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The co-founder of the "Burning Man" festival has died, reports the AP. He was 70. Burning Man Project CEO Marian Goodell says Larry Harvey died Saturday morning at a hospital in San Francisco. The cause of death was not immediately known, but Harvey had suffered a stroke on April 4. Harvey created Burning Man on a San Francisco beach in 1986 and later moved the annual event to Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

As many as 70,000 people from around the world now flock to a dry lakebed 100 miles east of Reno every August for what has become a weeklong celebration. During that week people are encouraged to build a community and pursue whatever interests them while respecting one another. At the celebration's conclusion, a towering wooden effigy is burned to the ground.

(Read more Burning Man stories.)