Geoff Ballard

TORONTO (AP) _ Geoff Ballard, a Canadian pioneer of the fuel cell industry and an entrepreneur Time Magazine once named one of its "Heroes for the Planet," died Saturday. He was 76.

A company official confirmed Ballard's death. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Ballard developed the world's first hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered, zero-emission transit bus. Science World, a science center in Vancouver, British Columbia, unveiled the vehicle in 1993.

In 1979, Ballard founded Ballard Power Systems Inc., which makes hydrogen fuel cells that are used in materials handling, residential cogeneration, backup power and transportation. He served as chairman of the company until 1997.

In 1999, he started General Hydrogen, which was bought by Plug Power Inc. last year for $10 million.

In 1999, Time magazine named Ballard as one of its "Heroes for the Planet," alongside the environmental work of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his partner John Cronin.

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Frank H. Delaplane

RENO, Nev. (AP) _ Frank H. Delaplane, former news editor for the Gannett News Service who also worked for newspapers in San Francisco and Reno, died Monday. He was 79.

Delaplane died at a Reno care facility, his family said. He began his journalism career as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle in the mid-1960s.

In 1967, he took a reporting job with Speidel, the newspaper company that then owned the Reno Evening Gazette and the Nevada State Journal. He eventually became managing editor of the papers.

In 1979, Delaplane transferred to Washington, D.C. to become news editor of Gannett News Service. He returned to Reno in 1986 following his medical retirement from Gannett. He suffered from multiple sclerosis for 23 years.

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Robert Hazard

PHILADELPHIA (AP) _ Robert Hazard, a songwriter and musician from Philadelphia who wrote the 1983 Cyndi Lauper hit "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," died Tuesday. He was 59.

Hazard died after a brief illness, his record label, Rykodisc, said in a statement.

Hazard's wife, Susan, told The Philadelphia Inquirer her husband died unexpectedly after surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Hazard, born Robert Rimato, led the band Robert Hazard and the Heroes, a fixture in Philadelphia clubs through the mid-1980s. In his 1983 autobiography, he wrote that he got his big break in 1982 when music journalist Kurt Loder, who was in town to review a Rolling Stones concert, happened to stop into a bar where he was performing.

His song "Escalator of Life" became a hit soon after.

Recently, he has played country music with a band called The Hombres. His latest album, "Troubadour," was released in October.

In recent years, Hazard and his wife ran an antique shop near their home in Old Forge, N.Y.

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Karl Kuehl

PHOENIX (AP) _ Karl Kuehl, a baseball scout, coach, author and player development specialist known for his contributions to the Oakland Athletics teams that won three pennants, died Wednesday. He was 70.

Kuehl died of pulmonary fibrosis in a Scottsdale hospital, son John said. He had been active until recent weeks, when he was hospitalized.

Kuehl was the manager of the Montreal Expos in 1976, going 43-85 before being fired with two months left in the season.

He went on to serve six seasons as a base coach for the Minnesota Twins, then spent 12 years as head of player development and later assistant to the general manager for the A's.

Players that came out of the A's farm system in those years included Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Walt Weiss, Terry Steinbach, Scott Brosius, Mike Bordick, Miguel Tejada and Mike Gallego.

In 2006, he was awarded baseball's Roland Hemond Award for long-term contributions to scouting and player development.

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Robert A. Maheu

LAS VEGAS (AP) _ Robert A. Maheu, a former Howard Hughes confidant and CIA operative once involved in a failed plot to poison Fidel Castro, died Monday. He was 90.

Maheu died Monday evening of congestive heart failure at Desert Springs Hospital in Las Vegas, according to his son, Peter Maheu.

Maheu was the public face of Hughes' massive corporate empire in the 1960s, a period in which the troubled aviator and one-time Hollywood playboy was increasingly reclusive and dogged by phobias. Hughes spent the later part of the decade holed up in his Las Vegas hotel suite, directing Maheu and his casino and development interests via memo.

Maheu worked for the FBI in the early 1950s and later as a private investigator who counted the CIA among his clients.

In 1960, Maheu was enlisted by the CIA to recruit a mobster for a "sensitive mission requiring gangster-type action," targeting Fidel Castro, according to a recently released CIA dossier known as "the family jewels."

The plot was dropped after the failed CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the document said.

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Alberto Achacaz Walakial

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) _ Alberto Achacaz Walakial, one of the last surviving members of the nomadic Kaweskar tribe that once plied the waters off Chile's Patagonian coast, died Monday of blood poisoning, local media reported on Tuesday.

Government documents listed Achacaz's age at 79, but some believe he was close to 90. Local newspaper La Prensa Austral reported his death.

Experts estimate that only about a dozen full-blooded Kaweskars _ or Alacalufes _ survive and the group appears destined to disappear in the near future as there are no women of fertile age left.

Achacaz was hospitalized at the end of June in Punta Arenas, 2,175 miles south of Chile's capital, after appearing before doctors malnourished, dehydrated and weighing under 130 pounds, said Dr. Hector Gomez, director of the Armed Forces hospital. Septic shock affected his lungs and gall bladder.

Achacaz lived alone in a modest home, which lacked a proper drainage system, after his wife died 11 years ago, the daily reported in January. He earned a living making small canoes of wool skins and weaving baskets.