Studs Terkel dies at the age of 96.  He was a native New Yorker who moved to Chicago as a child and came to embrace and embody his adopted town.

“A lot of people feel, ‘What can I do, (it’s) hopeless,’” Terkel told The Associated Press in 2003. “Well, through all these years there have been the people I’m talking about, whom we call activists … who give us hope and through them we have hope.”

The tougher the subject, the harder Terkel took it on. He put out an oral history collection on race relations

Studs Terkel

in 1992 called “Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About The American Obsession,” and, in 1995, “Coming of Age,” recollections of men and women 70 and older.

He cared about what divided us, and what united us: death — in his 2001 “Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith,” and hope, in his 2003 “Hope Dies Last.”

Terkel won a 1985 Pulitzer Prize for “The Good War,” remembrances of World War II; contrasted rich and poor along the same Chicago street in “Division Street: America,” 1966; limned the Depression in “Hard Times,” 1970; and chronicled how people feel about their jobs in “Working,” 1974.

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Howard Stern and Beth Ostrosky

Howard Stern was on hand to cheer on his new bride, Beth Ostrosky (36-year-old former model), as she finished the New York City Marathon.

Beth Ostrosky finished Sunday in 4 hours, 15 minutes.

“This was the happiest day of my life,” said Ostrosky, who ran to raise money for Long Island’s North Shore Animal League.

Stern, 54, who married Ostrosky last month, did his part that morning: Making a carb-loaded breakfast of bagels stuffed with peanut butter and bananas.

Ostrosky said what kept her going most through the more than 26-mile course was, “I just kept thinking about seeing Howard and Ashley on the finish line.”

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Estelle ReinerUkulele Mama

Estelle Reiner, wife of writer and director Carl Reiner, passed away at the age of 94 in her Beverley Hills home.

According to reports, Estelle Reiner died on Saturday, but her cause of death was not released. The AP is reporting her cause of death as “old age”.

Estelle Reiner grew in the Bronx, New York.

Estelle Reiner started her showbiz career best known as Carl Reiner’s wife. The two were married on Christmas Eve 1943. While Carl Reiner’s career took off, Estelle Reiner gave birth to his two sons and one daughter, one of which was Rob Reiner. Estelle, performed in clubs up until the age of 93.

Estelle Reiner was mother of three children and the grandmother of five grandchildren.

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