Milestones

NAMED. Katie Couric, 49, as anchor of the CBS Evening News, becoming the first sole female anchor and managing editor of a network newscast; in New York City. As the abidingly chipper co-host of Today, Couric led NBC's morning show to 538 consecutive weeks of ratings dominance. In September, Couric will assume the desk once manned by Walter Cronkite; she will also be a contributor to 60 Minutes.

RESIGNED. Brian Doyle, 56, as deputy press secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; following his arrest for attempting to seduce a minor over the Internet; in Silver Spring, Md. Doyle was an employee of TIME's Washington bureau from 1975 to 2001.

CLEARED. Dan Brown, 41, whose 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code, was denounced by the Vatican for "falsify[ing] the figure of Christ" on its way to becoming one of the best-selling (40 million copies) adult novels in history; of allegations that he lifted a theme--that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had a child--from another book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail; in a verdict by Britain's High Court that clears the way for next month's release of the film version of the book, starring Tom Hanks; in London. Brown, who acknowledged reading Blood during his research, called the charge "utterly without merit."

MURDERED. Denis Donaldson, 56, former official in Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, who in December admitted he had been spying on the I.R.A. for the British since the mid-1980s; by gunfire; at his family's holiday home in County Donegal, Ireland. The I.R.A., which renounced political violence last year but has had a policy of killing suspected informants, denied responsibility for the murder.

DIED. Maggie Dixon, 28, head coach of the U.S. Army women's basketball team, who last month led the Black Knights to their first NCAA women's tournament, where they lost to No. 6-ranked Tennessee in the first round; following an episode of irregular heartbeat; in Valhalla, N.Y. At the urging of her older brother, Pittsburgh men's basketball coach Jamie Dixon, the onetime WNBA hopeful took up coaching after failing to win a spot on the Los Angeles Sparks. The siblings are thought to be the first to coach at the NCAA tournaments in the same year.

DIED. Barry Bingham Jr., 72, third-generation chief of a Kentucky media empire run by the liberal, philanthropic, much chronicled Bingham family, sometimes called the Kennedys of the South; of respiratory failure, after a battle with Hodgkin's disease; in Glenview, Ky. After two brothers died in freak accidents, Bingham took over the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times from his father in 1971. He set new ethics guidelines, pushed public-service journalism and led the papers to three Pulitzers before a battle among the siblings prompted patriarch Barry Bingham Sr. to sell the papers to Gannett in 1986.

DIED. Helen Ullrich, 83, founder of the international Society for Nutrition Education, who agitated for labels with nutritional information and introduced a food pyramid at a 1988 global conference, four years before the U.S. Department of Agriculture published its original standard Food Guide Pyramid; in Berkeley, Calif.

DIED. Henry Farrell, 85, pulp novelist and screenwriter who specialized in macabre melodrama and penned the short story that inspired the film Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte as well as the novel What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?; in Pacific Palisades, Calif. The 1962 film version of Jane, which starred Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, helped fuel a genre of dark thrillers and won five Oscar nominations.

DIED. Gene Pitney, 65, wholesome, ebullient teen idol who crooned impossibly melodramatic tales of failed romance, topping the charts in the 1960s with hits including 24 Hours from Tulsa, (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance and the Oscar-nominated title song for the 1961 film Town Without Pity; apparently of natural causes, while on tour in Britain; in Cardiff, Wales. One of the first acts produced by Phil Spector, the perfectionistic tenor got his start behind the scenes, penning hits for artists like Ricky Nelson (Hello Mary Lou), Bobby Vee (Rubber Ball) and the Crystals (He's a Rebel).

With reporting by Melissa August, Harriet Barovick