Milestones

DIED. JASON MIZEL, A.K.A. JAM MASTER JAY, 37, one of the forefathers of rap and turntable maestro for the iconic New York rap band Run-DMC, famous for stripping down hip-hop music and injecting it with rock, and for its storming cover of Walk This Way with Aerosmith; by gunmen in New York City. Although street violence has always haunted hip-hop, the music of Run-DMC, known as “the Beatles of Rap,” never celebrated gun culture. Rather, with almost religious fervor, it preached unity and peace.

VACQUITTED. PAUL BURRELL, 44, former footman of Queen Elizabeth II who went on to become the butler and confidante of Princess Diana, of stealing more than 300 of the Princess’ personal belongings; in London. Prosecutors dropped the case after the unusual intervention of the Queen and before Burrell was called to testify.

DIED. JACQUES MASSU, 94, French general who played a key role in the liberation of Paris, the Indochina wars and the controversial 1957 Battle of Algiers; in Loiret, France. Condemned for its brutality, France’s war in Algeria represented a dark spot in the country’s history, and Massu later expressed his regret. With his rugged looks and guttural voice, Massu was a prototypical officer; he was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1969.

DIED. ALINA PIENKOWSKA, 50, diminutive, soft-spoken founding member of Poland’s Solidarity labor union whose crucial role in the 1980 Gdansk shipyard strike began the country’s successful struggle against communism; of cancer in Gdansk. The Polish government tried restricting news of the Gdansk strike by cutting off telephone lines from the yard. Pienkowska spread the word by contacting friends in Warsaw, leading to a wave of strikes across the country.

DIED. TOM DOWD, 77, music producer and engineer who masterminded classics like Respect and Layla during a 50-year career working with soul, jazz and rock artists such as Aretha Franklin and Eric Clapton; in Aventura, Florida. Considered a pioneer in eight track and studio recording, Dowd was recently honored with a National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Lifetime Award.

DIED. ANDRE DE TOTH, believed to be 89 or 90, macho, eye-patch-wearing Oscar-nominated director best known for the gory horror flick House of Wax (1953), one of the most memorable 3-D movies of the 1950s; in California. Admired and emulated by young directors from Martin Scorsese to Quentin Tarantino, de Toth once described himself as a “Hungarian-born, one-eyed American cowboy from Texas.”

DIED. KAM FONG CHUN, 84, former real-life police officer known to millions as the trusted, tough detective Chin Ho Kelly in the TV crime series Hawaii Five-O; in Honolulu. Believing that the scripts had grown stale, Chun eventually allowed his character to be killed off.

AWARDED. TO PASCAL QUIGNARD, 54, the coveted Goncourt prize, France’s top literary award for Les Ombres Errantes (The Wandering Shadows), the first in a three-volume series of aphorisms, reflections and memoirs; in Paris.

Numbers
$15,580 each is the amount Gurkha veterans who survived Japanese prisoner of war camps are suing the British government for in a case that began hearings last week; the U.K. didn’t include them in its payout to pows, saying Gurkhas were not in the British Army

27% of all children under five are underweight, according to the World Health Organization

$657,000 is the haul stolen by six men with a single revolver in a daring bank heist at Malaysia’s Petronas Twin Towers last week in Kuala Lumpur

$580,000 is how much a U.K. computer gamer insured his fingers for after qualifying to compete internationally

50 Afghan women die each day from preventable obstetric complications, according to data from the World Health Organization

75 cents is what a British company charges to name that tune. Dial a number on your cell phone, point it at the source of recorded music and the company instantly sends you a text message naming the title and artist

Omen
Hacking into Saddam Hussein’s public e-mail account, a U.S. reporter found notes sent by a slew of well-wishers, offering everything from business deals to advice on off-the-shelf chemical weapons