MILESTONES

By KATHLEEN ADAMS, MELISSA AUGUST, LINA LOFARO, ALICE PARK, MICHAEL QUINN, JEFFERY C. RUBIN, ALAIN L. SANDERS, ANNEKE TRYZELAAR AND SIDNEY URQUHART

STEPPING DOWN. NORMAN PODHORETZ, 65, editor and writer; as the editor in chief of Commentary; in New York City. During his 35-year stewardship, Podhoretz transformed the Jewish monthly from a voice of liberal social concern to a promoter of hard-line anti-Sovietism abroad and a basher of all things leftish and countercultural at home. The changes mirrored Podhoretz's own political evolution as one of the most influential-and certainly the most inescapable-of neoconservatives.

DIED. RON LUCIANO, 57, former umpire; from suicide by carbon-monoxide poisoning; in Endicott, New York. Luciano's 11 Astroturf-chewing years of calls and confrontations paved the way for a second career as a sports commentator and author of books titled with baseball-related puns.

DIED. MEHDI BAZARGAN, 87, former Prime Minister of Iran; in Zurich. Originally an engineering professor, the soft-spoken Bazargan was imprisoned for his human-rights activism during the reign of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, making Bazargan a natural choice for Prime Minister of the provisional government formed after the Shah fled in 1979. But Bazargan's relationship with the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's Revolutionary Council soon deteriorated into a bitter power struggle, culminating in his resignation just nine months later.

Died. VERA MAXWELL, 93, fashion designer, in Rincon, Puerto Rico. From her cotton proto-jumpsuit fashioned for riveting Rosies during World War II to 1974's "Speed Suit"-a zipperless, buttonless dress that could be pulled on in seconds-Maxwell pioneered sportswear for women that was as comfortable as it was chic, earning herself the sobriquet "the American Chanel." Maxwell's sources of inspiration were marvelously eclectic: a 1935 visit with Albert Einstein was said to have prompted her to copy his tweed jacket and add two skirts, a pair of pants and an extra jacket to create her classic "Weekend Wardrobe."