National Obituaries

NEW YORK (AP) — Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, the revered Kenyan man of letters and voice of dissent who in dozens of fiction and nonfiction books traced his country's history from British imperialism to home-ruled tyranny and challenged not only the stories to

ST. JOHN'S — A celebrated Swedish-Canadian archeologist who helped unravel the story of the Vikings at the only acknowledged Norse site in North America has died.

Guitarist and singer Rick Derringer, who shot to fame at 17 when his band The McCoys recorded “Hang On Sloopy,” had a hit with “Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo” and earned a Grammy Award for producing “Weird Al ” Yankovic's debut album, has died.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Juan Ramón Verón, who scored a goal against Manchester United at Old Trafford to help Argentina's Estudiantes de La Plata win the 1968 Intercontinental Cup, died on Tuesday, his former team said. He was 81.

MONTREAL — Academy Award-winning Dutch-Canadian animator Co Hoedeman has died, the National Film Board of Canada said Tuesday. The "master of stop-motion animation" died at age 84 on Monday in Montreal, the NFB said.

WEST MONROE, La. (AP) — Phil Robertson, who turned his small duck calling interest in the sportsman's paradise of northern Louisiana into a big business and conservative cultural phenomenon , died Sunday, according to his family. He was 79.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Presley Chweneyagae, the South African actor who gained international recognition for his leading role in the 2005 film "Tsotsi", which won South Africa’s first ever Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, has died.

PARIS (AP) — Marcel Ophuls, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker whose landmark 1969 documentary “The Sorrow and the Pity” shattered the comforting myth that most of France had resisted the Nazis during World War II, has died at 97.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, an outspoken, gravel-voiced Harlem Democrat who spent nearly five decades on Capitol Hill and was a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, died Monday at age 94.

NEW YORK (AP) — Susan Brownmiller, a prominent feminist and author of the 1960s and '70s whose "Against Our Will" was a landmark and intensely debated bestseller about sexual assault, has died. She was 90.