In the News:

BARNSTABLE, Massachusetts - President John F. Kennedy\'s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a champion for the rights of the mentally disabled and founder of the Special Olympics, has died. She was 88.

Shriver had suffered a series of strokes in recent years and died at 2 a.m. on Tuesday at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, her family said in a statement. The hospital is near the Kennedy family compound, where her sole surviving brother, Sen. Edward Kennedy, has been battling brain cancer.

As celebrity, social worker and activist, Shriver was credited with transforming America\'s view of the mentally disabled from institutionalized patients to friends, neighbors and athletes. Her efforts were inspired in part by the struggles of her mentally disabled sister, Rosemary.