Joseph Safra, a Lebanese-born financier, who became the world’s richest banker after building an international business empire in Brazil, his adopted country, has died. He was 82. The scion of a Sephardi Jewish family, Safra was born in Beirut and was guided by his financier father, Jacob. Famous for his discretion and conservatism, Safra chaired until his death the Safra Group, a conglomerate spanning banking, property, cellulose and bananas. Forbes magazine estimated his wealth this [...]

Guido Goldman, who used his vast inherited wealth and extensive network of friendships in politics and the arts to help rebuild America’s relationship with Germany after WWII, died Nov. 30 at his home in Concord, MA. He was 83. Mr. Goldman’s fingerprints can be found on many of the leading postwar academic and cultural institutions linking the United States and Germany, including the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University, which he [...]

Jack Steinberger, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in physics for expanding understanding of the ghostly neutrino, a subatomic particle, died Dec.12 at his home in Geneva. He was 99. The neutrino’s existence was first proposed in 1931, but finding one proved difficult. It has no electrical charge, travels at nearly the speed of light, and has almost no mass. Not until 1956, when ways to smash atoms and examine the debris were developed, was [...]