Notable death

Tomiko Itooka, 116, formerly Guinness record holder for the world’s oldest person.

Britt Allcroft, Creator of TV’s ‘Thomas the Tank Engine,’ Dies at 81

Robert Hübner German GM, probably the best German player of the second half of the 20th century

Jean-Marie Le Pen

French politician founder of the Front nationale (he was expelled 2015 and his daughter is now boss)

Peter Yarrow, of Folk-Music Trio Peter, Paul and Mary, Dies at 86

@Earl-of-Trumps said
Peter Yarrow, of Folk-Music Trio Peter, Paul and Mary, Dies at 86

YouTube

@Torunn said
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsw64jRucWg

Don´t Think Twice it´s Alright

@Earl-of-Trumps said
Peter Yarrow, of Folk-Music Trio Peter, Paul and Mary, Dies at 86

Edgar Maddison Welch, 37, died Monday after a traffic stop over the weekend in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Police recognized him as a man with an outstanding warrant for his arrest for violating probation.

When an officer opened the passenger door to arrest Welch, Kannapolis Police Chief Terry L. Spry said, Welch "pulled a handgun from his jacket and pointed it in the direction of the officer" and did not put the gun down when officers ordered him to.

"After the passenger failed to comply with their repeated requests, both officers fired their duty weapon at the passenger, striking him," Spry said.

Almost 10 years ago, Welch made national headlines when he traveled to the nation's capital from North Carolina and fired shots in the Comet Ping Pong restaurant, spurred by a conspiracy theory that had spread online.

Prosecutors said at the time that Welch was trying to investigate an internet conspiracy theory about the pizza restaurant's being home to a child sex-trafficking ring connected to prominent Democratic politicians, a false claim that became known as "pizzagate."

Welch, who was 28 when the incident occurred, ended up surrendering to police after he did not find evidence to support the conspiracy theory, according to court documents at the time.

Welch was sentenced in 2017 to four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to weapons charges. He had carried an AR-15 rifle and a revolver into the restaurant, according to investigators. No one was injured by the gunfire.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sentenced Welch when she was a federal judge, saying at the time that his actions "literally left psychological wreckage," according to The Associated Press.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/pizzagate-gunman-killed-police-traffic-stop-north-carolina-rcna187082

Anita Bryant, a Grammy-nominated singer and former beauty queen who became known for her advocacy against gay rights in the 1970s, died Dec. 16.

She was 84.