Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Val Castronovo, Tam Gray, Desa Philadephia, Julie Rawe, Hope Reeves and Chris Taylor

SENTENCED. AARON MCKINNEY, 22, high school dropout; to two consecutive life sentences without parole; for the 1998 murder, kidnapping and robbery of gay college student Matthew Shepard; in Laramie, Wyo. Matthew's parents--who interceded as the jury began to deliberate--spared him the death penalty in exchange for his promise never to appeal.

AILING. TOM LANDRY, 75, longtime Dallas Cowboys coach; with acute myelogenous leukemia; in Dallas. Landry has been undergoing treatment since May.

DIED. WALTER PAYTON, 45, Hall of Fame Chicago Bears running back who gained 16,726 rushing yds.--more than anyone else in NFL history; of bile-duct cancer; in Barrington, Ill. (see Eulogy).

ASSASSINATED. WEZI KAUNDA, 47, rising Zambian opposition leader and son of former President Kenneth Kaunda; by four gunmen; as he and his wife--who was unharmed--were on their way home; in Lusaka.

DIED. ALAN HEIMERT, 70, influential Harvard literature professor; of complications from cardiovascular disease; in Washington. Heimert's best-known book, Religion and the American Mind (1966), suggested that Evangelicals helped prompt the American Revolution.

DIED. IAN BANNEN, 71, Oscar nominee who played an affable con man in 1998's hit Waking Ned Devine; in a car crash near Loch Ness, Scotland. In a 50-year career, Bannen appeared in Braveheart, Gandhi and the 1980 TV mini-series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; and on the London stage in The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Journey into Night.

DIED. DAISY BATES, 84, civil rights leader whose memoir, The Long Shadow of Little Rock, won a 1988 American Book Award; in Little Rock, Ark. During rioting in 1957 over the integration of Central High, Bates advised the nine black students. With her husband, she founded the Arkansas State Press--a key voice for the movement. Her crusade, she said, "had a lot to do with removing fear that people have for getting involved."