Milestones

By Elizabeth L. Bland, Victoria Rainert, Sora Song, Heather Won Tesoriero

RESIGNED. PAT ROBERTSON, 71, evangelist broadcaster and onetime presidential candidate; as president of the Christian Coalition, the once powerful but now faltering right-wing political group he founded in 1989; in Washington. Robertson plans to devote more attention to his 35-year-old TV show The 700 Club and to the international expansion of his Christian Broadcasting Network.

CHARGED. CLAYTON LEE WAAGNER, 45, antiabortion fanatic and one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives; with illegal possession of a firearm as a convicted felon; in Springdale, Ohio. A father of nine, Waagner claims to have mailed some 550 hoax anthrax letters to about 280 abortion clinics since October. If convicted, he faces 15 years in prison.

CONVICTED. A. ALFRED TAUBMAN, 76, ex-chairman of the giant Sotheby's auction house and billionaire shopping-mall developer; of colluding with Christie's to fix prices, defrauding art sellers of millions in commissions; in New York City. Despite defense denials, the jury apparently believed star witness Diana Brooks, Sotheby's former CEO, who testified that Taubman helped hatch the scheme in 1993. He faces three years in prison and a $350,000 fine.

DIED. SIR PETER BLAKE, 53, yachtsman and explorer who led New Zealand to America's Cup championships in 1995 and 2000; when masked pirates came aboard his moored yacht and shot him as he tried to prevent the robbery; at the mouth of the Amazon River, near Macapa. Blake had been in Brazil for two months monitoring the effects of global warming and pollution.

DIED. MARIKE DE KLERK, 64, ex-wife of F.W. de Klerk, the last President of South Africa before apartheid was abolished, who shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela; when a security guard at her apartment complex strangled and stabbed her; in Blaauwberg, South Africa. At the time of her murder, her former husband was in Stockholm celebrating the centennial of the Nobel Prizes.

DIED. WILLIAM JOVANOVICH, 81, maverick businessman who became chairman of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1954, seven years after joining the publishing house as a college-textbook salesman; of heart failure; in San Diego. During his 36-year tenure, Jovanovich also published his own writings, including a 1990 novel, The World's Last Night.

DIED. J0E HIN TJIO, 82, biologist who first accurately counted the number of chromosomes (46) in human cells, shaping future study of diseases linked to chromosomal variations; in Gaithersburg, Md.