Milestones

By Melissa August; Elizabeth L. Bland; William Han; Unmesh Kher; Nadia Mustafa; Jonathan Rick; Chris Taylor

KEPT IN OFFICE. HUGO CHAVEZ, 50, President of Venezuela; by the country's voters through a recall referendum; in Caracas. The leftist leader, hailed as a hero by the nation's poor but denounced as authoritarian by his critics, drew a 59% majority in a vote that was challenged as fraudulent by the opposition but endorsed by former President Jimmy Carter and the Organization of American States, which monitored the election.

DIED. ISIDRO (EL INDIO) LOPEZ, 75, saxophonist and crooner considered to be the father of Tejano music; of complications from a stroke and brain aneurysm; in Corpus Christi, Texas. The native Texan, who was half Apache (hence "El Indio"), formed the Isidro Lopez Orchestra in 1956, combining a Big Band sound with accordion-laced Mexican-style polka called conjunto. Also nicknamed "the Mexican Elvis," he wrote more than 500 songs, including rock tunes such as Mala Cara and Macho Rock 'n' Roll.

DIED. ELMER BERNSTEIN, 82, composer who created both jazzy and gentle scores for more than 200 Hollywood films over 50 years; in Ojai, Calif. He composed the muscular jazz scores for such '50s films as The Man with the Golden Arm and Sweet Smell of Success; worked in a more delicate, bluer key for films like To Kill a Mockingbird and Far From Heaven; and created the familiar, oft heard themes for The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape. His only Oscar came for his score (but not the songs) for Thoroughly Modern Millie.

DIED. SIR GODFREY HOUNSFIELD, 84, British electrical engineer who invented the C.T. scan, a diagnostic tool that revolutionized medical care; in London. In the 1960s he built the computerized axial tomography scanner, which uses X rays to give doctors a three-dimensional, cross-sectional view of the body's interior. The innovation brought him the 1979 Nobel Prize, which he shared with South African scientist Allan Cormack, who had worked independently on the idea.

DIED. SUSAN ALSOP, 86, Washington doyenne whose dinner parties during the 1960s were attended by the elite of politics, media and diplomacy; in Washington. A descendant of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the U.S., she grew up in privileged society, dining with Presidents and Prime Ministers. Widowed in 1960, the next year she married her first husband's college roommate, newspaper columnist Joseph Alsop (whom she divorced in 1978). President Kennedy visited their home on Inauguration night, and again in 1962 to meet with two Soviet experts just before the showdown with Moscow over the Cuban missile crisis.

DIED. SUNE BERGSTROM, 88, Nobel laureate who in the 1950s helped discover the structure and function of prostaglandins, a family of hormones that play a vital role in a host of bodily functions; in Stockholm. Drugs derived from the chemicals are widely used in birth control, abortion, pain relief and the prevention of blood clots.

DIED. HIRAM FONG, 97, son of impoverished Chinese immigrants who became a millionaire businessman and the first Asian American in the U.S. Senate, serving as Hawaii's only Republican Senator for 18 years; in Honolulu. A product of the Honolulu slums who worked his way through Harvard Law School, he lobbied for Hawaii's statehood as speaker of the territorial house of representatives and in 1959 was elected one of the state's first two Senators.

DIED. CARL MYDANS, 97, LIFE magazine photojournalist; in Larchmont, N.Y. (See Eulogy.)