Europe, Celebrity Deaths | featured news

Robert Edwards, a Nobel prizewinner from Britain whose pioneering in vitro fertilization research led to the first test tube baby and has since brought millions of people into the world, died Wednesday at age 87....

Love her or loathe her, one thing's beyond dispute: Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain. The Iron Lady, who ruled for 11 remarkable years, imposed her will on a fractious, rundown nation - breaking the unions, triumphing in a far-off war, and selling off state industries at a record pace. She left behind a leaner government and more prosperous nation by the time a mutiny ousted her from No. 10 Downing Street.

Rita Levi-Montalcini, a biologist who conducted underground research in defiance of Fascist persecution and went on to win a Nobel Prize for helping unlock the mysteries of the cell, died in Rome at the age of 103.

France loved him for his indefatigable, pioneering spirit - the first man to climb an 8,000-meter Himalayan peak despite losing all his fingers and toes to frostbite, a man who later went on to scale the heights of French politics....

Police have no reason to suspect any suspicious circumstances in the case of a young actress found dead days after the show she starred in was canceled, but are continuing their investigation.