John McCarthy, American computer scientist, creator of LISP and the term AI, died from a heart disease he was 84.

John McCarthy ^{[1][2][3][4][5][6]} was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist. He invented the term "artificial intelligence" (AI), developed the Lisp programming language family, significantly influenced the design of the ALGOL programming language, popularized timesharing, and was very influential in the early development of AI.
McCarthy received many accolades and honors, including the Turing Award for his contributions to the topic of AI, the United States National Medal of Science, and the Kyoto Prize.

(September 4, 1927 – October 24, 2011)

Personal life and education

John McCarthy was born in Boston, Massachusetts on September 4, 1927 to an Irish immigrant father and a Lithuanian Jewish immigrant mother,^[7] John Patrick and Ida Glatt McCarthy. The family was obliged to relocate frequently during the Great Depression, until McCarthy's father found work as an organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in Los Angeles, California.
McCarthy was exceptionally intelligent, and graduated from Belmont High School two years early.^[8] He showed an early aptitude for mathematics; during his teens he taught himself college mathematics by studying the textbooks used at the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech). As a result, when McCarthy was accepted into Caltech in 1944, he was able to skip the first two years of mathematics.^[9]
McCarthy was reportedly expelled from Caltech for failure to attend physical education courses;^{[citation needed]} he then served in the US Army and was readmitted, receiving a B.S. in Mathematics during 1948. It was at Caltech that he attended a lecture by John Von Neumann that inspired his future endeavors. McCarthy initially continued his studies at Caltech. He received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Princeton University during 1951 as a student of Solomon Lefschetz.
McCarthy was married three times. His second wife was Vera Watson, a programmer and mountaineer who died during 1978 attempting to scale Annapurna I as part of an all women expedition organised by Arlene Blum. He later married Carolyn Talcott, a computer scientist at Stanford and later SRI International.^[10][11]

Career in computer science

After short-term appointments at Princeton, Stanford University, Dartmouth, and MIT, he became a full professor at Stanford during 1962, where he remained until his retirement at the end of 2000. By the end of his early days at MIT he was already affectionately referred to as "Uncle John" by his students.^[12]
McCarthy championed mathematical logic for artificial intelligence. During 1956, he organized the first international conference to emphasize artificial intelligence. One of the attendees was Marvin Minsky, who became, later, one of the main AI theorists, and joined McCarthy at MIT during 1959.^[8] During the autumn of 1956, McCarthy won an MIT research fellowship. He served on the committee that designed ALGOL, which became a very influential programming language by introducing many new constructs now in common use. During 1958, he proposed the advice taker, which inspired later work on question-answering and logic programming. Around 1959, he invented so-called "garbage collection" methods to solve problems in Lisp.^[13][14] Based on the lambda calculus, Lisp soon became the programming language of choice for AI applications after its publication during 1960.^[15] He helped to motivate the creation of Project MAC at MIT, but left MIT for Stanford University during 1962, where he helped establish the Stanford AI Laboratory, for many years a friendly rival to Project MAC.
During 1961, he was the first to suggest publicly (in a speech given to celebrate MIT's centennial) that computer time-sharing technology might result in a future in which computing power and even specific applications could be sold through the utility business model (like water or electricity). This idea of a computer or information utility was very popular during the late 1960s, but faded by the mid-1990s. However, since 2000, the idea has resurfaced in new forms (see application service provider, grid computing, and cloud computing).
During 1966, McCarthy and his team at Stanford wrote a computer program used to play a series of chess games with counterparts in the Soviet Union; McCarthy's team lost two games and drew two games, see Kotok-McCarthy.
From 1978 to 1986, McCarthy developed the circumscription method of non-monotonic reasoning.
McCarthy is also credited with developing an early form of time-sharing. His colleague Lester Earnest told the Los Angeles Times: "The Internet would not have happened nearly as soon as it did except for the fact that John initiated the development of time-sharing systems. We keep inventing new names for time-sharing. It came to be called servers.… Now we call it cloud computing. That is still just time-sharing. John started it."^[8]
During 1982 he seems to have originated the idea of the "space fountain", a type of tower extending into space and kept vertical by the outward force of a stream of pellets propelled from Earth along a sort of conveyor belt which returns the pellets to Earth (payloads would ride the conveyor belt upward).^[16]
McCarthy often commented on world affairs on the Usenet forums. Some of his ideas can be found in his sustainability Web page,^[17] which is "aimed at showing that human material progress is desirable and sustainable". McCarthy was a serious book reader, an optimist, and a staunch supporter of free speech. His best Usenet interaction is visible in rec.arts.books archives. And John actively attended SF Bay Area dinners in Palo Alto of r.a.b. readers called rab-fests. John went on to defend free speech criticism involving European ethnic jokes at Stanford.
McCarthy saw the importance of mathematics and mathematics education which included a license plate guard on his BMW car noting: those who don't speak math are doomed to speak nonsense (paraphrased). He advised 30 PhD graduates ^[18].
His 2001 short story "The Robot and the Baby"^[19] farcically explored the question of whether robots should have (or simulate having) emotions, and anticipated aspects of Internet culture and social networking that became more prominent during the ensuing decade.^[20]

Awards and honors

• Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (1971).
• Kyoto Prize (1988).
• National Medal of Science (USA) in Mathematical, Statistical, and Computational Sciences (1990)^[21].
• Inducted as a Fellow of the Computer History Museum (1999)
• Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science from the Franklin Institute (2003).
• Inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI's Hall of Fame (2011), for the "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems".^[22][23]

Major publications

• McCarthy, J. 1959. Programs with Common Sense. In Proceedings of the Teddington Conference on the Mechanization of Thought Processes, 756-91. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.
• McCarthy, J. 1960. Recursive functions of symbolic expressions and their computation by machine. Communications of the ACM 3(4):184-195.
• McCarthy, J. 1963a A basis for a mathematical theory of computation. In Computer Programming and formal systems. North-Holland.
• McCarthy, J. 1963b. Situations, actions, and causal laws. Technical report, Stanford University.
• McCarthy, J., and Hayes, P. J. 1969. Some philosophical problems from the standpoint of artificial intelligence. In Meltzer, B., and Michie, D., eds., Machine Intelligence 4. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 463-502.
• McCarthy, J. 1977. Epistemological problems of artificial intelligence. In IJCAI, 1038-1044.
• McCarthy, J. 1980. Circumscription: A form of non-monotonic reasoning. Artificial Intelligence 13(1-2):23-79.
• McCarthy, J. 1986. Applications of circumscription to common sense reasoning. Artificial Intelligence 28(1):89-116.
• McCarthy, J. 1990. Generality in artificial intelligence. In Lifschitz, V., ed., Formalizing Common Sense. Ablex. 226-236.
• McCarthy, J. 1993. Notes on formalizing context. In IJCAI, 555-562.
• McCarthy, J., and Buvac, S. 1997. Formalizing context: Expanded notes. In Aliseda, A.; van Glabbeek, R.; and Westerstahl, D., eds., Computing Natural Language. Stanford University. Also available as Stanford Technical Note STAN-CS-TN-94-13.
• McCarthy, J. 1998. Elaboration tolerance. In Working Papers of the Fourth International Symposium on Logical formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning, Commonsense-1998.
• Costello, T., and McCarthy, J. 1999. Useful counterfactuals. Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence 3(A):51-76
• McCarthy, J. 2002. Actions and other events in situation calculus. In Fensel, D.; Giunchiglia, F.; McGuinness, D.; and Williams, M., eds., Proceedings of KR-2002, 615-628.

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Bronislovas Lubys, Lithuanian entrepreneur and politician, Prime Minister of Lithuania (1992–1993), died from a heart attack he was 73.

Bronislovas Lubys was a Lithuanian entrepreneur, former Prime Minister of Lithuania, signatory of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, and businessman.

(8 October 1938 – 23 October 2011)

Lubys was born in Plungė. He was CEO and main shareholder of the Lithuanian company Achema. As of August 2008, he was the richest Lithuanian, according to the Lithuanian magazine Veidas.^[1]
Lubys died of a heart attack while riding a bicycle in Druskininkai on 23 October 2011.

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Nusrat Bhutto,Iranian-born Pakistani First Lady, widow of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and mother of Benazir Bhutto, died he was 82.

Nusrat Bhutto  was an Iranian-Pakistani who was the wife of the 9th Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, serving as the First Lady of Pakistan during his premiership from 1971 until Bhutto's removal in 1977. She became her husband's successor as the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) from 1979 to 1983. She was also the mother of the first and only female Pakistan Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto.^[1] She died on October 23, 2011 in Dubai due to the effects of Alzheimer's disease. Nusrat Bhutto was buried next to the grave of her husband Zulfikar Ali Bhutto at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto graveyard on October 25, 2011.^[2] In Pakistan, Nusrat Bhutto is remembered for her contribution to empowerment of women in Pakistan and for advocating for democracy in Pakistan, for which she is dubbed as "Māder-e-Jamhooriat (English Mother of Democracy), a title she was honored with by the Parliament of Pakistan following her death.^[3]

( March 23, 1929 – October 23, 2011)

Background

Nusrat Ispahnie was born in 1929 in Esfahan, Iran, hailing from the wealthy Hariri Esfahani family in Esfahan. She was said to be of Kurdish descent.^[1][4] However, the Kurdish connection only comes from her grandmother who had married into the Hariri family.^[1] Her father was a wealthy Iranian businessman who migrated to Karachi, Pakistan before partition.^[1] Before emigrating to Pakistan, Nusrat attended and was educated at the University of Isfahan where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Humanities in 1950.^[1] Nusrat met Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Karachi where they got married on September 8, 1951.^[1] She was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's second wife, and they had four children together: Benazir, Murtaza, Sanam and Shahnawaz. With the exception of Sanam, she outlived her children. Benazir's widower and Nusrat's son-in-law Asif Ali Zardari is currently serving as the President of Pakistan.

Family and political career

As first lady from 1973–77,^[1] she functioned as a political hostess and accompanied her husband on a number of overseas visits. In 1979, after the trial and execution of her husband, she succeeded her husband as leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party as chairman for life. She led the PPP's campaign against General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's regime. Alongside her daughter Benazir Bhutto, she was arrested numerous times and placed under house arrest and in prison in Sihala. Nusrat Bhutto was attacked by police with batons while attending a cricket match at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, when the crowd began to raise pro Bhutto slogans.
In 1982, ill with cancer, she was given permission to leave the country by the military government of Genera Zia-ul-Haq for medical treatment in London at which point her daughter, Benazir Bhutto, became acting leader of the party, and, by 1984, the party chairman.^[5][6]
After returning to Pakistan in the late 1980s, she served two terms as a Member of Parliament to the National Assembly from the family constituency of Larkana, Sindh.
During the administrations of her daughter Benazir, she became a cabinet minister and Deputy Prime Minister. In the 1990s, she and Benazir became estranged when Nusrat took the side of her son Murtaza during a family dispute but were later reconciled after Murtaza's murder. She lived the last few years of her life with her daughter's family in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and later suffered from the combined effects of a stroke and Alzheimer's disease.^[1]

Illness and death

Bhutto was suspected of suffering from cancer in 1982, the year when she left Pakistan for medical treatment. For the last several years of her life, she had also been suffering from Alzheimer's disease. In the mid-1990s, particularly after the death of her son Mir Murtaza Bhutto in 1996, she withdrew from public life. Party sources suggest this may also have coincided with the time that she began to show symptoms of Alzheimer’s.^{[citation needed]}
According to her senior party leader, Bhutto's disease was so advanced that she did not even know of the assassination of her daughter, Benazir. She used a ventilator until her death on October 23, 2011. Her body was flown to her hometown of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in Larkana District the next day, and was buried next to her husband and children in the Bhutto family mausoleum at a ceremony attended by thousands of mourners.


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Ed Thompson, American politician, Mayor of Tomah, Wisconsin (2008–2010), and gubernatorial candidate, died from pancreatic cancer he was 66.

Allan Edward "Ed" Thompson  was an American businessman and politician. He served as Mayor of Tomah, Wisconsin for two non-consecutive terms, and was the Libertarian candidate for Governor of Wisconsin in 2002, receiving 11% of the vote in that race. He was elected to his first term as mayor of Tomah in April 2000, with 58% of the vote. He was again elected mayor of Tomah on April 1, 2008, by nearly a 2 to 1 margin against the incumbent, Charles Ludeking.^[3]

(December 25, 1944 – October 22, 2011)

Early life, education, and business career

Thompson was born in Elroy, Wisconsin. A graduate of Royall High School (1963), he was active in the drama department and competed in football, basketball, and track. After high school, Ed briefly attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison before enlisting in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. After being honorably discharged from the Navy, he married Kathy Nelson; the couple settled in Elroy and had four children: Ann Marie, Kristin Beth, Allan Edward “Chip” Thompson, and Joshua Thompson.
Thompson was the owner of the Tee-Pee supper club, a restaurant in Tomah,^[4] and was the subject of the documentary A Remarkable Man.^[5] His older brother, Tommy Thompson, a Republican, was formerly Governor of Wisconsin and United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Political experience

Tomah politics

In 2000, he defeated incumbent Mayor Bud Johnson with 57% of the vote. He served only one two-year term.
On April 5, 2005, Thompson won an unexpected victory in the common council election in Tomah, Wisconsin. Thompson was not running for the position but was, unknown to him, the subject of a write-in campaign. He would receive 31 of 34 votes. His "opponent", John Buick, received one vote from Thompson himself. Thompson initially declined to accept the position, but later reconsidered. He was sworn in on April 15, 2005, and served two years on the Tomah common council.^[6]
In 2008, Thompson took the place of outgoing Mayor Ludeking, whom he defeated in the mayoral election on April 1 by nearly a 2-1 margin. Thompson was sworn in to office for his second (non-consecutive) two-year term as mayor of Tomah on April 15, 2008.^[7]

2002 gubernatorial campaign

Main article: Wisconsin gubernatorial election, 2002

Thompson became the Libertarian party nominee in April and ran against Democrat Jim Doyle, the state Attorney General, and incumbent Republican Governor Scott McCallum, former Lieutenant Governor who had assumed the office in 2001 after Governor Tommy Thompson left to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The 2002 governor's race is considered by some to have been the most negative campaign in the state's history.^[who?] In response, Thompson publicly critical of the negative campaigning of both major party candidates, who became a more viable option for some voters,^{[citation needed]} garnered 10% of the vote. Doyle won the election with a plurality of 45% of the vote. He became the first Democratic governor in the state since Anthony Earl was defeated in 1986. Doyle was sworn in on January 6, 2003 at the State Capitol in Madison.

2010 State Senate campaign

Thompson announced in October 2009 that he would run as a Republican for the 31st district Wisconsin State Senate seat in 2010, against incumbent Kathleen Vinehout. The 31st District includes all of Trempealeau, Buffalo, Jackson and Pepin counties, and parts of Monroe, Pierce, Dunn, Eau Claire and Clark counties.^[8] On November 2, 2010, Vinehout defeated Thompson, who was still campaigning for the office, despite being recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2010.^[9] On November 9, 2010, he requested a recount with only 352 votes separating Thompson from Vinehout.^[10] On November 19, 2010, he conceded the election to Vinehout.^[11]

Death

Ed Thompson died of pancreatic cancer on October 22, 2011, in Tomah.^[12][13]

Electoral history

2002 race for Governor

• Jim Doyle (D), 45%
• Scott McCallum (R) (inc.), 41%
• Ed Thompson (Lib.), 11%

2008 race for Mayor of Tomah

• Ed Thompson (L), 66%
• Charles Ludeking (Independent) (Inc.), 34%

2010 race for 31st District State Senator

• Kathleen Vinehout (D) (Inc.), 50.27%
• Ed Thompson (R), 49.61%

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Sultan, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Saudi royal, Minister of Defense and Aviation (since 1962) and Crown Prince (since 2005), died he was 83.

Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud  was the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, from 2005 to 2011.

(30 December 1930 – 21 October 2011)

Early life and education

Sultan was born in Riyadh. He was the 12th son of King Abdulaziz^[1] and his mother was Hassa bint Ahmed Al Sudairi (1900–1969). As such he was one of Sudairi Seven. Sultan, along with many of his brothers, received his early education in religion, modern culture, and diplomacy at the royal court.

Early experience

His career in public service began in 1947 when he was appointed governor of Riyadh, whose main task is resolving the disputes among the 7.000 members of royal family.^[2] In 1947, he oversaw ARAMCO's construction of the Kingdom's rail link between Dammam and Riyadh. Sultan was appointed as the kingdom’s first Minister of Agriculture in 1953 and Minister of Transport in 1955.^[2]
Although his direct military experience was brief, heading the Royal Guard in Riyadh in the early 1950s, he felt a lifelong connection to the military and the cause of Saudi independence from an early age.^[3] Major General Carl Von Horn, Swedish commander of the UN observer mission during the Yemeni civil war, described the Prince as "a volatile and emotional young man" in the early days.^[3]

Minister of Defense and Aviation

In 1962, King Faisal appointed Prince Sultan as Minister of Defense and Aviation. He presided over the development of the Saudi armed forces.
Sultan purchased U.S. tanks, fighter planes, missiles and AWACS (airborne warning and control systems). However, as a result of problems assimilating technology within its armed forces, a relatively high proportion of the military equipment is stored or under maintenance, despite a large portion of Saudi's $34 billion defense budget being spent on maintaining military equipment. Sultan allegedly became extraordinarily wealthy from kickbacks by Western businesses that handled multibillion-dollar defense contracts.^[4] He was involved in many scandals, including the Al Yamamah deal.^[5] However, his influence remained unhindered until his health began to deteriorate.^[5] During his tenure, Saudi Arabia became the largest importer of U.S. arms. He was a strong proponent of U.S.-Saudi partnership.^[6]
As well, Sultan authorized a deal with the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) in 1965. His program, called Operation Magic Carpet, traded £16 million for six second-hand Lightnings^{[disambiguation needed]}, six Hawker Hunters, and a set of missile launchers going to Royal Saudi Air Force. Geoffrey Edwards^{[disambiguation needed]} served as the official intermediary. British pilots also came over, privately contracted.^[3]
Prince Sultan was an expert on the Yemen civil war and Soviet involvement in the Horn of Africa in 1985.^[7]
In 1996, Prince Sultan opposed Pentagon plans to relocate U.S. troops to safer locations after the Dhahran complex bombings.^[8]

Second Deputy Prime Minister

In 1982, King Fahd appointed Prince Sultan as Second Deputy Prime Minister.
Opposition to his appointment as second deputy prime minister came in particular from two other half brothers, Musaid and Bandar, both of whom, like Abdullah, were born in 1923 and therefore, were older than Prince Sultan, who was born in 1924. The protestations of Prince Musaid could be ignored because it was his son who had assassinated King Faisal. But the interests of Bandar bin Abdulaziz were more difficult to disregard. However, he was compensated and the dispute was eliminated.^[9]

Crown Prince

Styles of Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud
Reference style	His Royal Highness[10]
Spoken style	Your Royal Highness

On 1 August 2005, Sultan bin Abdulaziz was designated heir apparent despite having a discord with King Abdullah.^[11]

Various positions

Prince Sultan was Saudi Arabia's Inspector General. He was Chairman of the Board of Saudi Arabia's national airline, Saudi Arabian Airlines. As Chairman, he approved a ban on smoking inside all Saudi airports.^[12] In 1986, he founded the Saudi National Commission for Wildlife Conservation.^[13]

Scientific prizes sponsored by Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz

• Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz prize for water. He was the founder and patron of the Prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz International Prize for Water, a bi-annual international scientific award for water research.^[14]
• Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Chair for environmental engineering, department of civil engineering, King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals. It is the first chair in the university.
• The scientific agreement between Prince Sultan bin Abdullaziz and Oxford University for academic and cultural co-operation, which enables Saudi students for bachelor, master and PHD degrees in the field of human sciences.^[15]

Charity works

A non-profit charity organization, Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud Foundation, was set up and funded by Prince Sultan in 1995 for social objectives. The foundation includes the following centers in different countries:

• • Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Humanitarian City^[16]
  • Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Science and Technology Center
  • Charity housing projects
  • Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Special Education Program at the Arabian Gulf University in Bahrain
  • Prince Sultan Center for Speech and Hearing in Bahrain
  • King Abdulaziz Center for Islamic Studies at Bologna University
  • Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Arab and Islamic Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley

• Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Private: Committee for Relief.

This private committee organizes relief and medical convoys and sets up camps to combat diseases like Malaria and blindness. It has carried out several developmental, social and medical projects, like, digging wells, building schools, public libraries, mosques, hospitals, establishing dialysis centers. It also sponsors Muslim preachers in Ethiopia, Chad, Niger, Malawi, Mali, Comoro Islands, Djibouti and Indonesia.^[17]

Controversy

Donations

In April 2005, Sultan donated £2 million to the Ashmolean Museum. This is regarded as one of the most controversial donations Oxford University received. A year after his donations to establish an art museum, Oxford University agreed to ‘expedite’ the scholarship application process for Saudi students, and identify colleges for ten Saudi students from Prince Sultan University (PSU). When this arrangement became public, it led to criticism from both academics and students stating that it was no academic worth to the university, bypassing Oxford’s governing council, and breaching the admissions process for prospective students.^[18]
A press release issued by Oxford University on 20 April 2005, said that:

HRH Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud has given the Ashmolean Museum a substantial donation to provide a fitting home for the Museum’s internationally renowned collection of Islamic art. The total value of the gift is £2 million, which will also provide for ten scholarships at the University of Oxford for Saudi Arabian students.

The press release added further that ‘the new gallery, part of the ambitious redevelopment of one of the world’s oldest museums, will be named the “Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud Gallery”’. Arab News on 21 April 2005 reported that Sultan’s donation was a ‘move to promote understanding between Islam and the West’, adding that ‘Saudi and British officials’ had said that the new gallery ‘will help to portray Islamic culture and civilization in right perspectives.’^[18]

Personal life

Prince Sultan has thirty-two children by his multiple wives. His eldest son Khalid, after Sultan's death, was assigned as the Deputy Minister of Defence.^[3] His other son Bandar is secretary-general of the National Security Council since 2005. Fahd, another son of him, is Governor of Tabuk Province. Salman (born 1976), another son of him, is assistant secretary-general of the National Security Council.^[19] Faisal, his fourth eldest son, is the Secretary General of Sultan bin Abdulaziz al Saud Foundation.^[20]
His other sons are Faisal, Turki, Nayef, Badr, Mohammed, Saud, Ahmad, Nawwaf, Abdullah, Mishaal, Mansour, Fawwaz, Abdulmajid and Abdul Ilah.
One of his daughters, Reema, is married to Muhammad bin Nayef, son of the late Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz.^[21] His other daughter is married to Turki bin Nasser. One of his daughters, Munira who was late Faisal bin Fahd's spouse died in June 2011.^[22]

Wives

• Monera bint Abdul Aziz bin Mousad al Saud (deceased), mother of Khalid, Fahd, Faisal and Turki
• Huda bint Abdullah al Shaikh, mother of Saud, Nayef, Nawwaf, Badr
• Areej bint Salem al Maree
• Jowaher bint Mohammed bin Saud bin Nasser al Farhan al Saud (divorced)
• Mouda bint Saud al Kabeer al Saud (divorced)
• Mounira bint Machaal bin Saud al Rashid (deceased)
• Leila bint Thanian al Saud (divorced)
• Mouda bint Salman al Mandeel al Khaldi (divorced)
• Ghadir bint Shawaan al Shibani (divorced)
• Maha bint Abdullah al Binyan (divorced)
• Abir bint Fahd al Faisal al Farhan al Saud, mother of Fawaz (divorced)

Characteristics

He was regarded as a workaholic with a reputation as "the epitomy of corruption". His lavish spending is legendary: he doles out money at banquets in keeping with tribal custom. A conservative expected to put a brake on Abdullah's timid reforms assuming he becomes king. He was considered to be a pro-American whose son, Prince Bandar, is a former US envoy.^[23]

Wealth

Prince Sultan’s fortune is estimated at $270 billion, which he distributed between his sons prior to his death in October 2011 in order to shore up their political position in the competitive princely arena.^[24][25]

Health issues

Sultan was rumored to have had colon cancer in 2003. A foreign correspondent was forced to leave the country after reporting his health problems.^[26]
In 2004, Sultan was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent several corrective surgeries. He underwent an operation to remove an intestinal polyp.^[27] In April 2009, he started to suffer from Alzheimer's disease.^[28][29]
A leaked March 2009 diplomatic cable from WikiLeaks stated that U.S. diplomats viewed Prince Sultan as "for all intents and purposes incapacitated".^[30] He was possibly suffering dementia, specifically Alzheimer's disease.^[31]
He spent several months in New York City at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital and underwent surgery. He then convalesced at Agadir, Morocco, and remained abroad most of the time, undergoing medical treatments.^[32]

Morocco vacation

In February 2009, Sultan underwent surgery in New York. He then convalesced at Agadir, Morocco. He went back to Saudi Arabia, but soon returned to Morocco in August 2009. During his vacation, the Saudi cabinet increased officer salaries, a traditional domain of Sultan.^[33]
In 2009, King Abdullah took charge of all defense purchases and reduced the power of the Defense Ministry. In October 2010, Abdullah personally conducted much of the negotiations for the U.S. arms package worth over $60 billion.^[34]
In November 2010, Sultan received Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri to discuss the future of Lebanon's government.^[35] He had been receiving treatment since 2009 for what analysts and diplomats believed to be cancer.^[36] At the end of November 2010, he returned to Saudi Arabia because King Abdullah left for the United States for surgery. His return was seen as a legal formality necessary under Saudi law, which stipulates that only one of the kingdom's top two officials can be abroad at a given time.^[37]

Death

According to a statement made by the Saudi Royal court on 22 October 2011, Sultan died at dawn of an unspecified illness.^[38] According to media reports, Sultan had been battling cancer and had been seeking medical treatment in the United States since June 2011.^[39][40] Unnamed U.S. officials cited by the The New York Times stated that he died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.^[41]
His funeral was held at the Imam Turki bin Abdullah mosque in Riyadh on 26 October 2011, in the presence of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz.^[39]

Views

Sultan took a lifetime anti-communist and anti-Soviet view, based on his dislike of Soviet state atheism as well as Soviet interest in Gulf oil and access to ports that he felt risked Saudi independence. He rebuked U.S. President Jimmy Carter for what he saw as "pusillanimity" in the face of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.^[3]
In a 23 October 2001 interview in Kuwaiti newspaper As Seyassa, concerning 9/11 attacks, Sultan stated “Who stands behind this terrorism and who carried out this complicated and carefully planned terrorist operation? Osama bin Laden and those with him have said what indicates that they stand behind this carefully planned act. We, in turn, ask: Are bin Laden and his supporters the only ones behind what happened or is there another power with advanced technical expertise that acted with them?”.^[42]


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Roy Smalley, Jr., American baseball player (Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Braves, Philadelphia Phillies), died he was 85.

Roy Frederick Smalley, Jr. was a shortstop in Major League Baseball. From 1948 through 1958, Smalley played for the Chicago Cubs (1948–1953), Milwaukee Braves (1954) and Philadelphia Phillies (1955–1958). He batted and threw right-handed. In an 11-season career, Smalley was a .227 hitter with 61 home runs and 305 RBI in 872 games played. Smalley was the father of fellow major league shortstop Roy Smalley III.

(June 9, 1926 – October 22, 2011) 

Early career

Smalley was signed at age 17 by the Cubs as an amateur free agent out of Springfield Catholic High School. He began his professional career that season with the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League, where he batted just .188 in 61 games. After missing a year while serving in World War II, Smalley was moved down to the Shelby Cubs for the 1946 season. By the end of the year, he was back with the Angels.
In 1947, Smalley spent the entire season with the class-A Des Moines Bruins, where he batted .244 in 114 games. He was impressive enough that in 1948 he was given the starting shortstop job with the major league Cubs, replacing incumbent Lennie Merullo, who was sent to the minors himself for the season. Smalley remained the Cubs' primary shortstop for the remainder of his tenure with the team.

1950: An eventful year

Smalley's best season statistically was 1950. He posted career highs in home runs (21), RBI (85), runs (58), hits (128) and doubles (21), including hitting for the cycle on June 28. He struck out a league-leading 114 times. He made 51 errors (the last time a player made at least 50), but he also led NL shortstops in total chances per game, as he had in 1949, and in double plays.
During the 1950 season, Smalley married Jolene Mauch, sister of former teammate Gene Mauch, in Brookline, Massachusetts while the team was in Boston playing the Boston Braves on August 5. Smalley played a game later that day, going 0-for-5.^[1] Their son Roy III, born in 1952, went on to play shortstop himself, playing for several teams from 1975 until 1987, including several years for the Minnesota Twins when Mauch was their manager.

Replaced by Mr. Cub

Smalley was also the last regular shortstop for the Cubs prior to the debut of "Mr. Cub", Ernie Banks. Smalley appeared in 77 games at short during the 1953 season, more than any other Cubs player. Banks debuted on September 17 and started the last 10 games of the season. Smalley was traded to the Braves the following February for pitcher Dave Cole.

Retirement and managerial career

After being released by the Phillies in 1958, Smalley played for a while longer in the minor leagues, retiring after the 1960 season, which he spent with the Spokane Indians in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization. He was named manager of the class-C Reno Silver Sox in 1961, and he managed the team to a first-place finish in the California League in his first season. In 1962, the team slipped into a tie for third place, and Smalley was let go.


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Robert Pierpoint, American broadcast journalist, died from complications from surgery he was 86.

Robert Pierpoint  was an American broadcast journalist who worked for CBS News.

(May 16, 1925 – October 22, 2011)

Born in Redondo Beach, California, Pierpoint served in the United States Navy during World War II. In 1948, he graduated from University of Redlands.^[1] Before becoming one of CBS' White House correspondents, Pierpoint covered the Korean War and appeared on the first edition of See It Now in 1951. On November 22, 1963 he was riding in press bus #1 in the Dallas motorcade for President Kennedy when the president was assassinated.^[2] He also covered the State Department for CBS, and appeared frequently on Charles Kuralt's Sunday Morning broadcasts until his retirement.
As a close associate of Edward R. Murrow on radio and television, he was seen as having been a member of the second generation of Murrow's Boys. He is also remembered for playing himself, on the radio, in the final episode of M*A*S*H.
In all, Pierpoint served as White House correspondent for six presidential administrations, from Eisenhower to Carter. His memoirs from this period are detailed in his book, At the White House (1981).

Family

Pierpoint and his wife, Patricia Adams Pierpoint, had four children, including actor Eric Pierpoint, and five grandchildren.


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