Starting Time

Person of the Week
LAST LAUGH More than 70 years ago, Albert Einstein calculated a force in the universe that works opposite to gravity: instead of pulling objects together, it pushes them apart. The idea was so wild he later refuted it, but Hubble telescope images of an exploding star have proven him right

Winners
HIDEO NOMO
First Chinese basketball player . . . wait, wrong sport. Japanese pitcher becomes the fourth to throw a no-hitter in both U.S. major leagues
TUPAC SHAKUR
Posthumous album by the rapper who went down in a hail of bullets in 1996 hits No. 1. Expect John Phillips to top the charts in 2007
GOLDEN LION TAMARIN
The Brazilian monkey fights back from near extinction; immediately teams up with Clint Eastwood for Any Which Way You Can sequel

Losers
SOPHIE RHYS-JONES
Prince Edward’s wife cocks up royally. A tabloid captures her on tape calling Cherie Blair “horrid, absolutely horrid, horrid, horrid”
GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO
Muslim separatists promise her the head of a hostage as a birthday gift. For Christmas, however, they’re giving her a new bedroom set
SURVIVOR II
Australian authorities bristle when reality show members swipe coral souvenirs. They become disgusted when hungry contestants eat the coral

Noted
“I don’t expect to win. I don’t think there is a chance they will set him free.”
TOMA FILA, Slobodan Milosevic’s lawyer, before appealing for his client’s release pending trial

Prime Number
592 million songs were downloaded from Napster in the last week of Marchdespite the site’s attempt to block copyrighted material

Omen
Clowns Internationalis encouraging its bulb-nosed members to consider “custard pie insurance” to guard against humorless, litigious audiences

Annals of Statesmanship
“Mr. President, Please Don Your Turban . . .”
Nothing can console the unfortunate masses of gujarat for their dreadful loss in January’s devastating earthquake. But in their darkest hour, there appeared a man whose ferocious appetites and celebrated girth are themselves affirmations of the force of life. Ex-President Bill Clinton came to extend his lower lip in sympathy and sample a cuisine that during his presidency took a back seat to McDonald’s and chicken fried steaks. (Although murgh malai, we understand, is Bill’s second favorite kind of chicken.) For Gujaratis and Clinton alike, it was a week in which the karma turnedand we all suddenly understood that retired heads of state can do so much more than secure financing for their libraries and prepare their legal defenses. Perhaps Clinton’s visit will be an inspiration for Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, who last week announced he would be stepping down. If Mori has one-tenth Clinton’s compassion, he’ll soon be telling Gujaratis, “I feel your pain” through an interpreter and wondering when’s lunch. Look at it this way, Citizen Mori: You may have lost power, riches and reputation. But you get a turban.

Wall to Wall Coverage
TREND. We laid down bear skin rugs in our residences, offices and customized vans for two reasons: one, the rugs look hot, and two, we know prospective partners can’t resist the erotic pull and sensuous feel of genuine bear. Alas, the rugs may have worked a little too well, leaving our premises too funky after bacchanalian nights spent on the skin. Now LINOLEUM RUGS offer a wipeable alternative that is as aesthetically pleasing and frankly sexual as its endangered counterpart. Created by L.A. painter Christopher Stearns, the linoleum rugs come in a variety of grid, dot and zigzag patterns. Jack Nicholson and Phil Collins have had intricate hand-cut floors inlaid. Perhaps, like us, they’ve always found cuddling on linoleum before an open hearth irresistibly romantic.

Milestones

HANGED. MARIETTE BOSCH, 50, for murdering her best friend in 1996 so she could marry her widowed husband; in Gaborone, Botswana. The tabloids dubbed the case “White Mischief,” and Bosch, a South African, hired a lawyer nicknamed “Scarlet Pimpernel” for his reputation for saving expats from the death penalty. She lost an appeal in February and became the first white person executed in Botswana.
SENTENCED. PERRY WACKER, 32, to 14 years in prison for the manslaughter of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants who suffocated in the back of his truck while being smuggled into Britain from Belgium; in Maidstone, England. Of the original 60, two surviving immigrants told how Wacker had closed the air vent on one of the hottest days of the year.
CONVICTION OVERTURNED. For BENAZIR BHUTTO, 49, the two-time Prime Minister of Pakistan; in Islamabad. The Supreme Court ruled that a 1999 trial convicting Bhutto of corruption was fixed, paving the way for the self-exiled Bhutto to return home.
INDICTED. SONG HAK SAM, 55, for visiting North Korea and allegedly distributing a book sympathetic to North Korea in violation of a South Korean security law; in Seoul. Song’s lawyers and human rights groups say he is the first American citizen indicted under the law. If convicted, he could face expulsion, a long prison term or even the death penalty.
RESIGNATION RESCINDED. By MARY ROBINSON, 56, human rights chief of the United Nations, bowing to pressure from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan; in Nairobi, Kenya. Robinson, an outspoken former President of Ireland, said she would stay an extra 12 months despite a lack of funds that prompted her to step down.

Eulogy
By BARRY HILLENBRAND

For Vietnam, the songs of TRINH CONG SON provided the audio track for the war. Hauntingly sentimental and filled with the sadness of separation and death, they always seemed to be drifting from some battered tape player in a cafE or at an army checkpoint on the road to nowhere. Son, 62, who died of diabetes complications in Ho Chi Minh City last week, wasn’t liked by the old Saigon regime bullyboys because they thought his lyrics favored unification and disparaged war. They did, of course, and Sondubbed “the Bob Dylan of Vietnam” by none other than Joan Baezbecame an anti-war icon. The communists were suspicious of Son, and sent him to a re-education camp for four years. “Romantic songs are my style,” he told me a year ago. “Now that the pain and sadness of war are gone, young people do not really understand me.” He was wrong. Tens of thousands of fans lined the street of Ho Chi Minh City to pay respects to his funeral cortege.