• U.S.

Milestones Aug. 7, 2000

2 minute read
Melissa August, Val Castronovo, Rachel Dry, Daren Fonda, Michael Jackson, Ben Nugent, Michele Orecklin, Julie Rawe, John Rosenblatt, Josh Tyrangiel and Alexandra Wolfe

SUED. KID ROCK, 29, rock rapper; by Kelley Russell, ex-girlfriend and mother of his young son; claiming damage to her reputation from his song Black Chick, White Guy; in Detroit.

EXTRADITION ORDERED. Of IRA EINHORN, 60, former Philadelphia New Age guru; by French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin; to the U.S. to stand trial for the 1977 murder of girlfriend Holly Maddux. French courts refused to extradite him until he was granted a new trial. (See TIME, Sept. 29, 1997.)

AILING. DARRYL STRAWBERRY, 38, suspended New York Yankees slugger, after a CAT scan revealed that his colon cancer, diagnosed and treated in 1998, might have spread to lymph nodes near the original tumor; in Tampa, Fla. He will undergo more tests this week. Strawberry is also battling accusations that he violated terms of his probation after an April 1999 arrest on drug charges.

RECOVERING. WARREN BUFFETT, 69, homespun multibillionaire; after colon surgery to remove noncancerous polyps; in Omaha, Neb. The operation was made public to prevent rumors that could have affected his company’s share price.

DIED. JOHN TUKEY, 85, statistician and National Medal of Science winner who coined the words software and bit (for binary digit); of a heart attack; in New Brunswick, N.J. His work extended beyond mathematics to environmental and social issues. He warned that aerosol cans harmed the ozone layer, criticized Alfred Kinsey’s sex-research methods and advised that the Census be adjusted to count more inner-city dwellers.

CAUSE OF DEATH CONCEDED. Of RAOUL WALLENBERG, Swedish diplomat imprisoned in Moscow in 1945; by Russian investigators. After saving at least 20,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps by issuing them Swedish passports, Wallenberg was arrested in Budapest by the Soviets. Russian officials had maintained that he died of a heart attack in Lubyanka prison in 1947. They now admit he probably was murdered.

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