MILESTONES

MARRIED. AMY CARTER, 28, daughter of former President Jimmy Carter, and James Wentzel, 27, a computer consultant at the University of New Orleans; outside Plains, Georgia.

SWORN IN. RUTH PERRY, 57, former Liberian Senator; as Liberia's head of state; in Monrovia. Perry, whose nomination was part of an accord to end six years of civil war, is modern Africa's first female head of state.

DIED. CHARLES KIRBO, 79, unassuming Georgia lawyer who was former President Jimmy Carter's one-man "Kitchen Cabinet" and closest friend; in Atlanta. Kirbo first aided Carter in 1962, when he successfully argued a ballot-stuffing case that nearly cheated Carter out of a state Senate seat. Kirbo went on to advise Carter in his gubernatorial and presidential campaigns, as well as on the running of the White House. Kirbo always preferred anonymity, declining Governor Carter's offer to appoint him to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat in 1971.

DIED. LJUBA WELITSCH, 83, Bulgarian-born soprano acclaimed for her vivid operatic performances; in Vienna. Welitsch played to ecstatic audiences in the 1940s and '50s, before overuse ruined her voice.

DIED. BABE DAHLGREN, 84, New York Yankees first baseman who earned a footnote in baseball history as the man who replaced Lou Gehrig when the ailing star took himself out of the lineup on May 2, 1939, ending his then-record streak of 2,130 consecutive games; in Arcadia, California.

DIED. BROTHER ADAM, 98, British beekeeper and Benedictine monk; in Buckfast, England. Sent as a boy of 12 to St. Mary's Abbey in Buckfast, German-born Brother Adam crossbred various bee stocks to produce the celebrated "Buckfast bee," a gentle, disease-resistant, prolific honey-producer. In 1991 the U.S. Department of Agriculture imported Buckfast queens to replace American bee populations killed by a viral epidemic.