National Obituaries

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eddie Merrins was known as “The Little Pro” because of his 5-foot-7 stature, certainly not his influence on golf. The longtime pro at Bel-Air Country Club touched everyone from U.S.

Three-time All-Star relief pitcher Willie Hernández, who won the 1984 AL Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards for the World Series champion Detroit Tigers, has died. He was 69.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The founder of a former megachurch in Oklahoma who was branded a heretic and lost one audience — but gained a new one — after he rejected the idea of hell and supported gay rights has died, his agent said Monday.

Retired Navy Capt. Don Walsh, an explorer who in 1960 was part of a two-man crew that made the first voyage to the deepest part of the ocean — to the “snuff-colored ooze” at the bottom of the Pacific's Mariana Trench — has died. He was 92.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Hannes Strydom, a player on South Africa's revered 1995 Rugby World Cup-winning team, has died in a car crash, the South African Rugby Union said Monday. He was 58.

ATLANTA (AP) — Former first lady Rosalynn Carter , the closest adviser to Jimmy Carter during his one term as U.S. president and their four decades thereafter as global humanitarians, has died at the age of 96.

ATLANTA (AP) — Reactions to the death of Rosalynn Carter , former first lady and global humanitarian: ___ President Joe Biden said the Carters “brought grace” to the White House. “He had this great integrity, still does.

___ Rosalynn Carter , from her 1984 book, “ First Lady from Plains” On the campaign: “Later I was thankful for those early months when there were no large crowds, although I wanted them at the time, and when there were no press with me to record ever

LONDON (AP) — Ben Dunne, an Irish business tycoon who survived a kidnapping by the IRA and later triggered a scandal that shook the cozy world of Ireland’s politics, has died. He was 74.

TOKYO (AP) — Daisaku Ikeda, who headed Soka Gakkai, a Japanese Buddhist organization, that includes famed musician Herbie Hancock and other celebrities in its fold, has died at 95, the Japanese religious organization said Saturday. Ikeda died on Nov.