By ROBERT D. McFADDENMAY 16, 2014Clyde Snow in 1986. Credit David Longstreet/Associated Press
With ghoulish geniality, Clyde Snow liked to say that bones made good witnesses, never lying, never forgetting, and that a skeleton, no matter how old, could sketch the tale of a human life, revealing how it had been lived, how long it had lasted, what traumas it had endured and especially how it had ended.
He was a legendary detective of forensic anthropology, the esoteric science of extracting the secrets of the dead from skeletal remains. His subjects included President John F. Kennedy, the Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, the “disappeared” who were exhumed from mass graves in Argentina, victims of the serial killer John Wayne Gacy, and even Tutankhamen, the pharaoh who lived 3,300 years ago.
Dr. Snow in 2000 in El Salvador, where his team found the skeletons of 136 infants and children killed by army squads. Credit Victor Ruiz/Associated Press
More, Dr. Snow, who testified against Saddam Hussein and other tyrants, was the father of a modern movement that has used forensic anthropology in human rights drives against genocide, war crimes and massacres in Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda, Chile and elsewhere.
He died at 86 on Friday at a hospital in Norman, Okla., where he lived. His wife, Jerry Whistler Snow, said the cause was cancer and emphysema.
Forensic experts check the site of explosion near a crater in Beirut, Friday, Dec. 27, 2013. (The Daily Star/Mohammad Azakir)
BEIRUT: Former Minister Mohammad Shatah, a senior aide to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, was killed along with five other people in a car bomb blast in Downtown Beirut Friday, a security source said.
The March 14 coalition, which is headed by the Future Movement, pointed the finger of blame at the regime of Syria’s President Bashar Assad, which swiftly denied the allegations.
Shatah’s vehicle was making its way in the capital’s bustling central district at the time of the explosion, which also killed Mohammad Tareq Badr, the former finance minister’s bodyguard, the source said, adding that 70 people were also wounded in the blast that struck at around 9.45 a.m.
The 62-year-old, who was also a close aide to former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, was headed to Hariri’s Downtown residence where a meeting of the March 14 coalition was under way.
His killing comes days before the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon begins the trial of four Hezbollah suspects over the 2005 assassination of Hariri’s father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the founder of the Future Movement.
Graveside: Roger Waters of Pink Floyd visits a cemetery in Cassino, Italy, as he makes an emotional journey to visit the battlefield where his father was killed along with thousands of other Allied troops
This is the touching moment Pink Floyd star Roger Waters visits a cemetery near where his soldier father died in the final months of World War II.
Eric Fletcher Waters was serving as a second lieutenant with the Royal Fusiliers as they advanced through Italy in 1944 when he was killed in action.
His newborn son Roger was aged just five months when he was killed on the battlefield near Cassino.
Earlier this year, the Pink Floyd musician made an emotional journey to visit the battlefield where his father was killed along with thousands of other Allied troops.
He was able to pinpoint the exact spot where he died and also visited a graveyard where his death is marked on a memorial.
Lou Reed passed away on Sunday, according to the Rolling Stone.
Lou Reed, the founder of the seminal avant-garde band The Velvet Underground who influenced a generation of rock stars, died Sunday at 71.
No official cause of death was announced, but the hard-living icon underwent a liver transplant in May.
Reed is best known for 1973 hit ‘Walk on the Wild Side,’ but his body of work over a nearly 50-year career often defied categorization.
The Brooklyn-born Reed grew up in Freeport, but New York was the canvass on which he painted much of his music. His 1989 album “New York” was one of the most admired of his career, looking back on the turbulent ’80s through a lens of wry humor and measured anger that called out the likes of Rudy Giuliani, the NRA, subway shooter Bernhard Goetz and the decades Republican presidents.
Reed was one of the few artists who meant it when he said he was unconcerned with the commercial appeal of his music.
Reed is best known for 1973 hit ‘Walk on the Wild Side,’ but his body of work over a nearly 50-year career often defied categorization.
The Progressive Democrat 