.
@Whisper1111 – an amazing man with a life-long career of giving back to his community.
Rest In Peace Michael Fogelsanger.
Read his orbituary here.
