John M. Tubergen Jr., 80, a deaf man who helped pioneer television news for the hearing-impaired, died May 4 of pneumonia in Westerville, Ohio.

Sitting beside an anchorman for Chicago station WNBQ, Mr. Tubergen used sign language to report the news for the five-minute television program "World News for the Hard of Hearing," which was broadcast in 1958 for 13 weeks. His entry into the field came in the 1950s when he missed a tornado warning because he couldn't hear a newscast. He had been a newspaper proofreader.

Sheik Abdul-Aziz Bin Baz, Saudi Arabia's top cleric, whose rulings ranged from sanctioning Viagra for Muslim men to banning short veils for women, died Thursday of cancer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was in his 80s.

Rosemary Valaire, 68, a former soloist with Britain's Royal Ballet and an influential teacher at the Westside School of Ballet for three decades, died May 7 in Los Angeles of a brain tumor.

Pub Date: 5/15/99