Milestones

ANNOUNCED

By the Obama Administration, that Shell has permission to drill in the Arctic beginning this summer. The decision is conditional upon Shell’s obtaining other permits from government agencies.

DIED

Elizabeth Wilson, 94, who played the mother of Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate and the villain in 9 to 5. She won a Tony Award in 1972 for Sticks and Bones.

SET

A new record for the most expensive artwork sold at auction, Picasso’s Women of Algiers (Version O). It went for $179.4 million at Christie’s in New York City.

SENTENCED

Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer, to 3½ years in prison for revealing to a New York Times reporter a plan to curb Iran’s nuclear program by passing it phony blueprints.

REACHED

A treaty by the Vatican to formally recognize the Palestinian state. The two sides said it would be signed soon.

DIED

Peter Gay, 91, a historian who wrote landmark books on Freud, Voltaire and the Enlightenment. His volume The Rise of Modern Paganism won the National Book Award in 1967.