From the Bollywood playback singer whose voice shaped Indian cinema for nearly eight decades to the scientist who first mapped the human genome, the early months of 2026 have claimed a wide array of lives that left deep marks on their respective fields. The Associated Press, in a roundup published May 5, catalogued dozens of deaths between January and April, spanning entertainment, science, politics, sports, and activism.

January

The new year began with the death of Diane Crump, the first woman to ride professionally in a horse race and, later, the first female jockey in the Kentucky Derby, at 77. Also in January, the CIA turncoat Aldrich Ames, who betrayed Western intelligence assets to the Soviet Union in one of the most damaging espionage breaches in U.S. history, died in prison at 84, the AP reported.

The entertainment world lost several iconic figures. Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead guitarist and singer who helped define the sound of the San Francisco counterculture, died at 78. Catherine O’Hara, the Canadian comic actor known for “SCTV,” “Home Alone,” and her Emmy-winning role in “Schitt’s Creek,” died at 71. Claudette Colvin, who at 15 was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus — nine months before Rosa Parks’ similar act — died at 86. Her arrest helped spark the modern civil rights movement.

February

February brought the death of the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, the civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate who succeeded Martin Luther King Jr. as the nation’s most visible advocate for racial justice. He was 84. The same month, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader for decades, was killed in U.S.-Israeli military strikes, the AP noted. He had sought to turn Iran into a regional powerhouse, confronting Israel and the United States over its nuclear program while crushing democracy protests at home.

In film, Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall, celebrated for his roles in the first two “Godfather” films and “Tender Mercies,” died at 95. Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, whose unadorned examinations of American institutions included “Titicut Follies,” died at 96. Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski, whose walk-off home run in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series made him a Pittsburgh legend, died at 89. And Eric Dane, the “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Euphoria” actor who became an ALS advocate after his diagnosis, died from the disease at 53.

March

The deaths in March spanned public service, sports, and music. Alexander Butterfield, the White House aide whose disclosure that Richard Nixon had secretly taped his Oval Office conversations hastened the president’s resignation over Watergate, died at 99. Robert S. Mueller III, the FBI director who transformed the bureau into a terrorism-fighting force after the Sept. 11 attacks and later served as special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, died at 81.

South African anti-apartheid activist Nicholas Haysom, who helped draft his country’s post-apartheid constitution under Nelson Mandela, died at 73. College Football Hall of Fame coach Lou Holtz, who led Notre Dame to the 1988 national title, died at 89, the AP reported. And “Country” Joe McDonald, the hippie rocker whose anti‑Vietnam War anthem “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag” became a soundtrack of the Woodstock era, died at 84.

April

April brought the loss of two towering figures in music and science. Asha Bhosle, the Bollywood singer whose versatile voice appeared on an estimated 12,000 songs over nearly 80 years, died at 92. She was widely mourned, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi praising her contributions to the nation’s cultural memory. J. Craig Venter, who led the private effort to map the first draft of the human genome and later became the first person to publish his own sequenced genome, died at 79. His work paved the way for deeper understanding of how genes influence health and disease.

Other April deaths included Jim Whittaker, the first American to summit Mount Everest in 1963, who died at 97; George R. Ariyoshi, the nation’s first Asian American governor, who died at 100; and Oscar Schmidt, the Brazilian basketball Hall of Famer known as the “Holy Hand,” who died at 68. The Ronettes’ last surviving member, Nedra Talley Ross, died at 80. French actor Nathalie Baye, beloved for her down‑to‑earth charm, died at 77.

The AP’s full list runs to more than 50 names, a reminder of the collective depth of the year’s early losses across nearly every field of human endeavor.