Robert G. Heft, 67, who is credited with designing and sewing the first 50-star U.S. flag, died in Saginaw, Mich. Heft made the flag in 1958 as part of a high school history project in Lancaster, Ohio, spending about 12 hours stitching the design on his mother's Singer sewing machine. President Dwight D. Eisenhower chose the design to replace the 48-star flag.
Mark Ritts, 63, who scurried about in a 30-pound costume with a 6-foot tail as Lester the Rat in "Beakman's World," died in La Canada Flintridge, Calif., of kidney cancer. Ritts also played Herb, one of two puppet penguins on the show, and voiced and operated Kino, a 7-year-old boy puppet on "Storytime," a reading show on PBS.
Stephen Toulmin, 87, an influential philosopher who conducted wide-ranging inquiries into ethics, science and moral reasoning and developed a new approach to analyzing arguments known as the Toulmin model of argumentation, died in Los Angeles of heart failure.
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