Milestones

HILARY ROXEDIED. JOE DIMAGGIO,84, unequaled New York Yankees center fielder whose skill, chivalrous professionalism and marriage to Marilyn Monroe cemented his status as an American icon and one of the most revered sports figures in U.S. history; in Hollywood, Florida. Over 13 seasons, the Yankee Clipper, a son of Italian immigrants, compiled a sparkling .325 batting average. In 1941, he hammered out hits in a record 56 consecutive games.DIED. STANLEY KUBRICK,70, exacting director who, while shrouded in his legendary reclusiveness, produced a small canon of diverse classics, including 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining; in Hertfordshire, England. The last of his 13 feature films, Eyes Wide Shut, was completed recently and is scheduled for release in July.ELECTED. FRANCISCO FLORES,39, El Salvador's former National Assembly leader, to a five-year presidential term; in San Salvador. The American-educated onetime philosophy professor entered politics a decade ago after leftist guerrillas killed his father-in-law, the chief of staff to President Alfredo Cristiani. A follower of an Indian swami who advocates nonviolence, Flores ran under the auspices of the conservative governing Nationalist Republican Alliance, which has been linked to death-squad assassinations of rebel supporters during the country's 12-year civil war.ARRESTED. JAVIER ARIZCUREN-RUIZ,40, the suspected military head of the Basque separatist group E.T.A. and one of Spain's most wanted fugitives, and five other armed alleged E.T.A. members; in Paris. The man known as Kantauri, who joined the E.T.A.'s struggle for a homeland in the early 1980s, is being investigated for his role in more than a dozen killings and for masterminding a failed assassination attempt on Spanish King Juan Carlos in 1995. Spanish police apprehended nine other suspected E.T.A. members within 24 hours of Arizcuren-Ruiz's capture.ARRESTED. BULGAN,40, widow of slain Mongolian democracy activist Sanjaasurengiin Zorig, in connection with the murder; in Ulan Bator. When the hero of the 1990 movement that overturned communist rule was stabbed to death last October, Bulgan said she had been tied up by two assailants and left in the bathroom as her husband, who had recently been tapped to run for prime minister, died.FUNDING WITHDRAWN.For a children's book by SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS, leader of the Zapatista guerrilla movement that tried to overthrow the Mexican government in 1994, by the National Endowment for the Arts; in Washington. The NEA said it feared that the $7,500 grant it had offered to a small Texas publisher for the English version of Marcos' The Story of Colors could be used to support the rebel cause. Days later, another American foundation announced it would subsidize the book's $15,000 printing. The tale does not mention the Zapatistas, though the inside front cover features the author sporting a ski mask and ammunition belts.RESIGNED. OSKAR LAFONTAINE55, fiery political stalwart, as Germany's Finance Minister and chairman of the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD); in Frankfurt. Lafontaine, who gave no reason for stepping down, was seen as the second most powerful man in German politics. But his leftist leanings clashed with Chancellor Gerhard Schrder's centrist politics, and the two have been at ideological odds since the SPD took power last fall.By MICHAEL BRUNTONI have lived my life in reverse, YEHUDI MENUHIN once said. I was born old, and I am getting younger. When Menuhin died last week in Berlin, he was 82 years young, his reputation as one of the century's consummate violinists assured decades ago. Born to Russian-Jewish emigr parents in New York, Menuhin was precocious even for a prodigy, astonishing San Francisco when he played with the city's symphony at the age of seven and winning praise from Edward Elgar and Albert Einstein.At only 19, he was already atop the swaying ladder of virtuoso musicianship, and it seemed the only way up was out. Politics, Eastern arts, yoga and the musical education of the young became his passions, nothing less than world understanding and peace his life goals. He isn't a man, he's an institution, Diana, his wife of more than 50 years, once said. An litist institution, his critics claimed.

Public acclaim can crush the soul of an artist, and Menuhin had decorations and fine words heaped upon him. He responded to fading virtuosity with childlike enthusiasm for his causes, and he sought to share his prodigious talent through teaching--reasons enough to celebrate the man and the joys of growing young gracefully.