Stephen Gately died he was 33

Stephen Patrick David Gately died he was 33. Gately was an Irish pop singer, songwriter and actor, who, with Ronan Keating, was one of two lead singers of the pop group Boyzone.^[1] All of Boyzone's studio albums hit number one in the UK, their third and last being their most successful internationally. With Boyzone Gately had a record-breaking sixteen consecutive singles enter the top five of the UK Singles Chart.^[2] He performed for millions of fans globally.^[3] He released his only solo album in 2000, after the group's initial breakup, which charted in the UK top ten and yielded three UK hit singles including the top three hit "New Beginning." Gately went on to appear variously in successful stage productions and on television programmes as well as contributing further solo tracks to various compilations and soundtracks. In 2008, he rejoined his colleagues as Boyzone reformed for a series of concerts and recordings.

(17 March 1976 – 10 October 2009)

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Gately wed Andrew Cowles, first in a commitment ceremony in Las Vegas in 2003 and more formally in a civil partnership ceremony in London in 2006. In 1999, he became one of the first pop stars to come out as gay.^[4][5] He was also the first ever boyband member to do so.^[6] Upon Boyzone's reformation, Gately featured as part of the first gay couple in a boyband's music video in what was to be his last music video with the band, for the song "Better".^[7] He was discovered dead at an apartment he owned with Cowles in Majorca, Spain on 10 October 2009. Tim Teeman of The Times heralded Gately as a hero of gay rights for his response to being "smoked out of the closet".^[8]

Gately grew up in severe poverty in the poor, working-class Sheriff Street area of Dublin.^[9] He was the fourth of five children; his father Martin is a decorator and his mother, Margaret (born 1949) a cleaner.^[10] His siblings are Michelle, Tony, Alan and Mark.^[11] As a teenager he appeared in various musicals and theatre performances at school, such as Juno and the Paycock.^[10]

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Gately split from his first boyfriend, Stephen Howard, in 1993. Howard became a heroin addict and in 1995 committed suicide by hanging.^[10]

On 16 June 1999, The Sun newspaper covered its front page with what it described as a "World Exclusive" and the headline, "Boyzone Stephen: I'm gay and I'm in love".^[4] At the age of 23, Gately sold his story to the newspaper because he feared a former member of Boyzone's security was about to sell the story. The Sun had two further pages on the story as well as an editorial. Gately also revealed that in 1998 he had started a relationship with the then 27 year-old Eloy de Jong, who had been in the Dutch boy band Caught in the Act.^[4] They had first met in 1995.

From 2000 to 2002, Gately suffered from depression and addiction to prescription drugs.^[10]

Gately and de Jong split up in January 2002; Gately subsequently moved back to Dublin. After remaining single for a while, Gately started dating internet businessman Andrew Cowles, who had been introduced to him by mutual friends Elton John and David Furnish. Gately and Cowles held a commitment ceremony in a wedding chapel whilst on holiday in Las Vegas in 2003. On 19 March 2006, Gately entered into a civil partnership with Cowles in a ceremony in London.^[21]

His manager Louis Walsh was unaware of Gately's sexuality when he selected him for Boyzone and has said that, had he known, he would have thought twice before picking him, claiming that "it wasn't cool then to have a gay guy in a band".^[7]

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On 6 October 2009, Gately posted on Twitter, saying: "Still busy, lots going on. Focussing on finishing my book next so may be quiet here".^[22][23]

Gately's body was discovered on 10 October 2009 in the apartment which he owned with Cowles near Port d'Andratx on the western tip of Majorca in Spain.^{[24][25][26][27][28]} Spanish police were alerted at 1:45 pm.^[29] It was reported that he had "gone out for drinks, returned to his accommodation and fallen asleep, but never woke up."^[24] He was found squatting in an awkward way on a sofa, dressed in his pyjamas.^[23] Police said they had no reason to believe the death was related to abuse of substances such as drugs or alcohol and no suicide note or signs of violence were located on the corpse.^[29] The Gately family have enlisted celebrity solicitor Gerald Kean as their official spokesperson; Kean ruled out foul play and suicide, describing it as "just a tragic accident".^[6][30][31]

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Fans responded with messages of sympathy on the social networking website Facebook.^[22] Boyzone manager Louis Walsh is quoted as saying: "We're all absolutely devastated. I'm in complete shock. I was only with him on Monday at an awards ceremony. We don't know much about what's happened yet. I only heard after The X Factor [UK television talent show on which Walsh is a judge] and we will rally around each other this week. He was a great man."^[22][32] Walsh dropped out of the 11 October 2009 live televised results episode of The X Factor as a direct result of Gately's death.^[30][33][34] Simon Cowell addressed the issue at the start of the programme.^[30]

Irish boyband Westlife said: "We are, like everyone else, in shock today. We met Stephen Gately back in ‘98 when we first started out and since then have had the pleasure of meeting him many times. He and the Boyzone lads paved the way for us as a band. He was a friendly, positive spirit and a passionate performer. Our thoughts are with Andy and the rest of his family, his friends, his legions of fans and of course his bandmates Keith, Mikey, Shane and Ronan who will be devastated at the loss of a truly beautiful person.".^[35] Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said: "It's so sad. Boyzone and Stephen, they've all been part of Irish life and far wider than that, the last 15 years, and so successful, so it's a huge, huge tragedy. He was 33 years of age, 15 years at the top, a fine musician, it's just a huge tragedy to Irish entertainment, Irish music and further afield as well".^[36] Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism Martin Cullen paid tribute: "Stephen Gately was a gifted young man with a talent for singing which brought him tremendous success as a member of Boyzone and also as a West End star. There was a joy about his music making, and his death at such a young age is both a personal and professional loss".^[36] Andrew Lloyd Webber said it is "a great loss to the musical world".^[23] Elton John said he and his partner David Furnish were "stunned" when they heard the news.^[36] Katherine Jenkins twittered of "memories 2 cherish" from a night out in the weeks leading up to his death.^[36] Stephen Fry described Gately's demise as "a dreadful shock".^[36] "This was not supposed to happen. This was not in the script", said music historian Paul Gambaccini.^[37]

Gately's bandmates flew out to Majorca on 11 October 2009.^[23][30] Louis Walsh is expected to join them soon. The surviving members of Boyzone, Keith Duffy, Mikey Graham, Ronan Keating and Shane Lynch, issued a joint statement:

We are completely devastated by the loss of our friend and brother, Stephen. We have shared such wonderful times together over the years and were all looking forward to sharing many more. Stephen was a beautiful person in both body and spirit. He lit up our lives and those of the many friends he had all over the world. Our love and sympathy go out to Andrew and Stephen's family. We love you and will miss you forever, 'Steo'.^[38]

An investigation into the circumstances of Gately's death was underway, with police concentrating on a night out he had with Cowles.^[23] A post-mortem and toxicology tests took place on 13 October and this examination showed that Gately died of natural causes due to pulmonary oedema.^[39] On 16 October, his body will be brought from Majorca to Dublin where his funeral will take place at the Church of St Laurence O'Toole the following day.^[40][41

Irving Penn died he was 92

Irving Penn died he was 92. Penn was an American photographer known for his portraiture and fashion photography.

(June 16, 1917 – October 7, 2009[1])

Irving Penn studied under Alexey Brodovitch at the Philadelphia Museum School from which he graduated 1938. Penn's drawings were published by Harper's Bazaar and he also painted. As his career in photography blossomed, he became known for post World War II feminine chic and glamour photography.

Penn worked for many years doing fashion photography for Vogue magazine. He was among the first photographers to pose subjects against a simple grey or white backdrop and used this simplicity more effectively than other photographers. Expanding his austere studio surroundings, Penn constructed a set of upright angled backdrops, to form a stark, acute corner. Posing his subjects within this tight, unorthodox space, Penn brought an unprecedented sense of drama to his portraits, driving the viewer's focus onto the person and their expression. In many photos, the subjects appeared wedged into the corner. Subjects photographed with this technique included Martha Graham, Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, W. H. Auden, Igor Stravinsky and Marlene Dietrich.

While a master of the studio flash, most of Penn's portraits are lit with window light. For travelling to New Guinea and other locations to photograph indigenous people, Penn created a portable studio with a skylight deployed facing north with impressive results. These pictures had the same feel as his portraits of celebrities; fully adorned, naturally lighted, yet placed before the neutral backdrop, his tribal subjects appear as strangely defined models for a 19th-century ethnographic investigation.

In 1950, Penn married his favorite model, Lisa Fonssagrives and he founded his studio in 1953. They had one son together, who is named Tom.

Penn's younger brother is movie director, Arthur Penn.

Clarity, composition, careful arrangement of objects or people, form, and the use of light characterize Penn's work. Penn also photographs still life objects and found objects in unusual arrangements with great detail and clarity.

While his prints are always clean and clear, Penn's subjects vary widely. Many times his photographs are so ahead of their time that they only came to be appreciated as important works in the modernist canon years after their creation. For example, a series of posed nudes whose physical shapes range from thin to plump were shot in 1949-1950, but were not exhibited until 1980.

His still life compositions are skillfully arranged assemblages of food or objects; at once spare and highly organized, the objects are raised to a graphic perfection, articulating the abstract interplay of line and volume.

He has published numerous books including the recent, "A Notebook at Random" which offers a generous selection of photographs, paintings, and documents of his working methods. Penn's wife, Lisa Fonssagrives, died in 1992.

The permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum possesses a silver gelatin print of Penn's The Tarot Reader, a photograph from 1949 of Jean Patchett and surrealist painter Bridget Tichenor.^[2]

The Irving Penn Archives, a collection of personal items and materials relating to his career, are held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 2002, 53 photos were shown in a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In many of this prints, the subjects appear sculptural and like a primitive Venus. The graphic detail and clarity of his images would not have been possible to put on display in earlier years.

In July 2005, Penn's work was shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in an exhibit titled "Irving Penn: Platinum Prints."

Between January and April 2008, 67 portraits are shown at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City in an exhibit titled "Close Encounters".

In September 2009, the J. Paul Getty Museum plans to exhibit the most extensive collection of Irving Penn's works. The Small Trades is a collection of 252 full-length portraits by Penn from 1950 to 1951. Penn's subjects were from New York, Paris, and London.^[3]

Irving Penn died aged 92 on 7th October 2009, at his home in Manhattan.

Tony Fein died he was 27

Tony Fein died he was 27. Fein was an Iraq war veteran and NFL rookie linebacker who played with the Baltimore Ravens during the preseason, has died of unexplained causes after collapsing at a friend's house in what his agent said appears to be "an accidental situation." Fein, 27, an undrafted rookie free agent from Mississippi, was lying face down and unconscious, vomiting and barely breathing when medics arrived at a house outside Port Orchard on the Kitsap Peninsula on Tuesday morning local time, said Mike Wernet, a battalion chief and medical officer with South Kitsap Fire & Rescue.

Tony Fein. (File / Associated Press)

A man and woman who were present described Fein as a friend who was staying with them. They told the aid crew they awoke to find him unresponsive and vomiting.

"They didn't really give us a lot of information about what had happened the night before," apparently because they were upset, Wernet said. "They didn't indicate anything out of the ordinary."

There were no obvious wounds or signs of alcohol or other drug abuse, and nothing indicated foul play, he added.

Kitsap County sheriff's Deputy Scott E. Wilson said a detective was assigned to the case Wednesday because the death seemed unusual.

"We don't have any indication of anything suspicious ... or foul play," Wilson said.

Fein's agent, Milton D. Hobbs, a lawyer in Oxford, Mississppi, said he knew of no medical condition or previous severe illness in Fein.

"As I understand it, it was an accidental situation," Hobbs said. "As far as I understand it from family members, there's nothing to indicate that he intended to hurt himself."

An autopsy won't be conducted before Thursday and no report will be issued before all toxicology and other tests are complete, likely in six to eight weeks, said Allen G. Gerdes, Kitsap County chief deputy coroner.

Guy Dalrymple, a fire and rescue duty chief, did not immediately return a telephone call to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Fein, a native of Port Orchard, was released by the Ravens in their last major round of roster cuts on Sept. 5.

His agent, Milton D. Hobbs, a lawyer in Oxford, Mississippi, said he last spoke with Fein on Friday and since the death had talked with the Fein's sister, mother and some friends. He would not discuss a possible cause of death.

"He was working out and we were discussing football opportunities. That was still his goal," Hobbs said. "We talked about Canada."

Some Canadian Football League teams had expressed interest in Fein before he joined the Ravens but there had been no contacts since he was cut, the agent said.

Fein was arrested on Aug. 23 and charged with misdemeanor assault on a police officer after an incident at a restaurant at Baltimore's Inner Harbor in which the officer reportedly mistook his cellular telephone for a handgun. Fein said he was innocent.

Fein played quarterback for South Kitsap High School before graduating in 2000. At age 19 he enlisted and spent 3 1/2 years in the Army, including duty in Iraq as a 19 Delta reconnaissance scout, according to the Ravens' Web site.

He later enrolled at Scottsdale, Arizona, Community College, became one of the nation's top junior college recruits and played for the University of Mississippi in 2007 and 2008. In two seasons at Ole Miss, he had 136 tackles (77 solo) in 24 games, according to the school's Web site.

Ashley Jewell has died he was 34

Ashley Jewell death news: Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kandi Burruss Fiance Ashley Jewell was murdered at the age of 34. Real Housewives of Atlanta star, former Xscape lead singer, and songwriter Kandi Burruss continues to mourn the beating and death of her fiance Ashley Jewell as Atlanta Police make one arrest and charge Fredrick Richardson with voluntary manslaughter.

A.J. Jewell was 34 years old and according to Police worked at the Body Tap, a strip bar where an altercation with in the parking lot would end his life.

Burruss’ representative said that they had no other statement other than Kadi Burruss was mourning the death of her uncle as well as her fiance and asked for privacy. Burruss Tweeted that she could not believe what had happened and asked everyone to pray for Jewell’s children.

Atlanta Housewives and fans are still reaching to the death of of Kandi’s ex fiance Ashley Jewell (aka AJ Jewell). Ashley Jewell’s death resulted in Fredrick Richardson’s arrest last weekend.

Lisa Wu Hartwell, to Kim Zolciak, and Kandi herself are left without words over the tragic death of Jewell who appears on screen with Kandi in the current season of Atlanta Housewives. Outside the show, the couple would split just weeks before its season premiere.

On Friday night, Ashley Jewell suffered head trauma in the parking lot of Body Tap. He is survived by six children.
Bravo issued the following statement to Jewell’s family on Saturday: “Our thoughts and prayers are with Kandi and her family,

A.J. Jewell was 34 years old and according to Police worked at the Body Tap, a strip bar where an altercation with in the parking lot would end his life.

Burruss’ representative said that they had no other statement other than Kadi Burruss was mourning the death of her uncle as well as her fiance and asked for privacy. Burruss Tweeted that she could not believe what had happened and asked everyone to pray for Jewell’s children.

Atlanta Housewives and fans are still reaching to the death of of Kandi’s ex fiance Ashley Jewell (aka AJ Jewell). Ashley Jewell’s death resulted in Fredrick Richardson’s arrest last weekend.

Lisa Wu Hartwell, to Kim Zolciak, and Kandi herself are left without words over the tragic death of Jewell who appears on screen with Kandi in the current season of Atlanta Housewives. Outside the show, the couple would split just weeks before its season premiere.

On Friday night, Ashley Jewell suffered head trauma in the parking lot of Body Tap. He is survived by six children.
Bravo issued the following statement to Jewell’s family on Saturday: “Our thoughts and prayers are with Kandi and her family,

Marek Edelman died he was 90

Marek Edelman ^{died he was 90. [1][A 1]} Edelman was a Polish-Jewish political and social activist as well as cardiologist.

During World War II, he was one of the founders of the Jewish Combat Organization. He took part in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and became its leader following the death of Mordechaj Anielewicz. He also took part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. When he died on the 2nd of October 2009 he was the last surviving leader of the Ghetto Uprising.^[2][3]

After the war he remained in Poland and became a noted cardiologist. From the 1970s he collaborated with the Workers' Defence Committee and other political groups opposing Poland's Communist regime. As a member of Solidarity, he took part in the Polish Round Table Talks of 1989. Following the peaceful transformations of 1989, he was a member of various centrist parties. He also authored books documenting the history of wartime resistance against the German Nazi occupation.

(1919 or 1922 – October 2, 2009)

Details of Marek Edelman's birth are not known for certain; sources give two possible dates of birth, either 1919 in Homel (now Belarus), or in 1922 in Warsaw.^{[A 1][citation needed]} His mother, Cecylia Edelman (died 1934), was an activist member of the General Jewish Labour Bund, a Jewish socialist workers party. His father, Natan Feliks (died 1924), was a trudoviks activist.^{[citation needed]} As a child, Marek Edelman was a member of S.K.I.F. (Sotsyalistishe Kinder Farband), the Jewish Labour Bund's youth group for children.^{[citation needed]} In 1939 he joined and became a leader in the Tsukunft ("Future"), the Bund's youth organization for older children.^[4] Later he ascended to the leadership of the Bund itself.^{[5][unreliable source?]}

In 1939, after the German invasion of Poland Edelman found himself confined - along with the other Jews of Warsaw - to the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1942, as a Bund youth leader Edelman was a founder of the underground Jewish Combat Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa). In the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April–May 1943, led by Mordechai Anielewicz, Edelman was one of the three sub-commanders and then became leader after the death of Anielewicz. Edelman survived the suppression of the uprising and the Ghetto's liquidation.^[6] In mid-1944, he participated in the Warsaw Uprising, where Polish forces rose up against the Germans before being forced to surrender after 63 days of fighting.^[7]

After the Second World War Edelman studied at Łódź Medical School and became a physician.^[6] In 1976 he became an activist with the Workers' Defence Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników) and later with the Solidarity movement. He publicly denounced racism and promoted human rights.^[6] In 1981, when the leader of Poland, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, declared martial law in Poland, he was interned by the government.^[7] In 1983 he refused to take part in the official celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising sponsored by Poland's Communist government,^[8] believing that "would be an act of cynicism and contempt" in a country "where social life is dominated throughout by humiliation and coercion."^[7] Instead, he walked with friends to the street where Mordechai Anielewicz's bunker had been located.^[8] He took part in the Round Table Talks as Solidarity's consultant on health policy^[7] and served as a member of the Sejm (parliament) from 1989 to 1993.^{[dubious – discuss]} In 1993, he accompanied a convoy of goods into the city of Sarajevo while that city was under siege.^[9]

Edelman was never a Zionist; he was a member of the anti-Zionist socialist^[10][11] Bund and remained firmly Polish, refusing to migrate to Israel.^[10]

In old age, he continued to speak up for the Palestinian as he felt that the Jewish self-defence for which he had fought was in danger of crossing the line into oppression.^[5] In August 2002 Edelman wrote a letter to Palestinians resistance leaders. Though the letter criticized the suicide bombers, its tone infuriated the Israeli government and press. According to The Guardian, "He wrote [the letter] in a spirit of solidarity from a fellow resistance fighter, as a former leader of a Jewish uprising not dissimilar in desperation to the Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories."^[12] He addressed his letter to "To all the leaders of Palestinian military, paramilitary and guerilla organizations - To all the soldiers of Palestinian militant groups".^[13] This set up a howl of rage in the Israeli press, especially that Edelman had consciously used the terms that described the structures of the resistance movement in Warsaw.^[14]

On 17 April 1998 ^[15] Edelman was awarded Poland's highest decoration, the Order of the White Eagle.^[1] He also received the French Legion of Honour.^[2]

Edelman lays flowers in Warsaw in April 2009

Marek Edelman was married to Alina Margolis-Edelman (1922-2008). They had two children Aleksander and Anna.^[2][10] When his wife and children emigrated from Poland to France in the wake of antisemitic actions by the Communist Polish authorities in 1968, Edelman decided to stay in Łódź. He published his memoirs, which have been translated into six languages.^[10] Each April he laid flowers in Warsaw for those he had served with in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.^[2]

Marek Edelman's funeral - Warsaw (Poland), October 9, 2009

Edelman died, aged 90, on 2 October 2009.^[2][3][6] Władysław Bartoszewski, a former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, led the tributes to Edelman, saying: "He reached a good age. He left as a contented man even if he was always aware of the tragedy he went through".^[3][6] He denied that the activist was "irreplaceable" before acknowledging that "there are few people like Marek Edelman".^[3][6] Catholic bishop Tadeusz Pieronek said: "I respect him mostly for the fact that he stayed in this land, which made him fight so hard for his Jewish and Polish identity. He became a real witness, he gave a real testimony with his life".^[16] Former head of Israel's parliament and former Israeli ambassador to Poland Shevah Weiss said: "I'd like to offer my condolences to Marek Edelman's family, to the Polish nation and to the Jewish nation. He was a hero to all of us".^[3] Ian Kelly, an official spokesperson for the United States expressed sympathies and confirmed the United States "stands with Poland as it mourns the loss of a great man".^[17]

^more

Pavel Popovich died he was 78

MOSCOW – Former Soviet cosmonaut Pavel Popovich, the sixth man to go into orbit, has died at age 78.

Boris Yesin of the Russian astronaut training center says Popovich died Wednesday of a stroke in Gurzuf, a resort city on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

Popovich was born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union. The first of his two trips into orbit was in August 1962 as the solo man aboard the Vostok-4 capsule. The launch came a day after another Soviet was launched into orbit, marking the first time that two humans were ever in orbit around the Earth at the same time.

Popovich next went into space a dozen years later in July 1974 as the commander of the two-man Soyuz-14, a 15-day mission to the Salyut space station.

He was the sixth man to orbit the Earth, Pavel Romanovich Popovich died Wednesday, five days before his 79th birthday. According to officials in Russia, his death came following a stroke at a hospital in Gurzuf on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

"Pavel was a wonderful person," recalled first woman in space Valentina Tereshkova, in an interview with RIA Novosti. "A professional cosmonaut, devoted to his work, and he was also a good friend."

The first to be chosen among the Soviet Union's original 20 cosmonaut candidates, Popovich was considered for the country's -- and world's -- first spaceflight, which was ultimately flown by Yuri Gagarin. Instead, he served as capcom for Vostok 1, conveying commands between the ground and Gagarin in space.

Popovich's own first flight came more than a year later in August 1962 aboard Vostok 4. Originally slated for launch as much as nine months earlier, his solo orbital flight was re-planned in an effort to further the Space Race, topping the planned efforts by the United States to launch John Glenn on America's first orbital mission in late 1961.

Although he still launched alone onboard the one-seater spacecraft, Popovich was not the only cosmonaut in orbit on August 12, 1962. Waiting for him was Vostok 3 pilot Andrian Nikolayev, who launched the day before, marking the first time two manned vehicles were in space at the same time.

Although they would come within about 3 miles (5 km) of each other, close enough to see each other's spacecraft, their mission was not to rendezvous, as was incorrectly assumed by press reports. The Vostok capsules were not equipped to maneuver. Instead, the tandem flights were aimed at learning how to manage concurrent missions while further studying the effects of extended spaceflight on the human body.

Nikolayev remained in orbit nearly four days, setting yet another record for the Soviet Union. Popovich might have also flown for four days had it not been for his Vostok failing to maintain its interior temperature, leading to the decision to land after three days.

Popovich himself almost brought his mission to an early end when he reported seeing "thunderstorms," a pre-set codeword he was to use to signal that he was ill. While the ground scrambled in response, Popovich realized his error and radioed to report that he was fine and had really seen lightning over the Gulf of Mexico.

Popovich returned to Earth, ejecting from Vostok 4 and parachuting to the ground as was planned, on August 15, 1962. He successfully completed 48 orbits of the Earth.

It would be more than a decade before he would return to space, in large part due to the failed Soviet effort toward landing cosmonauts on the Moon. Assigned to command one of the lunar missions, Popovich trained for the moon from 1966 through 1968 before being reassigned to fly to the Soviet Union's first military space station in the wake of the lunar program being disbanded.

Popovich's second spaceflight was further delayed when its target, disguised by the civilian name Salyut 2, failed in orbit, losing pressure, flight control and eventually all of its power before reentering in 1973.

Finally on July 3, 1974, Popovich lifted off as commander aboard Soyuz 14, a 16-day mission to what was the first Almaz manned military station, Salyut 3. Together with Yuri Artyukhin, Popovich tested the use of the outpost as a reconnaissance platform using 14 different cameras.

Popovich returned to Earth for the second and last time on July 19, 1974, logging a career total of just under 19 days in orbit as the first ethnic Ukrainian to fly in space.

Popovich remained involved in space exploration beyond his own missions. For nine years beginning in 1980, he served as deputy chief of the cosmonaut training center at Star City, Russia, where he had been the first to report twenty years earlier.

In the late 1980s, Popovich was appointed director for the Russian Institute for Land Ecosystem Monitoring, which develops remote sensing satellites for land management and agriculture.

"I was able to look out of my porthole a lot, and like anyone who looks at the planet from space I realized -- I am convinced -- that the Earth is not the property of any one person or country," recounted Popovich for the 2007 book "Into That Silent Sea" by Colin Burgess and Francis French. "It belongs to us all."

A decorated Major General in the Russian Air Force, he was twice awarded as Hero of the Soviet Union. Popovich lived to see his name lent to an Antarctica mountain ridge and an asteroid.

Bob Stupak has died he was 67

Robert E. "Bob" Stupak^[2] has died he was 67. Stupak was a Las Vegas casino owner and entrepreneur.

(April 6, 1942 – September 25, 2009)

Bob Stupak was the son of Chester and Florence Stupak. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Once the younger Stupak reached legal age, he moved to Las Vegas and started a coupon book venture. He sold books full of two-for-ones and other items. Stupak later moved to Australia to pursue a similar business venture, only to be asked to leave the country for questionable business practices.

While in Australia, Stupak was briefly married to Annette Suna, and they had a daughter, Nicole. From 1971 to 1985, Stupak was married to Sandra Joyce Wilkinson, and had two more children, Nevada and Summer.

Stupak moved to Las Vegas in 1971, eventually raising enough money to acquire a small, 1.5 acres (0.61 ha) parcel north of Sahara Avenue at Las Vegas Boulevard South. On March 31, 1974, Bob Stupak's World Famous Historic Gambling Museum opened for business. "The name was about 10 ft (3.0 m) longer than the casino," Stupak recalled years later. On May 21, an air conditioner caught fire and the building burned down.

In 1979 Stupak opened Vegas World, a casino known for its promotions and new twists on games. At its peak in the mid 1980's, Vegas World grossed $100 million per year.

In 1989, Stupak won a widely publicized million dollar wager on Super Bowl XXIII. Later that year, he won the Deuce to Seven Lowball championship bracelet at the World Series of Poker.

In 1995 Stupak suffered a motorcycle accident, breaking every bone in his face and going into a coma. Although the initial prognosis was that he would not survive, Stupak made a full recovery.

At the time of his motorcycle crash, Stupak was at work developing The Stratosphere, a massive observation tower that would be the largest sign in Las Vegas. The tower opened in late April 1996 at a cost of $550 million but was a financial disaster. Many came to see the tower, but few stopped long enough to gamble, dine or shop. The Stratosphere went bankrupt soon thereafter, was sold, and is now profitable.

Stupak continued to plan Vegas projects, including a purchase of the Moulin Rouge Hotel and a huge hotel shaped like the RMS Titanic, but these endeavors never bore fruit.

Stupak appeared in the first season of the GSN series High Stakes Poker. He also appeared at a final table during the first season of the World Poker Tour.

As of 2008, his total live tournament winnings exceeded $865,000.

Bob Stupak died after a long battle with leukemia on September 25, 2009. He was 67 years old.