Milestones

DIED. JAMES COBURN, 74, rugged and rakish Academy Award-winning actor whose menacing screen presence defined a new type of tough guy in classics such as The Magnificent Seven (1960), an American version of Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese epic The Seven Samurai, and The Great Escape (1963); in Los Angeles. Coburn, who rose to fame as the secret agent in the James Bond spoof Our Man Flint, was largely confined to minor roles during his career. While battling debilitating arthritis, however, Coburn won an Oscar in 1998 for his powerful performance as the abusive alcoholic “Pop” Whitehouse in Affliction.

ACQUITTED. FERNANDO NINO, 25, and MARK WALKER, 36, two American soldiers charged with negligent homicide in the June 13 road deaths of two 14-year-old South Korean schoolgirls crushed by a 45-ton armored vehicle under their command; by a U.S. military court at Camp Casey north of Seoul. South Koreans have demonstrated angrily outside the base, demanding that the soldiers be tried by the South Korean judicial system, and calling for the withdrawal of the 37,000 U.S. troops sta-tioned in the country. The Justice Ministry has described the acquittal as “regrettable,” while two prominent political parties have called for a revision of the U.S.-South Korean military accord.

SENTENCED. GIULIO ANDREOTTI, 83, senator for life and one of Italy’s most powerful postwar leaders who served seven times as Premier; to 24 years’ imprisonment for collusion in the 1979 Mafia murder of an investigative journalist; in Rome. His conviction, which over-turned an acquittal on the same charges three years ago, sparked heated criticism from sup-porters like Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who is currently on trial for corruption charges. “Andreotti” said Berlusconi, “is the victim of justice gone mad.” Andreotti plans to appeal, though he is unlikely to face jail time given his age.

DIED. PRINCE TAKAMADO, 47, cousin of Emperor Akihito and seventh in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne; of heart failure after collapsing during a squash lesson; in Tokyo. Takamado was the first Japanese royal to visit South Korea since 1945 during the World Cup this year in Seoul.

DIED. MADELINE JAYNES, 59, trenchant journalist who brought a talent for discerning nuance and spotting inconsistency to the New York Times, CNN and Time; of cancer; in Brooklyn, N.Y. She had been a reporter working with TIME‘s international editions since 1997 and had become a mainstay in the magazine’s global news gathering operations.

DIED. ABBA EBAN, 87, former Israeli Foreign Minister and erudite scholar whose oratory captured the world’s sympathy for the Jewish state in its early years; near Tel Aviv. In a hawkish environment, Eban urged a conciliatory approach toward the Arabs. Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Eban advocated withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Remembered for his witty gibes, Eban often said the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an oppor-tunity.” Last year Eban was decorated with the Israel Prize, the nation’s highest honor.

DIED. ALEXANDRE DE MERODE, 68, head of the International Olympic Committee’s medical commission; in Brussels. A pioneer in the fight against performance enhancing drugs, de Merode spent his 35-year career trying to outwit cheating athletes, and was embroiled in several doping controversies. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, his committee stripped Canadian athlete Ben Johnson of his 100-meter gold medal after the sprinter tested positive for steroids.

DIED. SAMANTHA, around 30, 26-foot, 275-pound python who was the largest snake in captivity; of old age; in the Bronx Zoo. According to her keepers, “Samantha was a rather mellow and easy-going creature.”

Numbers
$29,000 is the predicted price for the Independence iBOT 3000 Mobility Systema new wheelchair that employs sensors and gyroscopes to help its users climb stairs

850 cans per day is the amount of diet soda you’d have to drink, says the Medi-cal College of Wisconsin, in order to consume the amount of saccharin used in a famed study that once claimed it caused cancer

60 is the number of text messages that the average user of India’s short messaging service (SMS) sends daily

52 is the number of floors planned for the upcoming 7 World Trade Centerthe first new building to be constructed on the Manhattan site

23% is how many men say they have faked an orgasm, according to a survey of 2,500 Britons who attended London’s Erotica 2002 festival

56% is how many women fessed up to faking

Omen
The U.S. Pentagon is developing technology to track every purchase made in America and store the information in a database. It’s designed to spot terrorist activity, but critics are crying Big Brother