Milestones

By Melissa August, Nadia Mustafa and Aatish Taseer

ELECTED. KATHLEEN BLANCO, 60, a Democrat, as Governor of Louisiana; in a runoff election. Currently Lieutenant Governor, she becomes the state's first woman Governor after defeating Bobby Jindal, an Indian-American Republican.

DAMAGES RULED OUT. In the lawsuit between GRUNER & JAHR USA, publisher of the now defunct Rosie magazine, and the publication's former editor, comedian ROSIE O'DONNELL. After two weeks of often scorching testimony, Judge Ira Gammerman, in a preliminary ruling, said neither party was entitled to damages and likened the legal face-off--in which Gruner & Jahr sued O'Donnell for $100 million for allegedly abandoning her namesake magazine, and O'Donnell countersued for $125 million--to a sandbox squabble.

DIED. LAURENCE A. TISCH, 80, co-founder of Loews Corp. and former head of CBS; of cancer; in New York City. The Brooklyn-born Tisch began building his empire at 23 by buying a resort in New Jersey. Later, as head of Loews, he oversaw $70 billion in assets, including hotels, tobacco, insurance and watches. He gained control of CBS in 1986 with the support of founder William Paley and oversaw an era of major cost cutting and declining ratings at the so-called Tiffany network before selling the company in 1995.

DIED. CHARLES BROWN, 82, understated former chairman and CEO of American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (AT&T), who headed the company during the historic breakup of Ma Bell; in Richmond, Va. Brown, who spent his entire 40-year career at the company, opposed the breakup. But in 1982 he and his board settled an antitrust suit that split the world's largest company into eight parts--AT&T, with a long-distance and phone-equipment business, and seven Baby Bells.

DIED. C.Z. GUEST, 83, avatar of high society and syndicated gardening columnist; in Old Westbury, N.Y. After a rebellious youthful turn as a show girl (and posing nude for Diego Rivera), she married the heir to a steel fortune in 1947 on Ernest Hemingway's Havana plantation and went on to become a mainstay of society columns and best-dressed lists for years.

DIED. DONALD GRIFFIN, 88, animal behaviorist who was considered the father of animal-consciousness research; in Lexington, Mass. His 1976 book, The Question of Animal Awareness, revolutionized the study of animal behavior by arguing that animals have the capacity for thought and reason, a notion that was previously taboo.

DIED. IRV KUPCINET, 91, longtime Chicago Sun-Times gossip columnist; in Chicago. From its debut in January 1943 to its final appearance just four days before his death, "Kup's Column"--often reported from his de facto office, a booth in the Pump Room at Chicago's Omni Ambassador East Hotel--chronicled, with a gentle, often adoring touch, the lives of Hollywood starlets, local politicos, tycoons and princes.

DIED. MARVIN SMITH, 93, Kentucky-born photographer who documented life in Harlem from the 1930s to the '60s; in New York City. He and his twin brother Morgan were inseparable--they married twin sisters in a double wedding and divorced them on the same day three years later--and together they photographed celebrities like Jackie Robinson, Nat King Cole and Sidney Poitier, as well as moments of everyday life in Harlem.

DIED. PENNY SINGLETON, 95, movie, TV and radio actress best known for her role as Blondie in 28 films from 1938 to 1950 based on the popular comic strip and later as the voice of a space-age family matriarch in the TV cartoon show The Jetsons; in Los Angeles.