MILESTONES

RESIGNING. ERIC OBER, 53, president of CBS News; in New York City. Ober walks the plank after five rocky years at the helm, piloting the network's news division through the rough seas of cost cuts, declining ratings and the ill-fated pairing of shipmates Connie Chung and Dan Rather.

RECOVERING. CHUN DOO HWAN, 64, former South Korean President; from a 26-day hunger strike; in Seoul. Chun was arrested in December for his role in the 1979 coup that brought him to power. He was given oxygen and an intravenous drip, and should be well enough to be tried in about a month.

DIED. SHURA CHERKASSKY, 84, classical concert pianist; in London. The Odessa-born prodigy brought emotional fire and interpretive panache to the Romantic repertoire of Chopin and Rachmaninoff.

DIED. BUTTERFLY MCQUEEN, 84, actress; of burns received while lighting a kerosene heater; in Augusta, Georgia. In 1937 the New York Times theater critic noticed "the extraordinary artistry of a high-stepping, little dusky creature who describes herself as Butterfly McQueen." Two years later, the world saw McQueen as Prissy, the comically incompetent slave in the film classic Gone With the Wind. Her panicked "Lawdy, Miz Scarlett. I don't know nothing about birthing babies!" became one of the most quoted lines in movie history--and in later years, a focus of criticism for fitting an "Uncle Thomasina" stereotype. Ironically, McQueen herself fought to humanize the role, refusing to perform even greater indignities like a watermelon-eating scene. By 1947 McQueen decided she would no longer play servants--a stand that effectively ended her movie career.

DIED. JAMES MEADE, 88, Nobel-prizewinning economist and critic of Thatcher-era policies that emphasized taming inflation over creating jobs; in Cambridge, England.