Milestones

By Kathleen Adams, Val Castronovo, Randy Hartwell, Lisa McLaughlin, Joseph Pierro, Josh Tyrangiel and Sora Song

WAIVED. TROY AIKMAN, 34, three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback who has suffered 10 career concussions but no dent in his desire to play; by the Cowboys; in Dallas. If Aikman had been re-signed, his contract would have garnered him a $7 million bonus and an extension through 2007, a cost owner Jerry Jones felt outweighed the player's waning power.

NULLIFIED. The adoption by a British couple of eight-month-old twins KIMBERLY and BELINDA, who had been offered via the Internet; by an Arkansas judge citing fraudulent circumstances. A California couple who were promised adoptive rights by the twins' biological mother pulled out of the custody battle after the husband was charged with molesting two baby sitters; meanwhile, the estranged natural parents are each claiming the twins. The infants remain in foster care.

INDICTED. Former George W. Bush ad-campaign worker JUANITA YVETTE LOZANO; for mail fraud, lying to the FBI and perjury; in Austin, Texas. Lozano is accused of copying documents and a videotape of Governor Bush rehearsing for presidential debates--and secretly sending the materials to the Gore camp.

DIED. FRANKIE CARLE, 97, durable, melodic Big Band leader, composer and pianist (a.k.a. "the Golden Touch") of the '40s and '50s, best known for Sunrise Serenade, which he co-wrote and became his theme; in Mesa, Ariz. Carle wrote such vintage standards as Falling Leaves and Roses in the Rain.

DIED. HAROLD E. STASSEN, 93, youngest Governor of Minnesota and eternally optimistic politician who made nine fruitless attempts to win the G.O.P. presidential nomination; in Bloomington, Minn. A political wunderkind, Stassen became county attorney at 23 and Governor at 31. Between stabs at the presidency (from 1948 to 1992), he continued a successful international-law practice, appointed the first black officer to the National Guard, helped charter the U.N. and served as president of the University of Pennsylvania and as a trusted aide to President Eisenhower.

DIED. JAMES A. RHODES, 91, Ohio's longest-serving Governor, who in May 1970 dispatched the National Guard to Kent State University to quell anti-Vietnam protests; in Columbus, Ohio. In Rhodes' 16-year tenure, Ohio's economy and public university system flourished, but history will always note the fateful May afternoon when soldiers killed four students and injured nine.

DIED. DAME NINETTE DE VALOIS, 102, formidable dance teacher, choreographer and founder of Britain's Royal Ballet; in London. De Valois was a classical ballerina by training, but as a director she often mounted wildly experimental productions, sending dancers to perform barefoot. A writer and an art lover, she sometimes brought drawings to life on her stage: Bar aux Folies-Bergere (1934), for instance, was inspired by a Manet painting of a Parisian lounge.