MILESTONES

ARRESTED. QUEEN LATIFAH, 25, anti-violence rapper and a star of the sitcom Living Single; for alleged gun and marijuana possession; in Los Angeles.

DIED. JOSEPH BRODSKY, 55, exiled Russian poet, 1987 Nobel prizewinner and poet laureate of his adopted U.S.; of a heart attack; in New York City. Brodsky's 1964 Soviet trial for "parasitism," prompted by the underground distribution of his works, made him a cause celebre in the West and led to his expulsion in 1972. His intense verses, filled with images of loss and wandering, won him wide acclaim and America's highest honor for poetry in 1991.

DIED. HENRY LEWIS, 63, the first black music director of a major U.S. orchestra; of a heart attack; in New York City. Not only did Lewis pull the New Jersey Symphony from obscurity to national prominence, but he also brought it to the parks and gyms of America's ghettos, working-class neighborhoods and suburban towns. Lewis conducted nearly every major U.S. orchestra, breaking racial barriers with each baton stroke.

DIED. RAY MCINTIRE, 77, Dow chemist who inadvertently invented Styrofoam in a 1944 experiment; in Midland, Michigan.

DIED. JERRY SIEGEL, 81, co-creator of Superman; in Los Angeles. In a single fateful bound in 1938, Siegel and his artist partner Joe Shuster leaped to sell their Superman rights to Detective Comics for a mere $130. In 1975, long after the Man of Steel had become a man of gold (and his two creators had drifted into near poverty), Warner Communications, which by then owned the rights, agreed to restore the two men's bylines and give them annual stipends for life.

DIED. JULIAN HILL, 91, Du Pont research chemist whose work in the 1930s led to the creation of nylon, one of the company's most versatile and lucrative finds; in Hockessin, Delaware.