Agnes Diggs, 56; Columnist, Former Times Reporter

Agnes Diggs, 56, a columnist for the North County Times in Temecula and a former reporter in the Minority Editorial Training Program at the Los Angeles Times, died Sunday at her home in Temecula. She had called 911 complaining of chest pains and, though a rescue crew reached her, she died at the scene.

During her time at the North County Times, Diggs wrote a column, “Two Cents Worth,” in which she often talked about her childhood, her mother and growing up black in the housing projects of Boston, the North County Times reported.

While at the Los Angeles Times in the late ‘90s, she wrote more than 200 bylined stories, mostly for the San Fernando Valley edition.

“She was a truly unique person who could start a conversation with anyone -- cops, pimps, city hall officials, teens, single moms, telephone linemen -- and get them to open up to her,” said Richard Kipling, a Times editor who was director of the minority training program while Diggs was at the newspaper.

The 21-year-old program began under Times Mirror Co., which owned the Times, and was continued by Tribune Co. after it bought Times Mirror in 2000.

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Cornell H. Mayer, 83, a radio astronomer who measured the thermal radiation from planets and who was the first to calculate the temperature of Venus, died Nov. 19 of heart disease at his home in Alexandria, Va.