Milestones

By Peter Bailey; Elizabeth L. Bland; Carolina A. Miranda; Julie Rawe; Elizabeth Sampson

BAN OVERTURNED. ON SNOWMOBILES in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks; in Cheyenne, Wyo. U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer termed the ban, adopted during the Clinton Administration but delayed by lawsuits from snowmobile manufacturers, a "prejudged, political" move that sought to exclude the vehicles from all national parks.

BORN. To Private First Class LYNNDIE ENGLAND, 21, soldier seen holding a leash in some of the most notorious photographs from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and Specialist Charles Graner Jr., 36, also shown in prison photographs: a son; in Fort Bragg, N.C. The parents are among seven reservists charged in connection with abuse at the prison late last year. The West Virginia mother is scheduled to stand trial in January on charges that carry a maximum sentence of 38 years in prison.

DIED. KEN CAMINITI, 41, the National League's most valuable player in 1996 who later admitted to steroid use; of an apparent heart attack; in New York City. The third baseman hit 40 home runs in 1996, leading the San Diego Padres to a National League division title; he later told SPORTS ILLUSTRATED he started taking anabolic steroids that year. In 2001, eight days after his retirement from the Atlanta Braves, he pleaded guilty to cocaine possession and subsequently failed several drug tests required by his three-year probation, including one last month.

DIED. CHRISTOPHER REEVE, 52, chiseled star of the Superman movies who became even better known for his medical activism after a 1995 horseback-riding accident that left him paralyzed; of an infection from a pressure wound; in Mount Kisco, N.Y. (See Health, page 77.)

DIED. BRUCE PALMER, 58, hard-driving bass guitarist in the short-lived folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield, whose 1967 hit For What It's Worth became emblematic of the 1960s West Coast sound; of a heart attack; in Belleville, Ont.

DIED. GERARD PIERRE-CHARLES, 68, influential Haitian author and politician; of heart failure after a lung infection; in Cuba. Although the lifelong communist was an early ally of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's, standing by the former Haitian President during his 1991 ouster and his 1994 return to power, the two had a falling out in 1997, when Pierre-Charles accused Aristide of betraying the poor and drifting toward dictatorship. In 2001 Aristide backers burned down the home of Pierre-Charles, who continued to stage protests until the Haitian President finally left the country last February.

DIED. JAMES CHACE, 72, prominent scholar and author of books on American diplomacy; of a heart attack; in Paris. As the author of nine books and the editor of influential foreign policy journals, he helped shape political opinions and American foreign policy in the cold war era. His best-known work, Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World, was considered a crucial revision of postwar history, correcting the impression that Dean Acheson helped precipitate the cold war.

DIED. PIERRE SALINGER, 79, debonair press secretary during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations; of a heart attack; in the south of France. The loyal Kennedy family friend and longtime TV correspondent is known to younger generations for espousing the theory, later discredited, that TWA Flight 800 was brought down by friendly fire in 1996. One of the few archliberals who lived up to a pledge of going into exile if George W. Bush was elected President, Salinger had been running a B&B with his wife in Le Thor, Provence.

DIED. MAXIME FAGET, 83, whose design of the Mercury space capsule made it possible for men to return from space; in Houston. Early needle-nosed spaceships, designed to create as little resistance as possible, were almost impossible to protect from the heat of re-entry. Faget was the NASA engineer who designed a blunt nose for the Mercury, which created a shock wave that deflected the heat, a design feature that was continued on the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft as well as the Soviet Soyuz.