Abeloff was born in Shenandoah, Pa. He joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1972 and served as chairman of the Food and Drug Administration's Oncology Drug Advisory Committee. During his tenure, the cancer center's faculty doubled, research funding increased six-fold and the cancer complex at Johns Hopkins expanded to nearly 1 million square feet of treatment and research space.

---

Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha

BAGHDAD (AP) - Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, a sheik who launched a campaign to rally other tribes behind him to fight al-Qaida militants, died Thursday. He was in his late 30s.

Abu Risha was killed by a bomb. His death may prove a setback to American success in Anbar province, once a stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency and now cited as a model for the rest of Iraq.

Visitors often streamed in and out of Abu Risha's walled compound in Ramadi, where he had several villas and a stock of camels just across the street from the city's largest American base.

Lines of people waited to see the clan leader, including locals, tribal sheiks and Americans. He had near-daily meetings with American military officers, and posed for a picture with President Bush on Sept. 3.

The demand was a sign of the young sheik's swift rise to become the lynchpin of the American strategy of turning Iraq's Sunni tribes against al-Qaida. But his position also brought him enemies: Al-Qaida in Iraq tried repeatedly to kill him, and some Sunnis saw him as an opportunist who took U.S. cash to build himself up.

Abu Risha belonged to a small clan of the Dulaimi tribe, Anbar's largest, and was one of a number of young leaders who rose up as Sunni tribal elders fled or were killed in the province. He ran a construction and import-export family business with offices in Jordan and Dubai.

---

Bobby Byrd

LOGANVILLE, Ga. (AP) - Bobby Byrd, longtime collaborator with the late Godfather of Soul James Brown and co-founder of the Famous Flames, has died. He was 73.

Byrd died Wednesday at his home near Atlanta, the Willie A. Watkins Funeral Home said. News accounts attributed Byrd's death to cancer.

One of the chief architects of Brown's trademark sound, Byrd's contributions can be heard on early James Brown soul tracks and on hits that laid the foundations of funk, like "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine." The punctuating phrase "Get on up," which repeats throughout that song, was sung by Byrd.

Brown, who was born and raised in poverty, was serving a sentence in a north Georgia reform school for breaking into cars when he met Byrd, and Byrd's family arranged to take Brown into their home. Byrd also took Brown into his gospel group. Soon they changed their name to the Famous Flames and their style to hard R&B.

Byrd stayed with the Famous Flames, and the JBs after that, until 1973. Later, he would have a string of modest R&B hits. Byrd performed at the James Brown Arena in Augusta during Brown's memorial service in December.

---

Phil Frank

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Political cartoonist Phil Frank, whose whimsical drawings graced The San Francisco Chronicle for three decades, died Wednesday. He was 64.

Frank died of a brain tumor. The creator of "The Elderberries" and "Farley" - one of the country's last remaining regional comic strips - had been ill for several months, said his colleague and friend Carl Nolte.

Since 1975, Frank's alter ego and cartoon protagonist was a newspaper reporter named Farley who both epitomized and lampooned life in Northern California. The wild-haired character worked at The Daily Requirement and socialized with a smart-mouthed crew of feral cats and a raven named Bruce.

At Michigan State University in the early 1960s, he responded to an ad in the student paper to draw daily political cartoons for $5 each - and his cartoons soon became syndicated at numerous college papers, according to the Chronicle.

After school he became a writer and cartoonist for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City. He moved to California in the 1970s.

---

Augie Hiebert

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Augie Hiebert, a broadcast pioneer who built Alaska's first television station and mentored future generations of broadcasters, died Thursday. He was 90.

Hiebert died at an Anchorage hospital. He had been feeling weak and was recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, said family friend Al Bramstedt Jr., a fellow broadcaster.

He built Alaska's first TV station - KTVA in Anchorage - in 1953, offering local news as well as popular entertainment programs and feature films. He brought television to Fairbanks two years later.

Fascinated by electronics, Hiebert built and licensed his first ham radio in Bend, Ore., at age 15.

He landed his first radio job in Wenatchee, Wash., after graduating from high school, and moved on to a job as an announcer and engineer for a radio station in Bend. That job led him to Alaska when he followed a colleague who left in 1939 to build KFAR radio in Fairbanks.

---

Ralph Kent

KISSISSMEE, Fla. (AP) - Ralph Kent, a veteran Disney artist who designed the first limited-edition Mickey Mouse watch and helped secure the character's iconic global image, died Monday. He was 68.

He died from complications due to esophageal cancer, the company said.

Kent, who retired from the Walt Disney Co. in May 2004 after 41 years as an artist and merchandise designer, died at his central Florida home.

Kent taught new artists how to draw Mickey Mouse and other classic characters and explained their personalities and how they should interact with each other. Kent also helped popularize classic attractions such as Disney's "Jungle Cruise."

The company credits him with creating many of its most memorable souvenirs, including a 1965 limited-edition Mickey Mouse watch for adults. Walt Disney was so fond of Kent's creation, he gave it to his executives.

Born in New York in 1939, Kent became fascinated with Disney characters at age 10 and studied art at the University of Buffalo after receiving an encouraging response from a letter he sent to Walt Disney. He joined the company in 1963. He was named a Disney Legend in 2004.

---

David Lancashire

TORONTO (AP) - David Lancashire, a Canadian hired by The Associated Press in 1956 to become the first North American reporter to cover Mao Zedong's China and defy a U.S. travel ban, died Monday. He was 76.

Lancashire died in Toronto of a heart attack, his family said.

Going to China for the AP, he spent six weeks traveling more than 5,000 miles through what was then known in the West as "Red China" and produced a lengthy series of stories on life behind the "Bamboo Curtain."

It was the first reporting from China by a North American journalist since the communist takeover in 1949 and it created a sensation.

The State Department had refused AP permission to send an American correspondent to China and threatened serious sanctions. AP's board of directors then sent Lancashire, arguing that Americans had a right to learn through their own news organizations about conditions in China.

Over the following 20 years, Lancashire reported for AP from trouble spots across Asia and the Middle East, covering the communist insurgency in Laos, a Kurdish revolt in Iraq, the Mideast war of 1973 and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Lancashire left the AP in 1976 to join the Globe and Mail of Toronto as a feature writer and editor. He retired in 1994.

---

Jacques Martin

PARIS (AP) - Jacques Martin, the French television personality once married to now-first lady Cecilia Sarkozy, died Friday. He was 74.

Martin died of cancer in the southwestern city of Biarritz, where he had been in declining health for several months, according to former colleagues.

Martin shot to fame as the host of a series of hit comedy shows on French television, including the satirical "Le Petit Rapporteur," a spoof newscast that ran from 1975-1976. He also founded his own production company, Jacques Martin Productions. A stroke ended his long career in 1998, forcing him to abruptly leave his last show, "Sous vos applaudissements" (With Your Applause).

Martin fathered eight children with four women. His third wife, Cecilia Ciganer-Albeniz, went on to marry Nicolas Sarkozy and became French first lady when the conservative politician was elected president in May.

In 1984, Nicolas Sarkozy, then mayor of the Paris suburb of Neuilly, officiated at Martin and Ciganer-Albeniz' wedding ceremony. The couple had two daughters, Judith and Jeanne-Marie, before divorcing. The Sarkozys married in 1996.

Born in Lyon on June 22, 1933, Martin was the grandson of Joannes Ducerf, the French chef who served Russian tsar Nicolas II, and he gave full rein to his passion for food later in life.

---

Percy Rodrigues

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Percy Rodrigues, who played a neurosurgeon in the 1960s series "Peyton Place" at a time when blacks were just beginning to win roles as authority figures on television, died Sept. 6. He was 89.

Rodrigues died of kidney failure at his home in Indio, said his wife, Karen Cook-Rodrigues.

The distinguished-looking actor with a booming voice played doctors, politicians and other authorities in dozens of movie and television appearances.

Rodrigues, who was of African and Portuguese descent, was born in Montreal. The oldest of four children, he began working as a teenager after his father left the family. He was a professional boxer by 18.

He had been acting since high school and won a Canadian Drama Festival award in 1939 but worked as a machinist and toolmaker for nearly another decade before going into acting full-time.

He appeared on Broadway in the 1960s in "Toys in the Attic" and "Blues for Mister Charlie." His 1968 casting as Dr. Harry Miles on the final season of "Peyton Place" made headlines.

Rodrigues retired from on-stage acting in 1987 but continued to do voice work, which gave him time to play golf.