Michael J. Ybarra dies at 45

Michael J. Ybarra, a former Times reporter who recently told his adventures in extreme sports for The Wall Street Journal, was killed in a climbing fall during the weekend at the edge of Yosemite National Park. Was 45.

An experienced climber, was left alone to cross the rocky crest of the Eastern Sierra and the summit of Matterhorn Peak Sawtooth 12.280 feet before falling to about 200 meters until he died, said his sister, Suzanne Ybarra.

His family reported his disappearance on Sunday, a rescue team and realized that his body on Tuesday in a rugged area of ??difficult access by foot, according to Kari Cobb, a park ranger. His body was found on a hillside, said his sister.

"He died doing what he loved most," he wrote in his Facebook page.

In a statement, the Wall Street Journal Ybarra called "an outstanding journalist. According to the best traditions of his profession has enlightened and engaged readers in a wide range of topics in a clear and lively prose."

Although their activities outdoors often are inherently dangerous, often made jokes about their fears and sometimes face in his writings. A piece he wrote in May last year for the Journal of whitewater kayaking with the title: "When death is only one stroke Away."

That same month, Ybarra, wrote about how "he straddled the edge of the knife between caution and confidence" before the fall frosts during the climb mountains near Bozeman, Montana.

"Climbing a mountain is a serious thing," he wrote in the Journal. "Mistakes have consequences - for you and your partner awake at night wondering if I wanted to go to a rock climbing gym or finding the most sensitive sports like table tennis" ..

About five years ago, in essence, Ybarra decided to live on the road and his car to follow her passion for adventure, said Bret Israel, Sunday Calendar editor of The Times, who met the writer When Ybarra interned in the Metro department of the end of 1980.

Ybarra was also the author of a biography noted, "Washington Gone Crazy", which arose from the report by The Times. The book tells the story of Pat McCarran, a former senator from Nevada who has exercised his power during the anticommunist hysteria of the 1950.

When time was called one of the best books of 2004, the reviewer pronounced "master," said Ybarra and "meticulously recounts McCarran rise to power" in creating "... an indispensable tool nuanced assessment" of a period in recent history.

The biography also was a finalist for the Times Book Prize 2005.

Michael Jay Ybarra was September 28, 1966, in Los Angeles to Eugene Ybarra, Los Angeles Unified School District administrator, and his wife Lillie, a social worker.

During his senior year at UCLA, political science major at times started practice in 1988 one year that included a stint with the Washington Office.

After earning a degree in political science from UC Berkeley in the 1990, Ybarra held various practices and spent four years working for The Wall Street Journal, but took advantage of the limitations of a full time job in a large organization.

As a freelance writer, Ybarra has contributed to numerous publications, including The Times, where he wrote about nature and art in the West for over two decades.

One of his recent articles in The Times about an exhibition in Venice, photo gallery of the Eastern Sierra, will be published on Sunday.

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Classic Ferraris Designer Sergio Pininfarina dies at 85

Sergio Pininfarina, which led to a family known for its elegant designs Ferraris and other cars, has died. He was 85 years.

Pininfarina died Monday night at his home in Turin, the company announced Tuesday. No cause was given.

The company was founded in 1930, the cars designed by Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Cadillac, Rolls-Royce and Volvo, but is more closely associated with Ferrari, designing nearly all models in 1950.

The design of the house was founded by his father, Battista "Pinin" Farina, who later changed his surname to Pininfarina.

Sergio Pininfarina was born September 8, 1926, in Turin and joined the family business after earning a degree in mechanical engineering at Turin Polytechnic in 1950. It became general manager in 1960, CEO in 1961 and president in 1966, when his father died.

Pininfarina has transformed the business from a boutique producer of hand crafted designs in high volume production that have maintained the beauty of Italian design of automobiles.

In early 1950 the company was less than 1,000 cars a year. Sorted by Pininfarina, the production increased to over 50,000 a year.

Among the cars were popular, the company designed the Fiat 124 Sport Spider and Alfa Romeo Spider. E 'was also responsible for Ferrari floor, high-performance sports cars, including 250 and 500 and the Dino, Daytona, and the 356 Modena.

Each car has withstood the scrutiny of Pininfarina.

"No design, unique design, unique style that leaves the factory without my approval," he told The Christian Science Monitor in 1981.

And it raises the design of major importance in car manufacturing.

"Frankly, I think that trying to minimize the importance of the aesthetic appearance of a car just because they do not design cars can be beautiful," he said in a speech in 1977.

In an interview with The Times the following year, he said, "You're talking to a man who is enamored of cars ....

"Ferrari 12-cylinder is, well, like a cathedral. You go in and pray. Instead of Brahms, feel the Vroom, Vroom!"

Pininfarina has resigned to become honorary president of the company in 2006 and was also named an Italian senator for life.

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Actor Andy Griffith dies at 86

Andy Griffith, actor tempering the South so fascinated the public for over 50 years on Broadway, in film, on record, especially on television - especially as the sheriff of the small town in the sitcom long duration that bears his name - died Tuesday at home in Roanoke Island, North Carolina.

He was 86 years.

His death was confirmed by the Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie.

Griffith was already a star with rave reviews on Broadway in "No time for sergeants" and Elia Kazan movie "A Face in the crowd" when "The Andy Griffith Show" made its debut in autumn of 1960. He loved a later generation of viewers in 1980 and 90 in the role of legal drama "Matlock."

But his fame has never been as great as it was in 1960 when he starred for eight years as Andy Taylor, Commissioner of intelligent fiction southern town of Mayberry, current herd includes a weekly eccentric as his deputy ineffective Barney Fife and the ingenuity of the gas station attendant Gomer Pyle and, as a widower, patiently raising a young son, Opie.

"The Andy Griffith," Monday night on CBS was No. 4 ranking in the Nielsen its first year and never fell below the Top 10. It was No. 1 in 1968, his last season. After the race ended with episode No. 249, the show lived series spin-off, endless repetition and even Sunday school classes organized around their moral lessons rustic.

The show imagined a world soothing soak holes, ice cream social events and rock hard for over a decade of family values ​​that has grown increasingly turbulent. His vision of rural simplicity is part of a trend that began with the TV show "The McCoy" on ABC in 1957 and later included "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Green Acres", "Petticoat Junction" and "Hee Haw".

But at the end of 1960, the networks have appreciated younger viewers Cornpone despised, and Andy decided to go to the movies after the 1966-67 season. CBS made a very lucrative offer for him to do another season, and "The Andy Griffith Show" has become the No. 1 series in the 1967-68 season.

But Mr. Griffith had decided to go ahead, and so also the spirit of the age. "Rowan & Martin Laugh-In" with his statements about drugs and Vietnam, and "The Mod Squad", an integrated police force, have been grabbing a new generation of viewers.

But the characters of "The Andy Griffith Show" - Barney (Don Knotts), Gomer (Jim Nabors), Opie (Ron Howard), Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), and the rest, including Gomer Pyle's cousin Goober (George Lindsey, who died in May) - has remained temptadorament real lovers who still collect online and sometimes in person at the club fans to see replays.

Andy Griffith was much more complex than Andy Taylor and his fellow residents of Mayberry, but the show was based in his hometown, Mount Airy, North Carolina

Since the initiative in the Elia Kazan movie "A Face in the crowd" in 1957, the story of a TV character who becomes a crude power-mad megalomaniac, Mr. Griffith has authenticity to their roles given a dark intelligent.

From 1970 to 1990, Mr. Griffith has starred in six films with the "murder" or "kill" in their titles. In 1983, in "Murder in County Cowetta" has played an evil man who is terribly cold stone while he was tied to the electric chair.

Mr. Griffith, the fans probably imagined as a taujà happy, but he liked the life in Hollywood and he knew his way around a wine list.

His career was controlled by a personal manager, Richard O. Linke, which prohibited Mr. Griffith to request the views of anyone, not even his wife.

"If there is ever a question about something, I'll do what he wants me to do," Griffith said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine in 1970. "If not for him I would have gone to the toilet."

Far from relaxing, sociable Taylor, slurred Andy, Mr. Griffith was a lonely and anxious. When you reach a door in anger, and two episodes of the second season of "The Andy Griffith Show" had a bandaged hand (explained in the program as Sheriff Taylor suffered an injury while stopping criminals).

But the 35 million viewers of "The Andy Griffith Show" was reassuring to know that, even at the height of his popularity, Mr. Griffith was driving a Ford pickup truck and bought the clothes hanger. He said that his honor is preferred, 10-mile stretch of road in North Carolina that bears his name in 2002. (That was before President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.

As TV Guide reporter put it in an article in 1963 about the popularity of the series: "The dialogue - read with joy by Griffith intelligent, uncompromising seriousness Knotts - requires an exceptionally high level of performance of comedy and solid understanding of the subtleties of character. "

Considered the driving force behind the series, Griffith was heavily involved with the production of the show and helped shape the script and characters.

George Lindsey, who joined the series in 1965 as Goober, told the Times in 1993: "He is probably the best script constructionist who ever lived." Griffith added, "I found 110% since we took him to his level."

Ron Howard, who grew up to become one of Hollywood directors, Griffith believes that "such a wonderful guy for me."

Howard told People magazine in 1986 that Griffith "created an atmosphere of fun and hard work to try to make my films."

When Griffith and most of the major cast members met to "Return to Mayberry" in 1986, was one of television's top rated movie of the year.

"The backbone of our show is love," Griffith once said. "There's something Mayberry and Mayberry folk who do not leave you."

The small town atmosphere represented in Mayberry was not far from his childhood Griffith in Mount Airy, North Carolina, a small village at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he was born on 1 June 1926.

An only child, Griffith grew up singing and playing guitar with his mother. He learned to tell funny stories of his father, who made their living modestly in Mount Airy Furniture Co.

Griffith holds a BA in music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and dreamed of becoming a professional singer on stage. On a whim, she auditioned for a campus production of Gilbert and Sullivan "The gondolers".

"I liked it," Griffith recalled in a 1996 interview with National Public Radio. "I had two songs, both alone. I have received good reviews. He said I had a great time and represented the comedy is leading all the Gilbert and Sullivan did while I was there."

After graduating in 1949, Griffith teaches music at a high school in Goldsboro, NC, but he and his first wife, Barbara, singer and musician who was a member of the university theater group, continued to perform at Carolina North annual popular outdoor theater, "The Lost Colony" at Roanoke Island.

One thing that has always bothered Griffith was recruiting people that their interpretation of Sheriff Taylor was practically the same game. He said not only was devoted to the creation of a character designed for the small town sheriff, but also co-wrote almost every episode - even if not received credit for writing.

"You're supposed to believe in the character," said Griffith. "You must not think: 'Hey, Andy makes a storm."

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Jazz Trumpeter Abram Wilson Dies at 38

Abram Wilson, a jazz trumpeter and acclaimed American composer from New Orleans, which helped a new generation of jazz artists in Britain, playing a kind of cultural attaché of the cradle of jazz, died on 9 June in London. He was 38 years.

He died several days after stopping a series of concerts and recording equipment in a hospital with stomach pains, his wife, Jennie Cashman, said the London Evening Standard newspaper. The cause was cancer, said his wife.

Mr. Wilson, who grew up in New Orleans and its rich musical traditions hybrid was known for his combination of musical forms - Quicksilver mix of bebop, with storms of hip-hop songs of Stevie Wonder sang with the heart of his modest voice Domingo.

He wove into the plot of his most ambitious music. The autobiographical concept album of 2007, "Ride! Wheel to the Modern Day Delta," for example, was a kind of work of a jazz trumpeter who tries to escape his roots to become a jazz superstar hip-hop, but returns to "sometimes to the extreme.

While British make a series of awards to his work, including the BBC Jazz Award for best new CD in 2007, Mr. Wilson has demonstrated a commitment to their roots of jazz Americans often faced with a fervor almost missionary, music critics, he said.

On stage, between numbers, sometimes gave impromptu lessons in the history of the many streams that flowed into the jazz music of New Orleans.

In cities where loans are made English, who often took his hand in schools to talk about the history of music, teaching the basics of improvisation and give you a flavor of the music of many They had never heard.

"I speak of the story - how people were brought from Africa to work on cotton plantations in America, and how the blues was created, and how he brought jazz," said an interview with a British newspaper in 2008. "Jazz is so different. People should be introduced to it."

Jason Toynbee, an expert on immigration cultural influences at the Open University of London, has described Mr. Wilson as a figure "very important" in the British music scene of jazz known as Black. "Approaching jazz as a form of music in evolution, but also as an important cultural force in history," he said in an interview last week.

In a melting pot of British jazz musicians from Europe, the Caribbean and Africa, added Mr. Toynbee, Mr. Wilson has seen his role, at least in part, as a representative of the American sensibility.

Abram Wilson was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, August 30, 1973, the eldest of six children of Doris and Willie Wilson. After his family moved to New Orleans, was inspired to learn the trumpet, with local musicians to visit their school.

But he credited his parents with his decision to make music his profession. When I was a teenager, said he told his father that he was considering becoming a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer. His father replied: "You know what I will take a screen test."

Mr. Wilson attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. also studied there), and graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University before receiving a master in performance and composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.

In New York, he formed his own quartet and played with trumpeter Roy Hargrove Big Band, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and rhythm and blues singer Ruth Brown.

After moving to London in 2002, Mr. Wilson has made three albums for the records of dunes, the British jazz: "Jazz Warrior" (2004), "! Ride ferris wheel to the Modern Day Delta "(2007) and" Life Tables "(2009).

He is survived by his wife, his parents, four brothers, a sister and his grandmother, Oradell Barker.

Had just finished and started to run a jazz suite life of Philippa Schuyler, an American piano prodigy, born black father and white mother, who visited the country in 1930 and '40, I was disappointed by American racism and died in 1967 at a charity mission in Vietnam in 35 years.

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Yitzhak Shamir-Former Israeli Prime Minister Dies at 96

Yitzhak Shamir was a fighter for the Jews long before the creation of Israel, an underground leader who led the militia against the British and the Arabs.

Did not make excuses and no compromises - not as an underground fighter, a Secret Service agent who hunted the Nazis, and as one of the longest serving prime ministers of Israel refused to negotiate for land.

The 96-year-old Shamir, who has attacked all my life to the belief that Israel should hang in the territory and never trust an Arab regime, died Saturday at a nursing home in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. The Israeli press said Shamir had suffered from Alzheimer's disease in recent years.

Israeli Prime Minister Shamir was, seventh, serving as prime minister for seven years, 1983-84 and 1986-92, leading his party to victory in the elections twice, despite the lack of much of the charisma outward characteristic of many modern politicians. A little over 5 feet (1.52 meters) tall and built like a block of granite, has projected an image of strength unhindered during the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israel in the West Bank and Gaza.

His time in office was turbulent, marked by massive airlift thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, the Palestinian uprising and the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraq launched 39 Scud missiles against Israel.

"Yitzhak Shamir was a brave warrior, before and after the founding of the State of Israel," said Israeli President Shimon Peres, the old political rival of Mr. Shamir. "He was faithful to his view, a great patriot and a true lover of Israel, who has served his country with integrity and commitment without end. May his memory be blessed."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Shamir, "directed by Israel with a deep loyalty to the nation and the earth and the eternal values ​​of the Jewish people."

And the White House, Shamir praised for helping to create strong ties with the United States
"Yitzhak Shamir, who devoted his life to the State of Israel. From his days working for the independence of Israel in his service as prime minister, has strengthened Israel's security and promote cooperation between the U.S. and Israel, "says note.

Defeated in the 1992 elections, Shamir resigned as head of the Likud Party, to watch from the sidelines as his successor, Yitzhak Rabin negotiated interim agreements of land for peace with the Palestinians.

The agreements, including the recognition of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israel did nothing to alleviate their suspicions.

In an interview in 1997 with headquarters in New York Jewish Post, said: "The Arabs always dream of destroying us, I do not recognize us as an integral part of this region" ..

The labor movement, from Israel to power the first three decades, has accepted a UN partition plan of 1947 to allow the creation of the Jewish state alongside a Palestinian entity. For Shamir, which was tantamount to treason.
Jazwernicki Yitzhak Born in Poland in the current 1915. Shamir moved to pre-state Palestine in 1935. Most of his family - his parents, two sisters and their husbands and children, stayed behind and were killed during the Holocaust during World War II.

In late 1980, Shamir publicly revealed that his father had escaped a direct train to a concentration camp, but was later killed by childhood friends took refuge with.

Once in Palestine, Shamir joined Lehi, the most intransigent of the three Jewish movements that struggle for independence from the British Mandate authorities, taking the lead group after the British killed its founder.

The group, known as the Stern Gang after the former leader, Abraham Stern, was considered responsible for a series of attacks including the assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte of, in Jerusalem in September 1948. Lehi commanders considered Bernadotte a British agent who has collaborated with the Nazis.

Shamir often disguised himself as an orthodox rabbi to avoid being arrested by the British. However, he was captured twice, but escaped two British detention camps back in action and resistance. The second field was in Djibouti, Africa.

After Israel was founded in 1948, Shamir was devoted to trade before entering a career in the Israeli spy agency, Mossad. During this period, has carried out operations against the Nazi scientists who were helping the Arab neighbors of Israel to build rockets. Roni Milo, former member of parliament who served under Mr. Shamir mourned his death on Israeli television.

"For years he served in the Mossad, and has published several major operations," said Milo. "Once I asked a street while walking in Tel Aviv, Shamir said:" I know the streets of Cairo and better for the streets of Tel Aviv, Damascus. "

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