Former U.N. envoy Kirkpatrick dies

Former U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, a one-time Democrat who switched to the Republican Party and warmly embraced Reagan-era conservatism, has died. She was 80.

Kirkpatrick's death was announced Friday at the senior staff meeting of the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said spokesman Richard Grenell, who said that Ambassador John Bolton asked for a moment of silence. An announcement of her death also was posted on the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-oriented think tank here where she was a senior fellow.

Kirkpatrick's assistant, Andrea Harrington, said that she died in her sleep at home in Bethesda, Maryland late Thursday. She had been suffering from heart disease, but the cause of death was not immediately known.