Milestones

DIED. CHRISTOPHER REEVE, 52, chiseled star of four Superman movies, who became even better known for his inspiration and activism after a 1995 horse-riding accident left him paralyzed; of an infection from a pressure wound; in Mount Kisco, New York. Reeve won the Superman role in 1977 after a brief stage career and a single bit part in a film, and gave the character strength, romance and, as alter ego Clark Kent, a deft comic touch. After his accident, Reeve became a powerful spokesman for spinal-injury victims, advocating the use of fetal stem cells for medical research.

DIED. KEN CAMINITI, 41, the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1996, who later admitted to steroid use; of an apparent heart attack; in New York City. The third baseman led the San Diego Padres to a National League division title in 1996. In 2001, eight days after his retirement from the Atlanta Braves, he was charged with cocaine possession and had since failed several drug tests.

DIED. MAXIME A. FAGET, 83, NASA engineer dubbed the “Einstein of manned space flight,” whose design of the Mercury space capsule made it possible for men to return from space; in Houston, Texas. Early needle-nosed spaceships were almost impossible to protect from the heat of reentry. Faget designed a blunt nose for the Mercury, which created a shock wave that deflected the heat.

NAMED KING. PRINCE NORODOM SIHAMONI, 51, former ballet dancer and son of Cambodia’s King Norodom Sihanouk, who abdicated last week; in Phnom Penh. The prince, considered to be largely apolitical, returns to the royal palace after living abroad for most of his life, mainly in Paris, where he danced for some of the leading conservatories.

PASSED. A BILL permitting Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to remain the head of the country’s military, a position he promised to relinquish last November; by the lower house of the National Assembly; in Islamabad. The bill was approved by a 190-107 vote, with proponents saying it would bring stability to the country and opponents complaining it would cement the military’s dominance of Pakistani politics. The bill is expected to be passed by the Senate.

SUED. ELIZABETH TAYLOR, 72, U.S. film star, over the ownership of Vincent Van Gogh’s View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint-Remy; in Los Angeles. The descendants of Margarete Mauthner, a Jewish refugee who fled from Berlin to South Africa in 1939, say there is evidence the 1889 painting was confiscated from Mauthner by the Nazis. Taylor claims the painting, which she bought at a Sotheby’s auction in London in 1963 for $257,000 and which is now worth $15 million, was sold by Mauthner in 1933, the year the Nazis came to power, “for financial reasons.”

BARRED. SAUDI ARABIAN WOMEN; from voting in the country’s first nationwide municipal elections; in Riyadh. The country’s election committee head, Prince Mansour bin Mutib bin Abdul Aziz, said it isn’t possible to set up female voting booths or to identify the vast majority of women who live without identification before the three-stage election begins in February.

Numbers

$11 Amount paid to Iraqis for each mortar round handed over in Baghdad during five days of a joint Iraqi government and U.S. military weapons-buyback program

9 Number who died in Japan last week in two suicide pacts arranged via the Internet

34,427 Record number of suicides in Japan last year

40,000 Number of Singapore taxi drivers instructed by police to keep an eye out for terrorists

40 Number of militants with alleged al-Qaeda ties arrested in Singapore since 2002

60 million Number of obese adults in China in 2002, according to a recent government report

105 Number of Palestinians killed since Sept. 29 in Israel’s latest Gaza offensive

18 Number of those killed who were younger than 16