AP Features, September 29th, 2007
Richard DuBois
SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) _ Richard DuBois, a bodybuilder whose brawny physique landed him parts in 1950s movies and Mae West's stage act, has died. He was 74.
DuBois died Wednesday of undetermined causes at Saint John's Health Center, said his wife, Gladys DuBois.
The winner of the Mr. America and Mr. USA bodybuilding contests in the mid 1950s, DuBois landed a contract with MGM and a role in the 1954 movie "Athena" with Debbie Reynolds and Jane Powell. He appeared in the musical comedy under the stage name Richard Sabre.
He later appeared with Mae West in her nightclub act as it toured the country.
Dubois abandoned show business to become an evangelist, his wife said. He spent the last 19 years preaching as pastor of Gospel Lighthouse in Los Angeles.
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Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky, who worked as a consultant on the Manhattan Project but devoted much of his life to promoting nuclear arms control, has died. He was 88.
Panofsky, affectionally known as "Pief," had a heart attack Monday in Los Altos, Stanford University officials said.
Panofsky, who played a key role in shaping the government's science and nuclear policies, won the National Medal of Science in 1969 and the U.S. Department of Energy's Enrico Fermi Award in 1979.
He was born in Berlin, the son of prominent art historian Erwin Panofsky, and showed scientific promise at an early age. His father, fearing for his Jewish family's well-being in mid-1930's Germany, accepted a teaching post in the United States.
Panofsky enrolled at Princeton University at 15 and received a doctorate at the California Institute of Technology in 1942.
At first classified as an "enemy alien" under California's wartime enemy exclusion law, he soon became a naturalized citizen and worked from 1943 to 1945 as a consultant on the Manhattan Project, which produced the atomic bomb.
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George Rieveschl
CINCINNATI (AP) _ George Rieveschl, inventor of the antihistamine Benadryl, has died. He was 91.
Rieveschl, a professor emeritus of environmental engineering at the University of Cincinnati, died Thursday at Christ Hospital, said David Bracey, a spokesman for UC's Academic Health Center.
Benadryl is commonly used to treat allergy symptoms such as hay fever, rashes and hives.
Rieveschl was a chemical engineering professor at UC when he found that his two-part compound _ originally tested to improve muscle-relaxing medications _ blocked histamine. Histamine is a chemical released in the body that causes the swelling, watery eyes and runny noses common in allergic reactions.
Parke, Davis and Co. _ now part of Pfizer Inc. _ started marketing Benadryl in May 1946. It is now sold over the counter under the Benadryl brand name and its generic name, diphenhydramine hydrochloride.
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Avraham Shapira
JERUSALEM (AP) _ Rabbi Avraham Shapira, a spiritual leader of Israel's religious Zionist movement, has died. He was 94.
Shapira, a chief rabbi in Israel for ten years beginning in 1983, died Thursday after being hospitalized earlier in the week, his family said. Thousands of his followers had prayed for his well-being in recent days at the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish site in Jerusalem's Old City.
The rabbi of the movement that forms the backbone of Israel's settlement enterprise was most known in Israel for his call on observant soldiers in 2005 to disobey orders to dismantle 21 Jewish settlements during Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip that year.
Many Orthodox Jews oppose any withdrawal from the West Bank or Gaza, considering them part of their God-given Land of Israel. Shapira's call helped foster widespread fervent opposition to the pullout and fears of clashes between settlers with their backers and the security forces.
He also opposed the first Israeli-Palestinian peace accords in 1993, saying Jewish law forbade Israel from transferring holy land to the Palestinians.
