Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Elizabeth L. Bland, Sean Gregory, Janice M. Horowitz and Rebecca Winters

UPHELD. By the SUPREME COURT, most of a Virginia law that permits the outlawing of cross burnings; in a 6-to-3 ruling; in Washington. While the court said that cross burnings intended to terrorize do not have First Amendment protection, it made a distinction (and inspired an outraged objection from Justice Clarence Thomas) by ruling that the 1952 statute was flawed because it did not take into account that some cross burnings could be purely political and thus deserving of constitutional protection.

AILING. ROBERT ATKINS, 72, founder of the high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet; in a coma, with severe head injuries, after slipping on ice and hitting his head on a sidewalk; in New York City. Doctors who performed surgery to relieve the pressure of the trauma said his condition was grave.

DIED. DAVID BLOOM, 39, NBC News correspondent embedded with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, whose ebullience and tireless filing made him one of the war's best-known reporters; of a pulmonary embolism, which caused him to collapse 25 miles south of Baghdad. Hair blown by the wind and face streaked with soot, he filed many of his reports from the "Bloommobile" he designed--a tank equipped with a camera mounted on a gyroscope that allowed him to broadcast on the move. A father of three, he covered the O.J. Simpson trial and the Clinton White House before becoming co-anchor of the Weekend Today show. Doctors said the embolism was probably caused by a blood clot in his leg, perhaps linked to hours of cramped riding in an Army tank.

DIED. ANITA BORG, 54, computer scientist who galvanized women worldwide to join the male-dominated field; of brain cancer; in Sonoma, Calif. At a 1987 conference, she struck up a chat in the ladies' room about the paltry turnout of women. She then founded the "Systers" e-mail list and co-founded a prestigious biannual convention. Her trademark T shirt read, WELL BEHAVED WOMEN RARELY MAKE HISTORY.

DIED. BABATUNDE OLATUNJI, 76, influential Nigerian drummer whose 1959 album, Drums of Passion, the first African drumming collection recorded in stereo in a U.S. studio, set off a wave of African-jazz fusion in the 1960s; of diabetes; in Salinas, Calif. Carlos Santana's first single, Jingo, was a remake of the Olatunji number Jin-Go-Lo-Ba.

DIED. VERA ZORINA, 86, star ballerina turned Hollywood actress of the 1930s and '40s; in Santa Fe, N.M. Born Eva Brigitta Hartwig in Berlin, she was married for eight years to George Balanchine, who choreographed her performances as a sultry nymph in the 1938 film The Goldwyn Follies, the angel in the Broadway musical I Married an Angel and the lead muse in his 1943 ballet, Apollo.

DIED. CECILE DE BRUNHOFF, 99, who invented the tale of Babar the elephant, which her husband, writer-painter Jean de Brunhoff, and later her son Laurent, turned into the famous, internationally beloved series of illustrated children's books, which now number close to 50; in Paris. To calm her sons Laurent and Mathieu one night in 1930 when the latter was ill, she told the story of an orphaned elephant who flees the jungle and winds up in a big city much like Paris.