Milestones

By Harriet Barovick, Unmesh Kher, Kate Novack And Aatish Taseer

CHARGED. MIKHAIL KHODORKOVSKY, 40, chief of the Russian oil giant Yukos and the wealthiest of the country's "oligarchs," who made quick fortunes after the Soviet Union's collapse by acquiring cheap state property; with fraud and tax evasion; by prosecutors in Moscow, after special forces surrounded his plane at an airport in Siberia. The dramatic move, part of an ongoing probe into Yukos, was seen by skeptics as a Kremlin-led effort to keep the tycoon, who has funded opposition parties, out of politics.

MISTRIAL DECLARED. In the federal case against FRANK QUATTRONE, 48, star technology banker for Credit Suisse First Boston, on obstruction-of-justice charges related to an email he sent that appeared to urge employees to destroy documents as the bank was under investigation; after a judge found the jury to be deadlocked; in New York City. Prosecutors said they would probably retry the case.

DIED. ELLIOTT SMITH, 34, perceptive singer-songwriter; an apparent suicide; in Los Angeles. Smith, who changed his name to Elliott as a teenager because Steve sounded too "jockish," got his start in the punk band Heatmiser before turning to a folkier, more reflective solo style. Influenced by Nick Drake and the Beatles, he recorded five CDs of smart, emotionally dark songs that impressed critics, inspired a cult following, and in 1998 won him an Oscar nomination for Miss Misery--one of five of his songs on the Good Will Hunting sound track.

DIED. FRED BERRY, 52, rotund actor who plotted perennially goofy schemes as Rerun on the 1970s sitcom What's Happening; apparently of natural causes; in Los Angeles. After a battle with drugs, he became a minister in Madison, Ala.

DIED. ALIJA IZETBEGOVIC, 78, former Bosnian President who led his country through a brutal war and eventually to independence; of complications from a fall; in Sarajevo. Criticized as fundamentalist by some Serbs and Croatians, the devout Muslim was hailed by others for resolutely defending his country against Serbian aggression in a three-year conflict, the bloodiest since World War II, which killed more than 200,000.

DIED. JACK ELAM, 82, accountant turned movie actor who, with a maniacal leer and dead eye (a result of being stuck with a pencil during a boyhood fight) specialized in playing mean hombres in such westerns as High Noon and Once Upon a Time in the West; of congestive heart failure; in Ashland, Ore. Later he showed his comedic skills in the 1969 parody Support Your Local Sheriff.

DIED. LOUISE DAY HICKS, 87, antibusing crusader; in Boston. As a city council member and public-school official, she led the fight against busing to desegregate the schools, saying it went against the interests of residents in her nearly all-white South Boston neighborhood.

DIED. LUIS FERRE, 99, ex-Governor of Puerto Rico who championed statehood; in San Juan. A powerful political and cultural force for half a century, he helped produce Puerto Rico's 1952 constitution and founded the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, arguing until he died that without statehood the island would be forever hampered by "colonial" status.

DIED. MADAME CHIANG KAI-SHEK, 105, charismatic, imperious anticommunist politician and widow of the nationalist Chinese leader; in New York City (see page 47).