Columnist Safire dies of pancreatic cancer

Columnist Safire dies of pancreatic cancer

NEW YORK — William Safire, the conservative columnist and word warrior who feared no politician or corner of the English language, died Sunday at age 79.

The Pulitzer Prize winner died at a hospice in Rockville, Md. The cause of death was pancreatic cancer, family friend Martin Tolchin said.

Safire spent more than 30 years writing on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. In his “On Language” column in The New York Times Magazine and more than a dozen books, Safire traced the origins of words and everyday phrases such as “straw man,” “under the bus” and “the proof is in the pudding.”

Safire penned more than 3,000 columns, aggressively defending civil liberties and Israel while tangling with political figures. Bill Clinton famously wanted to punch the curmudgeonly columnist in the nose after Safire called his wife “a congenital liar.”

As a speechwriter in the Nixon White House, Safire penned Vice President Spiro Agnew’s famous phrase, “nattering nabobs of negativism,” a tongue-in-cheek alliteration that Safire claimed was directed not at the press but at Vietnam defeatists.

Israel shuts down to observe Yom Kippur

JERUSALEM — The start of the Jewish Day of Atonement at sundown Sunday marked the beginning of a day like no other in Israel, on which even Israelis with no connection to religion tend to put their normal lives on hold.

This year Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, comes at a particularly somber time after revelations of a previously hidden Iranian nuclear facility and more missile tests by the Revolutionary Guard.

Israel considers Iran a strategic threat due to its nuclear program, missile development and repeated references by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Israel’s destruction.

When Yom Kippur began at around 5 p.m. local time, TV and radio stations blinked off the air, flights in and out of Israel’s international airport ceased, and nearly all businesses closed. The streets emptied of cars and cities and highways were eerily quiet.

OAS diplomats excluded

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The government of de facto Honduras’ President Roberto Micheletti refused Sunday to allow four diplomats from the Washington-based Organization of American States to enter Honduras — including one from the U.S. — because of these countries’ recent diplomatic moves against the small Central American nation.

The move marks the first time Honduras’ de-facto government has denied entry to diplomats and is the latest sign that Micheletti is refusing to budge amid growing international pressure to reinstate deposed President Manuel Zelaya, who was removed from power in June. Zelaya sneaked back into the country a week ago and has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy with about 70 supporters.

Taco cart wins award

NEW YORK — A husband and wife who sell tacos and quesadillas have been named New York City’s best street vendors.

Fernando and Yolanda Martinez took first place Saturday at the fifth annual Vendy Awards, which celebrate the best of the city’s street food.

The Martinezes make Mexican specialties out of their cart in Brooklyn and sell them for about $6 a dish. They say they’re happy to know people love their food.

About 700 hundred people attended the awards ceremony at the Queens Museum of Art.

An Austrian food cart called Schnitzel and Things was named rookie of the year.

At least 86 killed by floods in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — Many Filipinos tried to rebuild their lives Monday after saving little more than the clothes they wore in a tropical storm and the capital’s worst flooding in more than four decades. At least 86 people were dead and 32 missing.

Army troops, police and civilian volunteers plucked dead bodies from muddy flood waters and rescued drenched survivors from rooftops after Tropical Storm Ketsana tore through the northern Philippines on Saturday.

Ketsana dumped more than a month’s worth of rain in just 12 hours, swamping entire towns, setting off landslides and leaving neighborhoods in the capital with destroyed houses and debris.

Combined dispatches