NOTABLE DEATHS ELSEWHERE
JIM DWYER, 63
Jim Dwyer, an award-winning news reporter and columnist who spent almost four decades telling NewYork City’s stories, has died. He was 63.
Dwyer died Thursday at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan of complications from lung cancer, said Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, in an email to the staff of the paper where Dwyer had worked for almost 20 years.
A New York City native, Dwyer spent time at New York Newsday and the Daily News before joining the Times in May 2001. He covered the biggest stories of the day throughout his career, from the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center to the Sept. 11 attacks to the coronavirus pandemic.
While at Newsday, he won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his commentary and the other as part of a team covering spot news.
He was a columnist for the Times as well, taking over the “About New York” column in 2007. His last column was May 26, writing about the disruption of the pandemic.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo called Dwyer, whom he said he had known for 30 years, “a great New Yorker and a powerful voice.”
“Jim Dwyer was about the discovery of the truth, and he was brilliant,” Cuomo said, adding that Dwyer had “the ability to connect with New Yorkers, to take complicated subjects, find the truth, and then communicate it to New Yorkers in a way they understood.”
Survivors include his wife, two daughters and three brothers.
MARIO MOLINA, 77
Mexican chemistry Nobel winner
Mario Molina, winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1995 and the only Mexican scientist to be honored with a Nobel, died
Wednesday in his native Mexico City. He was 77 years old.
Molina’s family announced his death in a brief statement through the institute that carried his name. It did not give a cause of death.
He won the prize along with scientists Frank Sherwood Rowland of the United States and Paul Crutzen of the Netherlands for their research into climate change.
Molina and Rowland published a paper in 1974 that saw the thinning of the ozone layer as a consequence of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, chemicals used in a range of products.
Molina’s work contributed to the drafting of the first international treaty on the subject, the Montreal Protocol, which phased out the use of the chemicals. Later, he focused on confronting air pollution in major cities like his own Mexico City and pushing for global actions to promote sustainable development.
One of his last public appearances was alongside Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, also a scientist, in a video conference during which Molina reflected on the coronavirus pandemic and the importance of wearing masks to avoid transmission.
Molina was a member, among other institutions, of the National Academy of Sciences and for eight years was one of the 21 scientists who composed President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.
Only two other Mexicans have been awarded Nobel Prizes: Alfonso García Robles received the Peace Prize in 1982 for his work on nuclear weapons negotiations and writer Octavio Paz was awarded the prize for literature in 1990.
Molina died on the same day this year’s prize for chemistry was awarded.