Milestones

DIED

Basketball star Connie Hawkins, at 75. The forward toured the world with the Harlem Globetrotters before playing with the NBA, including the Phoenix Suns and L.A. Lakers. A four-time All-Star, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.

> Veteran French actor Jean Rochefort, who appeared in nearly 150 movies including Patrice Leconte’s Ridicule and Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One, at 87.

> French fashion designer Hervé Leroux, who made his name by creating the figure-hugging bandage-style dresses popular in the 1990s, at 60.

FAILED

Team USA, to qualify for next year’s soccer World Cup finals for the first time since 1986, following a 2-1 loss to Trinidad and Tobago on Oct. 10.

REPEALED

The nation’s most extensive soda tax, covering 5.2 million people, in Chicago. Cook County’s board of commissioners voted to repeal the tax from Dec. 1 after a major campaign by the bottled-drinks industry, which spent millions on ad campaigns and lobbyists.

WON

The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, by Richard Thaler (right) of the University of Chicago, for his contributions to behavioral economics. The co-author of Nudge “built a bridge between the economic and psychological analyses of individual decisionmaking,” the Nobel Prize committee said.

NAMED

Twenty-four new recipients of “genius” grants, by the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation. The MacArthur fellows, who each receive $625,000 over five years to spend in any way they choose, include computer scientist Regina Barzilay and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen.

ANNOUNCED

Plans to admit girls into the Cub Scouts program from 2018, by the Boy Scouts of America’s board of directors. A new program following the Boy Scouts curriculum will also be established for older girls.