Milestones

EXPECTING. Mary Cunningham, 33, America's best-known businesswoman since her meteoric, media-monitored career at Bendix Corp. in 1979-80 and her 1984 book Powerplay, which blamed the press for leering speculation about favors from the boss; and William Agee, 47, her mentor as chairman of Bendix from 1977 to 1983 and her husband of three years: their first child (he has three children by a previous marriage); in September. The couple now run their own venture-capital and consulting firm, Semper Enterprises, on Cape Cod, Mass.

MARRIED. Cristina Ferrare, 34, Los Angeles TV talk-show host divorced only two weeks ago from John De Lorean, beleaguered former automaker and accused-but-acquitted cocaine conspirator, by whose side she had sat devotedly during last year's trial; and Anthony Thomopoulos, 47, president of the ABC Broadcast Group, for whom this is also the second marriage; in Beverly Hills.

ARRESTED. Huey P. Newton, 43, co-founder of the Black Panthers, the violence- and faction-ridden black militant organization that enjoyed a radical-chic vogue in the 1960s and '70s; on charges that he and an associate embezzled as much as $67,000 in federal and state funds; in Oakland. The money was allegedly taken from a community education and nutrition program the Panthers operated from 1973 to 1983. A post-arrest police search of Newton's home turned up burglary tools, a loaded .45-cal. automatic and a shotgun, for which he also faces charges.

CONVERTED. Lewis Lehrman, 46, conservative New York business millionaire and 1982 Republican gubernatorial candidate who narrowly lost to Democrat Mario Cuomo; from Reform Judaism, the faith in which he was raised, to Roman Catholicism, whose teachings had increasingly attracted him, especially since a 1983 audience with Pope John Paul II; in a private baptism in New York City. "I can only hope for understanding," said Lehrman, whose wife and five children are Episcopalians and whose older sister is a convert to Mormonism. Some Jewish leaders nonetheless professed disappointment at the loss of a highly visible political role model, especially one who had a long-shot chance at becoming the first Jewish U.S. President.

DIED. James Briley, 28, murderer convicted of killing a pregnant Virginia woman as well as her five-year-old son and implicated in other 1979 gang killings; by electrocution; in Richmond. The same electric chair six months earlier had claimed Briley's older brother Linwood, also convicted of multiple murders, with whom he and four other men escaped for 19 days in the greatest death-row breakout in history; a third brother is serving a life sentence for murder. Club-wielding fellow prisoners attempted to stop James' execution in a 30-minute uprising that left nine guards and one inmate injured.