Milestones

By Melissa August; Elizabeth L. Bland; Jeninne Lee-St. John; Coco Masters; Carolina A. Miranda

OPENED. By artists CHRISTO and JEANNE-CLAUDE, 69; The Gates, an installation of 7,500 saffron-colored fabric panels hanging from 16-ft.-tall portals along 23 miles of walkway in Central Park; in New York City. The Gates will be on display until Feb. 28.

RECORD SET. By ELLEN MACARTHUR, 28, British sailor who circum- navigated the globe solo in 71 days 14 hr. 18 min. 33 sec., breaking the previous best by more than 32 hours; off the coast of Ushant, France. During her 27,348-mile voyage, MacArthur slept no more than four hours a night, dodged icebergs and survived a near collision with a whale.

RESIGNED. EASON JORDAN, 44, CNN's chief news executive; amid a furor over his apparent assertion last month that coalition forces in Iraq deliberately killed journalists; in Atlanta. He later backtracked, saying he was referring only to journalists "shot at by American forces who mistook them for the enemy."

CONVICTED. LYNNE STEWART, 65, lawyer for Egyptian cleric and convicted terrorist Omar Abdel Rahman; of conspiracy, perjury and aiding terrorism by passing on messages from her jailed client to his followers; in New York City. Stewart was charged with breaking Justice Department rules imposed to prevent Rahman, who is serving a life term for plotting to blow up New York City landmarks, from inciting terrorist activity. She faces up to 20 years in prison.

CONVICTED. PAUL SHANLEY, 74, defrocked Roman Catholic priest accused of repeatedly molesting a boy while serving at a Newton, Mass., parish in the 1980s; of child rape and indecent assault; in Boston. More than two dozen men say they too were molested by Shanley, who faces life in prison. After the verdict was announced, the Archdiocese of Boston, which for years dealt with allegations by moving implicated priests to another parish, again apologized "for the crimes and harm perpetrated against children by priests."

DIED. JIMMY SMITH, 76, organ virtuoso who pioneered a blend of jazz, R&B, gospel and bebop known as "soul jazz"; in Scottsdale, Ariz. Fingers fluttering over the keys and feet dancing across the pedals, Smith made the Hammond B-3 electric organ a respected jazz instrument, spreading its unique sound up and down the East Coast with his touring trio and putting out a series of trailblazing recordings on the Blue Note label in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

DIED. GEORGE HERMAN, 85, intrepid CBS News reporter who was host of the Sunday-morning show Face the Nation from 1969 to 1983; in Washington. Herman covered the Korean War as well as the Eisenhower and Kennedy White Houses and was the first reporter to go on-air with news of a break-in at the Democratic National Committee's Watergate headquarters in 1972.

DIED. ARTHUR MILLER, 89, legendary playwright; in Roxbury, Conn. (see APPRECIATION, page 72).

DIED. GEORGE DUDLEY, 90, architect who helped design Rockefeller Center and the U.N. headquarters; in Rensselaerville, N.Y. He and his boss, fellow architect Wallace K. Harrison, used steel and glass to turn billionaire philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s dreams of architectural grandeur into modernist reality.

By Melissa August, Elizabeth L. Bland, Jeninne Lee-St. John, Coco Masters and Carolina A. Miranda