Dick Ault

COLUMBIA, MO. (AP) _ Dick Ault, a former Olympian and University of Missouri track star, died Monday. He was 81.

Ault died in Jefferson City of complications from diabetes, the university announced Tuesday.

Ault placed fourth in the 400-meter hurdles at the 1948 Olympics in London and tied the world record in the 440-yard hurdles at a 1949 meet in Oslo, Norway.

He spent nearly 30 years at Westminster College, coaching track, cross country, golf and swimming. He also was a high school football and track official.

A St. Louis native, Ault won consecutive Big Six Conference titles in the 220-yard hurdles in 1946 and 1947, and Big Seven Conference titles in the event the next two years.

He was inducted into the Missouri Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

Wayne Downing

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) _ Retired Gen. Wayne Downing, one of President Bush’s key counterterrorism advisers after the Sept. 11 attacks, died Wednesday, a coroner said. He was 67.

The four-star general was admitted to the hospital Monday, suffering from bacterial meningitis and multiple myeloma, a form of cancer, Peoria County Coroner Johnna Ingersoll said.

The West Point graduate retired in 1996 after 34 years in the military, ending his career as head of all U.S. special operations forces. He commanded more than 47,000 soldiers, including the Army’s Green Berets and Navy’s SEALs.

He was pulled from retirement after terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001 and appointed by President Bush as national director and deputy national security adviser for combatting terrorism.

He had also been tapped in his retirement to lead a 40-person presidential task force that investigated a 1996 attack that killed 19 Americans at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, making recommendations on how to better protect Americans abroad.

During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Downing commanded a joint task force of 1,200 U.S. special forces that halted Iraq’s SCUD missile attacks on Israel and eased overall missile threats in the war zone.

Downing, a military analyst for MSNBC, received the U.S. Military Academy’s distinguished graduate award in 2006.

Dave Fay

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Dave Fay, a reporter for The Washington Times, who recently earned recognition in the Hockey Hall of Fame for his coverage of the sport over more than two decades, died Tuesday. He was 67.

Fay died at home with his family in Monrovia, Md., on Tuesday night after a 12-year battle with cancer, the newspaper said Wednesday.

Fay worked at The Washington Times from its start in 1982, mainly writing about the Washington Capitals. He also covered the Washington Redskins in the early 1990s.

As quick with a quip as he was with insights about hockey, Fay won the Professional Hockey Writers Association’s Elmer Ferguson Award in May and will be honored permanently with a plaque at the Hall of Fame. His family will be presented with the award in November.

Born March 5, 1940, in Brighton, Mass., Fay served in the U.S. Navy before beginning his journalism career in 1961. He worked at newspapers in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island before joining The Washington Times.

Jerry Hadley

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (AP) _ Jerry Hadley, a world-class tenor known for his agile and lyric voice, died Wednesday, a week after he shot himself in an apparent suicide attempt. He was 55.

The singer died two days after doctors at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie took him off life support, said family friend and spokeswoman Celia Novo.

Hadley, who had been battling personal problems, shot himself with an air rifle July 10 at his home in Clinton Corners, 80 miles north of New York City. State police said he was found unconscious on his bedroom floor.

The Illinois-born Hadley sang everything from Mozart to show tunes, including appearing on a recording of “Show Boat” that was a best-seller.

He built his reputation tackling demanding work, including the title role in composer John Harbison’s 1999 “The Great Gatsby” at the Metropolitan Opera. Leonard Bernstein chose Hadley to sing the title role in a 1989 production of his musical “Candide,” and he sang the lead in Paul McCartney’s “Liverpool Oratorio” in 1991.

Hadley was featured in Leos Janacek’s opera “Jenufa,” which won a Grammy in 2004.

Hadley started his career in regional companies. He was noticed in the late 1970s by Beverly Sills, then general director of the New York City Opera, which hired him. She died earlier this month.

Hadley in recent years had been dealing with financial problems and was being treated for depression, police said after the shooting. He had been arrested in Manhattan last year in a parked car on a charge of driving while intoxicated. His lawyer said the singer never intended to drive because he realized he was tipsy, and the case was eventually dropped.

Shirley Slesinger Lasswell

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, who licensed the rights to the Winnie the Pooh characters to Walt Disney and later sued the company over disputed royalties, died Thursday. She was 84.

Lasswell died of respiratory failure at her daughter’s Beverly Hills home, family spokesman Lonnie Soury said.

Lasswell, born Shirley Ann Basso on May 27, 1923, was married to the late Stephen Slesinger, who in 1930 obtained U.S. and Canadian licensing and merchandising rights to Pooh, Christopher Robin and other characters created by British author A.A. Milne.

When her husband died in 1953, she took over developing the characters and creating clothing, dolls and other items. She licensed Pooh to Disney in 1961, the first of two licensing agreements between Stephen Slesinger Inc. and The Walt Disney Co.

Stephen Slesinger Inc. sued Disney in 1991, alleging the company miscalculated royalties due under that deal. Disney denies additional royalties are owed.

A dismissal of Slesinger’s main lawsuit is being appealed in state court.

In 1964, she married Fred Lasswell, the cartoonist behind “Snuffy Smith” and “Barney Google.” He died in 2001.

Cheng Shifa

SHANGHAI, China (AP) _ Famed Chinese painter, cartoonist and calligrapher Cheng Shifa has died in his hometown of Shanghai, local media reported. He was 86.

According to the Shanghai Daily newspaper, Cheng died Tuesday in a city hospital after an undisclosed illness.

Although known early on as a cartoonist and illustrator, Cheng became best known for his traditional brush paintings of minority tribes from the southwestern province of Yunnan.

Those works won both artistic praise and political favor for stressing the unity of all Chinese ethnic groups, winning Cheng numerous official awards and titles.

Born in a village outside Shanghai in 1921, Cheng studied medicine before graduating from the Shanghai Art College in 1941.

He staged his first showing a year later, then gained fame for illustrating an edition of short stories by Lu Xun, one of the best known Chinese writers and satirists of the 20th century.

Fred Trost

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) _ Fred Trost, who hosted the popular “Michigan Outdoors” hunting and fishing television show, died Wednesday. He was 61.

Trost died of a rare lung condition after spending several weeks in the hospital, his son, Zachary Trost of East Lansing, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

“Michigan Outdoors” was broadcast on public television across the state, until a $4 million judgment against him for an investigative series he did on deer scent lures led to his departure in 1992. He later began broadcasting another show, “Practical Sportsman,” also on public television.

In the late 1990s, while still working on the show, Fred Trost enrolled in Cooley Law School, graduating cum laude, his son said. Trost stopped production of “Practical Sportsman” in 2005.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)