Milestones

  • MAULED. ROY HORN, 59, half of the illusionist team Siegfried & Roy; after a white tiger attacked him, biting his neck and dragging him off stage during a performance; in Las Vegas. Following surgery, he was in critical but stable condition.

    RULED OUT. The death penalty in the trial of ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI, 35, self-professed al-Qaeda loyalist and the only defendant to be tried in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks; by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema; in Alexandria, Va. The ruling also barred from the trial any evidence or testimony linking Moussaoui to 9/11. Brinkema said Moussaoui could not get a fair trial after the Justice Department, on national security grounds, refused to allow testimony sought by the defense from other captured suspects. Prosecutors will decide whether to appeal or move the trial to a military tribunal.

    DIED. ROBERT KARDASHIAN, 59, lawyer who helped win the acquittal of O.J. Simpson on murder charges; of cancer of the esophagus; in Encino, Calif. A close friend of Simpson's since the 1970s, he initially stood by the former football star — even housing him in the days after the 1994 murder of Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman — but later publicly expressed doubts about his innocence. "The blood evidence," he told ABC, "is the biggest thorn in my side."

    DIED. WILLIAM STEIG, 95, humanely perceptive cartoonist and illustrator for the New Yorker for seven decades, known as the King of Cartoons; in Boston. After joining the magazine in 1930, Steig produced some 1,700 drawings and cover illustrations, often featuring humorously worldly children he called Small Fry who exposed the craziness of modern life. At age 60, he began a successful second career writing children's books. Among them: Shrek, a tale of a green ogre, which was turned into a 2001 Oscar-winning animated film, and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, which won the prized Caldecott Medal in 1970.