Milestones

By Melissa August, Val Castronovo, Rachel Dry, Daren Fonda, Michael Jackson, Ellin Martens, Benjamin Nugent, Michele Orecklin, Julie Rawe, John Rosenblatt, Josh Tyrangiel

RECOVERING. FORMER PRESIDENT GERALD FORD, 87, from at least one mild stroke following an upbeat appearance at the Republican National Convention; in Philadelphia. Doctors also drained an abscess in Ford's swollen tongue, caused by a rare bacterial infection.

SENTENCED. ABE HIRSCHFELD, 80, combative outburst-prone millionaire; to one to three years in prison for soliciting a hitman to kill his business partner; in New York City.

CHARGED. EX-INDONESIAN PRESIDENT SUHARTO, 79, ailing political strongman now under house arrest; with embezzling up to $570 million from state coffers; in Jakarta. Suharto's lawyers claim he's mentally unfit to stand trial.

DIED. WILLIAM MAXWELL, 91, author and New Yorker fixture who polished the prose of Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike and J.D. Salinger, among other authors; in Manhattan. A 40-year veteran of the magazine, Maxwell wrote six novels as well as dozens of short stories, essays and reviews. Renowned for his tact and insight, he edited such writers as Eudora Welty and John O'Hara, and he once took a train to tell John Cheever that one of his stories had been rejected.

DIED. ABRAHAM PAIS, 82, physicist and science historian; in Copenhagen. After surviving Nazi persecution in Holland, Pais conducted research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. Later in life he won broad acclaim for his biography of Albert Einstein and essays on other scientists.

DIED. BERTHA HOLT, 96, children's advocate whose missionary-like crusade to adopt war orphans resulted in a 1955 law allowing Americans to adopt more children internationally; in Creswell, Ore. Devout Baptists, Holt and her husband adopted eight Korean children left abandoned by U.S. soldiers and founded a respected international adoption agency.