Milestones

By Melissa August, Matthew Cooper, Ellin Martens, Lisa McLaughlin, Julie Rawe, Alain L. Sanders and Josh Tyrangiel

BORN. To DEE DEE MYERS, 38, former Clinton press secretary, and husband TODD PURDUM, 40, New York Times journalist: first child, Katharine; in Los Angeles.

RESIGNED. Outgoing Taiwanese President LEE TENG-HUI, 77, as head of the Nationalist Party; after the stunning election defeat of the party's presidential candidate to opposition politician Chen Shui-bian; in Taipei. The Nationalists' first loss of power since Taiwan's founding in 1949 sparked protests and calls for Lee's departure.

AWARDED. To FREEMAN DYSON, 76, agnostic physicist-ethicist, the Templeton Prize in religion; in New York City. He won for advocating a fusion of moral values with science.

RECOVERING. TOM GREEN, 28, MTV funnyman; from testicular-cancer operations; in Los Angeles.

RECOVERING. RODNEY DANGERFIELD, 78, gets-no-respect comic; from heart-bypass surgery; in Los Angeles.

DIED. CARLO PAROLA, 79, Italian soccer star who gained international fame for the acrobatic bicycle kick he popularized in the 1940s; in Turin, Italy.

DIED. JEAN HOWARD, 89, starlet, socialite and photographer of filmdom's glamour set from the 1930s through the 1960s; in Beverly Hills, Calif. Her pictures of the bygone era appeared in a 1989 book, Jean Howard's Hollywood.

DIED. SPENCER HAYWARD BLAIN, 63, top banker convicted for his role in the $284 million failure of Empire Savings & Loan of Mesquite, Texas, one of the 1980s' notorious thrift failures; of cancer complications; in Dallas.

DIED. IVAN HIRST, 84, British army engineer who retooled Volkswagen's bombed-out factory in Wolfsburg, Germany, at World War II's end to roll out one of the firm's prewar prototypes, which soon became the popular Beetle; in Marsden, England. The British army ordered 20,000 for transport duty, ironically turning Hitler's dream of a "people's car" into a reality.