Obituaries in the news

Griffin B. Bell

ATLANTA (AP) — Griffin B. Bell, the shrewd Southern lawyer who grew up with Jimmy Carter and later became U.S. attorney general after Carter was elected president, died Monday. He was 90.

Bell died around 10 a.m. of kidney failure, said Diana Lewis, a spokeswoman for Piedmont Hospital. He was being treated at the Atlanta hospital for complications from pancreatic cancer and kidney disease, she said.

Carter's choice of his longtime friend as attorney general was considered the most controversial of his Cabinet appointments after the 1976 election.

The NAACP and other civil rights groups complained that Bell, as a federal judge, didn't force Southern schools to integrate quickly enough. And they cited Bell's tenure as chief of staff for Georgia Gov. Ernest Vandiver, who campaigned in 1958 on a segregation platform.

But Carter called Bell's civil rights record superb, and many black Georgians — including U.N. ambassador designate Andrew Young — came forward to support him.

Bell served just 2 1/2 years at the Justice Department, leaving in mid-1979 — at his own request — to return to his Atlanta law firm, King & Spalding. But he called his tenure as attorney general "the best job I ever had," and he remained close to the action in government by maintaining a law office in Washington. He also remained a key adviser to Carter.

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Inger Christensen

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Inger Christensen, the Danish writer who built experimental poems, essays and novels around systematized and mathematical structures, died Saturday. She was 73.

Publisher Gyldendal confirmed the reclusive writer's death but has given no further details.

Christensen was one of Denmark's most famous poets and is best known her poetry collections "det" (1969) and "alfabet" (1981).

Her works were translated into several languages, and she won international awards including the Swedish Academy's Nordic Prize in 1994 and the German Siegfried Unseld award in 2006.

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Mike Peters

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Former Hartford Mayor Mike Peters, who served four terms in office, died Sunday of complications from liver failure. He was 60.

Peters' sister, Geraldine Sullivan, said he died with his family around him.

Peters was Hartford's mayor from 1993 to 2001 and had said he was considering another run for mayor in 2011 when his health improved. He also owned a namesake restaurant, Mayor Mike's, in downtown Hartford.

Peters had served as a city firefighter, Democratic Town Committee member and Redevelopment Agency member before he was elected mayor.

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Carl Pohlad

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Carl Pohlad, a billionaire banker whose Minnesota Twins won two World Series titles during nearly his nearly quarter-century as owner, died Monday. He was 93.

The Twins and Major League Baseball each issued a statement confirming his death. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig called Pohlad "a true leader in our sport for the past 25 years."

According to 2008 rankings by Forbes.com, Pohlad's net worth of $3.6 billion was second among Minnesotans and 102nd in the nation. Still, his teams often had some of the lowest payrolls in baseball.

When Pohlad bought the Twins from Calvin Griffith in 1984, he was widely credited for saving baseball in Minnesota. With the purchase, he inherited a promising group of young players that included Gary Gaetti, Kent Hrbek and future Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett.

Minnesota won World Series championships in 1987 and 1991, triumphing in tense seven-game showdowns against the St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves.

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