Milestones

By Amanda Bower, Randy Hartwell, Ellin Martens, Julie Rawe, Joel Stein, Chris Taylor, Mitch Frank and Josh Tyrangiel

CONVICTED. RAE CARRUTH, 26, former Carolina Panthers receiver; of conspiring to kill his pregnant girlfriend, who was shot four times in 1999; in Charlotte, N.C. Accused of not wanting to pay child support, Carruth was also convicted of intent to kill an unborn child, who survived delivery by caesarean section. Acquitted of first-degree murder, Carruth faces 20 years in prison for the conspiracy charge, which his lawyer plans to appeal.

RELIEVED OF DUTY. ODIN FRED LEBERMAN, 45, commander of the Marines' only V-22 Osprey training squadron; in New River, N.C. Leberman was removed after charges surfaced--to which he later admitted--that he had falsified maintenance records to cover up problems in the troubled aircraft program, which has been grounded since two crashes last year killed 23 Marines.

DIED. AUBERON WAUGH, 61, British journalist, critic, contrarian and onetime parliamentary candidate for the Dog-Lovers' Party who vented his spleen in publications ranging from the Daily Telegraph to Private Eye; of heart failure; in Somerset, England. The eldest son of novelist Evelyn Waugh, he abandoned fiction to escape his father's shadow and became a prolific columnist who never forgot a vendetta or missed an opportunity to make mischief.

DIED. GREGORY CORSO, 70, hardscrabble poet and original member of the literary Beat movement; of prostate cancer; in Robbinsdale, Minn. A streetwise orphan who discovered literature as a teen while in jail for theft, Corso was mythologized by the middle-class Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac for his poverty and self-taught genius. As a social critic, he often provoked violent reactions: his ode to nuclear weapons, "Bomb," prompted members of an Oxford poetry society to throw shoes at him.

DIED. LUIZ BONFA, 78, master guitarist and songwriter who helped introduce an international audience to the Brazilian bossa nova; in Rio de Janeiro. His samba-based rhythms were featured in songs he co-wrote with Antonio Carlos Jobim for the film Black Orpheus (1959). The sound captivated American jazz and pop artists, and his works were recorded by Stan Getz and Frank Sinatra.

DIED. LEONARD WOODCOCK, 89, steadfast president of the United Auto Workers who succeeded Walter Reuther and led a 67-day strike against General Motors in 1970, winning cost-of-living protection and pension gains; in Ann Arbor, Mich. Woodcock used his negotiating skills when he later served as an envoy to China in the Carter Administration, helping establish diplomatic relations with that country in 1979. DIED. MORRIS LAPIDUS, 98, flamboyant architect scorned by his contemporaries but later praised by postmodern critics for the glitzy Florida hotels he designed in the 1950s, including the Fountainebleu and the Eden Roc; in Miami Beach. Lapidus, who abhorred straight lines, created curvy, colorful structures with theatrical elements such as a "staircase to nowhere" in Miami Beach's Fontainebleau Hilton and an alligator terrarium in the Americana lobby. "The critics hated my work," he said, "but the people loved it."