Jeremy Larner, a speechwriter for Senator Eugene J. McCarthy’s 1968 Democratic presidential campaign and author of the Oscar-winning screenplay, “The Candidate,” died on Feb. 24 in Oakland, CA. He was 88.

In 2012, Time magazine named “The Candidate” one of the 15 best political films of all time, calling it an “unsentimental, mordantly funny dissection of bigtime politics.” When Mr. Larner accepted the Oscar for best original screenplay, he thanked “the political figures of our time who’ve given me terrific inspiration,” drawing laughter from the audience.

Carol Kitman, a New York photographer whose chance encounter with twin immigrant brothers in Brooklyn led typo a decades-long project documenting their lives, tracking them through bar mitzvahs, weddings, military careers and, during the first Trump administration, the political scandal that made Alexander and Eugene Vindman household names, died on March 3 in the Bronx. She was 96.

“Her initial interest was about two cute little boys,” Alexander Vindman said. “But after those first photographs, she became part of our lives.”

Both Vindmans, lieutenant colonels in the U.S. Army, worked for the National Security Council during the first Trump administration. In 2020, they testified in separate hearings about President Trump’s pressure on Ukraine’s president to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of Joseph R. Biden Jr. The Trump administration removed both brothers from the National Security Council staff, and both retired from the military in 2020.

Mrs. Kitman’s pictures appeared frequently in newspapers, including The New York Times, and she exhibited her work in galleries and community colleges.

Times of Israel photo/Carol Kitman

Albert Zuckerman, a literary agent who nurtured a long string of writers, including Ken Follett, Stephen Hawking and Michael Lewis, to bestseller stardom, died on March 5 at his home in Manhattan. He was 94.

Mr. Zuckerman founded his literary agency, Writers House, in 1973. He expanded quickly and, by the end of the decade, was operating from a Victorian Gothic rowhouse near Union Square. He had a knack for finding promising writers who, with a few pointers, could become rock stars. The Zuckerman approach was not for everyone. He would often put his writers through three or more rounds of revisions before trying to sell their books.

“People warned me, if you go with Al Zuckerman, he’s extremely hands on,” the novelist Jenny White said in an interview. But the result was better, even though I was tearing my hair out.”

Lewis E. Lehrman, who as a young man helped expand a family-owned Pennsylvania grocery business into Rite Aid, for years of the nation’s largest drugstore chain, and then used his personal fortune to mount a strong, but losing bid to become governor of New York in 1982, died on March 11 at his home in Greenwich, CT. He was 87.

Mr. Lehrman left the presidency of Rite Aid in 1977 at the age of 39, although he remained a company director until his run for governor. In later years, he was a managing director of Morgan Stanley, and in 1991, he established his own investment firm, L.E. Lehrman & Co.

David Botstein, a molecular biologist who changed the course of genetics by discovering a method for locating genes in human DNA, died on Feb. 27 in Palo Alto, CA. He was 83.

Dr. Botstein began his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1970s, when little was known about genes and how they interact. The human genome was understood to be a vast stretch of DNA, and the idea of locating within it any one of the approximately 20,000 individual genes that build and operate the body was daunting.

Dr. Botstein came up with the solution. The epiphany allowed scientists to find genes for cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease and an inherited risk for breast cancer, among many other conditions.

Dr. Morris Waxler, who as a federal health official was instrumental in approving laser eye surgery as a quick fix to replace eyeglasses or contact lenses, and then reversed himself a decade later after concluding that the operation could actually impair a patient’s vision, died on Jan. 2 in a hospital in Madison, Wis. He was 88.

Patients who had undergone Lasik surgery soon began complaining about how their sight had been distorted by halos, dryness, glare and chronic pain. Dr. Waxler revisited the original data and found that what had been claimed as temporary and treatable side effects were, in fact, untreatable, permanent complications.

Although most studies note high levels of success after Lasik, Dr. Waxler said that “even if it’s two percent who are at risk for sight-threatening problems, that’s thousands of people being put at risk every year. What is an acceptable level of risk when you’re operating on healthy eyes?”

Award-winning songwriter Billy Steinberg, who wrote several top hit songs, including Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” died Feb. 18. He was 75.

Mr. Steinberg wrote some of the biggest pop hits of the 1980s and 1990’s, and was behind songs performed by Whitney Houston Celine Dion, Cyndi Lauper, and Madonna.

“Billy Steinberg’s life was a testament to the enduring power of a well-written song — and to the idea that honesty, when set to music, can outlive us all,” his family said in a statement.

He won a Grammy Award in 1997 for his work on Celine Dion’s “Falling Into You.” He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2011.